by Penny Jordan
‘Scott, we could talk about this for a thousand years and it wouldn’t alter anything.…’
‘I agree.’ He cut through what she had been about to say, his voice sardonic, his eyes watching her carefully. She had become accustomed to the darkness and could see the long lean lines of his body, his skin smooth and tanned. His robe had fallen open and her eyes followed the dark arrowing of hair; her body shuddering in unwanted remembrance of how she had once touched him, shyly, wonderingly, adoringly, blushing in confusion and pleasure when he shuddered beneath her touch, drawing her hands against his body, muttering her name between the spasms of pleasure he hadn’t been able to control. Now he was very much in control—of everything apart from his burning need to hurt and punish her. He was like a man possessed—he was a man possessed! Philippa recognised suddenly. She closed her eyes in helpless pain only to be told, ‘Look at me, Philippa, I want to see your eyes when I kiss you.’ He bent his head and she made no move to avoid the punishing pressure of his mouth. He wanted her to fight him, but she wasn’t going to. She was simply going to lie here and hope that he would come to his senses before it was too late.
But that proved easier said than done. When his savage assault on her mouth provoked no reaction he changed his tactics. It might have been easy to lie stiff and unyielding beneath him when he tried to compel her response by force, but now with his mouth moving tormentingly against her own Philippa discovered that her fingers had balled into tiny fists, gripping the sheet beneath her as she stifled her instinctive need to respond. Make him angry an inner voice urged, make him angry and then you can fight him, and she started to struggle wildly against the constraining weight of his body. ‘Lie still, Philippa,’ Scott threatened, ‘or do you want me to hurt you?’
She could feel the warmth of his breath fanning her skin and turned her head quickly to avoid any contact with him, tensing when she felt the light drift of his mouth against her face. Desperate to escape from him, Philippa arched her back to throw off the weight of his body, pummelling wildly against his chest with small fists, all the anger she had held at bay since he had brought Simon back to the cottage and thrown down his contemptuous ultimatum lending her a fierce strength.
Her rebellion caught him off guard, but it was only seconds before he managed to subdue the wild threshings of her body, using his superior strength to keep her pinned to the bed, lifting himself slightly away from her as his fingers fastened tightly round her wrists like steel manacles.
‘You can’t fight me and win,’ he told her softly, ‘but go ahead and try if you want to, but remember, I’m not giving any promises not to fight back.’ He saw the brief flare of contemptuous anger in her eyes and laughed harshly, ‘You’re not that naive, Philippa,’ he reminded her. ‘You know damn well what you did to me, and if it’s turned me into someone you don’t like, well just try remembering that you’re the one who’s responsible. With very little encouragement I could take great pleasure in hurting you, both physically and mentally. When a man’s betrayed by the woman he loves it affects him like that,’ he added with soft savagery. ‘I could very easily derive intense pleasure from watching you suffer.’
‘By raping me, you mean?’
Dear God, how could they have come to this? What had happened to the gentle lover he had once been and the shy girl who had responded to him so tentatively? How had they devolved into what they were now, snapping savagely at one another; both longing to draw and taste blood, both filled with the same savage compulsion to wound? Scott’s hatred of her must be contagious, because just for a second when she fought against his physical domination of her she had shared it, she had wanted to claw and tear at the smooth flesh of his body; to hurt him as he was threatening to hurt her, and in her anger all thoughts of fear and retribution had fled, but now they were back, and she wanted to plead with Scott to set her free, but her pride would not allow her to.
‘The past is over, Scott,’ she told him trying to keep calm. ‘You must see… that nothing will be gained by acting like this.… Please be reasonable.…’
‘Oh, I will be.’ The soft assurance in his voice tensed her body in instinctive alarm. ‘I’m going to do what any reasonable man would do in my position.’ He glanced down at her, letting his gaze wander quite freely over her body, and Philippa realised what she had overlooked in her angry battle with him, namely that she was completely naked and the silver beam of the moon highlighted her skin erotically, emphasising her delicately feminine curves. She remembered that she had always been a little shy about letting Scott look at her before, and he had shown respect for her shyness, but there was nothing respectful in the boldly marauding way his gaze lingered on the pointed swell of her breasts. ‘Remember how much you used to like it when I did this?’
He bent his head, circling her nipple lightly with his tongue. Almost instantly Philippa felt suffocated by the wave of sexual tension exploding inside her, her body rigid as she tried to reject her automatic response, her nipples peaking instantly into taut hardness.
It had been eleven years since Scott had touched her like that; eleven years during which no man had caressed her so intimately and yet her body’s response betrayed how totally it remembered his touch. ‘So, some things don’t change.’ Scott lifted his head, but in spite of the softness of his voice, there was no tenderness in his eyes. They were as cold and as hard as sapphires, staring intently into her wary ones, his thumb finding the erect hardness of her nipple and teasing it, whilst he watched mercilessly waiting for her response.
It came on the shudder that pulsed through her body, taking her backwards in time, although surely she had never experienced this overwhelming physical compulsion that dominated her now. She had wanted and enjoyed Scott’s lovemaking, but there had been none of this feverish hunger, this urgent need that wiped out everything else, reducing her to a quivering mass of nerve endings that reminded her so sharply that her body had its needs and that she had completely denied them for far too many years.
‘If you don’t stop this now, Scott, I shall hate you for ever.’ It was a last desperate attempt to change his mind, and Philippa knew as he laughed, deep in his throat, a primeval sound of pleasure and triumph, that she had lost.
‘Hate away,’ he told her. ‘It’s a very powerful aphrodisiac, as I should know. What do you hate most, Philippa? This?’
His hand left her wrist and stroked slowly over her body, following the silver path of the moon. He shifted his weight slightly so that the rounded curve of her hip was revealed to him and the slender length of her thigh. ‘Don’t fight him. Don’t do anything to encourage him,’ an inner voice warned her, and yet her body screamed to her to be allowed to fight off the intruder who dared to treat it so familiarly.
‘You loathe me doing this and that is why you tremble is that it?’ His hand was still on her body, his fingers trailing lightly against her skin, her flesh no longer cool and still beneath their sure touch, but turning traitor, melting, burning.…
She bit down hard on her lip. What was happening to her? Her mind mocked the naiveté of her senses. Scott might have changed his feelings towards her but her body knew him as its lover, and nothing could change that. Nothing. A feeling of light-headedness swept over her, and it was several seconds before Philippa realised it was probably as a result of clenching her muscles so tightly, expending valuable energy which somehow she was unable to replace.
‘Don’t touch me.’
It was the last futile blaze of defiance she had left, and Scott seemed to recognise it as such as well because he turned his face from his idle scrutiny of her body to glance into her eyes as he said with a soft ferociousness, ‘Before tonight is over you will be pleading with me to do far more than just touch you.’
‘No.’ Panic had entered her voice now, and as though it was the sign he had been waiting for Scott’s mouth closed over her own, punishing it for the words of defiance that had slipped from it, tough fingers gripping her jaw, forcing her submission,
the hard length of his body pressing hers down against the mattress, her puny attempts of her fists against his shoulders to force him to stop ignored as his mouth continued to plunder hers, numbing her body into weak stupor. When he eventually lifted his head she was trembling from head to foot, shivering beneath the careless caress of his fingers, stroking along the length of her body. She flinched as he moved but there was no violence in his kisses this time, just a blood-drugging, heat-inducing langour more dangerous than any amount of violence, offering a balm to her disordered senses, soothing them with a pleasure to which they responded before she could even think of stopping them. He kissed her trembling mouth, her closed eyelids, the soft, sensitive skin of her throat, biting the delicate skin lightly until she was shuddering against him, lost in the urgent tug of her own need.
The ability to think and reason left her abruptly and like an automaton she responded to the spell Scott was weaving so cleverly. He was right; she did still want him and her body overruled the urgings of her mind, remembering, not the years which separated them from their last coming together, but only that they had and that she had hungered for him ever since.
‘You want me.’ It was a statement not a question, and Scott slid his fingers into her hair, tilting her head back, pressing small teasing kisses at the corners of her mouth, tormenting its trembling outline with the moist touch of his tongue, watching her all the time so that he knew the moment the fierce blaze of need burned through her, and deliberately held off for a few moments longer, teasing her with the touch of his mouth, registering her small half moans of need and despair.
‘Scott.’ She said his name huskily, swallowing with an obvious effort, her eyes wild with all that she refused to say. Her hands found his shoulders, but they resisted the pressure she applied to bring him closer to complete the promise in the tormentingly light kisses he used to feed her hunger. A wild despair flooded through her and acting entirely on impulse she raised her head from the pillows running her tongue feverishly along the line of his collar bone, feeling the compressed muscle beneath her fingers, her breathing light and uneven at his lack of response. It drove her to a frenzy, her teeth biting sharply into the smoothness of his skin, her pulses leaping as she felt his faint shudder, her fingers trailing hotly over his body until they reached the barrier of his belted robe. She touched the fastening experimentally and then stopped.
‘If you want to touch me, why don’t you go ahead? You’re not seventeen and shy any more, Philippa. You don’t need me to show you how to arouse a man.’
Just for a second reality impinged, but as though he sensed what was happening, he ran his hand possessively over her body until it reached her breasts. Until he touched the smooth, swollen skin she hadn’t realised how much she had longed for him to do just that. She breathed in deeply and sharply and made a small anguished sound in the back of her throat as his thumb brushed lightly over the pink aureole of her nipple. The room seemed to darken and whirl around her, a fevered heat coming off her body as she reached up, her fingers tense and uncertain as she found the fastening of his robe and slid her palm against the warm skin of his flat belly, her flesh sensitive to the rough scrape of his dark body hair as it touched her hand.
‘Philippa.’
His hand found her breast and she moaned aloud at the fierce pang of pleasure that shot through her, giving herself up completely to the savage hunger of his mouth against hers, his tongue thrusting between her parted lips to savour the moist sweetness within.
As though his touch had unleashed something wild and elemental she moved sinuously beneath him, using her body instinctively to pleasure his, everything else forgotten as she gave in completely to the urgency of her need. Her reasoning powers completely suspended, there was only blind instinct to lead the way, to instruct her body in its reaction to the touch of his and Scott’s harsh exclamation of pleasure as her hands touched the lean planes of his body, exploring and discovering the male shape of him only encouraged her fervent response. She didn’t think about what had brought them together in this place, she didn’t want to think about it, it was enough that they were here; that Scott was touching her with his hands and mouth, and that she was free to touch him in the same way, marvelling at the male texture of his skin; the male hunger she could sense within him, the unashamed response of him to her caresses.
She forgot that he had told her that he would make her plead for his possession and remembered only that this was Scott, her first lover; her only lover.
His mouth touched her breast, sparking off fierce pulsating pleasure, so intense that she cried out with it, locking her fingers in his hair, holding him to her. ‘Scott, please.…’
‘Please what?’ His voice was slurred, his breath erratic and she was deeply aware of the pulsing heat of his skin.
‘Please make love to me.’ She wasn’t even aware of what she was saying, or the triumph in his eyes, as he pulled her against him, bending over her, lean and dark, stroking her erect nipples with the rough lash of his tongue until she closed her eyes and cried out in feverish pleasure, reaching for him, wanting him to fill her aching emptiness.
When he did she was surprised by a brief, fleeting sensation of pain, sharp enough to make her tense. Scott checked, glancing down at her, but the pain was gone and she moved hungrily, arching her body up to meet him, kissing him feverishly, tasting the musky arousal of his skin, crying out with heated pleasure as he moved against her, and she picked up the familiar rhythm of his body.
Surely there had not been such exquisite pleasure before? Her body was still shuddering in the aftermath of it, still fiercely exulting in the heavy weight of Scott against her, his breathing harshly uneven, perspiration soaking both of them. He lifted his head and seemed about to say something, but Philippa could feel sleep claiming her, sucking her down into warm blackness. Scott was moving away and she murmured a small protest, curling up against him, clinging to his arm, not wanting him to leave.
* * *
The moment she woke up realisation hit her. She didn’t have to open her eyes to be aware of the other occupant of her bed, her senses had already relayed the information to her.
‘So you’re awake.’
Scott it seemed had equally acute monitoring devices, and as though to confirm it he added, ‘It’s no good keeping your eyes closed and faking, Philippa.’
Dear God, how could she have allowed him to make love to her? Her mind cringed away from the pictures her memory was showing her with seemingly compassionless accuracy. She gave a small groan and squeezed her eyes tightly closed. What on earth had come over her? She started to sit up and then realised that she was naked, hastily tugging the sheet up to her chin, her eyes flying open as Scott said sardonically, ‘It’s a little too late for modesty now isn’t it?’
‘What are you doing here? I seem to remember you saying you didn’t want to sleep with me.’
‘In the end I decided I might as well.’ Scott did not seem to share her desire to cover himself from her gaze. He sat up, stretching like a large lazy cat, the muscles moving sinuously beneath his skin. Philippa realised that she was holding her breath and expelled it hastily, wondering what time it was. It was daylight and she couldn’t remember when she had last slept so deeply.
‘So that you could gloat over me? Well you’ve had your petty revenge, Scott. It’s over now, Simon and I are leaving this place.’
‘Over?’ His coolly controlled voice splintered through her hasty outburst, ‘Oh no, my dear,’ he drawled, leaning towards her, trapping her with the hands he placed either side of her head. ‘Last night was just the first instalment, and don’t try telling me that you didn’t enjoy it.’
Her mind spun crazily, searching for an avenue of escape. That he should treat her like this was intolerable. She wouldn’t allow him to play on her emotions and use her own body against her. Feverishly she hunted for some means of destroying his arrogant assumption that she was his simply for the taking, and then it came to her. ‘
Oh, but of course I enjoyed it,’ she purred sweetly, watching his eyes widen and then narrow as he studied her. ‘You see, I simply pretended that you were Geoff… just like I did before.’
‘You did what?’ He made an explosive sound in the back of his throat and swore under his breath, grasping her shoulders so hard that she cried out in pain. ‘You.…’
He broke off as her bedroom door opened, his eyes turning to the door. Like someone trapped in a nightmare Philippa saw Simon walk into her room. He was dressed, his hair still tousled, and his eyes sleepy, but they sharpened instantly when he saw Scott in bed beside her, his thin face colouring up hotly, the door closing as he let go of it.
‘Mum.…’
‘Simon.…’ She made a move towards him and then checked it, biting her lip as she remembered that she could hardly get out of bed. Scott made no attempt to move, simply watching them both and Philippa wanted to scream and rail at him that he could do what he liked to her but he must not hurt Simon.
‘Simon.…’
‘If you go downstairs and find Mrs Robinson, son, she’ll fix you up with some breakfast,’ Scott interrupted calmly. His words seemed to break through Simon’s trance, the colour flowed back into his pale face and he stumbled back to the door. When it had closed behind him Philippa turned on Scott, her eyes burning with humiliation and pain.
‘How could you do that to him?’ she demanded. ‘Couldn’t you see how shocked he was…?’
‘Why? Surely this isn’t the first time he’s seen you in bed with one of your lovers? He’s ten years old after all, and you haven’t been celibate for ten years, despite that very convincing little show you put on last night. You should save it for men who know you less well than I do. A mother of a ten-year-old son is hardly likely to be a virgin.’ Philippa cringed beneath the lash of his contempt. Perhaps he felt justified in saying what he had, but it had been no play-acting. He had hurt her, if only momentarily. Simon’s birth had been a difficult one and her body had taken several months to recover. ‘Besides, seeing you in bed with me is something he’s going to have to get used to whilst you’re both living here.’