Eldorado

by Yvonne Whittal

  'I ordered a bottle of champagne,' Jarvis said while his thumb eased the cork out of the bottle's neck. It shot out, making her jump as if a pistol had been fired unexpectedly at close range, and she stared almost hypnotically while he poured the sparkling liquid into two tall glasses. He placed one in her hand and lifted his own in salute. 'Let's drink to our future together, Gina.'

  He raised his glass to his lips, his steel-grey eyes holding hers with that hint of mockery in their depths, and a renewed wave of near physical pain washed over her. Until that moment she had almost succeeded in convincing herself that she could go through with it, but she knew now that it would be impossible.

  Afraid that her glass might slip from her trembling fingers, she placed it hurriedly on the glass-topped table and turned her back on him to stare blindly out of the window.

  'I can't drink to our future together.'

  She had not meant to say that, but the words had somehow been torn from her, and she heard the clink of his glass on the glass-topped table before he came to her side.

  'What's the matter, Gina?'

  His hands were gentle on her shoulders when he turned her to face him, but his gentleness merely set fire to that spark of anger she had been nursing inside her for some hours, and she shrugged herself free to take a pace away from him.

  She stared at him through a mist of pain and anger which she had difficulty in hiding, and her glance rested for a moment on those powerful shoulders straining against the expensive silk of the white shirt which he had unbuttoned almost to his waist. Dark hair curled against his tanned, muscular chest, and her fingers tingled with an unbidden desire to touch him. Her body's treachery angered her, and green fire leapt in her eyes when she met and held his steady, probing gaze.

  'I know why you married me, Jarvis, so there's no longer any need for you to pretend.' Her husky voice was brittle with the effort involved to hide her pain and misery. 'I went downstairs to look for you after I'd changed out of my wedding dress, and I heard you talking to Harold Ashton in the study.'

  His eyes narrowed perceptibly, but his expression remained unaltered, and during the brief, ensuing silence only the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks could be heard through the open window.

  'I see,' he spoke into the silence while she searched in vain for some sign of remorse in his granite-hard features. 'I must admit that I'm relieved to hear that, but I can explain if you'll let me.'

  'Oh, I'm sure you can explain it all,' she said coldly. 'You're a brilliant attorney, and I have no doubt that your defence strategy would be planned down to the very last detail, but in this instance you could have spared yourself the time you spent preparing it.'

  'Don't be an idiot, I—'

  'Don't touch me!' Her eyes were twin fires of anger in her pale, pinched face when she shrank from the hands reaching out to her. 'You lied to me, you made me believe you cared, but all the time it was Eldorado you really wanted. And it was such an easy victory, wasn't it? Drawing from your vast experience with women I imagine you took one look at me and knew exactly what a gullible fool I would be. I'll make the little idiot fall in love with me, and from then on it'll be easy. Marriage to me would not only place Eldorado safely within your reach, it would give you access to my bed if and when you found you were too tired to go out looking for it elsewhere. Isn't that what you thought? Oh, I'll bet it was!'

  'Now, look here, I—'

  'You played your part so well, Jarvis, but I despise you for it, and I could almost hate your mother for doing this to me,' she continued sarcastically, punishing herself more than him. 'For God's sake, Jarvis, why didn't you tell me about that stipulation in your mother's will?'

  'Would you have married me had you known?'

  'Most certainly not!' she snapped, and a smile of devilish satisfaction curved his mouth.

  'That's exactly why I didn't tell you.'

  Gina drew a shuddering breath and shook her head in a visible attempt to clear her mind. 'You've turned our marriage into an embarrassing and humiliating farce, and I can't go through with it.'

  'I'm afraid I can't let you back out now, Gina.' He gestured her to silence when she would have interrupted him. 'My mother's will stipulates that we have to stay married for a year before I can lay claim to Eldorado as my rightful inheritance, and I have every intention of complying with her wishes, ridiculous as they may be.'

  She was trapped, trapped into the marriage she had wanted so very much, but which she now found abhorrent. Frustration and resentment mingled to sharpen her anger. 'Damn you, Jarvis! I don't want to remain married to you under these circumstances!'

  'I can't give you your freedom,' he stated flatly. 'It's become a question of honour.'

  'Honour!' she snorted disparagingly. 'There was nothing honourable about what you did, so don't make me laugh!'

  'An annulment would be an embarrassment to both of us, and I believe you're aware of that or you wouldn't have been here now. You're legally my wife, Georgina, and that's how it's going to stay for the next year.'

  Legally his wife! She had not wanted to be his wife merely in the legal sense. She had wanted to be his wife in every possible sense of the word, she had wanted to love and be loved, but her dream had been shattered into tiny, agonising fragments, and she blamed her godmother for this as much as she blamed Jarvis.

  'If I have to stay married to you, then it will be a marriage in name only,' she insisted bluntly.

  'You called our marriage a farce,' he reminded her harshly. 'Do you want it to be an even greater farce?'

  She glared up at him furiously and hissed, 'If you think I'd let you come near me now, then you're mistaken!'

  'We shall see about that!'

  Alerted by the unrelenting set of his lean jaw and that flesh of icy anger in his eyes, Gina turned and fled into the bedroom. Her heart was racing in her throat, almost choking her when she tried to slam the door behind her, but Jarvis's shoulder was there, and he was applying a pressure that her puny strength could not cope with.

  'There's no point in trying to escape the inevitable, my dear Georgina.' He smiled somewhat satanically when he finally stepped into the room and closed the door behind him.

  She heard the scrape of metal against metal, but she paid no attention to it as she backed several paces away from him. 'If you so much as lay a finger on me I shall never forgive you!'

  'I usually get what I want,' he warned ominously, thrusting his hands into his pockets and trailing his insolent glance down the length of her trembling body.

  'Not this time!' she argued fiercely.

  'Do you want to bet on that?'

  'Don't touch me!' she told him furiously, backing away again when his hands emerged from his pockets. But she found herself up against the dressing-table with Jarvis lessening the distance between them in one long stride.

  It felt as if her body had become one wild, throbbing pulse when he paused less than a pace away from her. The scent of his woody cologne on his heated body was a potent mixture which attacked her senses, and she knew a desperate, unbidden longing that sent a bone-melting weakness surging through her. She knew she had to fight it, but she also knew it was a battle she would lose if he touched her. Jarvis was observing her intently, his steely eyes taking note of every expression that flitted across her pale, sensitive features, and his agile mind analysed it with the speed of a man accustomed to probing beneath the surface.

  'You may think you hate me at this moment, but in truth you know you want me to touch you.'

  'No!' There was an undisguised ring of panic in her raised voice at the accuracy with which he had summed up her feelings. 'No, that isn't true!'

  He smiled derisively. 'Your lips may say no, Gina, but I don't have to touch you to know that your body is saying something quite the opposite.'

  'Oh, for God's sake!' she cried out in helpless anger, and he laughed triumphantly as he walked away from her towards the bathroom.

  'I suggest you give it some
thought while I take a much-needed shower… and if you're contemplating running out on me,' he held up a key between his thumb and forefinger for her inspection, 'the bedroom door is locked.'

  'You fiend!' she berated him fiercely, her hands clenched at the sides of her quivering body, but he merely laughed, and she could still hear him laughing for some time after he had closed the bathroom door behind him.

  Gina paced the floor in a fury which was directed mainly at herself. She felt like a caged animal forced to await the arrival of a mate it did not want, but who it knew had the power to make it submit, and she despised herself for being so weak. She had never known that one could love and hate with equal intensity and, as a weapon in Jarvis's hands, either could be used to destroy her.

  She stared at the enormous bed, and suddenly she wanted to cry. This was her wedding night, the start of a two-week honeymoon which she had imagined would be one of the happiest times of her life, but all that remained of that dream was a hurt that went so deep she believed nothing could assuage it. She was also trying to cope with a growing anxiety. She could not sleep on that bed with Jarvis. If he touched her she would be lost, and to surrender to him would be a humiliation too great to bear.

  A large, comfortably padded armchair had been placed in a convenient and inviting position beside the window, and Gina saw it as a refuge. She curled herself up in it, and the cushions seemed to enfold her comfortingly to take the shape of her body. She wanted to cry again, but she forced back the tears, determined not to give Jarvis the satisfaction of knowing that he had succeeded in making her weep.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Gina's body tensed when she heard the bathroom door open. She did not want to look at Jarvis, but against her will her glance shifted in his direction. He was entering the room with a towel draped loosely about his lean hips, and his dark hair lay in damp disarray across his broad forehead.

  'Not in bed yet?' he asked, raising an amused eyebrow, and her breath locked in her throat as she stared at his muscled chest and arms as he walked barefoot across the carpeted floor towards her.

  She had always been intensely aware of that powerful aura of masculinity surrounding him, but at that moment he was exuding a raw maleness that made her senses leap wildly in response.

  She looked away hastily, afraid that her eyes might convey her true feelings. 'I'll sleep in this chair, thank you,' she said stubbornly.

  'Don't be ridiculous!' he laughed shortly, leaning over her to place his hands on the arms of the chair, and the clean, male smell of him trapped her into a helpless state of wanting.

  She shrank from him against the cushions. 'Stay away from me, Jarvis!' she snapped.

  'And if I don't?'

  She raised her wary glance to his to see flames of desire igniting in his eyes, and was promptly reduced to a trembling mass of conflicting emotions which made her resort to begging in an attempt at self-preservation. 'Please, Jarvis!'

  'I like the sound of that,' he smiled sensuously.

  'Your sadistic mind would!'

  He ignored her biting sarcasm, and his smouldering eyes burned down into hers with a probing intensity that frightened her. 'I want you, Georgina, and nothing is going to stop me from having you, since I happen to know that you want me too.'

  'No!'

  It was a cry of despair rather than a denial, and his mouth curved in a slow, mocking smile that made her cringe inwardly with embarrassment and self-disgust.

  'Do you want me to believe you're trembling because you know you'll find my touch repulsive, Georgina?'

  Nothing, she discovered, every escaped his notice, and her resentment erupted with an angry force. 'You're a fiend!' she choked.

  A bored look entered his eyes as he straightened and turned from her to walk towards the mirrored dressing-table. 'You've said that before.'

  'And I'll say it again,' she hissed at the muscles rippling in his broad back while he brushed his hair back severely. 'You're a fiend!'

  'Because I have the ability to detect your weakness?' he demanded with an infuriating calmness when he put down the brush and turned to face her.

  He was laughing at her; she could see it in that hint of amusement lurking in his eyes. They both knew that their desire for each other was an omnipotent force which they had had great difficulty in keeping tightly leashed during the weeks prior to their marriage, and it amused him now to see her futile battle against it.

  'Oh, God!' she groaned helplessly, leaping agitatedly to her feet to stare blindly out of the window at the restless ocean lying shimmering in the moonlight.

  She wished she could stop trembling, but most of all she wished she could feel anger rather than this numb acceptance of something she could not control.

  Jarvis came up behind her, she could feel the warmth of his body against her back, and his hand reached out over her shoulder to tug at the sash that slid the curtain across the window. The rest of the world was abruptly shut out, and now there was only Jarvis and herself, and the heavy thudding of her treacherous heart.

  A heavy strand of hair was lifted away from her neck, and his warm mouth brushed against her skin in a caress that awakened a thousand little nerves to the pleasure of his touch. His arms circled her waist, his hands tugging at the belt of her dressing-gown, and he lifted the silky garment off her shoulders to let it slither down her body until it lay in a crumpled heap at her bare feet. His fingers slid in a featherlight caress down her bare arms and up again to her shoulders, and Gina stood immobile, trapped by sensations her body welcomed even while her mind rejected them. The flimsy straps were stroked off her shoulders, and her diaphanous nightgown followed the same path as the dressing-gown. The only thing left between Jarvis and herself was the towel still draped about his hips, and Gina was beyond caring when his hands began their gentle exploration of her trembling body.

  Don't let him do this to you! Her mind shouted it frantic command, but her trembling body had a mind of its own, and in this instance it was infinitely more powerful.

  His hands trailed down along her smooth hips and shapely thighs, and up again across her taut, flat stomach until the weight of her small breasts rested in the palms of his strong hands. She closed her eyes, swaying back against him as she felt herself drowning in the pleasure sensations aroused by his thumbs moving back and forth across the hardened peaks of her breasts, but her mind was still clear enough to object.

  'I—I want you to—to know, Jarvis,' she heard herself saying in a hoarse, halting voice which she could barely recognise as her own, 'that I—I hate and despise you for the—the heartless way you trapped me into this marriage, and if—if I live to—to be a thousand I shall—shall never, ever forgive you.'

  He turned her into his arms, and the abrasiveness of his chest hair against her breasts increased her excitement. 'You may hate and despise me for as long as you wish, my beautiful Gina,' he murmured thickly against her throat, 'but the fact remains that you want me, and you can't deny it.'

  'I shan't try to deny it again,' she confessed against her will, 'but I—I hope you'll be—be satisfied knowing that my body is all you're ever going to have.'

  'I don't recall asking for more.' He thrust home the truth, and it was like a knife being twisted savagely in a raw, bleeding wound.

  'That's true,' she whispered soberly, raising her eyes to his and finding nothing there except naked desire. 'The fault was mine alone for believing in something which was never there.'

  Desire made way for an icy anger, and his hands tightened almost savagely about her waist as if he wanted to snap her slender body in half.

  'Shut up!' he growled, and further speech was made impossible when his mouth swooped down on hers with a savage passion that seared her like fire.

  Gina's mind was also silenced, she was drugged by his kisses into a state of euphoria, and afterwards she could never recall whether Jarvis had lifted her on to the bed she had dreaded so much, or whether she had lowered herself on to it with him. She was conscious o
nly of his lips and hands exploring, and arousing her body until it seemed as if every hitherto hidden nerve and sinew came alive with a quivering, aching desire that cried out for fulfilment.

  Initially she had had no intention of participating in this act of making love, but a hungry yearning erupted inside her. Her hands eagerly roamed his hard body, and she was guided by instinct rather than knowledge when the sensitive pads of her fingers explored the taut, quivering muscles from his wide shoulders down to his lean hips and hard thighs. His breathing became laboured and uneven, and his aroused body trembled against hers.

  'God, I've longed for this!' he groaned, his knees parting her soft thighs, and her slumbering mind was suddenly awakened to the knowledge that she could not give herself to this man who had tricked her into marriage merely to claim his inheritance.

  'Jarvis, no!' she gasped, attempting to push him away from her in a fit of panic while her body writhed beneath his to escape his possession. 'Please, I—I can't!'

  She was trapped beneath the weight of his body, and he imprisoned her hands above her head to stare with glazed eyes down into her flushed face. Her red-gold hair lay in disarray across the pillow, and her stormy eyes successfully hid the pain of knowing that, for Jarvis, this would never be anything more than a physical act of desire.

  'You can and you will!' he insisted gratingly.

  And she did!

  Her heart and mind might have joined forces to cry out their silent rejection, but her body was concerned only with that aching need for something which it could still only guess at.