CHASING TROUBLE

“Or ever!” she echoed as she sat up to look for her clothes. Dear God…!

What had happened to her just now? How could she have allowed herself to completely unravel in his arms like that? How could she have been so foolish!

“I like your hair all soft like this-”

“Don’t touch me!” Caroline flinched back as Nicholas would have reached out and touched the silkiness of her hair. Then hurriedly began to put her clothes back on.

Nicholas’ darkened angrily as his arm dropped back to his side. “You didn’t seem to object a few minutes ago when I touched you!”

Colour burned Caroline’s cheeks as she remembered all too clearly the shameful way she had pleaded for his touch. She’d been so aroused, so aching, so desperate for release as she urged him to give her what she needed… Something he had done beyond her wildest imaginings! She swallowed hard, her gaze no longer meeting his. “I must have been out of my mind.”

“Oh, you were,” Nicholas said pointedly as he adjusted his clothes too. “Completely and wildly out of your mind.”

Her eyes shot furious sparks at him. “Do you have to sound so-so damned triumphant?”

He gave an unrepentant shrug. “It’s a natural reaction in a man when he knows he’s just given his woman pleasure.”

“I’m not your woman,” Caroline gasped incredulously.

“Do you want to be?” drawled softly, having no idea how he would handle having someone like Caroline in his life, but knowing that giving this woman pleasure once hadn’t been nearly enough to satisfy his own appetite for her. He wanted to make love to her again. And again. And have her make love to him, too… The throb of his thighs ached all over again just at the thought of having the fullness of her lips about him, her tiny tongue lapping the length of him… but it would never happen again.

Caroline gave a disgusted shake of her head. “I have absolutely no wish to become the latest woman in what I have no doubt is the very long line of your conquests!” She spat the words at him as though he’d just mortally insulted her.

The coldness of her rejection was like a slap in the face after Nicholas’ imaginings. In which, knowing how much a woman like Caroline didn’t belong in his world, he had wanted to take her there anyway… “Didn’t my lovemaking measure up to your past lovers or maybe the “dark predator” in your book?” he taunted sarcastically.

Colour heated Caroline’s cheeks at this reference to the book she had been reading the night they met. She’d really thought they were past that. Also, after the way she had responded to him, how could he even suggest that his lovemaking hadn’t measured up? Making love with him had been beyond anything she could ever have imagined it to be.

“This is just horrible,” she bit out abruptly. “I never wanted this…With you… Or anyone. It’s wrong. You’re Frank’s son and I… I don’t know-”Content (C) Nôv/elDra/ma.Org.

“Stop it. Just stop, Care,” Nicholas said. He was tired of hearing her complaints. He was tired of her mixed signals. He was tired of wanting her and yet not being able to have her… And even if he did have her, he knew it was pointless because it wasn’t going to last. “You don’t have to worry about it being right or wrong… Or if things are going to be awkward when we get back home because I’m not going to be there. I’ll be leaving after we are done with this castle business.”

Caroline swallowed hard. The idea of him leaving shouldn’t have felt like he’d just ripped her heart out, but it did. This was what she should want, shouldn’t it? Him gone… And her life returning to the way it had always been… That should have made her happy and relieved, but it didn’t. “You’re leaving? You’re going back to…. ”

“New York,” he completed, “So stop worrying about what happens after this. I won’t be there to make things awkward for you,”

Caroline struggled to hold back her tears, “And you decided to leave and kept it to yourself all this while. When did you make that decision?”

“I didn’t decide, Care. I never said that I was staying,”

Caroline was quiet after that. He was right. He was never going to stay and he never said that he would. She’d just assumed because she’d gotten carried away by her attraction to him. He had a life in New York… A girlfriend too called Rachael. How did she ever let herself do something so stupid.

“Fine,” she said, “Excuse me,”

___________

“You are sure this is what you want?” Nicholas’ expression was grim as he spoke through the door of the carriage, where Caroline now stood as she waited for the train to pull out of station.

She had been pale and withdrawn when she’d emerged from her bedroom this morning, refusing all offers of breakfast before informing him that she had decided to go home on the first available train. Nicholas had tried to talk her out of it, of course-even repeating the excuse that he needed her advice on the castle he was to view this morning-but Caroline had remained adamant in her decision. In the circumstances, Nicholas had had no choice but to drive her to the railway station.

Quite what else Caroline had decided during the long night-hours Nicholas had yet to hear. For the moment it was enough that she was leaving. “I thought we were going to have another talk this morning?” he prompted softly.

She gave a shake of her head. Her hair was a curtain about her shoulders, her eyes huge and dark in the pallor of her face. “I think what we both need at the moment is to put some distance between us.”

She repeated the same argument she had made earlier for leaving this morning. What Caroline meant, Nicholas felt sure, was that she needed to put some distance between herself and him. He gave a snort of frustration. “How can I make a decision on this castle without your input on the place?”

She gave a humorless smile. “The same way you would make a decision if I wasn’t here. My input doesn’t matter,”

“I thought we were a team.” He scowled, aware that his argument lacked conviction, but unable for the moment to do anything about it. Caroline was leaving. And he had no way of stopping that from happening.