completed that long climb back out of the black pit of distrust that her father’s betrayal and rejection of her love had flung her into.
Dating decent—if unexciting—men had set her on the first rungs of finding her way back out until Steve had kicked the ladder out from under her in spectacular fashion. Coming back to Sydney and away from anything that reminded her of Steve had started her recovery.
She had to protect herself from falling down again. Denying that Declan’s kiss had affected her was one way to do it.
Although, in doing so, she was actually lying to herself.
SHELLEY LOOKED LONG and hard at the door in her kitchen that, she now knew, led straight through into Declan’s kitchen. The door she had promised never to use. The key was in her hand. All it would take would be to slide it into the lock and—
She put the key—which she had attached to a pewter horseshoe key ring—back down on the countertop with a clatter.
It was five-thirty in the morning. She had been awake since four o’clock. Tossing and turning and unable to get thoughts of Declan from her mind. How it had felt to kiss him. To want so much more than a kiss. More than he could give. More than it was wise to want.
She looked at the key again gleaming on the countertop. Tempting her.
At four a.m. it had been way too dark to go out and start work in the garden. She’d tried to read a book—a new one on Enid Wilson she’d ordered from a specialist gardening bookstore—but could not concentrate. Television offerings at that time of morning had not been able to engage her interest either.
So she had baked muffins. Banana and pecan muffins with a maple-syrup glaze. She could have made a pie—she had apples aplenty arranged in a fruit bowl on the table. But both of her pie dishes—enamel ones given to her by her grandma—were not here. One was with Lynne and Keith. The other was with Declan still, from when she had last seen him three days ago.
Would it be a terribly bad thing to sneak into his kitchen, retrieve the pie dish and leave an offering of some warm banana muffins on the countertop for him?
She wanted that pie dish. She wanted it now. She was helping Lynne with the catering for her engagement party on Saturday night. Pie was on the dessert menu. The problem could easily be solved by asking Declan for the pie dish. But she didn’t want it to look like a pathetic excuse to see him.
He did not want to see her; that was obvious. But he was here in the house. Last night she had seen the light on in the window high on the second floor she assumed was his office. With that preternatural awareness of his presence she had developed, she knew he was there even without the light as proof.
She picked up the key again. It turned easily in the lock.
Still in her pyjamas, heart in her mouth, she crept into the kitchen of the big house. It was silent, it was creepy, it was almost dark—with only the faint lights on the stove and the computer-controlled fridge to lead her way. She searched for the pie dish in drawers that glided out silently. She found her dish in the third drawer she tried, quite possibly put there by the cleaners.
Mission accomplished.
She eased the plate of muffins down onto the marble countertop so it wouldn’t clatter. Then immediately berated herself for such an idiotic move—and blamed it on her lack of sleep. She doubted Declan would notice the absence of the pie dish. But the sudden appearance of a plate of freshly baked muffins? There would be no doubt who had left them there and that she had trespassed.
She picked them up again, and then the pie dish, and made to tiptoe back to her door and then to her rightful side of it. Then she heard the music. A faint pulsing, driving rhythm coming, it sounded like, from somewhere on this floor.
Curiosity killed the cat—remember that, Shelley.
Another of her grandmother’s sayings flashed through her mind. Advice that in this case she really should take. But the house was otherwise dark and deserted. She’d been wondering about Declan’s secret life inside this house since the day she’d first met him. She could not resist this particular temptation.
Trying to be as quiet as possible, she tiptoed out of the kitchen and down a very short corridor. She guessed that in the old days this might have led to a scullery or cellar. Just a few silent steps from the kitchen she saw a door with a glass pane at the top—it was only the dim light coming through the glass that let her recognise it.
The music was coming from downstairs. Was Declan there? What would happen if he saw her prowling around where she had no right to prowl?
She could not resist sidling up to the glass panel and looking through.
Not a cellar but a full-size basement gym filled with serious-looking workout equipment.
And Declan was working out.
She nearly dropped her pie dish at the sight of him.
Her breath caught in her throat and her heart started hammering so loudly she could hear it.
Declan, wearing only tight black gym shorts, his upper body completely bare save for a pair of grip gloves. Declan, doing pull-ups on a terrifyingly high multi-step pull-up bar. Declan doing ‘salmon pull-ups’, so called because they involved not just pulling himself up to the bar but pushing the actual bar up with him to the next step, like salmon swimming upstream against the current. It took incredible strength in both upper body and abs to master. Strength and willpower and endurance. And courage. One slip and he’d crash to the ground taking the metal bar with him.
Shelley went to the gym when she could. But she had never seen anyone actually do salmon pull-ups.
She watched in awe as, muscles straining, he pulled both himself and the bar to the very top step without pausing. Then, again without pausing, he hooked his legs over the bar and executed a series of sit-ups punching the air as he jack-knifed his body into a sitting position—upside down.
His cut, defined muscles gleamed with sweat as he grimaced with the effort of the unbelievably tough workout he was forcing his body through.
So that was where the muscles came from.
Mesmerised, she could not tear her eyes away from him, even though she knew she risked discovery. This was a guy who described himself as a geek?
Declan working out was the sexiest thing she had ever seen. She was getting turned on just watching. Her whole body was taut with hunger for him. With pure and simple lust. She nearly fainted as he turned in mid-air to show his tight, powerful butt, the straining muscles of his broad back.
‘I don’t do meaningless flings.’
Her words of three days ago came back to haunt her.
She wanted him more than she had ever imagined she could want a man.
If she could stumble down those stairs and push herself against all that hot, hard muscle she wouldn’t be thinking about meaning. She had to cross her legs at the thought of it.
The force of her desire for him made her tremble and her knees go suddenly weak. She leaned against the door to support herself just as Declan dropped to the ground from the top of the bar to land with total control on a thick, foam mat. He looked up and her breath stopped but he immediately rolled into a series of alternating one-arm push-ups. He hadn’t seen her.
But she knew the longer she stayed there, the greater the risk of discovery.
Her heart started an even more furious pounding and she found it difficult to breathe. Not just with her overwhelming longing for him but with terror at the prospect of him catching her spying on him.
With one last look at his incredible body, she turned as quietly and as cautiously as she could