She willed her legs to carry her away from him, but his arm was hard and warm about her waist before she had succeeded in taking the first step.
'You're trembling.'
That did not surprise her in the least. Her entire body had begun to pulsate with an awareness of danger, and she stammered foolishly, 'I—I can't imagine w-why.'
'Can't you?' His fingers were beneath her chin, tipping up her face, and the smouldering fire in his eyes made the blood pound faster through her veins. 'I think we have both known that something like this might happen. It was unavoidable, and there is no sense in fighting against it.'
She wished she could have said that she did not know what he was talking about, but that would not have been true. If nothing else remained, then the physical attraction was still there, and it was as strong now as it had been five years ago. For Christie the attraction went far deeper. She had fought against it, she had denied it, but now she could no longer ignore it. She still loved this man who had walked out on their marriage all those years ago.
His arm about her waist tightened, and she was caught up against his hard body. She could see the danger signals flashing in those compelling eyes, and she could feel it in the fingers sliding in a lazy caress along her cheek. Her lethargic mind came alive and flashed out a desperate warning, but her body refused to listen. She stood there in the circle of his arm, almost too afraid to breathe, her heart pounding against his hand which was spread out across her rib-cage.
Christie felt oddly weightless as Lyle muttered something unintelligible and turned her fully into his embrace. Her hands were against his hair-roughened chest in a half-hearted attempt to ward off the inevitable, but the texture and warmth of his skin against her palms ignited a flame inside her. She could feel his heart beating as wildly as her own, and she had a brief glimpse of a faintly triumphant gleam in his eyes before he snuffed out the flame of the candle.
She felt trapped in the moonlit darkness, chained by his arms, and drugged by the sensual, probing pressure of his mouth against hers. If she wanted to escape, then she had to do so now, but his hands were on her hips, moulding her body into the curve of his until the length of his thighs were pressed against her own. His hips moved against her, making her aware of his need, and a half-forgotten, quivering warmth erupted in the lower half of her body. If her mind was still urging her to resist, then she was no longer listening. Her emotions had taken over to dictate her actions, and her lips moved in response beneath his, while her hands slid up over his chest to become locked in the short dark hair at the nape of his neck.
Lyle drew back slightly, and for one terrible moment she thought that he had decided to reject her, but she was lifted in his arms as if she weighed nothing at all while he carried her into the area partitioned off as his sleeping quarters. His mouth sought hers again in the darkness when he set her on her feet, and her arms were still locked about his neck when his hands slid up beneath her sweater to cup the soft swell of her breasts.
'Lyle!' she groaned against his mouth, the familiar intimacy of his touch sending a breath of sanity wafting through her mind. 'This is… crazy!' she protested weakly.
'I want you, and I'm damned if I'm not going to have you.'
'You'll hate yourself in the morning,' she warned, recalling against her will his displeasure, and his savage anger which she still failed to understand.
'I probably will hate myself,' he grunted, his lips against that fluttering pulse at the base of her throat. 'But at this moment I don't really care.'
'Oh, God!' she breathed jerkily when he lifted her sweater and pulled it off over her head.
The zip of her slacks offered no resistance, and he peeled off the rest of her clothes, lowering her on to the inflated mattress as he did so. Her sandals were tugged off and flung aside, and then he was shedding his own clothes before he followed her down on to the mattress.
He drew her closer to him with a hint of impatience in his touch, and he cradled her softness against his hard frame. His heated flesh against her own made her tremble with the awakening of long-suppressed emotions, and she felt strangely like someone who had arrived home after a long, tiresome journey. She combed her fingers through his hair for the sheer joy of feeling its softness, and drew his head down to hers until his mouth closed over her seeking, parted lips.
Lyle's hands explored her body, his fingers trailing over her heated skin like butterfly wings until it felt as if every nerve was vitally alive and tingling in response. His mouth left hers, and she drew a ragged breath as he trailed a path of burning kisses along her sensitive skin, across her creamy shoulder and down to her breasts. With his lips and tongue he teased the rosy peaks of her breasts into hard buttons of achingly sweet desire, and it was then, for one fleeting moment, that an element of doubt entered her drugged mind once again. This was wrong. They were bound to regret their actions. Withdrawal was the answer, but Lyle's hand slid down across her flat stomach, and the intimacy of his caress left no room for coherent thought. The fire inside her was being coaxed into a raging inferno, and her taut, quivering body was aching for the fulfilment it had been denied all these years.
'Lyle…' Her voice was a husky whisper, and almost unrecognisable as her desire mounted with every intimate caress. 'It's been… so long.'
'Do you want me?' he questioned throatily and, intoxicated with the sensations he was arousing, she could not lie to him.
'You know I do.'
'Say it so that I can know you mean it,' he commanded.
'I want you,' she obeyed him like someone without a mind of her own while she planted frantic little kisses along his throat and shoulder, tasting the damp saltiness of his skin against her tongue. 'I want you.'
'How many men have there been these past five years?'
'There haven't… been any… men,' she gasped, his lips and hands on her burning flesh arousing her to a fever pitch of desire she had never known before.
'Do you expect me to believe that?' he continued to interrogate her while her conscious mind was in no position to object.
'God help me, it's… the truth!'
His hands stilled on her body, and his eyes glittered strangely in the semi-darkness when he raised his head. 'I think I actually believe you.'
'Lyle, please!' she begged hoarsely, her hands clutching at his wide shoulders, and her taut body aching with a need which was becoming almost intolerable. 'Don't torment me like this!'
Her plea seemed to amuse him. He laughed throatily, but it was a triumphant laugh tinged with an anger she did not have time to analyse. His desire unleashed was something violent, and in the fusion of their bodies Christie smothered a cry of protest and pleasure against Lyle's shoulder.
She was conscious only of the feel and taste of him as the thrusting rhythm of his body piled sensation upon sensation until that exquisite tension snapped inside her, and spiralled repeatedly throughout her entire body. Christie felt the shuddering weight of Lyle's body pressing her deeper into the mattress, and his groan of pleasure added to her joyous satisfaction. His heart was thundering into hers with a force and swiftness that matched her own, and Christie could almost make herself believe that the nightmare of the past five years had been a figment of her imagination.
Lyle nuzzled that sensitive spot behind her ear and growled unsteadily, 'I'd forgotten how good it was to make love to you.'
He had forgotten how good it was to make love to her. Was that all he could say? Disappointment hastened the transition from rapture to reality and, when Lyle rolled away from her a few moments later, her mind was filled with cold logic rather than contentment.
'Were there many women, Lyle?'
'There were a few,' he admitted, sitting up with his broad back facing her while an icy, unreasonable anger surged through her. She got up and dressed herself without looking at Lyle, but she must have conveyed some of her displeasure to him during those awkward, silent moments. 'I'm a man, Christie, and I have a normal sexual appetite,' he
announced with an angry impatience. 'Did you imagine I would live the life of a celibate after our marriage collapsed?'
Christie could not answer that question, but she retaliated swiftly with a question of her own. 'Is Sonia Deacon one of those women?'
She was observing him over her shoulder while she zipped herself into her slacks, and she was grateful for the darkness in the tent when his cold, controlled voice rebuked her with, 'That's none of your business!'
He could not have hurt her more if he had plunged a knife into her heart. Fiery tears stung her eyes, but somehow she managed to hold her head high when she walked out of Lyle's tent. She despised him, but at that precise moment she despised herself a great deal more.
CHAPTER FIVE
Christie awoke on the Monday morning with a feeling of dread lodged like a heavy weight on her chest. She could not at first think why, and then she remembered every intimate and embarrassing detail of what had happened between Lyle and herself in the night. She had been a fool to allow herself to be ruled by her emotions, and now she would have to pay the price for her folly. She felt cheap and small, and she had no idea how she was going to cope with having to face Lyle during the remaining two weeks of their stay in the bush veld.
The students were moving about in the camp, and the hiss of the gas stove told her that breakfast was being prepared. Christie wriggled out of her sleeping bag and poured water into the plastic basin on the stand in the corner of the tent. She washed and brushed her teeth, wishing that she could wash away that feeling of cheapness, but it lingered like an invisible label to remind her of her foolishness. She cursed Lyle silently, but she cursed herself even more for allowing herself to be caught up in that trap of emotion she had practically set up for herself. The motivation for her had been love, but for Lyle she had simply been one of the many women he had made love to over the years. I'd forgotten how good it was to make love to you, he had said. Perhaps she should have taken that as a compliment, but instead she had been left with the feeling that she had behaved like a cheap wanton who had been only too willing to add her name once again to that long list of his conquests.
She groaned inwardly, realising that the only good thing about last night was that it had helped her to forget about the mamba and her nervousness of being alone in her tent.
The saucepan clanged to announce that breakfast was ready, and she steeled herself to go out and face Lyle. He was standing with his back to her, talking to Dennis and Mike while they waited to be served, and Christie's unobtrusive glance took in the width of his shoulders beneath the blue shirt, and the khaki shorts hugging his lean hips. His long, muscular legs were tanned, and his feet were encased in comfortable suede boots. She could still recall the feel of his lean, hard body against her own, and a hot flush stained her cheeks when she thought of the intimacies they had shared. He looked up when she passed him, and his cool, impersonal glance was like a reviving shot in the arm when she took her place at the end of the queue and tried to ease the rapid beat of her heart.
'Take it easy! Stay calm!' she warned herself, but, when she recalled how Lyle had questioned her about her personal life, a stormy anger took possession of her. Crazed with passion, she had told him everything he had wanted to know, and he could no longer doubt that he was still the first and only man ever to touch her intimately. She had boosted his ego for him, and then he had literally slammed the door in her face by telling her to mind her own business where his sexual encounters were concerned.
Fury, like an angry volcano, simmered inside her. If Lyle had wanted revenge, then he had succeeded in his objective, but she would never forgive him for making her feel like a cheap slut who had been only too willing and eager to fall into bed with him.
It was Christie's anger that helped her through the rest of that gruelling day in the heat and dust. With a brush and a small trowel she worked alongside the students in their search for further evidence of a race which had existed a thousand years ago. The worst ordeal was having to sit down in Lyle's tent while he dictated the technical data pertaining to their findings that day. Her mind wandered back to the night before, cruelly conjuring up images of what had occurred, and it took a tremendous effort to sit there calmly, taking down what Lyle dictated while he paced about restlessly. Several times that morning she had caught him looking at her strangely, and he was looking at her now. She could feel his dark eyes boring into her, willing her to meet his probing glance, but she kept her eyes on her notebook with a determined effort that left her feeling drained and exhausted when she was finally left alone to get on with her typing.
Christie's head felt as if it had taken a battering that left it sensitive and bruised, and the shrill sound of the cicadas on that hot day aggravated the dull headache she had been nursing since early that morning. The heat was oppressive, as if a storm was brewing, but there were no clouds in the sky, and not the slightest suggestion of a breeze to ease her discomfort. She was drenched in perspiration when she pulled the last sheet of paper out of the typewriter. She longed for a refreshing swim in the river, and she was in no mood for a confrontation with Lyle when he walked into the tent and deliberately barred her way when she was about to leave.
'Where are you going?' he demanded, looking down at her from his great height with those strangely probing eyes.
'I have typed out your notes, and I was going down to the pool for a swim,' she explained tritely. 'Was there something else you wanted me to do, Professor?'
'Don't call me that!' he barked angrily.
'That's what you are, isn't it?'
'Dammit, Christie!' he exploded savagely in the wake of her sarcastic query, then he made a visible effort to control himself. 'About last night…'
'I don't wish to discuss it!' she interrupted him sharply, her hands clenched so tightly at her sides that her nails bit into her palms. 'It was something that should never have happened, and for the rest of my life I shall regret my part in it.'
An angry little muscle jerked along the side of his jaw. 'You may regret it, but I don't.'
'I didn't think you would,' she retorted angrily, her blue eyes dark and stormy. 'You've had your revenge, and now I hope you will be satisfied.'
'What happened last night wasn't an act of revenge.'
'What was it, then?' she blazed up at him. 'An ego trip?'
'What the hell are you talking about?' he demanded harshly, taking her by the shoulder and spinning her round to face him when she attempted to make a timely exit.
'Apart from everything else, you asked a lot of questions last night, and you got a lot of straight answers,' she conceded furiously and sarcastically. 'Your ego must be so inflated at this moment that I'm surprised you're still capable of walking with your feet on the ground.'
His mouth tightened with annoyance. 'In the name of all that's holy, Christie, will you calm down and let us discuss this situation sensibly and rationally?'
His hands reached for her, but she stepped back to put a comfortable distance between them. 'I have no desire to discuss the matter with you. Not now, or at any other time in the future.'
His expression was shuttered and his eyes had become narrowed slits of fury. 'I take it, then, that last night was no more than a brief, and perhaps pleasant interlude to you?'
'You may take it whichever way you please,' she brushed aside his query, hiding her pain behind a careless exterior.
'I would have preferred to think that last night meant something more to you, but it appears I was a fool to think so.'
Her eyes filled with scorching tears, but she had turned her back on Lyle, and she was relieved that he did not witness the effect of his stinging remark. She walked away from him before she made an even bigger fool of herself by believing that she might have been wrong in her assumption that he had made love to her simply for the sake of revenge. She had believed him once before. She had believed that he loved her even though he had never said so, and she had trusted him like a child, but he had walked out on he
r during the first crisis in their marriage.
Christie swallowed down a couple of aspirins in her tent. Her head was pounding as if someone was striking her with a sledge-hammer while she walked down to the Mogalakwena River with her towel draped over one rigid shoulder, and with every step it felt as if a knife was being thrust deep into her temples. She stripped at the water's edge and literally fell into the pool, deliberately wetting her hair, and the coolness of the water against her face and her scalp gradually eased her pulsating headache.
She felt exhausted when she got out of the water and dressed herself, but her headache had fortunately ceased. She sat on the rocks for some time, staring into space and quite oblivious of the beautiful crimson fingers stretching across the sky as the sun dipped in the west. She did not want to think or feel, but she could not find the peace she craved while Lyle's voice echoed in her mind.
I would have preferred to think that last night meant something more to you, but it appears I was a fool to think so.
What did it mean? What had he been trying to say? Oh, God, if only she could know!
If Christie had feared that Lyle might confront her again with the intention of discussing their relationship, then she was mistaken. He now spoke to her only when it was absolutely necessary, and at other times he ignored her completely. She ought to have been pleased, but instead she felt hurt and unhappy. It was at this point that she began to value the friendship Dennis had offered her from the start. His presence, at times, eased the awkward tension which had risen between Lyle and herself, and he could make her laugh even when she thought there was no more laughter left inside her.
The excavations seemed to be spiced with a new urgency, and there was little time for Christie to think about herself as she listed and numbered each item they found. Taking an active part in the excavations, and the excitement of perhaps finding a relic, made the days pass with an incredible swiftness.
'I have an idea the professor has been looking for something,' Dennis announced one evening towards the end of their stay, when they were sitting a little distance from the rest of the group around the fire, and Christie glanced at her companion with interest.
A Moment in Time Page 7