An Elusive Desire. Anne Mather

cause of her friend’s unhappiness, if Nicola was to be believed, embarking on an early morning outing with every sign of pleasured anticipation at the prospect. This morning, too, he looked more relaxed than he had done last evening. Gone were the expensive jacket and well-cut trousers he had worn the day before. In their place, tight-fitting jeans clung to his thighs, pushed into knee-length leather boots; and instead of the fine silk shirt Jaime remembered, a rough cotton jerkin was stretched across his chest. It exposed the upper part of his chest, exposed the brown skin, the muscles taut beneath, and Jaime knew a sudden dizziness at the remembrance of how smooth his skin had felt against hers. ‘Skin on skin,’ he had said, pulling her down on top of him in his suite at the hotel in London, and the afternoon had slid away as so many afternoons had done …

      Jaime turned back from the window abruptly, pushing back the tumbled weight of her hair with an unsteady hand. This would not do, she told herself fiercely. She had not come here to re-live old memories. She had come because Nicola had begged her to do so, and the sooner she set about achieving her objective the better.

      Ignoring the sounds from beyond the windows, she pushed her feet into fluffy mules and went into the bathroom. Like her room, which had only the minimum of furnishings, the bathroom, too, was of spartan design. A huge white bath with clawed feet, a matching basin, and a lavatory set up on a kind of dais completed its fitments, along with a noisy water-tank, that protested every time she turned on the taps. She had taken a bath the night before, so now she contented herself with a rather lukewarm wash before returning to the bedroom.