Into Temptation

by Emma Abbott

  She stared, disbelieving, into his beseeching grey eyes. A few months ago she would have given anything to hear those words: that he loved her and wanted her; that he’d made a mistake…

  ‘Amber!’ he said urgently. ‘Oh God, Amber!’ Suddenly his arms clamped across her back, and the next thing she knew she was being drawn towards him. Then his mouth came down heavily over hers.

  She waited for the spark to light – the spark he’d always been able to light before.

  But all she felt was cold. Cold and numb.

  The truth was so suddenly, so blindingly obvious she didn’t even need to question why.

  He wasn’t Jack. He didn’t drive ribbons of pure sensual need through her very soul, set her entire body immediately and exquisitely alight.

  She understood: she had felt no real pain on seeing Rory with Emily – because she felt no love for him any more. She felt nothing for him. She had never really loved him. For she had never truly known what love was. Until now.

  She was in love with Jack Ward.

  There, she had admitted it! And oh God, what a dangerous admission it was, stirring her all the way down to her very core… After Jack, no kiss would ever feel the same, could ever feel the same.

  Then suddenly a voice spoke from somewhere nearby. A hard voice, laced with anger that her body immediately and instinctively recognised, girding in response.

  ‘Would you care to explain to me, Amber, what the hell is going on?’

  Jack!

  Like a sleepwalker surfacing back into consciousness, Amber extricated herself from Rory’s embrace. She turned to Jack, unbearably handsome in black tie and tuxedo, and recognised at once – with a pang of bitter glee – the anger and jealousy glinting behind his dark, menacing eyes. So he was angry was he? And jealous? Hah! Serve him right!

  ‘Well Amber?’ he spoke again, his words slow, icy and deliberate, impaling her with his furious eyes.

  ‘Well what?’ she returned brazenly, meeting the challenge of his eyes full on, her elation at seeing him swiftly morphing into anger. Where did he get off, presuming to interrogate her?

  ‘What… what’s going on Amber?’ asked Rory. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘This,’ said Amber loftily, eyes sparkling with fire, ‘is Jack Ward. Jack, meet Rory Gaudion.’

  Jack’s lean face stayed immobile. He glanced briefly down at Rory as if he were no more significant than an insect that had scuttled out from some corner of the terrace. ‘I think your friend should leave,’ he said in a low voice. ‘It’s getting late.’

  ‘Hang on just a minute,’ said Rory, ‘just who do you think you are? Who is this guy Amber, and what is he to you?’ He puffed up his chest and stood up straight, although Amber perceived that he seemed a little unsteady on his feet – he was clearly the worse for wear for drink. ‘I’m not going anywhere. I think you’re the one who ought to go.’

  ‘What do you say Amber?’ said Jack, his voice precise, tinged with danger. ‘Which one of us ought to leave?’

  She turned away, walked to the railings at the side of the terrace and leant heavily against them. She ought to tell the arrogant bastard to go to hell, longed to tell him to go to hell. But she couldn’t… ‘Rory, please go,’ she said weakly. ‘We’re so over. We couldn’t be more over.’

  ‘You’re making a big mistake Amber!’ Rory cried. ‘I’m the best thing that ever happened to you! You’re going to regret this…’

  ‘I think you heard what the lady said.’ Jack’s voice was low and confident.

  Rory backed away. ‘Look, I don’t want any trouble. I’m going. Call me, Amber. You know it’s what you want.’ He turned, and walked heavily away.

  There was an achingly long pause. Then she heard Jack’s slow, deliberate footsteps behind her, as he closed the short distance between them. Her whole body shivered in anticipation. How the hell did he do it? How did he manage to have this devastating effect on her?

  ‘So it’s over is it?’ came his voice from behind her, cool and sullen. ‘I must say, you kiss very enthusiastically for someone who maintains that “it’s over”. Very well indeed. I thought that eager response in you was something reserved only for me. But I see I was mistaken.’

  ‘What?’ she spun around to face him, bristling with defiance. ‘You dare to accuse me? You…’

  ‘What’s going on Amber?’ he cut in glacially. ‘I thought you were quite the little innocent. Who was that? And how many more like him are you stringing along?’

  ‘That,’ she hissed, anger focussing her addled brain, ‘was my ex-fiancé.’ She watched his eyes narrow a fraction as he registered the information. ‘Rory cheated on me with another woman, and we broke up earlier this year. Tonight he happened to be here, at the hotel. He saw me, and told me he wanted to get back together. But if you thought you saw a willing response in me, Jack Ward, you’re mistaken. I think cheaters are despicable. Which is why it’s laughable that you, of all people, should presume to lecture me.’

  ‘Me of all people?’ he repeated slowly. ‘Please explain.’ He glowered down at her from his impressive height, still towering inches above her despite her high heels.

  ‘Yes you!’ she accused forcefully, shaking back the wisps of hair that the breeze was trailing across her face. ‘You know all about cheating don’t you? You’ve got a girlfriend in London, and yet you seduced me very deliberately just two weeks ago! You’re no worse than Rory.’

  He grimaced. ‘I have no girlfriend in London.’

  ‘Don’t forget that I spoke to her, on the phone the morning we went to Sark. She left a message with me, don’t you remember? A very suggestive message. Cassie! She told me she was your girlfriend.’

  ‘Cassie is not my girlfriend. I’ll admit, I did see her briefly for a couple of weeks back in April, but I broke it off. Unfortunately she, so it appears, refuses to accept that it’s over.’ His eyes searched her face, the impenetrable glare seeming to soften. ‘I’m sorry your fiancé cheated on you Amber. But not all men are the same. You may not choose to believe it, but I’m no cheater.’

  Cassie wasn’t his girlfriend…! Her heart, momentarily, leapt. But no! That didn’t forgive everything – that didn’t negate everything that had happened between them and suddenly make him the world’s nicest guy. The image of yet another woman tumbled into her mind…

  ‘Well your ex-wife doesn’t exactly enthuse about your virtues.’

  ‘My ex-wife?’

  ‘Yes, your ex-wife! She had a few choice words to say to me about your treatment of women; called you the “lowest of the low”. And I presume she must have been speaking from bitter personal experience!’

  ‘I have no ex-wife!’

  ‘Oh come on Jack,’ she rounded on him. ‘She came into the office while you were away; said you’d been a bit lax about your alimony payments – and goodness me, you certainly owe her a pretty penny don’t you? I must say, I’m a little surprised at you, Jack. I thought you’d have much better taste than Nell Fitzpatrick.’

  ‘Nell Fitzpatrick,’ he repeated slowly, as if the words were stones he were weighing in his hands. He gave a low, ironic laugh and turned away. ‘Nell Fitzpatrick. So that’s what she calls herself these days.’ He turned back. ‘Wow, you certainly have a very low opinion of me, don’t you Amber? Well, let me disabuse you of a few things: Penelope Fitzpatrick, formerly Penelope Ward, is no wife of mine. She used to be my stepmother.’

  ‘Your… your stepmother?’ It was Amber’s turn to be nonplussed.

  ‘So, she came skulking around looking for her cheque did she?’

  ‘Yes, she…’. Amber frowned, perplexed. ‘You pay your stepmother alimony?’

  ‘Yes. Or rather, I did pay her an allowance, of a kind.’ He glared out to sea. Then he spoke again, his words measured. ‘Let me tell you, Amber, about Nell Fitzpatrick. The whole, sordid story. At the end of his life, my father was a very sick man. He had a massive stroke at work one day. His secretary found him slumped over his desk. They
took him to hospital, but there was very little that could be done. After that he could hardly speak, let alone move. He was confined to bed. He had always been such a vital, dynamic man, but the stroke utterly changed him – not only physically, but mentally too. He was no longer the same person he used to be – not at all.

  ‘My stepmother didn’t waste a second in turning things to her advantage. She could see the way things were going, and was determined to cash in as soon as possible and get everything she could. She got my father to sign a completely new will that she’d had drawn up – a will that completely cut me off, directing that on his death Ward Hotels should be sold, with all the proceeds going to her.’

  He turned to face Amber. ‘Ward Hotels was my father’s life’s work, his greatest achievement, the company that I was set to inherit. My father had never intended for her to have it. He had always made sure she would be generously provided for, but Ward Hotels was always meant for me. But she didn’t care a jot about any of that, didn’t care who she hurt. All she wanted was money.

  ‘But I wasn’t about to roll over and give away all my father had worked for – not to a scheming harpy like her. So when he died I hired the best lawyers to contest the will. It was a cut and dried case. There was no way any judge was going to rule in her favour: her greed had made her careless. She got a settlement where I would pay her a lump sum, and a monthly amount for the rest of her life. A sort of alimony, if you will.’

  He fixed her with his steadfast gaze – a gaze where she perceived, behind the usual veneer of confident hauteur, a hint of vulnerability. ‘She hated me for it, but she had to accept it. She had no choice. The settlement was worded so that the payments would cease should she ever marry again. Well, Penelope got married at the beginning of the year to a man who, it seems, has greatly deceived her about the extent of his wealth, and who in fact assumed that he was going to live off her. Ironic, fate, isn’t it?’ He smiled grimly.

  ‘She’s trying to claim now that my once-a-month payments were always intended for the rest of her life, regardless of whether or not she remarried. But she knows that no court will rule in her favour. She’s an utterly selfish, bitter and twisted woman, Amber. You were right: it would take a man of dubious taste indeed to involve himself with her. And if anyone deserves to be called “the lowest of the low”, it is she, for she made my life a living hell.’ He turned away again, and looked out across the harbour, the lights dotted all around the edge picking out the huge arching cranes, transforming them into huge beasts clawing at the ground.

  A wave of emotion was welling up inside her: pity, sorrow, compassion and – something else, raw, strong and aching. ‘I’m so sorry Jack,’ she whispered. ‘I had no idea…’

  Quickly he turned, and covered the little distance between them; stood above her, dark and defiant. ‘So,’ he said, ‘do you still judge me so harshly?’

  ‘Judge you?’ she breathed. ‘I… I…’ she found she could hardly speak, so intoxicated was she by his sudden, exhilarating closeness, disoriented by the countless confusing feelings scrambling through her brain, like a huge flock of birds trying to take flight all at once. There was no ex-wife. There was no girlfriend…

  Then, all of a sudden, she pulled her towards him. Her head jerked up as he locked a hand behind her head, and forced her face up to his, then his mouth came down hard on hers.

  She clung to him, breathless with need, exquisitely aware of his body through the thin material of her dress. He brushed her hair to one side and moved his lips to her neck, his mouth harsh and hungry against her hot skin.

  ‘Jack…’, she breathed, her fingers clutching at his back, desire swirling through her like floodwater. Then his mouth found hers once again, lips forcing hers apart once, his tongue melding with hers. Oh God, this was where she belonged. Here, in his arms. She was his, and his alone, forever…

  He ran a hand down her exposed back and she shuddered at his touch, breath catching in her throat.

  ‘You’re so beautiful Amber,’ he said, voice rough with need, mouth in her hair. ‘I want you. I need to be inside you. Now.’

  ‘But your guests,’ she stammered.

  ‘Forget them. No one knows I’m here. I came up through the garden.’ He added, on a low, thick undertone: ‘Which way’s your room?’

  ‘This way,’ she whispered, without hesitation.

  Chapter Ten

  Heart thudding against her ribs, she led him back through the grounds, around to the front of the hotel, and up the large spiral stone staircase to the upper floors. Thankfully it was sited just inside the entrance, and was deserted. With trembling hands she opened the door to her room. She walked in a little way, then turned back towards him, nerves at what they were about to do fusing with the powerful cocktail of desire she felt, feeling oddly self-conscious in the soft glow of the bedside lamp. It was no light thing to give oneself to a man like Jack Ward.

  He closed the door behind him and stood, looking at her, his eyes dark with desire, slowly, calculatedly undoing and discarding his black tie, then shrugging off his jacket. He walked over to her, deliberately, confidently – like something sleek, black and dangerous that has finally cornered its prey.

  She felt she might faint with need.

  ‘This is what you want too?’ he enquired, voice low, brushing the back of one hand along her naked, white collarbone.

  She nodded, then put out an unsteady hand to turn off the lamp

  But he stopped her. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I want to see you. All of you.’

  He slipped two fingers under the straps that held up her dress and pushed them off, over her shoulders. The dress fell in a whisper of expensive fabric to her waist. Underneath she wore a bustier of sheer cream lace. Her breasts showed clearly through the flimsy fabric.

  She watched his gaze drop to them. He stood, for what seemed an eternity, unhurriedly, leisurely drinking in his fill of her, as if he knew it was torture for her, and wanted to prolong it. He touched his fingertips against first one tight pink nipple, then the other, and she shuddered. She could already feel desire, hot and liquid, rising between her legs. Oh she wanted him, she wanted him so much…

  Then suddenly, once more, his mouth was on hers, hard with need. He bent, then she felt his arms sliding confidently around and underneath her. He lifted her as easily as if she had been weightless and deposited her on the bed, kissing her until she was breathless. Then, expertly, he unhooked her bustier and threw it peremptorily onto the floor.

  ‘You have the most delicious breasts I’ve ever seen – or tasted,’ he said softly. He leant down, and took one nipple in his mouth. Her spine arched, yanked upwards as if it was tied to an invisible string. He swirled his tongue mercilessly around first one nipple, then the other, biting, sucking, pulling… making her moan with pleasure that she could barely endure. She locked her fingers into his hair, running her hand down his neck and underneath the stiff collar of his open shirt, feeling the firmly-defined muscles of his back undulate as he moved.

  Roughly he pulled off her dress, leaving her clad in just stockings and scant, cream lace panties, then moved to kiss her again.

  ‘Take off your shirt,’ she whispered, fingers fumbling for his buttons, throbbing with anticipation. With a quick, knowing smile, he obliged, and, greedily, she ran her hands over his chest, searching his hard flesh – just as she had done that night on the beach. Except this time her need was even greater…

  His hot mouth moved down her, lips searching, kissing the expanse of her pale breasts, tongue torturing, teeth gently nipping at the nipples that were now so sweetly and unbearably sensitive she thought she might die. Then his hand slowly slid down her stomach, and inside her panties. She cried out as his probing fingers slid confidently and determinedly between the folds of her wet sex, seeking and immediately locating the tiny bud of aching pleasure hidden at the top. Instinctively, feeling the waves of excitement begin to build, she moved her hips against him. Then he moved his hand a fraction furth
er down, and plunged his fingers deep into her, while his tongue worked, hot and unforgiving at her breasts.

  She felt that she was drowning in a delicious, debilitating haze of pure desire. She couldn’t take it much longer. She could feel the tension rising inside her, inexorably, like a tide. He was tormenting her, exquisitely, expertly; handsome, arrogant Jack Ward, driving shards of shuddering desire through her, bending her to the capricious ebb and flow of his will. Then, just when she thought she could bear it no longer, just when she was about to beg him to bring her to a release, he tore off her panties and slid down the bed. She saw immediately, with a thump of erotic anticipation, what he wanted to do. He locked steady eyes with her feverish ones, shifted her position slightly, and hooked his arms up under her buttocks, as if he were about to drink from her.

  Then, all at once, she felt the unbelievable pressure of his tongue, sliding confidently into her secret place. Hard, insistent, he teased at her most sensitive spot in a relentless, mind-blowing rhythm. It didn’t take long. She bucked against him and grasped the sheets, screwing them into a tight knot, unaware even that she did so, knuckles white with the barely contained tension that electrified her body and turned her insides to molten lava.

  ‘Oh…!’ she cried. She could hardly hold on. The incredible, agonising release was building deep down, in the exact spot where Jack’s tongue met her quivering body, where all sensation was explosively located, building, building... Then suddenly the wave crashed over her, and she was filled with drenching light, ecstasy flowering through every vein, blooming through every muscle and bone in her body. She caught a hand in his hair and sobbed out his name, lost to the world, lost to everything, except him.

  Senses gradually returning, she lay back, shaking with the unbelievable power of what had just happened. He got to his feet, unbuckled his belt and unselfconsciously peeled off the rest of his clothes. She took a shuddering breath at the sight of him, naked in front of her, just as she remembered him, the evidence of his keen arousal all too clear. God he was beautiful. He could have been carved by a sculptor.