by Penny Jordan
A buffet supper had been set out in an adjoining room, but mouthwatering though it looked Chelsea found she seemed to have lost her appetite.
After everyone had eaten the mood of the evening seemed to change, set by the slower, more sensual numbers played by the band. Sandy looked frankly delighted when Tom bore her away to dance, and the dance floor filled up very quickly with couples obviously content to do little more than simply sway in one another’s arms.
The coiled tension of her stomach muscles warned her of what to expect next, and it came as no surprise when Slade stood up and reached for her.
The evening was beginning to form a very definite pattern, and Chelsea shivered as she considered its probable outcome. Without saying a word Slade was making it very plain that this time he was directing the course of events and that they would not be allowed to wander from the path he had chosen for them.
The main lights had been dimmed, and she trembled as Slade drew her into his arms, his embrace seemingly casual, but in reality tautly effective, making it impossible to break away from the close proximity of his body.
The pressure of his hand in the small of her back forced her body against him, each brush of thigh against thigh as they moved in time to the music sending shudders of awareness coursing through her. Her mouth felt dry and her heart as heavy as lead. There was no doubt in her mind now that Slade intended to reconstruct fully the events of the night they had met—nor of his intended finale. This time she could hardly flag down a passing taxi to take her home.
The music stopped. Slade’s hands slid upwards to her shoulders, his mouth against her temple. It moved to her ear.
‘The night we met,’ he murmured softly, ‘I looked at you and knew I had to make love to you, but you cheated on me, didn’t you, Chelsea? You led me on with every enticing movement of your body, with every trick you’ve learned in the arms of God knows how many men.’
Her heart was thudding with painful intensity.
‘Slade…’ It hurt to say his name. Her throat was tight and aching with misery.
He lowered his head.
‘You can’t wait for us to be alone?’ he murmured tauntingly. ‘Is that it? That’s what your body told me, the last time we danced like this.’
It was no use; she couldn’t plead with him or make him understand. Her body sagged against him in defeat. Then the music stopped, and Sandy and Tom materialised at their side.
‘Well, that’s almost it,’ Tom announced. ‘Are you two ready to leave? It’s a hard life for us farmers, we’ve got to be up before dawn—milking,’ he added for Chelsea’s benefit.
For one wild moment she was tempted to say that she had decided against returning to the Dower House and that she would stay at the hotel instead, but as though he read her mind, the hard tightening of Slade’s fingers on her shoulder warned her that he was perfectly capable of announcing that he would stay with her. At least at the Dower House what happened between them would be mercifully cloaked in privacy. Suddenly she was too tired to fight him any longer; her bout of ‘flu seemed to have depleted all her reserves of energy. Nothing she could say was going to convince him if his own contempt for her wasn’t sufficient to overcome his need to restore his ego.
Telling herself that she despised him, Chelsea allowed him to guide her out to the Range Rover.
It was a crisp winter night. Just enough snow remained to lend a Christmas card prettiness to the hills, now laced with silver ice. A full moon shone from a breathtakingly clear sky. Chelsea couldn’t remember when she had last seen the stars shine so brilliantly, and the air was cold enough to make her lungs ache when she breathed.
Once in the Range Rover Slade made no attempt to touch her. What had she expected? she wondered ironically; he probably knew as well as she did exactly the effect nervous apprehension was having on her nervous system; knew and enjoyed, she added bitterly. She was fast approaching the point where she was close to simply urging him appease his desire for retribution and then leave her alone.
The Dower House seemed to materialise all too quickly. While she was hesitating about prolonging the inevitable by inviting Tom and Sandy in for a cup of coffee, Slade calmly closed the Range Rover door, and turned her towards the house.
‘Would you like a nightcap?’ The smooth urbanity of the question jarred over her tensed nerves. She longed to scream at him to stop toying with her, but pride forced the bubble of hysteria down.
‘No, thanks,’ she replied as calmly as she could. ‘I’m tired, I think I’ll go straight to bed.’
She was just congratulating herself on having gained a temporary reprieve when he replied softly, ‘What an excellent idea!’ and before she could stop him he had bent to lift her in his arms. Just for a second his eyes were close enough for her to see the tiny golden flecks, molten tonight with what she thought must be anger, and then he was taking the stairs two at a time, and she knew with a sinking heart that tonight there was going to be no clamouring telephone; nothing in fact but the implacability she had read in his face as he bent towards her.
Inside his room he swung her to her feet and studied her for a moment before saying softly, ‘Wise girl. I mean to have tonight what you so freely offered me once before, but on my terms, not yours, Chelsea, and they include complete abandonment of your body to me,’ he told her huskily, ‘not just the token emotion you assume for your other lovers, do you understand?’
How could she not do? She closed her eyes when she felt his fingers withdrawing the securing pins from her hair. It fell over her shoulders, cloaking them in a silky dark red swathe. Her dress followed the pins already scattered on the floor, her chin tilting defiantly as it fell to the floor with a soft whisper, exposing her body to what she had expected to be his cynically detached scrutiny. This wasn’t desire, it was retribution, and yet the look in Slade’s eyes as they roamed hotly over her body was one that turned her bones to liquid and sparked off a response deep inside her that she couldn’t control.
‘Chelsea!’ Her name was muffled by the pressure of his mouth against her throat, the throbbing urgency of his thighs as he held her against him making a lie out of her mental assertion that he didn’t desire her. He did, and with an intensity that evoked an answering response within her. She had told herself that his victory would be a hollow one, culminating in the unavoidable knowledge that before him there had been no other men. She had told herself that she knew him well enough to know that he would be mortified by his own lack of judgment, and that that would be her victory.
But she didn’t know the man holding her with a hunger he wasn’t trying to hide and that showed in the way his hands moulded her against him and his mouth savaged the soft skin of her throat, his heart thudding rapidly against her.
‘Chelsea!’ He said her name thickly, breathing unevenly, his skin flushed and damp. A great well of tenderness rose up inside her, as her arms reached up to draw him down against her breast, his smothered groan filling her with spiralling excitement as she reached down to smooth the dark hair.
‘God, I want you!’ He muttered it against the warm curve of her breasts, cupping them with his hands as his mouth lifted in urgent possession to her own.
Weakly Chelsea clung to him, sliding her hands inside his jacket, and then when she discovered that it wasn’t enough, tugging impatiently at the tiny pearl buttons fastening his shirt. Slade seemed as eager as she was for her to touch his skin, his hands leaving her breasts to wrench open his shirt and discard it along with his jacket. As though they had hungered for the faintly abrasive touch of his hair-shadowed chest her nipples flowered instantly against him. Slade’s response was to kiss her mouth deeply, and then she felt him lifting her and the depression of his bed beneath her.
‘No…’ He checked her faint movement to cling to him, looking down at her. ‘God, the number of times I’ve imagined you like this, until I’ve thought I must be going out of my mind!’
His fingers sought and found the clip fastening her su
spender belt. Her silky stockings were removed; Slade’s lips lingered briefly on the soft, tender skin of her thighs, making her tremble slightly as he moved upwards, discarding the rest of his own clothes. His thighs with their dark covering of hair looked frighteningly powerful against the pale delicacy of her own. Fear and desire mingled in the pit of her stomach in an explosive mixture. She had expected Slade to take her with cold contempt, but instead he was lingering over each caress, arousing her as gently as though he knew that this was the first time she had experienced such intimacies. Her stomach muscles clenched protestingly as his mouth teased kisses over its tender swell. When he reached the barrier of her tiny briefs her husky ‘No!’ drew a surprised glance, but he made no comment, sliding his palms silkily up under her rib cage as he drew her down against him, his lips and tongue playing delicately with the aching burgeoning of her breasts until she writhed heatedly beneath him, her fingernails digging into the unyielding flesh of his back until he silenced her husky cries with the fierce pressure of his mouth.
When his hands returned to her briefs Chelsea had no thought of protesting. The lazy caress of his thumbs against her hips unleashed a frenzied need to arch her body against his and feel the heated urgency of its masculine thrust.
Beneath her palms his skin felt moist and hot, the muttered urgency of her name as it left his lips driving out any fear she might have felt as he slid between her thighs, lifting her up against him and burying his mouth in hers, inducing a hot velvet languor.
Dimly she was aware of some outside irritation, and that Slade was aware of it too she could tell by the sudden tensing of his body. Whatever it was she didn’t want it to intrude, and she wound her arms round his neck, murmuring soft protests as he released her mouth.
‘History repeating itself with a vengeance,’ he muttered thickly, lifting his head. ‘Someone’s knocking on the door, and by the sound of it whoever it is doesn’t intend to go quietly away.’
He slid off the bed, reaching for his trousers. Chelsea sat up behind him, drawing her knees up under her chin, shivering with reaction.
Slade turned suddenly to cup her chin, studying her faintly bruised mouth and slumbrous expression.
‘No need to look so disappointed,’ he whispered. ‘I’ll be back, and the anticipation will only heighten the pleasure.’ He kissed her lightly but with an assurance that told her he knew exactly how much he had aroused her.
Pulling on a sweater, he fastened his trousers and opened the door. Chelsea heard him going downstairs and then the front door opening. Straining her ears, she crept closer to the open door, transfixed with shock when she heard Kirsty’s familiar voice saying enthusiastically, ‘Slade, I thought you were in New York! Is Chelsea here?’
Moving with a speed which was purely instinctive, Chelsea gathered up her clothes and fled to her own room. Kirsty! What on earth was she doing here? Quickly finding her robe, she pulled it on and belted it, as she hurried to the top of the stairs, knowing that Slade was hardly likely to tell Kirsty exactly what she had interrupted. At the top of the stairs she stopped. Kirsty wasn’t alone. There was a tall gangly fair-haired boy with her—
Kirsty glanced upwards and saw her standing at the head of the stairs, and a grin split her face.
‘Chelsea! Were you asleep? Sorry to descend on you like this, but when I told Ma and Pa I was coming up here with Lance for a few days they said I had to come and see you.’ She gave her aunt a mischievous grin, but before she could speak Slade was saying curtly,
‘Look, it’s nearly two in the morning. I suggest we all try and get some sleep for what’s left of the night and then you can talk in the morning.’
Kirsty raised her eyebrows. ‘Is he always as grumpy as this when he wakes up,’ she questioned Chelsea, ‘Or have we simply called at the wrong moment?’
‘Kirsty!’ Lance muttered warningly. ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he apologised. ‘We would have been here earlier, but my old banger broke down just outside Newcastle, and we had to get it fixed. I’m at university there and I told Kirsty we ought to stay there overnight and come on here tomorrow, but she wouldn’t have it. Stubborn as a mule,’ he added direfully, looking at her.
Kirsty laughed and put out her tongue. ‘It runs in the family,’ she said merrily, ‘doesn’t it, Auntie?’
Slade frowned. ‘Chelsea is your aunt?’
‘Yep, that’s right,’ Kirsty agreed cheerfully, ‘Chelsea, you’ll catch your death in that,’ she commented practically. ‘Why don’t you tell us where we can sleep and we can talk in the morning?’
‘You can share my bed,’ Chelsea heard herself saying weakly as she avoided Slade’s eyes. ‘Er…’
‘Lance can have the room next to mine,’ Slade supplied. ‘The bed’s made up in there.’
‘Come on,’ Kirsty commanded, bounding up the stairs and grasping Chelsea’s arm. ‘I’ve got about a million messages to give you from Mum.’ She bent her head and giggled as she looked down the flight of stairs at Slade. ‘When Dad told her you were up here with Slade, she was like a mother hen whose chicken had wandered down a foxhole! You and I,’ she told her aunt severely, ‘have a lot to talk about.’
Once inside her room, Chelsea turned wearily to her niece. ‘Kirsty, please,’ she murmured, ‘not tonight!’
Kirsty frowned and eyed her worriedly, ‘Has Slade been giving you a bad time? Okay, okay, we’ll talk about it in the morning,’ she agreed when Chelsea’s body sagged. ‘But honestly, Chelsea—Mum I can understand, but I’d thought better of you. You must be losing your mind if you thought I’d ever be stupid enough to fall for Slade! He’s way, way out of my league. I wasn’t madly in love with him, stupid,’ she said softly, ‘I just wanted to try and persuade him to use his influence to make Mum and Dad see that just because acting didn’t suit you it didn’t mean that it wouldn’t suit me. I got talking to him about it one day, and he was so nice and sympathetic I thought it wouldn’t do any harm to try and work round to him dropping the odd hint to Dad about letting little birdies fly the nest, with him being Dad’s boss and everything.’
‘You weren’t in love with him?’
Kirsty rolled her eyes and grinned. ‘At my age? You must be joking! I’m not going to fall in love until I’m at least twenty-six. Oh, come on, Cee,’ she protested, reverting to her childhood pet name for her aunt, ‘you can’t honestly believe I’m stupid enough to think a man of Slade’s experience would be interested in a kid like me, nor inexperienced enough to run a mile if I thought he was?’ she added wryly. ‘He sees me as a kid, that’s all. He’s no Darren, you know,’ she added gruffly. ‘I thought you’d have been able to see that.’
Out of the mouths of babes, Chelsea thought wearily as she lay on the edge of sleep, Kirsty breathing evenly beside her. Of course he wasn’t another Darren; and if she’d had the slightest scrap of sense she would have known it. She thought back, looking for indications of the same weakness in Slade which had marred Darren, but there had been none—quite the contrary. What she had done was to allow her prejudices and imagination into deceiving her that he was how she had wanted to see him and not how he was, even to the extent of leaping to the totally erroneous belief that Sandy was another of his ‘victims’. In fact, if she was totally honest with herself Slade’s only resemblance to Darren lay in her vulnerability to him, she admitted uncomfortably. The whole ridiculous charade at the party had been for nothing. She could have wept when she realised the truth. If it hadn’t been for that she would never have come close enough to Slade to even think of falling in love with him; he would simply have been the owner of the Dower House, and he would have seen her merely as a rather dull and boring woman who didn’t attract him. How much heartache and pain she would have been saved if that had been the case! The heavy snowfalls had prevented her from finishing the tapestry as she had anticipated, but she estimated that by working non-stop she could finish inside a week. A week; it stretched interminably before her, a final obstacle to be overcome before she coul
d make her exit from Slade’s life—if possible without him discovering that she had been stupid enough to fall in love with him!
CHAPTER TEN
KIRSTY was still fast asleep when Chelsea woke up. Carefully avoiding waking the slumbering girl, she showered and dressed, telling herself that her anxiety to escape the bedroom without waking her had nothing to do with a cowardly desire to avoid any heart-to-heart with her niece.
She found Lance already in the kitchen filling the kettle. He gave Chelsea a tentative and slightly worried glance.
‘I’m sorry we’ve burst in on you like this,’ he apologised, ‘but Kirsty’s mum insisted that we came to see you when she knew we were going to be up in this direction.’
He went on to explain that one of his university friends was having a large twenty-first party in Newcastle and that he and Kirsty were going to it.
Chelsea assured him that she was delighted to see them both. He was a very pleasant boy who seemed to have grown tremendously in the last year but who still possessed the gangly awkwardness of adolescence. Chelsea liked him and knew that Ann and Ralph did too. Without Ralph’s sensible guiding hand she could quite see her sister encouraging Kirsty to settle down and marry her old playmate, but she reflected as she started to prepare breakfast, that Kirsty had her head screwed on far too firmly to get caught in the trap of a teenage marriage.
Kirsty and Slade arrived in the kitchen together just as she was cooking the bacon, and watching them together Chelsea wondered how she had ever been foolish enough to believe either of them to be romantically involved. Slade’s manner towards her niece was that of an indulgent adult towards a boisterous, puppyish, much younger person. Kirsty was allowed to flirt with him, but only in such a manner that she knew exactly how far she was permitted to go and ventured no farther. The vast gulf that lay between his indulgence for Kirsty and his attitude towards her struck Chelsea immediately. Surely she wasn’t jealous of her niece because Slade humoured and indulged her?