by Penny Jordan
She felt him move, dropping her on to the mattress, his hands sliding from her breasts to her thighs, his mouth… She gasped in shocked tension as she felt his tongue touch her navel. His hands curved over her hips and then slid under her, moving down to cup the soft roundness of her bottom. He was kneeling between her thighs, and the sudden conviction of what he was going to do brought a thick choking gasp of denial to her throat and her body tensed as she struggled wildly to sit up.
She saw him move…felt his mouth on the inside of her thigh, shocked by the swift surge of pleasure rushing through her. Ignoring her frantic struggles to break free, he continued to caress the quivering vulnerability of her inner thighs. Torn between pleasure and shock, Kate felt herself weakening. It was like falling headlong into deep water and then discovering an unsuspected current carrying her swiftly to that high place where it fell in a powerful waterfall. In this case the current was her own fast building desire and the waterfall… She stiffened as she felt Dominic’s tongue slide moistly against her, appalled by the intensity of her pleasure. She wanted to rebuff him and she wanted… Oh, God, she wanted him to go on doing what he was doing now more than she had wanted anything in her life.
Her tensed muscles relaxed, sobs of pleasure rising in her throat, her head thrashing frantically from side to side as she felt his mouth against her, demanding that she abandon herself to him completely, demanding that she give way to the fierce surges of pleasure already exploding inside her.
Afterwards he held her trembling body in his arms, soothing her with soft kisses. She could taste her body on his mouth; the intimacy of what he had done to her still half shocking her. In a way she almost resented the pleasure he had given her. It made her feel too vulnerable. He made her feel vulnerable.
She only realised she had said the last sentence out loud when he said huskily to her, ‘You have exactly the same effect on me, you know, Kate.’ She felt him smile, laughter lightening his voice as he added, ‘Or at least, you could have.’
She still hadn’t touched him, at least not properly, and as though he sensed the direction of her thoughts he asked quietly, ‘What is it about my body that you find so off-putting, Kate?’
‘Nothing.’ It was the truth, and knowing that something more was called for she added, ‘Ricky didn’t like me to…’
‘I don’t give a damn what Ricky did or did not like,’ Dominic interrupted harshly, leaning over her. His voice softened and became faintly hoarse as he muttered, ‘I want you to touch me…I need you to touch me.’ He moved slightly, whether by accident or design she did not know, and she felt the male hardness of him pressing into her skin. His hand touched her breast, cupping it lightly, his mouth moist and pleasurable as it moved over her sensitised skin. His lips nuzzled her breasts, making fresh desire burn up inside her. Her hands clung to his skin, shaping the long muscles of his back, and then suddenly, eagerly, joyously moving over his body.
When her hand closed over the erect maleness of him she felt a tiny thrill of pleasure at his shuddering response. His arms held her hard against his body, his mouth fastening over hers, the guttural sounds of pleasure stifled in his throat, freeing her from her last constraints.
When his mouth left hers, she started to scatter tiny, feverish kisses over his skin, letting her senses guide her, giving in completely to the desire to submerge herself completely in her love.
When her mouth touched his stomach, he tensed and then arched against her, muttering feverish words of praise into the heavy air, his fingers reaching down to curl into her hair, shudder after shudder of pleasure ripping through his body as passion rode her, making her move blindly against his body until her mouth found the rigid hardness of him.
When he dragged her away to roll her on to her back and enter her with swift fierceness, she welcomed each primitive thrust of his body, matching them with a complementary rhythm of her own.
He took her swiftly to a shattering climax, crying out her name as pleasure overwhelmed him.
The last thing Kate could remember before she fell asleep was the comforting pressure of his arm, drawing her back into the warmth of his recumbent body.
* * *
When she woke up Dominic’s arm was still there, and Kate’s skin burned as she remembered the previous night. Fear coiled deep inside her, poised to strike like a venomous serpent. What had she done? What had she betrayed to him with her feverish, frantic lovemaking? She was petrified that he might have guessed the truth; that he might know now that she loved him. She had to escape. She couldn’t endure the humiliation of facing him if he knew.
Frantically she managed to wriggle free of his arm and slide out of the bed. He was still deeply asleep, his face agonisingly youthful, his dark hair ruffled. She had dislodged the duvet as she moved and it had slid down his body, leaving him bare to the hips. Here and there on his skin Kate could see the faint marks of her own teeth, and she shuddered in shocked denial of the intensity of her passion. It did not matter that her own body bore the same marks, or that Dominic’s passion had been as great as her own. He was not vulnerable as she was.… All he had felt was desire, while she…
Why not stay…why not stay and see if she couldn’t change that desire into love? The violence with which she shuddered away from the mere thought brought her up against a truth she had tried desperately to hide away from. She was still frightened of Dominic’s rejection. She tried to dismiss it, but the knowledge would not go away. While Dominic slept she hurried into her own room, grabbing clothes at random and stuffing them into a holdall. She had to get away…she had to…if she stayed here… But where could she go?
Harry and Liz—she had an open invitation to stay with them. No one would know where she was. Dominic could not trace her to them.
After last night she knew that his desire of her was strong enough to make his pursuit of her relentness, at least while that desire lasted. But how long would it last? Not as long as her love. Why not stay…take what he has to offer and worry about it ending when it ends? a traitorous voice whispered, but Kate pushed it away. She couldn’t live like that, every day a torment of wondering if this was going to be the one when he looked at her without desire and then coldly turned his back on her. No…better to make a clean break now.
Right up until she had driven the car on to the main road she had expected Dominic to wake up and come after her. Her chest was aching from holding her breath, her body tight with apprehension and pain.
Liz welcomed her placidly, explaining that Harry had gone out. ‘You’ve been having quite a lot of excitement over your way,’ she commented to Kate as she made her a cup of coffee. ‘Caught them yet, have they?’
Kate shook her head. She had already asked Liz if she might stay with them for a few days, using as an excuse the fact that she needed to consult Harry about her new commission. Liz hadn’t said so, but Kate suspected that the older woman wasn’t deceived, but if so, she was far too placid and compassionate to question her further.
Harry, though, was not so reticent.
He arrived an hour later, and having welcomed Kate with a warm hug asked her what had brought her down to see them. She gave him the same explanation she had given Liz, and his eyebrows rose slightly. ‘I thought you were quite satisfied with the way it’s going,’ he commented, adding shrewdly, ‘I think you’re hiding something, Kate, but if you are, that’s your business. Just remember, you can’t go on running for the rest of your life.’
Liz had left them on their own, and now Kate’s cheeks coloured hotly. ‘Just what makes you think I’m running?’ she demanded crossly. ‘Honestly, Harry…!’ and then to her own consternation she burst into tears.
She had never felt so mortified in her entire life. She was twenty-seven years old, for God’s sake, and here she was bursting into tears like an adolescent.
Twenty-seven or not, it was sheer bliss to put her head on Harry’s shoulder and sob out her misery. Her father had never been a physically affectionate person, alt
hough she had known that he cared about her, and Ricky of course had made it more than clear how little physical contact he wanted with her. That, coupled with her mother’s defection, had ensured that her life had been lamentably short of people to lean on, and it said much for her emotional state that she was now actually doing so.
Harry waited until the sobs had subsided into muffled hiccups interspersed with words of apology, before handing her a handkerchief and saying easily, ‘Mop up, then we’ll both have a drink and talk this through.’ He saw her face and grinned at her. ‘You forget, Kate, I’ve had two daughters of my own. I know what it’s all about.’
Feeling remarkably weak-minded, Kate allowed him to propel her into the small sitting-room where he poured them both a drink.
‘Liz will wonder…’ But she broke off when Harry shook his head.
‘She won’t wonder anything,’ he told her firmly. ‘She told me when I came in that you were upset about something… or rather, perhaps, someone. Care to talk about it, Kate?’
Unbelievably she did. It was as though all the self-control that had held her together for so many years had completely disintegrated following Dominic’s reappearance in her life. She forced herself to go back to the beginning, telling Harry briefly about her marriage… twisting the whisky tumbler tensely in her fingers as she did so, and then hurriedly taking a nerve-strengthening gulp before telling him about her attempt to seduce Dominic.
Her eyes were on the glass she was holding so she didn’t see the compassion in his eyes as he looked at her downbent head. Poor Kate, always so calm and self-controlled, but inwardly a mass of tensions and fears. Some men oughtn’t to be allowed near any woman, he thought, listening to her, but he kept silent, letting her go all through her story.
‘And so…you’ve run away from him,’ he said quietly, when she had finished. ‘But why, Kate? He wants you…you want him…’
‘I love him,’ she corrected bitterly. ‘And I ran away because I’m afraid, Harry. I can’t forget that he’s already rejected me once…that he hated me, resented me…’
‘I doubt that, Kate.’
She looked up to see Harry shaking his head. ‘You say he’s told you that he couldn’t make love to you the first time, even though he wanted you, because you were his friend’s wife. The type of man driven by compulsive desire and hatred of that desire doesn’t react like that, Kate… I think you’ll find if you asked him that he hated himself.’
‘But he thought…’ Her mouth trembled and she went on, ‘He thought I was sleeping around with everyone I could find. He despised me, Harry…and now suddenly he’s saying he wants me. I can’t trust that kind of turnaround. All the time I’m with him I’m tense…waiting for the axe to fall, so to speak, and for him to tell me it’s all been a trick, that he doesn’t want me at all.’
To her chagrin, Harry grinned, his eyes twinkling as he said drolly, ‘From what you’ve said to me I surmise that he’s already demonstrated most definitely that he does want you, Kate…and that’s something it’s very difficult for a man to fake…but I know what you mean.’ He became more sober. ‘I can see that he’s used his image of you as a means of defence against wanting you, but you can’t blame him for that. Men are very territorial animals, my dear, even in this day and age. Very few of them can tolerate sharing what they believe to be theirs. Now I’m not going to argue the pros and cons of that with you. I’m simply stating a fact, but are you sure it’s just him you’re running from, Kate, and not yourself as well?’
She tensed and looked sharply at him, demanding huskily, ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, my dear, that you say you love him, but it’s obvious that you resent feeling that way about him. You don’t want to love him, do you?’
Kate frowned. ‘No. No, I don’t…it makes me feel too vulnerable,’ she burst out impulsively. ‘It frightens me, Harry.’ She hugged her arms round her body, suddenly looking very forlorn and young.
‘Then you should understand how he feels, shouldn’t you?’
Her head came up sharply, her eyes widening.
‘Most human beings are by nature defensive, Kate,’ Harry told her softly. ‘Sometimes we have to put aside our defences and be open to others. Will he be able to trace you here?’
She shook her head.
‘Well then, if you do love him…if you really want him, I suggest you go back and talk to him. He may not be able to love you…but isn’t it better to face the truth than to keep on running?’
Was it?
Kate didn’t know. And she didn’t feel any closer to knowing the next morning when she woke up, thoroughly disorientated by the unfamiliar bedroom until she remembered where she was and why.
The day dragged, even though Harry and Liz did their best to keep her entertained, and at last after dinner that evening she made her decision. Getting up abruptly from the settee where she had been sitting with Liz watching television, she announced,
‘I’m going back.’
From his easy chair Harry smiled at her. ‘Good girl,’ he said quietly.
They both saw her off, Harry coming up to her car window to say gently, ‘Remember, whatever happens, Kate, there’s no shame in loving someone honestly. It’s when we try to be dishonest to ourselves that the problems start.’
The closer she got to the village the more her tension increased. It was all right for Harry to say stop running and tell him the truth, but now, suddenly, she didn’t know how she was going to face Dominic. Or even if he would want her to face him. He might already have left the village. He might be in London—anywhere…
Remember he’s looking for a house in the area, a calming inner voice interceded. But what if he wouldn’t see her…what if… Clamping down on her tumultuous thoughts, she slowed down as she drove through the village. It was already dusk and she intended to go straight to bed when she got home. Tomorrow she might feel braver about talking to Dominic. She certainly hoped so.
She drove carefully round what she knew to be an extremely bad bend, and then braked sharply as she saw what lay in front of her. On the opposite side of the road, its bonnet embedded in a low stone wall, was a large BMW. Behind it were parked two police cars, lights flashing. A huddle of men in uniform were grouped round the crashed car. It looked oddly familiar—and then sickeningly Kate realised why. It was Dominic’s car.
There was a singing noise in her ears, a dull roaring in her blood. Dear God! She mustn’t faint. Somehow she managed to stagger out of the car and across to the group of men. One of them turned at her approach.
‘What…? What happened?’ she stammered sickly.
‘Bad accident, miss.’ The policeman’s voice was calm and soothing.
‘Was…was anyone hurt?’ She was shivering violently now and she could see the man frowning slightly.
‘The driver was killed.’ It was one of the other men who spoke, his voice blunt, carrying an edge of disapproval.
Killed… Killed… Dominic was dead. Somehow Kate managed to get back in her car and get it started, even though she heard the policeman calling something out to her. No doubt he had been aware of her shock, but she didn’t want to answer any questions now… all she wanted to do was to be alone with this enormous unbelievable pain that was flowering inside her.
Dead… dead… dead… The words beat out a monotonous rhythm in her brain all the way home, as though somehow by repetition they might become real. But it was real. Dominic was dead. He had died at the wheel of his car. Doing what? Looking for her. She stalled the car as she brought it to a halt in the drive, her body so weak that she could barely walk to the front door. Everything seemed to be swaying round her, a terrible draining weakness taking her over, almost as though her life-blood was draining from her body.
Automatically she made for the drawing-room, pushing open the door and then coming to an abrupt halt as a figure detached itself from one of the easy chairs.
‘So you’re back. Where the hell have you been?’
/> Dominic? Kate swayed weakly on legs that threatened to crumple beneath her. ‘But you…you’re dead…’ She stared at him, trembling wildly, unable to strand the strain of two consecutive shocks coming so quickly on top of one another.
‘Dead? Wishful thinking, I’m afraid, my pet.’ His voice was hatefully sardonic, his movements as he came towards her banishing her first dread that she was simply conjuring up his memory in her anguish. She tried to breathe and found that her muscles simply refused to work, her eyes growing wide as she stared and stared into his face. When he reached her she stretched out blindly, her fingers trembling as she touched his face.
‘Kate…’ His voice was rough, his eyes impatient as he grabbed her hands and tugged them down to her sides. ‘Just what the hell are you playing at? God, I never know where the hell I am with you! What is it you want from me? Revenge… is that it? You want to pay me back for rejecting you, is that it?’
Kate heard him, but the words didn’t register, she was still trying to come to terms with the fact that he was alive.
‘You’re not dead.’ She repeated the words slowly, still staring at him. ‘You’re not dead…’ She kept on saying it, her body trembling more intensely with each repetition.
‘Kate?’
Dominic released her hands, cupping her face and turning it slightly so that the light fell sharply on her white tortured features. Kate felt him draw in his breath.
She closed her eyes, feeling the horror recede. ‘I saw your car… the BMW. The police were there. I asked them if anyone was hurt, and they told me… They told me you were dead.’
Her control broke over the last few words, huge sobs shaking her body.
Above her she heard Dominic swear, and then she was being rocked against his body, his arms wrapped tightly round her. ‘Not me, my darling,’ he soothed her. ‘Not me… the prisoners who escaped took it. I’ve been driving all over the place looking for you, and foolishly when I went down to the cottage to check it earlier I left the keys in it. They must have seen me arrive. It didn’t get them very far. The driver was killed and the other man badly injured. The police have only just left here.’