Her face burning, she lowered her eyes for fear he might read the feelings of longing and need stabbing through her. She knew despair that he could still affect her like this, to stir her senses to such a dangerous pitch in a way no other man, not even Matt, had been able to.
'Look at me!' commanded Slade in a low voice.
Shock reverberated through her whole being as she weakly obeyed and saw the total self-assurance in his eyes. With a faint smile he slid cool fingers down her feverish cheeks, a habit of his, she recalled, and was sure he was doing it deliberately to remind her. It was an intentional provocation—as though she wasn't disturbed enough!—to rouse the masses of electricity that he could evoke with the ease of pressing a switch.
She realised she should be fighting him but could only gaze at him blindly as his fingers traced the outline of her taut lips, then moved more swiftly along her jaw, through the thickness of her silky hair to capture the slender curve of her nape. His hand was gentle, yet she was intensely aware of the steel in its grip. A ruthlessness existed under the cloaking tolerance of his manner which she attempted to view with wariness but failed. How could she keep her thoughts fixed on all the devilish things she should remember about him when he was rapidly rendering her mindless?
When he lowered his mouth to tantalisingly explore the cheek his fingers had just caressed, instinctively she turned her head to accommodate his teasing lips. His continuing restraint, which she didn't know hid a desire to crush to the point of violence, inflamed her almost beyond endurance. She found it impossible to hide her response from him. In any case, the pounding of her heart under the thinness of her dress would have given her away. Wordlessly she remained clenched against him, only able to whisper his name.
As something in her tone revealed the extent of the hunger consuming her, his mouth found hers ruthlessly, with a demanding heat that in seconds had her weak and yielding, her hands clutching in his hair. It was earth-shaking. His kiss deepened to a hot, drugging sweetness that emptied her head of everything but a growing physical need. A wild recklessness filled her, sweeping aside the years since Slade had kissed her like this, with the force of a tidal wave. He didn't hurry, he knew just how much she could take before her resistance broke, but she was too carried away to care. He had her head tilted back to the command of his hand, and as his mouth explored every inch of her throat, soft broken moans escaped her bruised lips.
Lee felt her body melting bonelessly against him as he drifted his lips back across her face. She sensed that his caresses were deliberately prolonged, a careful seduction, but though her mind was still trying to warn her, she craved what he was doing to her. Dazedly she admitted she had never been able to resist.
Her hands were suddenly working frenziedly on his shirt, slipping it from under the waistband of his trousers. Too impatient to bother with buttons, she was acting like someone drunk, but with an unerring grasp of going after what she wanted. Slade helped her when once her fingers fumbled, he even guided her so she could rediscover the breadth of his chest. The mat of hair she found there made her palms tingle and she drew a sharp breath. She hadn't known how deprived she had been, or realised the devastating bleakness of her life until he was holding her like this.
Slade's own ragged breathing seemed to indicate that he was no less affected by the storm of desire sweeping through them than she was. Feeling that this implied that at least some of her attraction for him hadn't died, her heart began racing so fast she wondered if he could hear it? As his mouth invaded hers, then trailed another deluge of burning kisses over her face and neck, he aroused in her a sweet, aching torment that only he could satisfy. Need of him rippled through her like a burning tide, causing her arms to slide round his back to press him urgently closer.
His mouth was hard and hot and she shuddered, responding to his passion, matching it with her own. There was something primitive in the kisses they exchanged, the way he held her, but if she whimpered with unconscious pain he didn't hear her but went on kissing her like a man deprived.
Every bit of Lee came alive as sensation electrified every part of her body. It had been over five years, and during those years she had come to believe that such a capacity for feeling had been left behind with her teens.
She recalled emotions so intense she had been apprehensive of them, even ashamed. If she had been Slade's wife she could have lived with the wild wantonness he had filled her with every time he made love to her, but because she was only his mistress she had began to feel that such feelings should be suppressed. Yet within a few minutes of being in his arms once more, here she was, longing frantically to belong to him again.
When the telephone rang she heard herself begging him, in a voice she didn't recognise, not to answer it. She willed him not to answer it, being doubtful, if he left her now, that she would ever survive.
He muttered against her mouth, 'I've been a fool to stay away as long.' To her surprise his voice shook, though he controlled it as the ringing continued. 'You'd better answer it. If it's Matt, it could be for me.'
Stumbling from him, Lee picked up the receiver, only half aware of the implications of what he had said. It was Matt. 'Matt!' she exclaimed hoarsely. 'I—where are you? I thought you were busy.'
'I have to speak to Slade,' he said slowly, as if he recognised her confused state, even over the phone, and was disturbed by it.
'Sl—Slade?' she stammered.
'Are you all right, Lee?' Matt asked sharply, but before she could reply the receiver was taken from her hand. 'She's fine, Matt,' Slade said curtly. 'We're just talking over old times.'
CHAPTER FOUR
As Lee tried to find her voice through the anger that flooded her as Slade spoke, she became aware, from Slade's monosyllabic replies, that Matt was relaying some information he must have asked for. There was a brief pause, then Slade said smoothly, 'That's all I wanted to know. I'll see you tomorrow.'
He replaced the receiver without even having the decency to hand it back to her, but she was too incensed to notice. 'Why did you tell him you would be here?' she accused.
'Why should I not?' Slade countered coolly. 'It was important that he knew where to reach me.'
'You mustn't stay any longer,' she breathed, her anger turning to misery. 'He sounded suspicious.'
There was a long, pregnant silence, then he drew her into his arms again. 'Does it matter?' he asked, playing idly with a strand of her luxuriant long hair, Matt clearly already out of his mind.
'It does to me,' she replied, yet her voice lacked conviction. 'He won't know what to think.'
Slade lifted his broad shoulders indifferently. 'Maybe it will help to prepare him for the moment when you tell him you're through.'
'Never!'
'That's a long time,' he said dryly, covering her indignant mouth with his.
She tried to push him away, but could only offer halfhearted resistance to his sensual expertise. The subtle pressure of his kiss sent all aggression fleeing and, as her lips parted under the provocative insistence of his, she sagged against him weakly. In a daze, she heard him murmuring, 'What's mine I never give up, Lee. And don't pretend you don't still want me as much as I want you.'
She would have denied it if she had been able to hide the truth. Not only her body but her mind was on fire for him—there was no other way to describe the overwhelming force of the desire which flamed through every bit of her to the exclusion of everything else.
As Slade sensed her surrender some of his forcefulness faded. When he lifted her chin so he could look at her, his hand was gentle. 'Do you remember the first time we made love?' he asked thickly. 'It's a night I haven't been able to forget.'
'Nor me,' she whispered fervently, blue eyes darkening, as memories flooded back.
'I've tried to forget,' he groaned. 'Until I heard of your engagement, I thought I'd succeeded.'
Lee winced as his mouth twisted wryly, but she didn't move. His faint amusement, however, drove her to taunt, 'Haven't othe
r women helped?'
'No!' His humour, which she didn't know had been more a form of self-mockery, disappeared. 'Other women—or men—don't come into this. I want you, and there won't be any more running away this time. There won't be any escape.'
'I managed to before.'
Anger flickered briefly through his eyes. 'That was because I didn't believe it possible that you could turn your back on what we had.'
'Slade!' she implied, wanting to be reminded of anything but that! 'If you don't care about mine, won't you at least consider Matt's feelings?'
'No!' he retorted furiously.
She gulped at the unguarded violence in his face. 'But…'
Placing swift fingers over her lips, he stemmed further words. 'Matt's feelings will soon sort themselves out. Forget him.'
'I can't.' But she was speaking mechanically, protesting merely because she thought she should be, only a tiny part of her sincerely defending her commitment to Matt. Yet she gasped with near shock as Slade's lips descended again abruptly and struggled fiercely as the harshness of his kiss blotted Matt out completely. Her pulse leapt as Slade's plundering mouth ruthlessly removed her ability to think of anyone but him. Eyes closed, she trembled in his arms as he pushed his hot face into her neck, his mouth moving on her burning skin.
The years since they had last met might never have been, but there was a new element in his embrace that she sensed rather than understood. He no longer seemed to have the almost inhuman ability to control the strength of his feelings. She felt his heart pounding into her, almost hurting her with the intensity of its violent beat. His breathing was audible and uneven as he pressed hot lips to the pulsing perimeter of her throat. His passion consumed her until she felt as weak and helpless as a kitten, and he kept on kissing her until her legs threatened to withdraw their support.
Never before could she remember Slade making love to her quite like this, as if his emotions had moved on to a new and frightening plane. There was a wildness in him that suggested she had managed to unlock a door previously kept tightly closed and something rawly elemental was pouring through it out of him. Whatever it was she wasn't sure, but she found herself responding to it with a fierce exultation she made no attempt to hide. She felt an aching sensation flooding her lower limbs and was suddenly clinging to him, silently abandoning herself to the terrible driving urgency that had them both in its grip.
She wasn't really conscious of him removing their clothes with hands uncharacteristically unsteady. As desire mounted crazily inside her everything else was blotted from her mind. When he lifted her and laid her gently down on the thick rug in front of the fire, the hardness of the floor made little impression until he lowered himself on top of her. Even then she made no demur but arched herself blindly against him. Feeling the roughness of his chest scratching the softness of her breasts, she shivered with pleasure rather than pain. She heard the intake of his breath as their mouths met and clung, and the violence of their bodies meeting in searing impact made what they had known before seem like a milk-and-water thing by comparison.
Swiftly he parted her legs, not trying to hide his complete arousal. Other times he had enjoyed making slow love to her, making her wait when she had often begged him to take her, but now it seemed as if a dam had burst, sweeping everything before it, and with it the time or need for any preliminaries. Hot and breathless, Lee gasped, half crazed as he joined them almost savagely together, and her small tortured cry brought barely a pause to the thrusting hardness of his possession. Then, as passion spilled over them, consuming them, lifting them to a world completely removed from the one they were in, he brought her once more to that shuddering, ecstatic peak of delight that she had almost forgotten existed.
They lay in front of the fire together, but they could have been anywhere. They shared the aftermath of passion with the same sensitivity that had once held them so closely together. Lee trembled slightly and Slade made no attempt to leave her, and while she was happy that it should be so, she wished she could have avoided his searching eyes.
'I hurt you,' he frowned. 'I know I was impatient, but surely there've been others since me?'
'There's been no one,' she confessed raggedly, her hands slowly clenching, as the admission seemed torn from her.
'Why not?' he asked huskily, his eyes still boring into her. 'It's been a long time.'
It was a question she couldn't answer, for even before Matt men had never stopped issuing invitations which she had declined. It was something she had often wondered about herself—only now, in Slade's arms, did she suddenly know why. 'I couldn't—with another man,' she admitted, not sure she was being wise. Wasn't she vulnerable enough without Slade knowing this about her?
He kissed her softly, his mouth very gentle. 'Lee, my darling, the time we've wasted; the years we might have shared!'
'I don't know…' she whispered uncertainly, while wondering if he could be right. Her fingers wound through his hair and she was startled by the way his magnificent body trembled when she touched him, yet she could feel his stomach muscles clenching as if he was trying to hide it from her.
'It's been too long,' he said thickly, and she quivered as if a chill wind had suddenly touched her.
'Yes,' she agreed dully. The shock of her accident, the subsequent loss of memory had dulled the edge of her passion for him, helping her to stop rushing back to him as she had been tempted to do on her flight from Paris, when her body had been tormented with raw need for the man she had been fleeing from. The anguish it had aroused had made her careless and the car had knocked her down, and though she had recovered her memory, the six months she had spent with Slade had remained blurred.
The remark of a doctor came back to her. 'Some things you might not remember because you don't want to,' he had warned. She realised that the exact degree of her involvement with Slade might have been the kind of thing he was referring to. Yet now that she experienced full recall, she couldn't help feeling apprehensive of it. There was no doubting Slade's renewed ardency, but did the future hold anything more for her now than it had done before?
'Could you marry Matt now?' asked Slade, the confidence in his voice challenging her to say she could.
'No,' she sighed, knowing it wouldn't be possible, not after what had just taken place.
He murmured against her cheek, 'I'm glad you've decided to be sensible.'
Sensible? Her eyes were briefly troubled. Slade was devious. In some ways she had never got close to him, and there were some things on which they might never agree, but while the breaking of her engagement was unavoidable, she doubted if it could be called sensible.
'You'll tell him tomorrow?' Slade urged.
'Tomorrow?'
His eyes hardened. 'The sooner the better.'
'I suppose so,' she nodded, wishing she could spare Matt the hurt he was going to suffer but aware that there was no other course open to her.
Satisfied, Slade kissed her gently again, like a kind of reward. 'You won't regret it,' he promised magnanimously, slowly disentangling their limbs and getting to his feet.
'Where are you going?' she asked, feeling too lethargic to move. Her heartbeats increased as she watched unashamedly, as he pulled on his pants. He had a magnificent body, broad shoulders, narrow hips and powerful thighs. Something of a rumoured Continental ancestor seemed reflected in the angle of his head and the strength of his long, muscled legs. He might certainly have some Latin blood in his veins, she thought, knowing the extreme passion he was capable of.
'I want to ring my mother and tell her I won't be home tonight,' he replied, pulling up his zip. 'I only got home a few hours ago and she might be wondering where I've got to.'
'You—you won't mention you're here?' she queried uncertainly.
'No,' he shot her a cynical glance as she sat up sharply and swiftly grabbed a rug from the sofa to cover her nakedness. 'For your sake, though, not mine.'
Lee flushed, not looking at him. 'You could go home—later.'
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'Ah,' he grinned, a sudden gleam in his eye, 'so you aren't willing to part with me yet?'
Her hot cheeks grew even hotter as he picked up the phone and dialled his home number and after leaving a message returned to her. 'She gets alarmed if I just disappear. You don't mind, do you?'
She knew he occasionally used a bodyguard, but that wasn't so unusual for business men in the present decade, though it was a facility he made more use of abroad than in the U.K. 'How is your mother?' she asked, trying to believe that Mrs Western wouldn't be wondering where he was.
'Fine,' he said quietly. 'Making more fuss over my unmarried state but, on the whole, just the same.'
'You're staying a while, I hear?'
'The house needs to be lived in,' he retorted briefly, crouching by her side.
'You've never married?' She remembered his mother had always wished he would.
'No,' he smiled carelessly into her uncertain eyes. 'I'm not the marrying sort, as you well know. I've seen too many good relationships ruined by the presence of that little gold ring.'
Lee suspected the reason why Slade had never married was more complex than that, though it might simply be that he had never met the right girl. A chill went over her as she managed to reply lightly, 'If people marry for the right reasons it should have every chance of being a success.'
He continued to grin lazily, his eyes curiously blank. 'Our kind of association is the best. What we have can only improve.'
'How?'
'As if you didn't know, my beautiful darling,' he teased, bending forward to kiss her pouting lips. 'You're even better than you used to be, and that's saying something! I'm utterly captivated. I want to stay with you—see the dawn in with you, and I've never wanted to do that with another woman.'
Lee had heard it rumoured that when he took a woman home he rarely lingered, but that didn't make her feel any happier. Unconsciously she shivered.
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