by Kim Lawrence
‘Luke, how long do you intend staying here?’
The faint smile that had hovered around his lips deepened, etching lines from his nose to the corners of his mouth. Humour evaporated, leaving an impatient edge of anger. ’tired of my company so soon?’
‘It’s so claustrophobic here…I can’t breathe!’ The words exploded from her. Aware that the blast of emotion had made him stare with frightening intensity, she toyed with the top button of her shirt, unconsciously drawing the attention of his deep blue brooding stare to her throat.
‘Miles of open space…claustrophobic?’ She met his taunting stare with an expression of deep frustration. ‘Or is it I that fills you with the desire to escape?’ he said with accurate perception.
‘I just want to get this farce over with and reconstruct my life. I’m not multi-talented like you, but I think I could be a good teacher. If I had some idea of the time-span you had envisaged as a suitable punishment for Dad without interfering with your life too much, I could plan for the future.’ She half envied the pragmatism of the person speaking; it certainly had nothing to do with the churning mass of uncertainty which had converted her thought processes to a basic survival mode.
A spark of something that was instantly subdued shone briefly in his eyes. ’they didn’t want you to teach, did they?’ His fixed stare from beneath half-closed eyelids was not as casual as his tone.
‘I was supposed to be a social asset and a professional shopper, like Charlotte,’ she snapped, and felt ashamed at the implied criticism of her sister—though in the circumstances, she thought wryly, Charlotte had earned a little criticism. ‘But I showed little talent in that direction. You know Dad; his opinion of female intellect is no secret. The most stupid male is still inherently superior to a female, even if she just happens to have won a Pulitzer.’
Luke nodded reflectively. ‘You still did what you wanted in the end. I take it Gavin wasn’t encouraging you to pursue your career? You just trotted obediently back home and got auctioned off to the highest bidder. If the home had been any other, quite understandable…’
‘Anything for a quiet life,’ she replied flippantly.
‘Why?’ he persisted.
‘I like Charlcot,’ she lied fluently. ‘I could never have afforded anywhere so palatial.’ She wasn’t going to elaborate on her father’s drastic tactics, the heartless scheme she had so stupidly fallen for. Luke never accepted anything at face value; he’d think her a total fool for doing so. She discovered she had no wish further to remforce his poor opinion of her father, however accurate it might be. For some obscure reason she felt strangely responsible for every indictment he brought against them, as though she were personally responsible. He acted as though she were, she thought bleakly.
‘I don’t believe that.’
‘Your privilege.’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, I still want to know when I can get back to civilisation.’
‘A sensitive soul might infer that my company doesn’t please you. Or are you anxious to embark on a spell of marital bliss?’ His grin broadened, very white in his tanned face. ‘Or could it be that you just don’t trust yourself to resist the carnal interest that’s stirring in your delectable breast? There’s an interesting thought.’
‘Is that supposed to be a joke?’ she asked rigidly.
He tilted his head and his expression sobered, became brooding and ambiguous. His lips, miraculously sensual enough to make the muscles in her belly tighten, curved cynically. ‘Not necessarily, as you’re well aware,’ he grated. ‘I made myself clear earlier, I think. Which simplifies matters, infant. Now you only have to worry about your own instincts,’ he coldly reminded her of his parting shot.
The blood singing in her ears made her vision blur. ‘Let me go, Luke.’ The appeal, the panic, were clear in each syllable. How easy it was for him to send her spiralling out of control; how he must be laughing, she thought, bitterly angry at her inability to carry off the situation. His eyes weren’t laughing, though, when she blinked to clear her vision and his lean frame seemed taut with the same tension that was making her tremble. ‘Forget this whole stupid idea. Dad would never believe we slept together…I was just a child.’
‘Sixteen is no child, at least not for the purposes we’re dealing with. And I am the Antichrist in your family’s eyes, capable of any infamy.’ He gave a hard laugh. ‘In your eyes too,’ he added with biting irony. ‘I think I’m capable of convincing Charlie that you were a very willing victim, Emmy, and you know it.’
He had her cornered and he knew it. ‘Don’t do that,’ she pleaded huskily as he steepled his fingers and allowed his intense stare to rest unblinkingly on her face.
‘What?’
‘Look at me like…that.’ He was being so cruel, and yet he could make her ache with unfulfilled desire, a consuming yearning. She felt the blood run hot beneath her skin as she shivered in helpless response.
‘You’re a beautiful woman; I would have thought you could take it in your stride by now.’
‘Am I supposed to be flattered by that comment?’ she asked derisively. ‘I can see you think of me as some sort of trophy.’ Nothing else, unfortunately, explained his persistence. She despised herself for wistfully imagining what it would be like if his motivations were not inspired by vengeance. ‘A Stapely, a notch on the bedpost. You’re an attractive man and my ego has taken a battering, but I’m not stupid enough to be a willing pawn in your sick game. If you wait for me to do the asking, you’ll wait forever,’ she gasped huskily.
She wanted to make him angry, but not angry enough to push the issue. Her voice sounded cold, like the sweat that bathed her body. She couldn’t let him know how easily she could succumb to the love which drew her to him despite the obections of the small, still sane portion of her brain. A portion that he could make mute with a single touch…He couldn’t know. She knew, though, and despised herself for this fatal weakness.
‘Get a kick from self-denial, do you, Em?’ His derision was apparent. His whole attitude betrayed the fact that he had no appetite for self-denial himself.
Why had she never seen past the sleek, urbane exterior and realised earlier the danger he represented? Here was a man who could dodge shell-fire and not by so much as a blink give away the fact that he wasn’t comfortably seated in a studio. The toughness, the determination went bone-deep, as did the cynicism. The nature of his role in the media meant that he was constantly bombarded with the very worst of human suffering and inhumanity. He’d told her he had seen wickedness and felt nothing, a spiritual numbness she couldn’t believe, having read his work a few hours earlier. Through the words ran a surprising thread of idealism that shone through at unexpected moments from the corrosive cynicism, as if the two fought a constant battle.
The blue eyes were anything but passive at the moment. She found her stomach doing painful contortions as she met his gaze. ‘I’m all for anticipation, prolonging the relish, but you can take that too far.’
‘How many times do I have to say it, Luke? I don’t want to sleep with you!’ she cried, defying the deep instinct to reach out, be submerged by the fleeting passion he felt, and forget that he only despised her. Hadn’t he told her as much? She was helpless to prevent the electrical surge that began as a gentle tingling beneath her skin, and grew, exploded into arrows of molten pain…desire. She tried to think past the demands of her body; even without the feud things were hopeless; their lives were poles apart. ‘I’m particular about whom I make love with, and to be quite frank I find all of this quite sordid,’ she said frigidly, and beneath the table her knees shook.
‘Sordid?’ Soft and purring, his tone spelt danger. Luke was angry; in fact he was furious. She could see the thin white bloodless line that outlined his compressed lips. A nerve leapt erratically in his lean cheek, and his eyes shot blue wrath.
‘We’re related,’ she responded, feeling cornered by the disproportionate response.
His eyebrows rose sarcastically. ‘Our parents were co
usins only because my mother was adopted. We are related on paper, not by blood. I think you can rule out incest in whatever culture you care to align yourself with.’
‘This is pointless,’ she muttered, rising. ‘I don’t have to have a note to excuse me just because I don’t want to go to bed with you. You might blackmail me into marriage, but I’ll despise you with all my heart.’ She gave a muttered expletive as her sleeve caught the coffee-pot, disgorging the contents over her hand. The pain helped her concentrate her wits. ‘Don’t touch me!’ she yelped shrilly as he made a move towards her. One step hearer, and a word of concern, and she’d be lost…
‘You should do something about that hand,’ Luke said after a pause.
She felt oddly deflated that he had obeyed her fierce command so readily. ‘I’m quite capable of doing so if necessary.’
‘I wasn’t offering any assistance,’ he said without expression. ‘And, Emmy,’ he said as she turned to escape. She looked back over her shoulder warily. ‘You do want to be in my bed.’
She made a faint choking noise in her throat.
He didn’t follow her; that much at least she should have been thankful for. The irony was, half of her had longed for him to do just that. That was too easy, though…She had to capitulate. Her submission had to be total—part of the retribution!
Placing her raw hand underneath the running water did nothing to relieve the burning sensation that ran like molten liquid through her body. Such wanting, such despair…she had never dreamt that such terrible depths existed. Sadly mourning her lost innocence, she closeted herself in the small dressing-room. Was the chest of drawers she pushed up against the door to keep him out or herself in? she wondered bleakly as she climbed into the narrow bed.
The nightmare reappeared and she emerged from the visceral terror slick with sweat, whimpers still escaping from a throat raw from the terrified screams that had split the night.
The sound of splintering wood and the thud of the overturned chest only added to her confusion. She blinked as light from the room beyond, Luke’s room, flooded into her own small ante-room.
Luke’s eyes took in the overturned furniture and her white-faced figure, eyes huge, tears still running down her cheeks. ‘Furniture removal, infant?’ he observed, but the erratic throb of the nerve in his jaw belied the dry tone. ‘Rape,’ he said derisively, ‘was never on the agenda.’
She couldn’t counter his anger; she was still shaking. ‘N-night terrors,’ she stammered. ‘I hardly ever get them now.’ She gripped the bedcover and pleated it between her trembling fingers. ‘I expect I was yelling.’
‘My name.’
She closed her eyes. The terror which had been so stark wasn’t as severe as the apprehension which assailed her now. Yelling out for him like some lovesick idiot…You’re nothing to him but a dupe, Emily… If you’re going to be used, girl, retain a little dignity! It was difficult to keep her mind running along these lines when it wanted to make detours concerning the way the line of hair on his chest disappeared into the pair of shorts he wore, the muscular contractions in his belly and thighs that made the skin glide like well-oiled teak over the compact conformation.
‘Sorry I disturbed you.’ In the circumstaces she was pleased with the way it sounded. At least it had been articulate, not a hysterical scream!
‘Disturbed? What a way you have with words, infant,’ he drawled. He spoke after a pause that had been so heavy with unspoken comment that her reluctant eyes had been forced open.
‘Luke…’
‘Do you honestly believe it’s worth fighting against the tide of something that’s inevitable, Emily?’ he asked harshly, his blue eyes banked with smouldering embers.
She took a deep breath. What had she been waiting for, some declaration of love? How stupid, she derided herself. It had been something in his eyes that for one brief moment had made her hopes flare. ‘I haven’t your dedication and single-minded ambition, Luke. I don’t get a sadistic kick from gaining the upper hand, and neither do I polish my grudges over the years,’ she informed him, shivering as the dampness on her skin grew cold and clammy. ’the only inevitable thing I know is how much I’m going to despise you. Marriage to you is still a nightmare, not a reality.’
His shadowed jaw grew taut and the air of restrained violence in his body grew more pronounced. With a single violent epithet he stalked, panther-like, to her narrow bed.
‘What are you doing…?’ she squeaked.
‘You have a habit of asking questions with answers which are painfully obvious to anyone but a complete imbecile,’ he growled, adjusting the angle of his jaw as a strand of her hair snaked around his neck. He glared at her, his manner one of intense exasperation. ‘I’m taking you to my bed and, before you start to make speeches about my sullying your integrity just by occupying the same planet, I will go to great lengths to assure you that the only reason for this is I haven’t the energy to break down any more doors to rescue you.’
‘I don’t need rescuing.’ The curve of his shoulder was so inviting that it took all her will-power to hold herself stiffly rigid in his arms as he carried her into his room.
‘If you don’t shut up, you will,’ he promised grimly. Without warning she landed on his bed, an undignified tangle of arms and legs.
‘I can’t sleep here!’ She pulled her nightdress down over her knees with unsteady fingers.
‘Sweetheart, I’ve indulged you to the hilt so far,’ he said on a note of warning.
‘Not so as you’d notice,’ she retorted, outraged enough by this patently untrue statement to protest. He really was a barbarian—the word seemed disturbingly apt. He was standing in a diminishing circle of light which faded away to shadow at the perimeter of the room. The shadow playing across his skin lent it a satin-like bronze glow. The sharp planes of his face were illuminated, giving the contours an austere, almost sinister beauty. She tore her eyes away from him. To her, he symbolised the essence of raw, earthy masculinity. The effect it had on her made her appreciate how wildly optimistic she’d been in imagining she could keep her secret.
‘I need sleep, so why make a drama out of sharing a bed? I’ve already told you, Emmy, that the initiative is yours, sweetheart. I’m prepared to be seduced if your offer is good enough.’
The air whistled through her clenched teeth. Of all the arrogant…A shudder ran through her as he threw back the quilt and slid beneath it. He raised himself and regarded her, dark brows drawn together in a line of disdain. ‘I want you where I know you can come to no harm.’
‘Sharing your bed is not my idea of security!’ The fact that the heat from his body had already invaded the small space that separated them, that all she had to do was reach out, made her skin prickle as though subjected to a constant, ruthless friction.
He slid down. ‘Just think how convenient it will be if you have any more erotic dreams,’ he told her, leaning over to flick off the bedside lamp.
‘Nightmares,’ she hissed.
‘Erotic nightmares,’ he obliged. ‘Goodnight, Emmy.’ He rolled on to his side, his breathing quickly becoming deep and regular.
She lay stiff and miserable at his side. The whole situation put things alarmingly into perspective. The sort of longing which was attacking every atom of her being was searing…agonising. Yet Luke could calmly fall asleep! Any desire he felt for her had been incited by his ruthless determination to flaunt their liaison under her father’s nose; it was pointless for her to elevate it to anything more worthy.
Eventually she must have slept, and surprisingly she was troubled by none of the recent turbulent dreams. Consciousness returned slowly, a warm, drifting sensation she reluctantly permitted herself to obey. Light. Sleepily her eyes focused on a wooden beam above her head. She tried to roll over and gave a puzzled, sleepy frown as a dead weight restricted her movements.
Reality swiftly replaced the hazy sense of well-being. Her eyes darted around the alien room and confirmed she’d had no right to indulge
in optimism. The dead weight was Luke’s arm, and the warmth was the length of his body. Stifling panic, she twisted on to her side and pulled herself free of his arm. Desperate not to disturb him, she lay listening for any sign of returning consciousness in him. Feeling safer as he continued to lie supine and unmoving, she slid her legs towards the edge of the bed. At this point she permitted herself a covert glance towards his sleeping figure. Asleep, Luke’s face had lost the ingrained cynicism. He looked younger and, if not quite vulnerable, certainly less remote. With a will of their own her eyes moved covetously lower.
The impact made her gasp, the sound the only audible noise in the room. Clothes had not hidden the sleek strength of his body, but they had blurred the details. In the morning light what had been the suggestion of power was breathtakingly explicit. The densely packed muscles were more defined than she had imagined and, yes, she admitted, she had imagined! This was no boy’s body; the raw masculine power hit some exposed area of her brain like a bolt of neat electricity. She stared dry-mouthed at the dark, curling hair scattered across the breadth of his chest, tailing to a narrow dart where it disappeared beneath the waistband of his boxer-shorts. His thighs were covered with the same fine dusting—strong, deeply muscled, athletic legs.
The effort not to touch him made her feel physically ill. Inside she began to experience a self-revulsion at the erotic images she couldn’t extinguish. Images full of tactile sensations, sensations she felt desperate to experience. Her head felt incredibly light and she knew her flesh was burning; she felt branded by the heightened awareness.
‘Did you sleep?’
Dazed, her eyes flickered back to his face. How long had he been awake, watching her? Guilt and self-disgust filtered into her eyes. How could she permit him to do this to her? She was a tool…a means of achieving his ultimate revenge…
She had to say something; he was watching her with that impenetrable stare. ‘You have a nice tan.’ She curled up inside as the fatuous words came blurting out and she steeled herself for the facetious response he would undoubtedly deliver.