by Anne Mather
'Ben…' she began tremulously, stalling when she should have been putting on her sandals, and he groaned.
'Not now, Cass.'
'Yes, now,' she insisted, wiping a recalcitrant tear from her cheek. 'Do you—do you really hate me?'
'I don't hate you.' Ben raked his hair with brutal fingers. 'For pity's sake, Cass, I've never said I hated you. We're just not—not compatible, that's all. Let's just leave it at that.'
Cass's tongue circled her lips. 'And you're not angry with me?'
'Oh, what is this?' Ben rolled his eyes skyward. 'Of course I'm angry with you. You say crazy things, and you make me do crazy things! Why shouldn't I be angry? Don't you think I have reason?'
He turned back towards the car, but still Cass stood her ground. 'I used to think you cared about me,' she persisted, kicking uselessly at a clump of turf. 'I used to think you loved me—'
'Oh, Cass!' This time, the way he said her name was anguished. As he looked across the width of the clearing towards her, she could see that at last she had penetrated his defensive shell. 'I do love you,' he muttered harshly, coming back to her on leaden feet. 'But we both know the futility of that, don't we? So why don't you come on back to the car and stop tormenting both of us?'
Cass took a quivering breath. 'Because—because I know you're not my brother!'
Ben stared at her with haggard eyes. 'What?'
'I—I know you're not my brother,' repeated Cass unsteadily, wondering as she said the words if he really knew the truth. 'Your—your grandmother told me. About—about how your real father was killed when he found an unexploded shell that had been buried since the end of the last war; how—how your mother married my father because she discovered she was pregnant.' She paused expectantly. 'Your grandmother said you knew about it. You did, didn't you? Oh, Ben, stop looking at me like that! You don't know how much this means to me. For goodness' sake, tell me how you feel. Tell me it's not—not a lie!'
'It's not a lie.'
But Ben wasn't jumping up and down and cheering the way she would have expected him to do—the way she felt like doing. What was wrong? Why wasn't he glad she knew the truth? It explained so many things, not least her own uncontrollable attraction towards him. It wasn't some awful incestuous need, it was simply an instantaneous recognition of the man she loved, had always loved.
Putting out a hand, she touched his sleeve, but he drew back from her overture with unflattering haste. 'Don't,' he said abruptly, the one word dashing all Cass's hopes. 'I don't know how else to say this, but it doesn't—it can't—make any difference to us.'
Cass gasped. 'Don't be ridiculous! Of course it does.'
'No.' He was adamant.
Cass gazed at him blankly. 'Why not?' She spread her hands again, this time in a rather bemused gesture. 'Unless—unless you didn't mean what you said just now. Forgive me if I seem a little confused, but didn't you just tell me you loved me? Or was that an attempt to get me to go back to the car? A sort of carrot to appease my pride?'
'Don't be silly.'
Ben spoke wearily, but Cass was too het up now to try and understand what he was trying to say. Her world seemed to be falling to pieces around her, and all she was suddenly thinking was how wonderful it would be to sink beneath the waters of the lake.
'I'm not silly,' she exclaimed now, tearing the straps of her dress off her shoulders again, and pushing it down over her hips. Then, as Ben watched in shocked disbelief, she removed her silk panties and, turning, plunged into the water, so that by the time he had comprehended what was happening she was several yards out from the shore.
The water was briefly numbing, the trees that shaded its banks ensuring that it never reached the temperature of the sea. As she kicked out into deeper water, she thought it might be quite easy to drown. All she had to do was let the water chill her; her frozen limbs would probably do the rest.
'Cass!'
Ben's hoarse summons was a brief diversion. He had come to stand on the shingle that sloped down to the water, and even from this distance, and given the poor light, she could still sense his grim frustration.
'Cass,' he called again, as she drifted further from his reach. 'Cass, for heaven's sake, get out of there! We need to talk. I realise that. Maybe I didn't react very positively to what you said just now, but that was because I was stunned. Come on! At least give me a chance to explain. For goodness' sake, stop playing games?'
Games? Cass felt the bitter tears well up again. He actually thought this was a game! He had no conception of how she felt; no idea at all of how much he had hurt her. He assumed this was just her way of paying him back. That when she'd tired of keeping him waiting, she'd come out of the water again, and go with him. Did he honestly believe that what she had learned could simply be disregarded? Did he really expect her to go on with her life as if everything was just as before?
'Cass, don't go any further!' she heard him yell warningly, but she paid him no attention. What did it matter what he said? she asked herself poignantly. She didn't care if the water was too cold, or there were currents she didn't know about. She didn't want to live, in any case. She wanted to die. It would be a definite advantage if he had to stand there and watch her suffer. A kind of rough justice for the injuries he had invoked.
'Cass, for heaven's sake!'
But it was too late for him to feel any remorse, she told herself severely. He had had his chance, and he had thrown it away. There wouldn't be any more intimate dinners or nights spent dancing under the stars. He would never again be able to hold her in his arms and bruise her mouth with kisses. And she would never run her fingers through his hair…
The painful—yet strangely hypnotic—dreams were abruptly interrupted. Her lazily moving legs were suddenly trapped in ropes of waving weed, and when she tried to kick herself free the weed only wound itself more strongly about her.
She came upright with a start, threshing about in the water as she struggled to escape the clinging tendrils, and, although moments before she had told herself she wanted to die, now she was literally fighting for her life. A dread panic gripped her at the thought that perhaps her wishes were to be granted.
Dear God, what was she going to do? she choked, finding herself underwater with the ghastly weed in her mouth. She was at least a couple of hundred yards away from the shore, with no earthly chance of being within her depth. The quiet lake which moments before had seemed a peaceful haven was now a place of violence and terror. She was unhappy, it was true, desperate even, but she didn't want to die. So long as Ben was alive, surely she could always hope…
CHAPTER ELEVEN
'KEEP still!'
The strong, reassuring voice was blessedly familiar. As her limbs obeyed his harsh command, Ben swiftly tore her free of the strangling weed. Then, pushing her towards the shore, he swam smoothly after her. Within minutes she had reached the shingle, and staggered up on to the grassy bank. But, once there, her legs gave out on her, and she collapsed on to the turf, uncaring of her shameful lack of covering.
'You—you saved my life,' she stammered, hearing Ben come up out of the water after her, and presently his lean length dropped down beside her.
'As long as you don't make a habit of it,' he remarked drily, leaning on his elbows beside her. He panted. 'Hell, I must be out of condition. I thought I wasn't going to make it'
Cass looked at him then, his bare shoulders gleaming in the moonlight. He had evidently shed his shirt and trousers before diving into the water, and his skin looked smooth and muscled beneath its damp film of hair.
'I—I don't know what to say,' she murmured. 'I'm sorry.'
'Yes. So you should be.' He breathed heavily. 'I did try to warn you.'
'But—the children we saw earlier—'
'Don't swim out as far as you did. In any case, we were always warned about the reeds.' He grimaced. 'You gave me a scare!'
Cass expelled a sigh. 'What can I say? I suppose it just reinforced your opinion of me.
'
'What else?' he muttered, but his eyes were moving from her face, over the downy curves of her body. Her nipples, already sharply defined by the cold water, seemed to harden beneath his gaze, and when his eyes dropped to the shadowy triangle of hair between her legs her whole being trembled.
'Oh, hell!' he groaned, looking away, but Cass was too aroused to let him leave her.
'Touch me,' she said huskily, taking hold of one of his hands and drawing it determinedly to her thigh. 'Oh, yes, touch me!' She shifted so that his hand moved against her leg. 'You want to—you do want do, don't you?'
Ben closed his eyes, but only briefly. The tantalising caress of her soft skin was too tempting. 'Yes, I want to touch you,' he admitted roughly, acknowledging his surrender. He was already aroused from the shock he had suffered when he had thought she was drowning. Now, intoxicated by the look and the smell and the feel of her, he had no resistance, and he cupped one hand behind her neck and pulled her closer. Then, parting her lips with a probing thumb, he covered her mouth with his.
Her lips opened wide to the hungry penetration of his tongue, sharing its invasion and making tentative invasions of her own. Her senses swam beneath that wet, urgent possession, and a delicious warmth spread through her body, completely banishing any feeling of cold she had felt when she had first come out of the water.
Then, keeping his mouth on hers, he propelled her backwards, and she felt the prickling coolness of the grass against her spine. It was amazingly erotic to feel each individual blade caressing her limbs, stroking the cleft of her bottom, probing each intimate hollow. Her whole body seemed sensitised to every new experience, and when her fingers slid into the silky dampness of his hair she felt an overwhelming sense of exhilaration.
She moaned when his mouth moved from hers, and she dug her nails into his scalp in protest. But then her fingers flexed convulsively when his lips trailed a path of heat down her neck and across her throat. And with sensual mastery he brought one hand up to cup her breast, squeezing the nipple between his thumb and forefinger before taking the engorged peak into his mouth.
She groaned, her hands seeking his hair again, and gripping tightly. She had never dreamed anything could feel so good, or so amazing. When he lifted his head, she badly wanted to beg him to go on, but then he moved to her other breast, and his suckling mouth became a sensual abrasion.
And there was more, much more. After returning to her mouth, to taste again the fevered urgency of her lips, he sought the downy hollow of her stomach, laving her palpitating navel with his tongue. A moist warmth was enveloping every part of her, and she shifted beneath his caress, desperate to sustain these unfamiliar feelings.
But then, to her dismay, he shifted position yet again. In some confusion, he felt him part her legs and touch the sensitive flesh between. The feelings this evoked were infinitely more disturbing, and she shuddered beneath his hands in a helpless state of abandon.
'Oh, please—' she breathed, dry-mouthed, and with a sensual sigh Ben's mouth slid reluctantly back to hers.
'What's the matter?' he chided, the taste of her on his lips. 'Didn't you like it?'
Cass found she was panting now, but she managed to shake her head. 'You know I did,' she whispered unsteadily. 'Perhaps—perhaps too much.'
'Not too much,' he corrected her huskily, his raw male scent filling her nostrils. Then, as his legs tangled sensuously with hers, she discovered he was as naked as she was.
She wanted to touch him, too, and as his mouth grew even more demanding she spread her fingers against the sleek brown flesh of his hips. The tight mound of his buttocks rose beneath her hands as she allowed them to move lower. And as she caressed him he shuddered beneath her touch, betraying his own taut arousal.
'Don't,' he muttered at last, when her explorations brought her to the throbbing muscle between his legs, and she protested.
'Why?'
'Because I want you,' he told her harshly. 'I want to come inside you. Not—' he groaned, 'not in your hands.'
Cass caught her breath, and with barely controlled patience Ben moved between her legs. 'I love you,' he said against her lips as the blunt strength of his manhood nudged the moist tangle of ash-blonde curls. Then, ignoring the instinctive resistance that four years of suffering Roger's insensitive handling had left her with, he entered her, slowly but insistently, penetrating deep into the heart of her being.
He seemed so big at first, so powerful, and she was half afraid her muscles would not expand enough to accommodate him. She almost panicked when it seemed she was not big enough; but Ben had no such hesitation. 'Relax,' he whispered softly against her ear, and then she was filled with a sense of completeness she had never known before.
He was still for a few moments, allowing her to get used to the feel of him inside her, but eventually with infinite tenderness he began to move. She knew he was trying to be patient, which couldn't be easy for him, and she was half inclined to tell him that he needn't be so considerate. But it was difficult to put into words the fact that if some women did get satisfaction from the sexual act she was not one of them. Of course, being with Ben had already been so much more exciting then being with Roger, but ultimately the end was bound to be the same. She was incapable of enjoying sex, with anybody; and she could only hope that when the time came she could fake her own reaction. With a bit of luck, Ben would be too overcome with his own climax to notice, but afterwards she would have to tell him the truth…
Her anxious soul-searching was stilled by the realisation that she couldn't concentrate on practical matters at this moment. The sensual feel of Ben's body as it seemed to pull away from her, only to plunge even more deeply into the contracting muscles of her sheath, was having the most disturbing effect. She found herself lifting her body from the ground to meet his, and when he pushed her down again to the turf, she let out an ecstatic cry. It felt so good to have him deep inside her, but she wanted him deeper still, and almost of their own volition her legs wound around his back to facilitate that ability.
'Good?' he murmured, looking down at her, and she moved her head in a jerky gesture of assent.
'Just go on,' she groaned, digging her fingers into his shoulders, and with a smile of satisfaction he complied.
His hands cupped her buttocks, lifting her even more firmly against him, and her whole being seemed intent on him, and only him. She wanted to wind herself about him, she wanted him to go on and on making this amazing love to her, and where once she had been cold now her body was drenched with fire.
Ben was sweating, too. Her fingers wiped rivulets of moisture from his forehead and smeared them over her own body. The slick wetness of their skin was fusing them together, and her actions were purely instinctive and mindlessly sexual.
She didn't think she could go on enduring such excitement. Her heart was pounding in her chest, leaping against the wall of her ribs, as if it was determined to break free. Her whole being seemed poised on the brink of some ultimate new discovery, and she was aching for a fulfilment that only Ben could give her.
And when it happened she could hardly believe it. The splintering waves of pleasure that had been sweeping her up, and up, suddenly reached their pinnacle, and the moment was so unique that she almost lost consciousness. But she was aware of Ben calling her name, and of his own simultaneous release, which caused a burning flood of warmth inside her. And then, as he collapsed upon her, the wave let her go, and she drifted back to earth in a blissful state of lethargy…
It seemed hours later that she opened her eyes to find Ben had rolled on to his side, and was lying, looking at her. But it could only have been a few minutes. The heaviness of her lids seemed to indicate a shorter spell of rest, and she closed her eyes again abruptly, not wanting to lose the delicious feeling of languor that was gripping her.
'Hey,' he said, using a blade of grass to tickle her chin, 'do you have any idea what time it is?'
Cass groaned. 'Does it matt
er?'
'I think so.' Ben propped himself up on his elbow, drawing up one leg to support his other arm. 'By my reckoning, it's going to be the early hours of the morning before we get back to Calvado. I just hope my mother's gone to bed. I don't think I could take facing her tonight.'
Cass sighed, and opened her eyes. 'Don't worry,' she said, lifting a hand to stroke his cheek. 'I'll be with you.'
Ben caught his lower lip between his teeth, looking at her with something almost akin to pity, and then he slowly shook his head. 'No, you won't.'
'What do you mean?' She blinked. 'Of course I will. Now that I know we're not related, do you think I'm going to leave you?' She caught her breath. 'Don't be silly. I don't care what Daddy says now.'
'But I do.' Removing her hand from his cheek, Ben got abruptly to his feet. 'You'd better get dressed. I want to get moving.'
Cass swallowed the lump which seemed to have developed in her throat and sat up. 'What do you mean?' she asked, looking up at him. 'Why should you care what Daddy thinks? He can't hurt you.'
'No. He can't hurt me,' Ben agreed, picking up his jeans and beginning to turn the legs the right way out. In his haste to get to Cass, he had simply torn them off, and she watched him put the trousers to rights with open-mouthed confusion.
'Ben,' she exclaimed after a moment, as he stepped into the jeans and zipped them up. 'Ben, please, we have to talk. Stop behaving as if you regret what just happened. I don't regret it. It was the most marvellous experience of my life!'
'I know.' Ben paused and looked down at her; and then, as if the sight of her sitting there like some woodland naiad penetrated the wall he was trying to erect between them, and he gave a groan of desperation. 'Cass,' he muttered, throwing aside his shirt and squatting down beside her, 'don't look at me like that. I need you to try and understand.'
Cass help up her head. 'What is there to understand?' She lifted her slim shoulders. 'That you're like Daddy, even if you're not his son? That what just happened was just sex? That it didn't mean the same to you as it did to me?'