'You have to be joking! It's even worse than I imagined.'
'Poor baby! The man needs his head examining. But it sounds good from this side. You must be thinking of coming back?'
'If you'll have me-—' she said, biting her lip at the obvious double meaning.
'I'll have you any time,' came the predictable response.
Flame laughed. Johnny was so safe because she always knew what he was going to say next, and his easy sympathy was balm to her battered soul. 'Johnny, I've really, missed you,' she said, meaning it. 'Things have been really heavy here—I can't tell you what it's been like.'
'Listen, baby, I'm just on my way out to—er—a meeting, you know.' He gave a little laugh. 'Can't hang about, you know how it is. But let me know what time and date you're arriving and I'll try to get to the airport to meet you.'
'Same old Johnny,' she said, not at all jealous that he clearly had a date with someone else. 'You are sweet. I'll do that. It'll be heaven to see you!' She didn't mean heaven exactly and he knew that. It was the way he talked and she had always picked up on it.
'See you soon, then, baby. Take care—love you.'
'Love you too, Johnny.' Love meant something undemanding to Johnny, something that could be spread around, with no hassle if things didn't work out. Flame picked up on that too. It was a relief to de-energise the word, relieving it of all the agonising connotations it had acquired with Marlow.
She replaced the receiver, not happy, but her pain temporarily eased by the prospect of escape.
'It'll be heaven to see him, will it?' a voice thick with sarcasm broke into her reverie.
She spun with a gasp. Marlow himself was standing in the doorway, his face like nothing she had ever seen before. His skin wasn't white so much as colourless. It was anger that made him look like that, she supposed. But why should he be angry, having spent the rest of the previous night and presumably most of today with his mistress?
She drew herself up. 'Absolute heaven,' she agreed. 'I told him I was going back.'
'So I heard.' He took a pace into the room. 'When?' His voice was like the sound of wind through dry reeds.
'I don't know. Soon. As soon as I can. Why?'
'Why?'
'Will it cause too many problems for you, Marlow? Surely you've got the lawyers in your pocket too? Marcos, Rafael—surely they'll fix things so you get what you want after all, without having to go through the hassle of being married to me?'
'Hassle? I didn't know you went in for understatement. Judging by your phone conversation --'
Marlow broke off as if he couldn't be bothered to finish what he had been about to say, running a hand-through his gypsy hair. 'Maybe you weren't overstating the case just now?' He narrowed his glance. 'Maybe you do love the guy. What's he like?' He moved closer. 'Come on, Flame, tell me. What's he really like, this lover boy in London?'
He suddenly moved right across the kitchen and seemed to loom over her, but he didn't lay a finger on her and she clenched her fists, determined not to be cowed by his dark rage.
'Johnny?' She pretended to think. 'Well, he's good-looking. Tallish. Fair to mid-brown hair, sort of spiky. Grey eyes... Nice.'
'Nice?'
She nodded. 'Yes, he's a nice guy. He makes me laugh.'
'He makes you laugh?'
'I don't know why you keep repeating everything I say. What's it to you what he's like? I don't go around cross-questioning you about Victoria.'
'What the hell is this about Victoria? She's a business colleague, goddamn it!'
Flame flinched at the casual lie, more saddened than she would have thought possible that even now he refused her the truth. 'Of course she is,' she said tiredly. 'Just a workmate.'
Suddenly his anger seemed to erupt. 'What the hell are you accusing me of? What is all this?'
'Keep your voice down,' she hissed. 'Mother will overhear!'
'Damn --' Marlow broke off and with an immense effort clenched his jaw. She could see his face muscles bulge with the effort. 'We're going somewhere where we can talk.' His hand shot out to grip her by the arm.
'I don't want to --'
'To hell with what you want! If you intend to leave soon you can damn well give me what I want for a change!' He tugged at her and she staggered forward into his arms. 'And you know what I want, don't you, Flame?' he rasped dangerously, dragging her even closer.
Scratching at his face didn't help and, still protesting, she found herself being hauled across the kitchen. Now mainly concerned about the painful grip in which he held her, she cried, 'I don't want bruises!' whispering her protests as he hauled her along. The book she had been reading had fallen to the floor and he scooped it up with a glance at the title before flinging it on to the table. Then he opened the kitchen door and proceeded to bundle her through it.
'You're bruising me!' she protested again in the corridor, wriggling in vain.
'You'll have some explaining to do to lover boy, will you?' His eyes were storm-blue, bleak as an arctic sea. 'Bruises on your arm are innocent enough. Wait till you get them elsewhere on your anatomy!'
'Don't threaten me——' she began helplessly, trying to pull away again.
'Shut up, you'll have everybody coming to see what's happening!'
'Let me go, then, you heel!' she whispered furiously.
Marlow released her arm only when he'd extracted an agreement to go over to the casita with him without a struggle. Even so he kept a vicious hold on her, making her stumble once or twice when she couldn't keep up as he hauled her along. His anger was violent and seemed entirely genuine. But Flame was past trying to make sense of him. All she could think was that she'd bottled things up for too long and now she was going to have the chance to get everything into the open at last. Almost everything, she thought, squeezing her eyes tight. She allowed him to drag her across the garden to the pinewood and on through the trees to the little house beyond.
Then he flung open the door and pushed her inside. He went at once to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a triple Scotch. 'Want one?'
'Not that much.'
He took no notice and poured the same measure into another tumbler, pushing it across the cabinet towards her as if to come too close was something he wanted to avoid.
'I can't see why you're so livid with me. I assume it is with me?' she got in first before he could accuse her of anything or get to work on her with his velvety voice again. He seemed to have forgotten he had such a voice right now, for despite the whisky he threw back and the fact that his face didn't lose its wildness she waited in vain for him to say something.
Instead he went to stand at the window with a fresh drink in his hand. His broad shoulders flexed beneath the thin summer-weight linen of his jacket. The way his dark hair skimmed the top of his collar made her want to reach out and touch it, and she felt the familiar weakness in the pit of her stomach again. She had to close her eyes to stem the flood of love that swept over-poweringly through her.
'How the hell has all this got so out of hand?' His voice was savage and he didn't turn round. It was almost as if he were talking to himself. 'I've tried to work out what word it was, what gesture, what little forgotten action it was that turned your apparent love for me to this sheer, unreasoning hatred.' He turned. 'You'd have to hate me to put me through this. Was it something I did? What was it?'
She gaped at him, a look of derision bit by bit taking the place of her initial astonishment. 'Marlow...' she foundered '... if you have to ask that, what can I say?' she spread her hands. 'You can't be serious!?'
His eyes were like marble. 'Was it the way I made love to you? Were you faking every time?'
She shuddered. 'You know it wasn't that,' she admitted in a small voice. Her face crimsoned, violent images of his body on and in hers shaking her control. She pushed the images to one side. 'I know what you're doing,' she said. 'If I listen to you you'll do it again. As you did before. As you always do.'
'What's that?' he demanded harshly.
'You know. It's your big talent—the way you can charm people into doing or believing anything. It's because you've been around, I suppose. But it's wicked, Marlow. If it didn't matter so much that you can make me do what I don't want to do, then it would be amusing. But it's almost evil, this ability you have to make me believe the opposite of what I know is true.'
'I don't seem to be having much success with it at the moment.' His lips were in a bitter line.
Flame finished her drink without noticing. She put the glass down carefully on the table, not intending for it to be refilled, but Marlow seemed to welcome a pause in what they were saying and quickly refilled it, seeing to his own at the same time.
'My God,' he said harshly when he picked up his glass again, 'I've drunk enough today to float a battleship! I vow I'll never go through another day like this. Just tell me what I have to do, Flame. What do I have to do?'
'We're going to be beating around like this forever, not really understanding each other,' she told him in a choky voice. 'I'm going back to England as soon as I can.'
'Running out on me again? That'll be the second time. By God, it'll be the last!' His eyes seemed to shoot blue flame at the thought. In one stride he was beside her. 'You're not going, do you understand? I shan't let you. I can stop you!'
'What?' Flame was frightened for a moment as he dragged her roughly from the chair where she was sitting, one hand coming down to finger woundingly against her throat.
'I'll keep you here, one way or another. I'll keep you here, I won't let you go --' He let his hand slide down the velvety whiteness of her neck to the curve of her shoulder and spoke rapidly as if half to himself. 'I wanted you to want me. It's true I've done everything I can to seduce you. I wanted you, I had to have you. That's why I married you—to make you mine.' Something seemed to enter his head and his expression changed.
He began to pull her body slowly, remorselessly, against his own. She could feel the evidence of his desire against her thighs, but was powerless to draw back.
He said hoarsely, 'I wanted you to want what I wanted.. And there's one sure way to make you want that...' He showed her what he meant by running his hands thrillingly over her body, observing her involuntary undulation with satisfaction.
'Despite what you said about faking last night,' he went on, 'despite that, Flame, I don't think you were being completely honest, were you? I think you want me when I touch you. You always want me when I touch you. That's the only thing in all this craziness I'm sure of. I think you can't help yourself. Last night you wanted me. You weren't faking.' He paused. When he started to speak again his voice was rough with unashamed desire. 'Maybe last night you started off thinking of this other guy. But you were pretty soon thinking only of me. I'd bet a lot on it. And another thing...' By this time his hands had begun to play sweet music with her senses, touching in a way that seemed like nothing to look at but in the unseen world of feeling was playing the subtlest melody of delight. It was music she longed to hear, a respite from the pain shadowing her since last night, for she was here, he was here—and for a brief moment out of time she could shut her eyes to everything else.
But he seemed to have lost the thread of what he was saying, and only with an effort brought his mind back to it, 'Another thing,' he whispered in her hair, 'I don't think a nice guy is what you really want. I think you'd much prefer a heel like me. I'm the villain, remember? I think I'm the one you want. And if you're not convinced yet, my lovely, I'm going to convince you right now.'
'Marlow, I'm not in the mood for silly games...'
'Nor am I, baby,' he whispered in her ear. 'Games are definitely out. This is for real...'
Mesmerised by his liquid tones, by the hot breath fanning her cheek, by the lips hovering just above her own, Flame felt like a trapped creature held by the hypnotic eye of a cobra. She wanted to cry out, Don't hurt me, Marlow, not again, but her mouth opened and closed without a sound coming from it.
'I'm going to show you what love is, Flame. And when you go back to England, tomorrow, next week, whenever you decide to go back, you'll take the memory with you like a brand, a memory of love, of what it can be—and believe me, it's not going to be something you'll ever want to describe as "nice"!'
She shuddered at the word 'love', having yearned so long to hear it on his lips, but now, when she did so, it seemed to mean something entirely different from what she wanted, and she could only stare in confusion.
He gave a sudden wrench with both hands either side of her blouse, ripping it open so that the buttons were scattered in all directions. Then his hands began to explore her naked breasts, closing familiarly over them with just the exact touch he knew she found so hard to resist. It was as if her body knew its master, opening to him, blossoming and blushing, hardening and rippling and suddenly seeking and offering the same mindless abandon, the same speech without words and the love for love that only their bodies knew how to express.
With a dull snap she heard the sound of his belt buckle, the rasp of a zip, then, without wanting it, without planning it, she felt her fingers reach out, searching to touch his warm flesh, her fingers slithering over the hard muscles of his abdomen, encountering the rough hair of his loins. His arousal was complete and vaguely frightening, as if her touch had somehow unleashed some primeval force that now had them both under its control. All attempt to resist him collapsed in an instant. She felt him hook his fingers in the waistband of her skirt and pull it off, throwing it to one side as he fully discarded his own clothes too, taking her savagely into his arms in the same movement, so that they met, skin against skin, in ecstatic contact.
She began to move uncontrollably against him as the stinging nip of his teeth over her sensitised flesh brought fresh surges of pleasure breaking over her in ever-increasing waves. He fevered kisses over her naked breasts again as if driven by a mindless frenzy of need. Their bodies seemed to melt into each other, yet it was as if such closeness was unequal to the strength of their drive to be united.
Flame closed her eyes as she felt him squeeze her waist between both his hands, smoothing and caressing it with long, slow sweeps of his palms, then bringing her whole body sliding down beneath his own. She found herself sinking back on to a wool rug on the floor. Marlow's own desire had built to match hers as he knelt over her, one knee parting her legs, making her yield with a moan of pleasure before crying out for his ultimate possession. Then he brushed her lips again and again, drinking in all their warm offering as if it were the nectar of paradise.
He took her swiftly and strongly before she could resist, the sudden union dizzying at once to the zenith of desire, sending their unisoned cries spiralling upwards. Flame fell back to earth like a wounded bird, brought down by his huntsman's aim.
She was breathless, speechless for long moments afterwards. Somehow she wanted to prolong this sweet aftermath, sucking it of every atom of bitter joy before reality closed in again, taking away as it would her reason for happiness. But Marlow hadn't finished. With a sigh of complete surrender, he guided her hands to where they gave him renewed pleasure, turning her, twisting her, flowing over her in a choreography of delicious steps that brought more pleasure than she thought she could bear.
This time their flight seemed endless, stretching the horizons of pleasure to unimagined limits. Marlow's eyes were luminous, soft as blue velvet afterwards but with lights of savage splendour in them, his strong face gentled by love, his former tension, his rage, his hardness, all washed away, leaving him open and vulnerable, like a god resting in the arms of his goddess.
Flame was confused by the change in him. As they lay together on the rug she stroked his thick, dark hair. His eyes were closed now, stubby lashes lying defencelessly on his cheek. She couldn't resist kissing them, making them flutter. His eyes opened.
He propped himself on one elbow. 'Now,' he said, in a flat voice, 'when you leave you'll remember.'
She wriggled from beneath him, wrenched by inner pain as her flesh tore itself fre
e from contact with his. It was only like this—with him—that she knew she was truly alive. Only like this—with him—she found a reason for living.
'Am I going back?' she muttered.
'It's what you want.' He looked away.
'In that case I'd better go back to the house.'
'Wait.' He got up, unaware how her eyes dwelt for the last time on the smooth contours of his body, as he began to drag on his jeans, pulling a T-shirt over his broad shoulders and down the V-shape of his torso as casually as if to conceal himself from her was of no consequence. Flame had to stifle a cry of deprivation. Then he bent to dress her with fingers she could have believed expressed love if she hadn't known better, as he gently fastened her buttons and softly smoothed the long tresses of amber hair.
He walked to the door with her, only touching her when they reached it and then merely lifting her fingers to his lips. 'Goodbye,' he said.
She looked into his eyes, searching for some other word he could say to her, a word that would wipe out the pain forever. 'Goodbye?' she questioned. Her heart poised on the edge of breaking into a million fragments again.
He smiled, spoke softly, kissed her fingertips. 'Farewell, my lovely,' he said with a cynical twist of his lips.
With a constriction in her throat she allowed him to turn her towards the door, then, half blind with grief, she allowed him to send her outside. The door closed almost at once. In a storm of remorse she stumbled down the path between the trees. It wouldn't be the end. He couldn't mean it. She knew she would never have been able to give herself like that if their love wasn't real. It was madness to go on hoping to be able to live without him. She belonged to him—she belonged completely and forever.
It was suppertime already, but the meal was half over before Flame dared mention Marlow's absence.
Samantha looked mystified. 'Do you know where he is, Emilio darling?'
Her husband shook his head. 'Perhaps he doesn't know the time. You know what he's like when he's stuck into some work. Want me to go over and find out, cara?'
'Please, dearest.' She touched his hand. He kissed her on the forehead and left.
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