Undone by His Touch. Annie West

tell him she knew the guilt that came with loss. She’d spent so long bedevilled by guilt because she hadn’t recognised the signs of meningitis early enough to save Mark.

      But it was too soon for Declan to listen to reason. His fury was too fresh, too raw.

      Perhaps she shouldn’t have stood up to him. He was still coming to grips with his changed lifestyle and his loss.

      Suddenly he loosened his hold and let her hand fall. It tingled as blood rushed back.

      Yet he didn’t move away. His tall frame crowded her into the corner, making her acutely aware of how her wayward body responded to him. Even tipping her head up to look into his face shot a tiny thrill through her.

      He was her employer. Feelings of this sort were totally inappropriate.

      That didn’t stop anticipation swirling through her.

      His hand settled on her face, fingers spreading to mould her jaw.

      Chloe sucked in a startled breath as he slid his hand over her, cupping her chin and circling her cheek almost as if he could picture her face through touch.

      Each stroke reinforced the urgent, eager need for more. It was all she could do to stand still, not tilt her head into his hand.

      Her response scared her.

      With Mark there’d been fun, shared joy, respect. She couldn’t remember anything like the visceral urgency she felt when Declan Carstairs merely brushed his hand over her skin in the questing gesture of a blind man.

      ‘How old are you, Chloe Daniels?’ His voice hit that low, rich note that made something curl inside her.

      ‘Twenty-seven.’ She straightened and tilted her chin higher, only to find his hand dropping to her throat as if she’d invited his feather-light caress there.

      Had she?

      Whorls of lazy heat eddied at his touch and her head eased back.

      She gulped, desperately trying to regain her composure. ‘How old are you?’

      Long fingers stroked her lips, cajoling her into silence.

      ‘Thirty-four.’ His head tipped towards her as if, even blind, it was important that he look her in the eyes.

      ‘Thirty-four, blind and scarred. Not the man I was.’

      His voice was an indictment, as if he saw himself as less a man than before.

      He leaned towards her and her breath caught.

      ‘And you, Chloe, are smooth and young and unscarred.’ He paused while his hand traced her nose and returned with heart-stopping intent to her mouth. Her lips felt swollen and pulsing, as if waiting for more than the touch of his hand.

      Fire sparked in her veins and she found herself straining towards him.

      ‘You’re whole,’ he murmured. ‘And I’m …’

      He shook his head, his mouth grim, even as he framed her face with his fingers, letting them slide through her hair. Tremulous delight filled her at his gentle massaging pressure.

      Then, with an abruptness that floored her, his hands dropped and he stepped back, his shoulders stiff, his face a forbidding mask not even the smear of shaving cream could humanise.

      ‘I don’t want you here.’

      The statement, so simple, so unambiguous, stuck in her dazed mind as if he spoke in a foreign tongue.

      When she didn’t move, his brow pleated in a ferocious scowl. His hands curled into tight fists.

      ‘Get out of here, Chloe.’ Words spat from him like bullets. ‘Now!’

      CHAPTER FOUR

      DECLAN paced the empty boardroom his staff had scurried to leave. The pace of the China project was too slow and he hadn’t minced his words.

      He felt so bloody powerless, managing from a distance. Unable to see the figures for himself, view the footage of the site, read the faces of the consortium partners during the video hook-up.

      He spun on his foot and strode down the room, registering the faint heat from the long windows beside him. They gave a spectacular view over the Domain and the no-doubt sparkling waters of Sydney Harbour, right to the Heads where the sea swell surged in from the Pacific.

      A multi-million-dollar view he’d never see again despite the doctors’ talk of possible recovery. They said there was no lasting physical damage to keep him blind.

      As if he chose not to see!

      He shoved back the hair flopping over his forehead and turned to pace. At least with the room’s simple layout he wasn’t going to trip over furniture and make himself a laughing stock.

      Maybe he should be grateful for that too.

      Chloe’s words rang in his head—that there were people worse off than himself.

      Did she think he didn’t know that? There was barely a minute ticked by when he wasn’t acutely aware that Adrian was dead, not merely maimed and blind.

      Or that Declan was the one who’d failed to save him.

      How dared she accuse him of feeling sorry for himself?

      Who was she to lecture him? To talk in platitudes about something she didn’t understand?

      She was young, too young surely for the responsible job of running Carinya. Her skin still had the smooth, taut texture of youth. Unblemished and perfect.

      Declan clenched his fists, recalling the pulse of need that had shot through him as he’d traced her features, learnt the high curve of cheekbones and delicate point of her chin. Her silk-soft hair, pulled back from her face. Her neat nose and soft, plump lips.

      Damn! His fist pounded the toughened glass window with a dull thud that did nothing to ease the turbulent roil of emotions churning his gut.

      Anger—yes.

      Impatience—that was a given.

      Frustration—that word had taken on a whole new meaning since Chloe Daniels had entered his home. Before that he’d been frustrated merely with his blindness, his incompetence in this world of darkness, his inability to find and punish the callous woman who’d driven Adrian to his death. That failure ate like a canker at his soul.

      Now Declan’s frustration had the keen edge of sexual hunger. The ever-present hint of Chloe’s vanilla-sunshine scent in his home tantalised his nostrils and fed the gnawing hunger in his belly.

      For too long his dreams had been haunted by Adrian’s fall. Now they’d changed, waking him nightly, sweating and with his heart pounding.