by Penny Jordan
‘Because of one man, you’re going to shut the rest of the male sex out of your life, is that it? Because you’re afraid…’
He was going to touch her. Campion could sense it, and suddenly she was panic-stricken. If he did… She stood up abruptly, pushing past him, ignoring him as he called out her name. She had to get away. She had to be on her own. Her mind and emotions were in such turmoil.
He caught up with her in the kitchen.
‘I’m going for a walk. I want to be on my own.’
Perhaps something in her face warned him not to touch her, because he stepped back slightly.
‘All right, if that’s what you want, but you’re wrong, you know, Campion. And he was wrong, too…’
As she pulled on her boots, she turned on him, her expression fierce and proud.
‘I’m not a fool, Guy, not any more. I realise that flirting comes as naturally to you as breathing, but that doesn’t disguise the truth. Physically, men find me repellant. I know that, and no amount of you pretending it isn’t true is going to change things.’
He looked angry now, really angry. He came up to her and grabbed hold of her arm so that she almost fell over. Instinctively, she clung on to him, and then wished she hadn’t as her senses were overwhelmed by the nearness of him. She started to shake, but he seemed unaware of her vulnerability. His grip on her arm tightened as he looked down into her face.
‘Do you know what I think?’ he said softly. ‘I think you’re a coward, Campion. I think you’re afraid. Afraid of living, afraid of loving, afraid of… And so you’ve shut yourself away behind a wall of pride and resentment. So you made a mistake, an error of judgement… Don’t you think we all make those mistakes at one time or another? But the rest of us have the guts to pick ourselves up and go on with life. It isn’t desirability you lack,’ he added in disgust. ‘It’s guts.’
‘Really!’ The smile she gave him felt as though it was pasted on her face. ‘Haven’t you left something out?’
She watched as he frowned.
‘You haven’t told me yet that I’m frigid,’ she added bitterly. ‘That is what you were going to say next, isn’t it?’
Before he could say anything, she pulled out of his grasp and opened the back door.
This was the second time she had run from him like this. Her heart thudded painfully in her chest, although she knew without looking over her shoulder that he wasn’t following her.
Oh, God, what had she done? What had she said? Why hadn’t she kept quiet? Why had she allowed him to needle her into betraying so much?
How could she ever face him again? She started to shiver.
She couldn’t go back. He was an intelligent man. When he had time to think over what she had said, what was there to stop him from guessing how she really felt?
She stumbled on, sliding on the muddy path, turning instinctively towards the coast.
The cliffs on the headland were steep, and the home for a variety of sea birds. The wind coming off the sea was still quite strong. She had walked blindly while she was angry, but now her anger had gone and reaction was setting in. She couldn’t go back to the cottage. How could she face Guy?
She sat down on the wet grass and stared out to sea. Why had he said that he desired her? Probably out of some misguided attempt to flatter her. He couldn’t have realised the avalanche of emotion his words would release, and he was probably feeling as battered as she was herself. She ought to go back and make her peace with him, but she couldn’t.
She got up, shivering in the cold wind. A bird screeched mockingly overhead, and as she looked up it seemed to dive towards her. She ducked instinctively, and cried out as she felt herself slipping.
She fell heavily, but, instead of solid ground beneath her, she felt the earth moving, sliding, taking her with it as it broke away.
She knew that she screamed, but the sound was lost among the wild cries of the sea birds disturbed by the small avalanche.
Quite a large piece of the cliff had fallen away, and she had fallen with it. Below her she could see the foam-capped waves; above her was the clifftop. She was perched on less than four square feet of rock and earth that was somehow wedged between a rocky outcrop six feet below the top of the cliff.
Six feet, that was all, but it might just as well have been sixty. There was no way she could clamber up that almost vertical rock-face and back to safety. In fact, she dared not even move, terrified in case she destroyed her fragile security.
It had started to rain again, and surely the wind was harsher, buffeting against the cliff-face.
Gulls cried and swooped, and far out to sea she could see the grey outline of a boat. She dared not look down. She had always had a thing about water combined with height. If she looked, she would be drawn downwards, she knew it. She shivered, her jacket no protection against the wind and rain. And then, incredibly, she heard Guy’s voice.
He was calling her name, his voice harsh.
Less than ten minutes ago she had felt she could never face him again, and yet now she would have given anything to get up and run towards him.
It was several seconds before she could call out to him, and then several more before she could hear his voice again. Closer this time.
‘I’m here, Guy. There was a landslide, the cliff… Be careful!’ She stopped as she saw him looking down at her.
It must be the cold that was making him look so tense, as though at any second he feared his control might shatter.
‘I think you’ll have to go to the village to get help.’
He looked away from her, and she thought he said something, but she couldn’t quite hear.
He disappeared completely then and, even though she knew he had to leave her to get help, she felt more abandoned than she had felt when her parents died, more alone than at any other time in her life.
Her ankle had gone numb and she moved instinctively, tensing abruptly as she felt her perch begin to tilt.
She had a momentary and unwanted view of the rocks below her, and the sea frothing angrily around the rocks, throwing up showers of grey-white spume. The tide was coming in. It couldn’t reach her up here of course.
She shivered and bit down hard on her bottom lip. What was the point in crying now? It was her own folly that had brought her here. Her own crazy stupidity…
‘Campion!’
She stared up at Guy. He hadn’t left her, after all. He was leaning over the edge of the cliff. He must by lying flat on the ground, she recognised.
‘I’m going to pass my jeans down to you. I want you to hold on to them as tightly as you can. I’m going to use them to pull you back up the cliff.’
Her mouth went dry. She wanted to refuse; what he was suggesting was madness! He was a very fit man, but she was no lightweight, and what he was suggesting could mean them both plummeting down on to those viciously sharp rocks and that icy-cold sea.
‘Stand up slowly and carefully.’
Incredibly, she found she was doing as he told her and, even more incredibly, beneath her fear she felt a calmness, a sense of trust so new to her that she paused for a moment to marvel at it. Fear obviously bred strange emotions. Very strange emotions.
‘Now, get hold of my jeans. Hold the fabric tightly, wrap it round your wrists. Yes, that’s it.’
Panic flared inside her, but she fought it down.
‘Now, I want you to put your feet as flat as you can against the cliff-face…’
He wanted her to what? She felt sick at the thought of what he was suggesting. She couldn’t do it. If she even tried, she would fall.
‘You’ve got to do it, Campion.’
Was that desperation she heard in his voice? She looked up at him, and then gasped as she felt her small island of security tilt a little further.
‘Now! You’ve got to do it now.’
She heard the skitter of rocks as they fell away beneath her, and perhaps it was that that gave her the courage to move, or perhaps it was the sheer stre
ngth of Guy’s voice, she didn’t know, but suddenly she was stepping off her perch, placing her feet as he had told her, leaning out slightly, gripping the denim fabric until her arms ached, as Guy slowly pulled her up the cliff-face.
All she could do to help him was to gain a little extra leverage by using her feet. Her fear for herself vanished as, slowly, inched by inch, he pulled her to safety, and all she could think was that, if she didn’t do all she could to help him, she could fall, and take Guy himself with her. And then, unbelievably, her eyes were on a level with the top of the cliff.
‘Hold on,’ Guy instructed her tersely.
It was bliss to feel the cold, wet grass against her skin as Guy pulled her the last few feet to safety, before grabbing hold of her and dragging them both well back from the cliff edge.
‘You saved my life!’
He was kneeling on the ground beside her, breathing harshly as his body reacted to the strain.
She wanted to reach out to him and hold him, to tell him that he was right and that she was a coward, but even as she moved she saw his face close up and an icy coldness filled her. She had been right, after all. She hadn’t missed that brief but unmistakable movement away from her just then. He had lied to her. He didn’t desire her, and she was a fool for ever letting herself think he might.
She started to stand up. Her whole body threatened to buckle under the efforts, but she was too proud to let Guy see how she felt. He had just shown her how he felt about the thought of any physical contact between them.
‘Come on, let’s get back to the cottage. It’s going to start pouring down.’
They should have looked idiotic. A woman almost plastered in mud all down her front, and a man wearing a thick shirt, a heavy sweater, briefs and socks, but Campion didn’t care how they looked. Guy had saved her life, but for… Reaction started to set in. She was shivering… She looked instinctively at Guy, but he turned away, his face bleak.
CHAPTER SIX
‘WE COULD both do with a bath,’ Guy announced, grimacing in self-disgust once they were safely inside the kitchen.
He hadn’t said a word during the cold, wet walk back to the cottage. How had he known where to find her? Campion wondered as she stood and shivered. How had he known she even needed help?
‘You go first,’ she offered awkwardly.
‘I can manage down here.’
Again that harsh tone. Her muscles tensed as she recognised that he was avoiding looking directly at her. Why? Was it because of their discussion earlier, or because of the way she had reached out towards him? Had it suddenly struck him that she might take his words seriously, that she might think he was actually attracted to her? Did he really think she was so stupid?
‘Upstairs, Campion. Unless, of course, you get a thrill out of watching men strip off.’
Her skin burned. He couldn’t have thought of a more cruel way to taunt her.
All the way back she had avoided looking at his body, but now she couldn’t help it. She could feel the heat burning up under her skin as he turned his back on her and deliberately started to remove his sweater and shirt. Her mouth went dry. She ached to be able to reach out and touch him, to see if his skin felt as warm and male as it looked. And then she realised that Guy was turning round.
With a small, choked cry, she fled upstairs.
She had a bath, washed her hair, dried it as best she could with a towel, grimacing at the tangle of curls that hung on to her shoulders. Pulling on her bathrobe, she gathered up her wet clothes and headed back to her bedroom.
As she walked in, she saw that Guy was standing with his back to her, staring out of the window. Like her, he was dressed in a towelling robe. His legs beneath its short hem were bare and brown. Her own toes curled protestingly into the carpet. She didn’t want to see him like this. It made it all so much harder.
He turned round abruptly and stared at her, and instinctively she tugged at her robe and wished that she had been able to do something more sensible with her hair.
‘We have to talk…’
Of course. She ought to have expected that.
‘There’s nothing to talk about, Guy,’ she said wearily. ‘You needn’t worry. I didn’t take what you said seriously.’
A muscle twitched in his jaw.
‘Like hell! You took it seriously enough to walk out of her and damn well nearly kill yourself.’
Kill herself? Did he actually think…?
‘That was an accident. I walked out in a temper, I admit, but you don’t think I actually…’
Guy pushed his hand into his hair. He looked tired.
‘No, no, of course not. But you must see that we can’t go on like this. I think it would be best if I left…’
Oh, God! But wasn’t it what she had been expecting? For the sake of her pride, if nothing else, she mustn’t let him see how she felt; she mustn’t let him guess at the pain exploding inside her. She opened her mouth to make a cool, composed response and then, to her horror, she heard herself crying out bitterly, ‘Do you really think I’m so much of a fool that I believed you, Guy? Did you honestly think I had deluded myself into believing that you wanted me? You’re quite safe, you know. I never had any intention of asking you to prove that you weren’t lying.’
‘What…’
He was looking at her rather strangely, with a different grimness round his mouth, and a glimmer of something in the back of his eyes that made her stomach kick dangerously.
‘Just what in hell are you talking about? You may not be a fool, but you certainly have the lowest self-esteem of any woman I’ve ever met.’
The softness in his voice unnerved her. He had turned round and was watching her, and she had the curious sensation of being trapped and defenceless.
‘I’d hardly call it low self-esteem to realise that an attractive, virile man is extremely unlikely to be consumed with desire for me,’ she said proudly, determined not to let him see how much the admission hurt.
‘Then what would you call it?’ Guy demanded, without taking his eyes off her face.
‘Reality,’ she told him firmly. ‘You said you were going to leave…’ She wanted him to go quickly, before she broke down and begged him to stay. If she did that… She tried to breathe, and felt her whole body quiver with pain.
She turned her back on him, and so it was a shock to feel his hands on her arms, dragging her round to face him. He was breathing hard, as though he had been running. And he looked angry, furiously angry. Her heart kicked in her chest, and she shivered beneath a frisson of sexual need.
‘That was before,’ he told her cryptically. ‘God, Campion, I’ve never known a woman like you. Have you really no idea what you are, what you’re doing to me? All this time… At first I thought—’ He shook his head and continued after a pause. ‘There has to be a way to get through to you.’
Still holding on to her, he looked round the room. Before she could protest, Campion found herself dragged in front of an old-fashioned Victorian pier-glass which threw back to her their full-length reflections. He dwarfed her in height and in breadth. He made her look small and frail. With her hair tumbling around her shoulders, she looked different, even to herself.
‘Look at yourself,’ he commanded her huskily, dragging the robe from her body, exposing her nudity, not just to his gaze, but also to her own. Before she could react, before she could cry out in protest, he was shrugging off his own robe.
‘Look at us,’ he demanded softly. ‘And look at what you do to me.’
He stood without touching her, watching the colour crawl up under her skin as she hurriedly looked away from the open arousal of his body.
‘This is reality,’ he told her. ‘This is the way you make me react, the way you make me feel. You say you’re undesirable. To whom? A man without grace or intelligence, who once hurt you badly? Have you any idea how insulting I find it to be classed with him? Have you any idea of how angry you make me when you tell me that you aren’t desirable? Have yo
u any idea of how much you make me ache and long to take hold of you and show you just how wrong you are? I want you, Campion, and I think you want me, too.’
He was turning away from the mirror and towards her.
‘No! No, I…’
‘Yes.’ His voice, thick and oddly muffled, made Campion’s mind spin. She felt his mouth touch her skin, not teasingly or lightly as she had expected, but hungrily, fiercely, like a man out of control. She shuddered beneath its pressure, her throat arching back, her body absorbing the heat of his. She could feel the furious thud of his heart, and her own started to race in time to it. She moaned as his mouth savaged her throat. This was nothing like how she had imagined it might be. She had visualised him as a controlled, even distant lover, but there was nothing in the least controlled or distant about the way he was touching her. He shuddered against her and moaned her name against her skin. Somehow or other, her arms had tightened around him. Her breasts were pressed against his chest and, as he moved, it created a delicious friction against their tender peaks.
His hands moved over her, shaping her body, making her ache to touch him in turn. His mouth had reached her jawline now. She turned her head, her eyes wide and dark with arousal.
‘Kiss me. Kiss me, Guy…’
She wasn’t aware of saying the words, only of the feverish need building inside her.
He lifted his head, his hands cupping her face, his skin flushed with dark colour.
‘Oh, my God, yes. This is how I’ve wanted to see you. This is how I’ve wanted to make you feel.’ His lips touched hers, and she trembled. She felt Guy’s body tense, then his head lifted again so that she was denied the contact she craved. She opened the eyes she had closed in anticipation of the pleasure of having his mouth on hers.
He was staring down at her.
‘Open your mouth, so that I can kiss you properly…’
In a dream, she obeyed his command. It was nothing like the kisses she had experienced with Craig. Kisses which, if she was honest, had not really moved her at all. With Guy, it was different. Her whole body seemed to melt beneath the heat of his touch.