by Penny Jordan
She knew she was breathing far too rapidly, that she was foolishly betraying things that should have been kept hidden. Another woman, a more experienced, accomplished woman, would never have reacted so immediately, nor so embarrassingly to so light a caress. Not even a caress really, more a subtle question, a suggestion…something from which both of them could quite easily have withdrawn and dismissed as a mere accidental brushing of his fingers against her skin, if she had not over-reacted so wildly to it, her body trembling, her eyes widening, her breath coming in tiny, frantic little gasps, that were surely as much of an invitation to him as though she had spoken the words out aloud.
Certainly he seemed to have no difficulty in correctly interpreting their message, because before she could even think of fighting, to check what she was feeling, his hand had cupped her jaw, turning her face up towards his. His body had somehow moved subtly closer to hers so that she was intimately aware of its strengths, and its weaknesses, although she tried frantically to deny the knowledge that the pulsing hardness she could feel so intimately had any existence outside her own over-active imagination.
Perhaps if she hadn’t been so desperately fighting that battle she might have managed to anticipate his kiss and to evade it, but as it was all she could do was to stare helplessly into the depths of his eyes like a mesmerised teenager, knowing that he was going to kiss her, knowing that she should stop him, and at the same time knowing that she was not going to do so.
For twenty years the only kisses she had known had been those of a very shy and reserved father, those of an exuberant and loving daughter, those of friends, brief female pecks on the cheek, and occasionally, very occasionally, when she had not been able to evade or avoid them, the unwanted and unwelcome and totally unarousing kisses of certain of her male acquaintances. Her only memories of Jimmy’s kisses were vague and unreal. He had bitten her lip once and it had hurt her. He had also scoffed at her reluctance to indulge in what he had termed ‘French kissing’ which to her at the time had seemed a distasteful and wholly unappealing activity.
And yet for all her lack of experience, for all her years of celibacy, somewhere hidden deep inside her and unrecognised by herself must have lurked some kind of inner knowledge and instinct, because the moment Silas’s lips touched hers, her mouth seemed to swell and soften, her lips clinging eagerly to his, her eyes closing, so that when he almost immediately broke the tormenting contact of his mouth on hers, her eyelids lifted, heavy with arousal and need, her eyes dark with confusion, her lips still parted so that when his returned to caress them again she felt it could only be because her own had begged him to do so.
Three times or maybe four he repeated the light caress, and each time as she reluctantly opened her eyes, convinced that it was over, that he was about to push her away from him and let her go, she was confused by a question she seemed to read in his eyes but was unable to answer.
It was almost as though he was waiting for something, but what?
Her lips felt swollen and sensitive. She touched them with the tip of her tongue exploratively and then tensed as she heard Silas’s explosive breath and felt his hand slide from her jaw into her hair, his fingers tangling in her curls.
He said something under his breath. She thought it might have been her name, but she wasn’t sure, and then as she looked uncertainly up at him, he bent his head and covered her mouth with his.
This time his kiss was neither brief nor gentle. This time…
It felt as though her heart were literally turning over inside her. It felt as though every single one of her muscles had turned to cotton wool, and her blood to liquid heat. It felt…it felt like nothing she had ever experienced in her life, nor expected to experience, and if Silas had chosen to remove every item of clothing from her body and from his and to lie her down right where they stood, among the cool soft grass and the falling autumn leaves, and to possess her body as no man had possessed it since Jimmy’s awkward and youthful taking of it, she would not only have not stopped him, but would have actively and very, very eagerly have helped him to do so.
Fortunately he did not choose to do so. Fortunately he chose instead to lift his mouth from hers, and to press tiny biting kisses along her throat, and even more fortunately when he reached her ear he chose to whisper raggedly into it, ‘We shouldn’t be doing this.’
They most certainly should not. She froze immediately, sickened and disgusted by her own behaviour, wrenching herself out of his arms so determinedly and so speedily that he automatically let her go.
‘No, we shouldn’t,’ she told him bitterly.
She was shaking so much that he had to be aware of her reactions. How could she have done this…? How could she have allowed it to happen? And why had it happened? He was obviously a man with not just a high sex drive, but a virtually uncontrollable sex drive—he had to be, otherwise he would never, ever have attempted to touch her. She was Katie’s mother, for heaven’s sake.
And yet…and yet nothing about him had suggested that he lacked self-control…
But then neither had anything about him suggested that he had the kind of ego and lack of maturity which forced him to bolster himself up by seducing teenage girls. Perhaps that was it. Perhaps his vanity was massaged by the thought of having them both, mother and daughter. Perhaps…
Wild thoughts followed one another like hounds after a fox, out of control and eager to cause destruction.
She was trying desperately to control her emotions, her breathing, the tumultuous beat of her heart and the body that still ached for him so much that she could hardly believe it was her body, her emotions, that were reacting like this. She felt stupidly close to tears, and tears were something she simply never allowed herself. She had learned years ago the futility, the danger of becoming lachrymose and self-pitying.
Now she felt more vulnerable, more afraid than she could ever remember feeling in her whole life, and all because of this man, she reflected bitterly…all because of this man who had no right to make her feel such things. This man who was supposed to be committed to her daughter. This man with whom she had just betrayed that commitment and Katie herself.
She couldn’t bear the burden of her own guilt. She wanted to demand to know if he had any thought at all for Katie, if he realised what he had done, if he, like her, was suffering any feelings of guilt, of anguish, but she simply could not bring herself to utter her daughter’s name. Not so soon after she had been in his arms. She had been responding to him with such abandon, such eagerness. She had been the one to partner him in that betrayal. To mention Katie’s name now would be like betraying her daughter a second time.
Instead she had to content herself with a low-voiced, ‘How could you? How could you behave so…so vilely?’
As she turned away from him, she saw him frown. ‘You’re over-reacting a little, aren’t you?’ he demanded curtly.
She held her breath, tense with bitterness and self-loathing. Another second and he would be telling her, ‘It was only a kiss.’ Well, she might be inexperienced, but that had not been ‘only a kiss’, and as for over-reacting…
She gave him a fiercely condemning look and said angrily, ‘Over-reacting? I don’t think so. Not in the circumstances.’
His frown deepened. ‘I see. It seems I totally misread the situation.’
Caution and self-preservation warned her not to respond, but she was being driven by her guilt and her pain and so she ignored caution and demanded icily, ‘What do you mean?’
The look he gave her was level and thoughtful. Not the look at all of a man consumed by guilt or ego.
‘I think you know what I mean.’ He said it almost gently, almost in the manner of an adult to a wayward child.
‘No, no, as a matter of fact I don’t,’ she told him, her voice too high and pitched too sharply.
Still he was regarding her with that gravely questioning look that was beginning to unnerve her so much.
‘Very well,’ he said slowly. ‘I im
agined—thought—that what happened between us was not something to which you were, shall we say, averse?’
It took several seconds before his meaning seeped in and, when it did, she saw red.
‘You mean it was all my fault?’ she demanded furiously. ‘I tempted you? I suppose you’re the kind of man who’d…who’d rape a woman and then claim that it was what she wanted.’
She was too overwrought to know what she was saying, to realise how offensive she was being, until his face changed and he said sharply, ‘Now, just a minute…’ He took a step towards her and when she shrank back, thoroughly frightened of what she saw in his eyes, he seemed to take a deep breath and force back whatever it was he was feeling before saying more calmly, ‘I wasn’t for one second suggesting that you were to blame… that either of us was to blame. I don’t even think it was something that involved an emotion such as blame. I was merely trying to say that when I kissed you I thought…felt that you weren’t averse to what was happening between us, or rather what I thought was happening between us.’
His voice had become faintly hard again, and it hardened still further as he told her unequivocally, ‘And as for your comment about rape, let me assure you that the thought of forcing a woman, any woman to have sex with me is something I find totally barbarous and revolting. I cannot understand what motivates any man to force himself on a woman who doesn’t want him, and, if I’ve given you a different impression, then I must apologise for it.’ His voice had become extremely clipped, the revulsion he was feeling so obvious that Hazel felt a fresh surge of self-dislike rise up inside her.
What she was trying to do was to blame him for something for which she knew she had been at least fifty per cent to blame. She wanted to cry out to him to understand that it was her guilt, her horror at what she had done that had made her react so badly, so childishly, that of course she knew that… That what? That he had been quite right to imply that she had wanted him. Wasn’t that after all the simple unvarnished truth?
It might be the truth, but there was nothing simple about it…nothing at all.
‘If it helps to ease your mind, to assure you that I shan’t make the same mistake a second time, then please let me give you my word that while I’m living under your roof you will be completely safe from any further…misunderstandings of a similar nature.’
What he was saying was that he wouldn’t touch her again, and she ought to be thankful for that, instead of feeling as though a dark cloud had suddenly descended on her. And what did he mean, while he was living under her roof? Surely after what had just happened he must have changed his mind about using her home as a base while he worked in the area?
But it seemed he had not, and she felt too exhausted, too drained, too vulnerable still to challenge him on the subject and to demand that he find somewhere else to live. If she did, who knew what he might say? He might even accuse her of wanting him to leave not so much because she didn’t trust him to keep his word, but because she could not trust herself.
They had almost reached the car when she asked him in a stilted voice, ‘You won’t…you won’t say anything about this to Katie, will you?’
She felt dreadful having to ask him such a question, but she could not bear it if her folly was revealed to her daughter…if Katie were to turn against her because of it.
The look he gave her was compounded of astonishment and, she was sure, contempt.
‘Why on earth should I?’ he demanded in a clipped voice.
There was nothing she could say to that. Why indeed? His response had certainly put her in her place. He was as good as telling her that what had happened between them—the kiss which had had such an intense effect upon her—meant absolutely nothing at all to him.
She ought to have felt comforted, and reassured, but instead she felt achingly empty, bitterly hurt, and more alone than she could remember feeling at any other time in her whole life.
CHAPTER FIVE
WHITE-FACED, her head pounding with tension and anguish, Hazel wondered how on earth she was going to make it through the evening. Katie wasn’t a fool. She must be aware of the grim silence between Silas and herself, even if, please God, she could not realise the cause of it.
They had driven back to the house in that same silence, which had persisted even when Katie had returned full of happy chatter about her own day, and it had gone on through dinner and beyond.
It was not that she was sulking, or in any way trying to punish either herself or Silas, although God knew they both deserved to be punished. It was simply that she could not, dared not speak to him because she was petrified of what she might betray if she did. Just as she was petrified of going to close to him in case her idiotic body did the same thing.
And so she had kept her distance and her silence, responding to those comments he did put to her in monosyllabic words.
Telling herself that it was the least she could do, she announced that she was going to have an early night, ignoring Katie’s plaintive comments that she would be leaving first thing in the morning and that she had barely seen her.
She couldn’t bring herself to make the obvious comment which was that unless she and Silas had made plans for him to visit Katie at university over the weekends it was going to be quite some time before the two of them were likely to be alone again, and that in the circumstances she would have thought that Katie would have welcomed the opportunity to spend some time in private with him.
She was finding it increasingly difficult to force herself to acknowledge that Katie and Silas were lovers, and no wonder, she reflected bleakly as she prepared for bed.
Just what kind of mother was she, she who had always prided herself on putting Katie’s needs first? Was it putting Katie’s needs first to allow Silas, Katie’s boyfriend, to…to…? To what? To kiss her?
She shuddered sickly. She had never felt more confused or unhappy in her whole life. Why on earth was she reacting to Silas like this? Why on earth had her body chosen to show her that it could feel desire, that it could feel yearning and want, that it could be so sexually responsive, that even now…yes, even now, merely to remember Silas’s kiss was to reactivate all the emotions and sensations she had experienced in his arms?
It wasn’t as though she was a teenager or even a young woman any more. It wasn’t as though… As though what? an inner voice demanded rebelliously—as though she was still a woman? Of course she was.
All right, she admitted painfully. So she was still a woman, and a very foolish one at that. But why on earth did she have to want Silas? She knew other men, plenty of them, and she had never reacted to them the way she did to him.
She wandered restlessly round her room, knowing that if she got into bed she would never sleep, and then when she heard someone knock briefly on her bedroom door she tensed, the blood roaring in her ears, her pulses pounding.
Silas! But he couldn’t…wouldn’t…
She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed when the door opened and Katie came in.
‘You OK, Ma?’ she asked with some concern. ‘You look dreadfully pale.’
‘I’m tired, that’s all.’
Still watching her, Katie sat down on her bed, stretching luxuriously and then demanding with a grin, ‘Well, wasn’t I right? Isn’t Silas gorgeous?’
Hazel felt as though someone had opened all her veins and her blood was running hotly and painfully out of her body.
‘He… He…seems very pleasant,’ was all she could manage, as she turned away so that Katie wouldn’t see her face.
‘Pleasant!’ Katie laughed out loud. ‘Ma, how could you? Personally I think he’s just about the sexiest man of his age I’ve ever seen. Of course he’s not my type. He’s far too old, for one thing, and anyway he makes it pretty obvious that he isn’t interested in immature students. Very politely and nicely, of course. You should see the way he handles his over-enthusiastic female students. It’s a wonder to behold…
‘Ma, what on earth’s wron
g?’ she asked anxiously as Hazel stifled a shocked sound in her throat and turned a too-white face towards her.
‘Katie, what on earth are you saying?’ Hazel demanded frantically. ‘I mean, it’s not as though you have to pretend for my benefit, you know. I guessed immediately what you meant when you described Silas as being very special, although I must admit I had expected him to be younger. I mean, he must be forty…’
‘Forty-one, actually,’ Katie told her. ‘Ma, what on earth are you trying to say? You couldn’t possibly have thought that Silas and I…that we…’ Katie started to laugh. ‘But that’s absurd. Heavens… I can’t imagine what on earth made you think…Now I understand what you meant when you made such a big thing of which rooms we were sleeping in. Oh, Ma…’ She came over to Hazel and gave her a fond hug. ‘Surely the moment you saw Silas you must have realized…? He’s old enough to be my father.’ She paused and gave Hazel a very searching, thoughtful look.
‘Is that what you thought? That I’m looking for a father figure?’ She shook her head. ‘Ma, you’ve brought me up far too securely for me to have those kind of needs. I don’t need a father, and when the day comes when I do need and want a lover it will be someone whom I can meet on equal terms—someone with whom I can share, not someone with twenty more years’ experience of life than me. Not someone who’s going to treat me as a child, a little girl. Oh, Ma…just wait until I tell Silas what you thought…’
Hazel reacted immediately, grabbed hold of Katie’s arm and saying huskily, ‘Katie! No, please, promise me you won’t discuss this with him.’ She saw Katie’s bewilderment and told her, ‘I’d feel such a fool, and so embarrassed…’