father she had come here to seek—not Vidal’s acceptance of his misjudgement of her.
She had travelled a long way from the idealistic girl who had looked at Vidal and completely lost her heart. She knew that he was not the heroic figure she had created inside her head from her own adoration of him. He had shown her that himself when he had so misjudged her. There was no reason at all for her senses to be so aware of him now, for merely being herewith him to make her ache with a dangerous resurgence of her teenage longing. But that was exactly what was happening.
Try as she might, she couldn’t resist turning her head to look at him, imprinting his image on her senses.
The open neck of the shirt he was wearing revealed the straight line of his collarbone and the golden sleekness of his throat. If she looked properly at him no doubt she would be able to see where beneath his shirt his body hair lay. She could remember the pattern of it from that time she had walked into the bathroom.
Stop it,
Fliss exhorted herself desperately. The anxiety she was causing herself was raising tiny beads of sweat along her hairline, whilst her pulse and her heartbeat had started to thud nervously, as though in fear. She
was
afraid, she admitted. She was afraid of her own imagination and of the wilful power of the deep-rooted core of sensuality within her. It seemed to have grown out of nowhere, and previously she would have strenuously denied that she even possessed it.
Perhaps it was being here in her father’s country that was unleashing previously hidden aspects of her makeup and bringing to life unfamiliar passions. It was much easier to cling to that thought than to allow herself to fear that it was Vidal himself who was responsible for this unwanted and dangerous flowering of such a deeply sensual side of her nature. Just as he had been when she was sixteen.
Vidal checked his rearview mirror—not because he needed to do so, but because it would prevent him from glancing sideways at Fliss. Not that he needed to look ather to see her. Inside his head he had a perfectly visible image of her—although this image was one that, in defiance of his wishes, showed her eyes cloudy with arousal and her lips softly parted from his kiss. Such thoughts were not acceptable to him. And such desires …?
Grimly Vidal pressed his foot down on the car’s accelerator. They were free of the city now, and the powerful car leapt forward.
As a pre-teenager, curious about her father and his homeland, but knowing that her mother found it painful to talk about him, Fliss had spent many hours in bookshops and the library, studying maps, descriptions and photographs of Granada and the Lecrin Valley. Later at university she had gone online to learn more, but no amount of that kind of exploration could come anywhere near the reality of the countryside they were now in.
She knew, of course, that the Lecrin Valley formed part of the natural Parque de Sierra Nevada, and that after the expulsion of the Moors from the area it had been left virtually untouched for many centuries, so that the countryside was dotted with a wealth of Moorish monuments, flour mills, and ancient castles in addition to the whitewashed Pablo villages that had once been home to the Moor population.
Orchards of orange and lemon trees, heavy now in the summer with ripening fruit, surrounded these small villages, with their narrow main streets and their small dusty squares, and the smell of the citrus fruit permeated the air inside the car despite its air-conditioning. Not that Fliss minded. In fact she loved the sharp, sun-warmedsmell, and knew that it would be something she would carry with her once she had returned home.
‘It must be so beautiful here in the spring, when the orchards are in blossom.’ The words were out before she could stop them and remind herself that she had vowed this morning to remain as aloof from Vidal as she could.
‘It is my mother’s favourite time of
She had travelled a long way from the idealistic girl who had looked at Vidal and completely lost her heart. She knew that he was not the heroic figure she had created inside her head from her own adoration of him. He had shown her that himself when he had so misjudged her. There was no reason at all for her senses to be so aware of him now, for merely being herewith him to make her ache with a dangerous resurgence of her teenage longing. But that was exactly what was happening.
Try as she might, she couldn’t resist turning her head to look at him, imprinting his image on her senses.
The open neck of the shirt he was wearing revealed the straight line of his collarbone and the golden sleekness of his throat. If she looked properly at him no doubt she would be able to see where beneath his shirt his body hair lay. She could remember the pattern of it from that time she had walked into the bathroom.
Stop it,
Fliss exhorted herself desperately. The anxiety she was causing herself was raising tiny beads of sweat along her hairline, whilst her pulse and her heartbeat had started to thud nervously, as though in fear. She
was
afraid, she admitted. She was afraid of her own imagination and of the wilful power of the deep-rooted core of sensuality within her. It seemed to have grown out of nowhere, and previously she would have strenuously denied that she even possessed it.
Perhaps it was being here in her father’s country that was unleashing previously hidden aspects of her makeup and bringing to life unfamiliar passions. It was much easier to cling to that thought than to allow herself to fear that it was Vidal himself who was responsible for this unwanted and dangerous flowering of such a deeply sensual side of her nature. Just as he had been when she was sixteen.
Vidal checked his rearview mirror—not because he needed to do so, but because it would prevent him from glancing sideways at Fliss. Not that he needed to look ather to see her. Inside his head he had a perfectly visible image of her—although this image was one that, in defiance of his wishes, showed her eyes cloudy with arousal and her lips softly parted from his kiss. Such thoughts were not acceptable to him. And such desires …?
Grimly Vidal pressed his foot down on the car’s accelerator. They were free of the city now, and the powerful car leapt forward.
As a pre-teenager, curious about her father and his homeland, but knowing that her mother found it painful to talk about him, Fliss had spent many hours in bookshops and the library, studying maps, descriptions and photographs of Granada and the Lecrin Valley. Later at university she had gone online to learn more, but no amount of that kind of exploration could come anywhere near the reality of the countryside they were now in.
She knew, of course, that the Lecrin Valley formed part of the natural Parque de Sierra Nevada, and that after the expulsion of the Moors from the area it had been left virtually untouched for many centuries, so that the countryside was dotted with a wealth of Moorish monuments, flour mills, and ancient castles in addition to the whitewashed Pablo villages that had once been home to the Moor population.
Orchards of orange and lemon trees, heavy now in the summer with ripening fruit, surrounded these small villages, with their narrow main streets and their small dusty squares, and the smell of the citrus fruit permeated the air inside the car despite its air-conditioning. Not that Fliss minded. In fact she loved the sharp, sun-warmedsmell, and knew that it would be something she would carry with her once she had returned home.
‘It must be so beautiful here in the spring, when the orchards are in blossom.’ The words were out before she could stop them and remind herself that she had vowed this morning to remain as aloof from Vidal as she could.
‘It is my mother’s favourite time of
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