CHASING TROUBLE

That was something, at least. “Care, are you crying?” he prompted disbelievingly as he saw what he thought were tears glistening on her lashes.

Of course she wasn’t crying-well, not yet she wasn’t, Caroline realized as she hastily blinked back the tears she hadn’t even known were there until Nicholas had pointed them out to her-tears of relief that he wanted to try to find a way to end this awkwardness between them as much as she did.

“Don’t be silly.” She dismissed it. “I’ve been peeling onions,” she excused with more brightness than accuracy; she had peeled the onions some time ago, a fact that Nicholas would realize himself if she gave him too long to think about it. “I hope you’re hungry, because I’ve prepared a three-course meal for us.”

“Starving!” Nicholas answered lightly as he took his cue from her. “Shall I open a bottle of red or white wine to go with it?”

“I don’t drink alcohol,” she said, “But I’d really like some tonight,”

Nicholas stared at her in surprise for a while, “You sure?”

Caroline grimaced. “Yes. Strictly speaking we need both, white with the starter and red with the main course, but I’m happy to settle for just red if you are.”

“Whatever the lady wants.” Nicholas gave an extravagant bow before turning to peruse the wine rack for a suitable bottle of red wine.

Caroline stared at the broadness of his back for several long seconds, her heart literally feeling as if it were aching in her chest as she looked at him. She was falling deeper in love with him. She ached to reach out and touch him, to feel the ripple of muscle beneath her fingertips, to put her hands beneath his cashmere sweater and touch the hardness of his chest encased in warm velvet, to touch and caress all of him.

Not the ideal beginning to an evening when they were trying to eliminate all the tension-including sexual-between them.

___________

“What can I say?” Nicholas murmured appreciatively as he sat back in his chair at the end of their meal, totally replete with good conversation as well as food. “You really can cook.” He raised his glass of red wine and toasted Caroline across the width of the kitchen table where they had chosen to eat, rather than the formal dining-room further down the hallway.

Her cheeks warmed at his praise. “I can’t say I was exactly pleased with my mother when she insisted I take advanced cookery during my last two years at boarding school.” She smiled affectionately. “There seemed to be so many more exciting things in life at seventeen and eighteen than learning to cook!”

“Such as?” Nicholas prompted interestedly, totally at ease after the excellent meal and relaxed conversation.

“Oh, boys, of course.” Caroline smiled at the memory.

Nicholas returned that smile. “How old were you when you had your first boyfriend?”

“My first boyfriend…?” She frowned, considering. “Twenty, I think.”

“Twenty!” Nicholas repeated incredulously, remembering he had been only fourteen when he’d had his first unsuccessful fumbling with a girl in the back row of a cinema.

“I was a very slow starter, okay?” Caroline defended herself slightly indignantly. “Attending an all-girl boarding school didn’t help. Again, my mother’s idea. She said there would be plenty of time for boys later.”

Except in Caroline’s case there hadn’t been… By the time she’d started university, she had been almost nineteen, and although she had been taught all the social graces she’d had none of the assurance of her female peers when it had come to flirtation and boys. Oh, she’d been able to converse capably with anyone of any sex and any age, but only in a polite and superficial way. Unfortunately, some of the boys she had met at university had seen her shyness as cool disinterest rather than the complete lack of experience it really was. Even her first boyfriend had only asked her out because she’d been top of their course and he’d wanted her to help him with his own work.

“It isn’t funny, Nicholas,” She glowered her irritation as she saw his grin.

“I’m not laughing, Care.” But he continued to smile. “I’m just trying to imagine you out on your first date at the age of twenty! Where did you go? What did you do?”

Caroline glared at him. “We sat in the eating area of a burger takeaway and he asked to look at my notes on Midsummer Night’s Dream,” she revealed reluctantly.

Nicholas winced. “Ooh, so not cool!”

“The burger takeaway or the notes?”

Surprisingly Caroline was starting to enjoy this conversation. It was funny, in retrospect. She simply hadn’t thought so at the time. Or felt inclined to repeat those university experiences.

“Both.” Nicholas gave a disgusted shake of his head.

“I suppose you did something much more sophisticated on your first date?” Caroline prompted dryly.

“I was fourteen, and as I recall we went to the cinema.” He grinned at the memory. “I chose a horror movie in the hope that I would have a chance to take the girl in my arms during the scary bits.”

“That is so calculating!” Caroline laughed huskily at the vivid image this painted of a very youthful Nicholas.

“What can I say?” He shrugged. “I was fourteen and my hormones had kicked in.”

“And did it work?”

“Not exactly, no,” Nicholas admitted self-deprecatingly. He watched Caroline through narrowed lids, just enjoying watching her, liking the way her hips swayed slightly as she walked, her bottom firm and round against the material of her denims as she bent over to begin placing their dirty dishes in the washer; her sweater fitted snugly against the pertness of her breasts as she straightened.

He felt his thighs harden in response to that pert fullness, his pulse starting to race as she bent over once again. Caroline really did have the most delicious bottom, so curvy and round. So…

“Hey, I should be doing that!” he stood up abruptly as he realized he had been too busy enjoying watching her rather than doing any work himself. “You did the cooking; I don’t think you should have to do the clearing away too.” He reached out and took the bowl from her hand, his fingers brushing lightly against her as he did so.

Everything stopped. Everything. Time.

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