Too Short A Blessing. PENNY JORDAN

what he was being punished for. I don’t believe in torturing kids with the threat of punishment to come,’ Jonas said bitingly, ‘whatever you might choose to think. Besides, punishment on the scene of the crime is invariably more effective. The first time I caught him stealing eggs I explained to him just exactly what he was doing, and I had hoped that would be enough. Obviously it wasn’t.’

      He saw her face and smiled sardonically. ‘That doesn’t suit you at all, does it?’ he mocked. ‘You’d much rather see me as the villain of the piece, the sort of man who enjoys inflicting physical pain.’ He grimaced slightly and came towards her, saying softly, ‘I thought this morning that I detected a certain amount of animosity towards me, cerebrally, at least. Well you know what they say about giving a dog a bad name, don’t you?’

      She was in his arms before she could move, her brain too dazed to comprehend what had happened. She shuddered as his hand cupped her jaw, tilting her face up to meet the hard pressure of his mouth, her body knowing that he was going to kiss her before her mind could assimilate the knowledge.

      Shockingly, her pulses quivered frantically at the first touch of his mouth.

      He was kissing her in anger, Sara recognised, making her take the place of the boy she had unwittingly helped to escape, but something was going wrong, because although his mouth was hot and hard, it wasn’t anger but passion that fuelled its aggressive demands on her own, and, horrifyingly, she was responding to it. A thick moan was stifled in her throat as his teeth bit sharply into the fullness of her lower lip, tugging on it so that his tongue could touch the inner softness of her mouth. He pushed past her firmly closed teeth as she was forced to draw breath, unleashing a dark need in her that couldn’t be controlled by reason.

      Helplessly, Sara clung to him, shocked to discover that her arms were round his neck, her fingers clutching at his hair, her body pressed intimately along the length of his.

      The kiss went on and on, her lips clinging hotly to his, her tongue powerless to resist the erotic sucking motion that drew it into the heat of his mouth.

      A terrible weakness made her tremble against him, the sound he made deep in his throat as he tugged her shirt out of her jeans and slid his hands against the bare skin of her back distantly touching her consciousness.

      His heart slammed erratically against his ribs, its unsteady beat driving into her own body, his legs parting so that he could cradle her against the aroused heat of his thighs as he leaned back against the bulk of the Land Rover.

      His mouth left hers to explore the pale column of her throat, his fingers deftly unfastening the buttons of her shirt.

      She knew she ought to stop him, but the effect he was having on her was too overwhelming, the shock of what was happening to her so immense that she couldn’t bring herself to believe it was real. This couldn’t really be her, standing in plain sight of anyone who happened to walk past, allowing a man she neither liked nor really knew to practically tear the clothes from her body with one hand while the other gripped her hip and crushed her possessively against the pulsing force of his body!

      While Sara’s brain fought to comprehend what was happening to her, her treacherous body was awash with the erotic pleasure of Jonas’s hand against her breast as it slid inside her shirt and cupped her silk-covered fullness.

      She gasped and shivered at the sensations his touch aroused, feeling her nipples tighten and thrust against the frail barrier of her bra. Her head fell back beneath the pressure of Jonas’s mouth on her throat, hot and demanding as it found her fluttering pulse.

      His own shirt was half unbuttoned, and somehow her hands were inside it, feverishly stroking the moist heat of his skin. His mouth seemed to burn where it touched her, moving hotly along the line of her open shirt. A shudder of physical need convulsed her stomach as his thumb probed roughly at the edge of her bra. Her body’s fierce ache to experience the sensation of his mouth against her breast obliterated everything else.

      When his impatient fingers finally freed the taut arousal of her nipple, exposing it to the hungry demand of his mouth, Sara wasn’t sure which of them made the hoarse cry of satisfaction that reached her shocked ears.

      Her brain, trying to come to terms with what was happening, logged with shocked disbelief that the compulsive way in which Jonas’s mouth tugged on the swollen softness of her breast was not the sort of caress one would expect from a mere acquaintance. His hips moved rhythmically against hers, drowning out her brief moment of lucidity, and as his hands moved impatiently down her body, holding her fiercely against him, she experienced a shatteringly intense desire for much more than the frantic movement of his body against hers. She wanted him inside her, she acknowledged shakily. She wanted him deep within her with a primitive urgency she had never experienced with Rick.

      Rick!

      Reality splintered through her fog of physical desire, making her wrench away from Jonas’s hands and mouth with a shocked cry of outrage.

      She could hear the harsh unsteadiness of his breathing as she fumbled with her shirt buttons, her face brilliantly flushed as the enormity of what she had been doing engulfed her. Totally unable to look at him, she hurried back to her car on dreadfully unsteady legs, disgusted and humiliated by her incomprehensible response to him.

      She heard him call out to her, and panicked into turning round and cry out to him, ‘Keep away from me, do you hear? Just keep away from me!’

      She got into her car without waiting for his response, reversing it awkwardly and driving away. She didn’t stop until she had driven through the village, drawing up then in a lay-by and stopping the car, burying her head against the steering wheel as she fought for self-control. It was a good fifteen minutes before she could bring herself to turn round and drive home.

      This time there was no sign of the Land Rover in the drive. Sam greeted her with a warm smile when she went inside, coming into the kitchen to help her unpack the food. She felt so jumpy and tense that she felt sure he must comment on it, but, to her relief, he said nothing.