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They had arrived at the house Travis opened the back of the estate car and the three dogs bounded out, Harvey appear¬ing extremely pleased with himself The two fehted with the canine company

The rain was co down in a sheet now, the su a few steps to the front door Beth was dripping water by the ti in the hall Travis disappeared into the down-stairs cloakroom and reappeared with a fluffy towel 'Here' He handed it to her, raking back his oet hair, careless of tie shower of droplets 'I'll put solass of wine?'

She would, actually She needed so Travis damp and sexy, his shirt moulded to hishis virile ed shakily

'Good choice' He grinned at her and a thousand nerve-endings responded in an orchestra of pure sensation

Once in the massive kitchen, Beth perched herself on a stool and tried to pretend she was calainst theand thunder rolled ominously overhead She had never been at her best in a stors as cool as cucumbers and Travis utterly relaxed and at ease she would rather die than ade slash of lightning forked across the sky, she felt herself flinch and irey eyes were on her face 'OK?' Travis said mildly

Beth nodded 'Fine It just made me jump, that's all'

'Summer storms are always the worst Atmospherics and all that'

She opened her ree with hi she had ever heard shook the s She screas had leapt to their feet and were barking eneral melee

Travis had reached her and taken her into his ar as heoutside, not the house'

'But it was so loud' She found she was shaking

He pushed her back down on the stool and walked to the , staring out into the wild afternoon as the rain strealass 'It's one of the oak trees, by the look of it,' he said after a 's sliced it in two'

Beth joined him at theand as her hand came to her mouth she looked with fascinated horror at as virtuallyhalf a huge tree lying across the lawn, the topmost branches stretched out al,' die whispered, her eyes h the deluge 'It won't recover, will it?'

'It's a major branch, admittedly, that tree forked in two from the trunk, but you'd be aeon in and with a bit of tic it ht rally Even with the cruellest of blows you don't have to lie down and play dead'

He wasn't talking about the oak tree any more Beth stared at him as he turned and looked down into her pale face before folding her into hiain

His kisses were drugging and sweet, his large hands pow¬erfully gentle and wonderfully experienced as he began to shape her Beth are of the heat of his fingers through die thin ht slow and lazy but enchantingly erotic

His tongue rippled along her teeth—Beth shivered His hands worked ic on her silky skin—she arched helplessly He let his mouth ease its way to her cheeks, her ears, her throat, his kisses gathering in intensity until they were hot andintoxicating He was evoking aching pleasure wherever hisinto the damp scented shadows of her collarbone as edown to her toes

The taste, the set close enough to hi to the broad width of his shoul¬ders The desire he was evoking was like a fire inside her, spreading dangerously, and she had no thought of pulling away or trying to stop the spell he'd woven around them This was a different world, a different universe, and every¬thing else had melted away

When he gathered her up and began to carry her she knehere they were heading and made no effort to stop him She could hardly believe it therefore when, instead of ined, he carried her through to the sprawling oak-bea room and sat doith her on his lap in one of the deep sofas But then he was kissing her again and Beth ceased to think She didn't care where they were as long as he kept holding her