by Robyn Donald
‘I don’t imagine he liked that.’
‘No.’ She hesitated, then gave a tiny shrug. ‘There was a nasty scene. I hadn’t realised he thought I was up for sale. He couldn’t see any problem—to him it was entirely straightforward. I’d sleep with him whenever he wanted me to, and in return he’d pay my debts.’
‘Money is his only measure.’ Anger flashed a moment in Clay’s eyes, but his expression didn’t alter.
So now he knew why she’d responded so violently to his suggestion that they live together. ‘I noticed,’ she said quietly. ‘He didn’t dent my heart, Clay—just my pride a bit.’ And her confidence in her judgement. A thought struck her. ‘And Phil—did you think I’d had an affair with him too?’
Frowning, he answered, ‘You told me you didn’t—of course I believed you.’
‘Do you believe now that I didn’t sleep with Dean?’ She didn’t know why she was pushing.
‘Of course I do,’ he repeated evenly, his lips thinning in impatience. ‘Why should you lie? Your emotional life before we met has nothing to do with me.’
Because the only thing that interested him was her presence in his bed. While she’d been falling further and further in love with him, he hadn’t changed at all.
That was when Natalia knew that her time had run out; she had to leave him before loving him shattered her life into pieces so small she’d never be able to reassemble it.
She’d go tomorrow, she thought, letting anger drive the pain underground, but before she went she’d give him something he’d never forget. If ever he married he’d remember tonight as he said his vows, and however much he loved his wife, Natalia would haunt him.
As he’d haunt her.
She needed to know something else. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that you and he were stepbrothers?’
‘I didn’t want Dean to suspect that I was behind the offer for Pukekahu. You know what small towns are like; somehow it would have got to him. And I’d been told that you and he had had some sort of relationship—for all I knew it still existed. By the time I was sure it was over, I just wanted to push the possibility of you being his lover out of my mind.’
Natalia nodded, asking, ‘If Olivia was your adoptive mother, how did Dean get his hands on Pukekahu?’
‘She left it to him.’
Her heart jerked. He hadn’t moved, but she knew this had been the greatest betrayal of his life. ‘Why?’ she whispered.
‘God knows,’ he said, his eyes cold and implacable. ‘She left me a reasonable inheritance in shares and bonds.’
‘So Dean let the place run down because he knew it would hurt you.’
‘I can think of no other reason,’ he said indifferently.
Yes, she could imagine Dean Jamieson deliberately ruining a place because someone he disliked had loved it. How could she have been so stupid as to be fooled by his facile charm? ‘Is that why you bought it? Because Olivia loved it?’
Clay’s brows lifted. ‘Sentiment has no place in business,’ he said aloofly. ‘It’s a good investment property. I don’t waste time or money or effort on spiting people.’
No, she thought with a shiver, you get even.
He came towards her. ‘Natalia, forget it. It’s not worth fretting over.’
‘I know,’ she said, turning to him, her lashes lowered and her mouth curved softly, lying to him, lying to herself. It was already too late; she’d never forget him. But for her sanity, her self-esteem, she had to leave him and make some sort of life for herself.
Tomorrow…
She reached up and linked her arms about his neck, feeling the familiar lurch of her heart, the unsteady thud of her pulses.
‘All right?’ he asked, his eyes narrowed and intent as he scanned her face.
‘Of course,’ she said in a smoky little voice, pulling his head down.
It was instantaneous, that combustion of the senses; she had only to touch him and he wanted her. And she, God help her, was as much a prisoner of desire’s honeyed, fiery chains as he was.
Against his mouth she whispered, ‘Are you going to make me wait?’
He laughed beneath his breath, a lazy sound sensuous as the purr of a big cat, and kissed her, his mouth teasing yet urgent, hinting at the potent power she could unleash in him.
Natalia’s mouth opened under his, famished and desperate. This was a perilous game; if she was to do this she had to stay cool and in control, not lose her head.
A woman scorned, she thought savagely, needed all her wits about her. Except that she wasn’t scorned; Clay had never lied. She had overstepped the boundaries of their agreement, not him.
Deeply, Clay said, ‘Don’t you want dinner?’
‘I have a better idea,’ she murmured, tracing the full outline of his lower lip with the tormenting tip of her tongue. She rejoiced at the sudden increase of his breathing rate, at the dusky colour that licked across the arrogant cheekbones, at the darkness swallowing up the gold in his eyes.
‘I can see that.’ His arms tightened across her back.
And the doorbell rang.
Clay swore beneath his breath; as though he’d heard, Dean shouted from outside, ‘Let me in, damn you!’
Slowly, like a stallion scenting a rival, Clay’s head lifted. He was still looking at Natalia, but passion had been replaced by the remorseless, impersonal patience of a predator—and a certain grim satisfaction, she thought, ice enclosing her heart.
‘You—Clay Whatever-you-call-yourself—if you don’t let me in I’ll break the door down!’
‘He must be drunk.’ Natalia spoke with distaste and a flicker of fear.
‘Possibly,’ Clay said. ‘Go into the bedroom. This is between him and me; it’s nothing to do with you.’
‘I’ll stay,’ she said.
He dropped a fierce, swift kiss on her mouth, then put her behind him and opened the door.
Flushed, his handsome face distorted, Dean slammed inside. Clay kicked the door shut and, before Dean had fully gained his balance, moved with swift, deadly speed to put himself between the intruder and Natalia.
‘You little bitch,’ Dean snarled, his blue eyes filled with gloating malice. ‘God, I knew you were mercenary, but you couldn’t bloody wait, could you? I told you I’d set us up, get rid of Tess—it’s taken time because the bitch wants more than her share! I told you I’d do it. Why couldn’t you have waited? I would have married you!’ He cast a look of pure hatred at Clay. ‘As for you, you swine, I’ll make you sorry you ever poached—’
‘You haven’t got a knife now,’ Clay said indifferently.
A knife? Natalia’s heart jolted as she glimpsed the scar on his face. Had Dean done that with a knife?
Hard and lethal and completely without emotion, Clay went on, ‘And if you want a fight, be prepared to lose.’
That calm, contemptuous voice stopped Dean as though he’d been slapped. Scarlet-faced, his jaw jutting arrogantly, he scoffed, ‘I wouldn’t dirty my hands with a whore’s son. You’re nothing—white trash, bad seed. In the end even Olivia saw through you—she thought so little of you she left the only thing she valued to me. You had to buy Pukekahu.’
Natalia sucked in a breath. Clay’s mouth lifted in that twisted smile. ‘I’m sure she had her reasons,’ he said tonelessly.
Natalia had learned to love this man; she respected him for his rock-solid integrity, for his strength of mind and his determination, his control and initiative, but she’d never admired him so much as she did then.
Thwarted, Dean swung back to Natalia. ‘You played your hand too soon,’ he sneered, grinning, completely confident that Clay would believe his lies. ‘You could have been my wife instead of this man’s whore.’
She didn’t look at Clay. ‘I’d rather be his mistress than your wife.’
‘Do you really think he’s going to keep you now he knows we were lovers?’ Dean taunted brutally. ‘Ever since my stupid stepmother brought him home—a filthy, foulmouthed little bastard with no b
reeding, no family—he’s wanted what’s mine. He’s never been able to get it—and it’s always going to eat into him that I had you first. He’ll dump you.’
Natalia shrugged. ‘I think he knows you well enough to recognise your lies when he hears them,’ she said quietly.
He gave the man he hated a swift, measuring glance, then attacked again. ‘But they’re not lies. Does he know that you only shacked up with him for his money?’
There was a moment of silence. Dean burst out laughing. ‘Ah, little brother, she got you there, didn’t she? Poor sucker. I hope you think she’s worth it!’
‘Get out.’ Clay’s voice was low and furious.
Dean stared insolently at him. ‘Make me. You can’t, can you? You’ve never been able to, you yellow—’
Before Natalia had stifled her gasp, Clay had an armlock on the struggling, cursing Dean, flattening him so close against the wall that Dean had to whip his face sideways to be able to breathe.
Ignoring his stepbrother’s furious curses, Clay commanded, ‘Open the door, Natalia.’
Although Dean shouted and writhed, he couldn’t escape Clay’s grip. Natalia skirted them and pulled the door back against the wall. In one smooth, immensely powerful movement, Clay lifted Dean and hurled him through the doorway.
Seldom, Natalia thought vengefully, had she enjoyed anything so much as seeing Dean Jamieson skid on to the path outside and lie there for an astonished, humiliated moment with rain pelting down on him. All dignity fled, he scrambled to his feet.
‘Come out and fight like a man,’ he blustered, but with a fleeting air of nervousness that robbed his innuendoes of their poison.
‘When I find a man to fight I might,’ Clay said coolly.
Dean stood his ground, until Clay took a step towards him. Backing away, he shouted, ‘Well, Natalia, when you get sick of this jerk give me a ring—I might be tempted, although I certainly won’t pay for your services!’
He turned; Natalia realised that he was nowhere as confident as he wanted to seem. Indeed, he scrabbled for the gate and got himself through it with a speed that was both ludicrous and embarrassing.
As Clay shut the door she dragged in a deep breath and said, ‘You had to live with that for how long?’
‘Ten years, give or take a few months,’ Clay said levelly.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said numbly.
‘What for?’
She shuddered. ‘Sorry that for a few weeks I found him interesting and entertaining. It left you open to that—that flood of malice and lies.’ Wiping a shaking hand across her mouth, she said, ‘He must be utterly stupid to think we’d believe him.’
Clay reached out and pulled her into his arms. The aggression he’d disciplined so ferociously hummed through him like an electric current, and as he lifted her she could feel it transmuting into sexual energy.
Kissing her throat, he said, ‘His father always did. And I’m sorry that those ten years of hating me gave him the chance to score off me by tormenting you. I couldn’t touch him because I’d have killed him.’
‘You’ve got far more control than he has,’ she said, linking her arms around his neck. ‘Forget him—he’s not worth wasting another moment over.’
‘I’ve already wasted too much of my life on him,’ he said harshly, and strode with her down the hall and into their bedroom.
Into his bedroom, because she’d never been more than a temporary guest. But after tonight, she thought fiercely, he’d never make love to another woman in this room without remembering Natalia Gerner.
She’d lay claim to him with passion and fire and a searing completeness that would imprint her on his memory until the day he died.
He went to put her down on the bed, but she said, ‘No. I want to make love to you,’ so he lowered her to the ground.
His eyes narrowed as he surveyed her. ‘I thought you always did.’
‘Humour me.’
She caught the reservation in his eyes, noted the momentary compression of his mouth, and thought, You don’t like that, do you? Control is so important to you, and this time you won’t be in control. This time is for me.
Carefully she removed his jacket and the black tie, kissing his tanned throat; carefully, her hands deliberate and caressing, she took out dress-studs, cufflinks, kissing the corded veins and sinews of his wrist, the palms of his hands, feeling with a potent pleasure his powerful muscles clench as her mouth clung to his skin.
When the white shirt was peeled away her breath caught. ‘You are completely, wonderfully magnificent,’ she whispered, sliding her hands up his arms, across his shoulders, then following the fine antique pattern of body hair down to his waist. His midriff contracted at her touch, and his face clamped into a watchful mask.
The sensual magic was working on her too, of course; already she could feel the delicious contrast between her tense muscles and the honeyed looseness hidden inside her, where her body was readying itself for him.
She sank to her knees and took off his shoes and socks, then rose and flicked his belt free and worked his trousers down, kissing the iron muscles of his thighs.
‘That’s enough,’ he suddenly growled in a strained voice. Strong hands grabbed her shoulders, pulled her upright.
Natalia met the goaded, wary blaze of his eyes with a smile, then leaned forward to brush her heavy eyelashes over each nipple in turn.
His chest rose and fell on a sharp, harsh breath. ‘Now it’s my turn,’ he said thickly.
But she shook her head. ‘Not yet,’ she murmured, and began to undress.
Dean was not the only man who’d called her a tease—it had happened with other frustrated men who hadn’t been able to believe that she didn’t want to make love with them. This time she deliberately adopted the persona, the mask.
Clay was too sophisticated to enjoy the obvious bump and grind routine, so she didn’t even try. Instead she held his smouldering gaze with her own as she sinuously discarded her clothes, until she stood before him with nothing on but her thin silk briefs.
Arousal burned across the starkly prominent framework of his face. ‘Are you trying to drive me crazy?’ he asked in dangerously quiet tones.
‘I certainly hope so.’ Feline promise purred in each word.
He laughed deep in his throat. ‘What next, then?’
‘I think you should get into bed,’ she said. A flicker of nervousness shivered through her, tarnishing for a second the heat of unsatisfied desire.
She banished it. She’d gone too far to turn back now.
Clay might never love her, but she loved him. Just this once she’d give him everything she could, use the erotic skills and knowledge she’d gained these past weeks to imprint herself on his life for ever.
With the male grace that was particularly his, he got into the bed, lean golden length stretched out across the white sheets, a dark lord waiting to be pleasured. Yet Natalia sensed the ambivalence in him.
No wonder! A childhood like his was almost guaranteed to turn him into a man who needed to retain authority. Tonight he was going to discover the joys of letting go, of being the one who received rather than gave.
‘Lie on your front,’ she said.
His brows shot up. ‘On my front?’
Bending, she bit gently into the smooth swell of his shoulder, letting him feel the sharpness of her teeth, then kissing the small red mark. ‘On your front,’ she repeated.
‘Will I ever get the chance to order you around?’ he asked in a voice charged with lazy sensuality.
Her heart began to pump wildly. ‘Perhaps.’
Laughing quietly, he turned and presented his back to her, his profile an autocratic silhouette against the pillow.
Such sheer masculine beauty brought an ache to her throat. Why hadn’t she asked him to pose for her?
Well, she could commit his image to her memory, mentally draw the golden wedge of shoulders to hips, the clean male lines, the flexible indentation of his spine, the taut curves of
his backside and the long, strong legs.
Dry-mouthed, determined, she knelt beside him, and with her fingertips began to touch him so lightly she could scarcely feel anything of his skin beyond the heat; she concentrated on lifting the unseen body hairs, floating the tips of her fingers across the sinews where his neck joined his body, over tanned skin smooth as glove leather, feeling invisible hairs lick the sensitive skin of her fingertips—and hoping that such a subtle caress had the same effect on him as it had on her.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ he demanded gutturally.
‘Don’t you like it?’
After a taut second he gave a muffled, mirthless laugh. ‘Too much. Have you taken lessons in seduction?’
‘Only from you,’ she said in a low voice, moving that maddening massage to his shoulders. It was torment to her too—as she softened and grew hot inside she had to stop herself from pressing into the coil and flex and contraction of muscle.
Beneath her fingertips his skin shuddered, and sweat began to glisten in the light of the lamps.
Lovingly Natalia attended to those parts of him she’d discovered to be extra sensitive; she swept an invisible current of sexuality down his spine before lingering on the hollows of his back, delicately skating across the tight buttocks.
Aware only of the thudding of her heart, of the unfelt texture of his skin, of the heat and scent of aroused male, of his bespelled, reluctant acquiescence, she canvassed the inside of his thighs and his calves, rejoicing at the quivering pull of muscle beneath the skin, the tension that gripped him when she reached the soles of his feet.
‘Roll over,’ she said, surprised at the hoarse note in her voice. Of course her unhurried, loving exploration of his body, her claim-staking progress, had fired her too. Liquid need weakened her; when he rolled over shock at his rampant readiness clouded her brain.
The fierce command in his face—the stark hunger there—was its own reward, and she settled down to work her way down his front with her skimming, almost-caresses.
Immediately his heavy eyelids lowered so that all she could see through the thick lashes were slivers of incandescent gold. His hands suddenly knotted by his sides and he turned his head restlessly on the pillow.