by Susan Napier
Sarah waited until their plates had been removed before bursting out with: 'This is absurd, I hardly know you!'
'That's the way it takes you, sometimes.' He declined coffee with a brief gesture of his head while a steaming cup was set in front of Sarah. 'But if you want to know anything, ask—I can't guarantee that you will like the answers you get, but they'll be honest answers.'
Sarah opened her mouth and shut it again, and laughed ruefully. 'I can't think of a question now, not when you're looking at me like that.'
'Is this better?' He dutifully averted his eyes, chin on hand, to study the ornate silver salt-cellar on their table. It was; relieved of the searching intensity of his gaze Sarah found her tongue, and asked, her interest stimulated by their earlier conversation:
'Are you and your father very close?'
The slender fingers stilled on the scrolled silverwork and his lowered lashes flickered. She knew he had been expecting a question about past love affairs, or whether his rakish reputation was earned, but strangely neither really mattered to Sarah any more. She was with him now, and that was enough. But she was interested in what made him tick as a person—what motivated his singular drive. 'You can look at me now,' she told him blandly.
'You make a career of being unexpected, don't you?' he told her and linked his hands as he applied himself to satisfying her curiosity. 'No, my father and I are not close.
We're too alike in some ways to get on well, in others we're too different.'
'How different?' she prodded, pleased to be the examiner for once.
'He believes talent and temperament are inseparable. I don't. I believe that self-discipline enhances and concentrates a talent, in whatever field. My father does everything to excess, except parenting. He had a distinct lack of talent in that area, as did my mother.'
'So you don't live together?'
'God no!' He looked appalled at the very thought. 'We deal very well together at a distance. In spite of his failings as a father, or perhaps because of them, he seems to be developing a compulsive need to meddle in my life—both personal and business—and refuses to concede that I am more than capable of dealing with my own problems.'
'A fairly common complaint among sons, I would imagine,' said Sarah, amused by the aggrieved note in his voice, and wondering what specific remembrance had induced it.
'Perhaps,' he allowed. 'But I have achieved my present position with very little help from him—' He saw her scepticism. 'It's true, intentionally or unintentionally he made things very difficult for me during my formative years with the company. Perhaps he feared that one day I would push him out.'
'And would you?'
A faint smile. 'No. I think that has been proved beyond doubt.'
'What do you mean?' she asked curiously.
He seemed to give himself a mental shake. 'I mean I recently discovered that I have no wish to crush the old man, even if it's in my power to do so. He may infuriate me, but he is my father, and a designer of undisputed genius.'
'Is that why you didn't become a designer? Because you didn't want to compete with him on his own ground?' asked Sarah with sudden insight.
'No, I—' He stopped, and a brief expression of confusion passed over his face. 'At least I don't think so, I've never been interested in designing—'
'That doesn't answer the question.'
'No, it doesn't, does it?' She saw him smile and erect the 'no entry' sign. 'I think this conversation is getting a little . . . involved.'
'You didn't say that when I was the one under the microscope,' Sarah accused, not wanting to let him off the hook so easily.
'You're a more interesting specimen than I,' he told her, with adroit insincerity and she had to laugh.
'How clever you are at evasion.'
'Almost as clever as you,' he agreed smoothly, and Sarah felt a small spurt of rebelliousness.
'Are you secretly insecure?' she taunted. 'Is that why you never let your women get too close to you?'
Black brows rose. 'We haven't established yet whether you are one of "my women".'
Sarah glared at him and his mouth twitched temptingly.
'It is commonly known that you like to flirt. That your attitude to your ... to female companionship is easy come, easy go,' she said, and felt ridiculous as he clicked his tongue.
'Sarah, Sarah,' he said, with mock-disappointment. 'You've been reading the newspapers again. Who are you going to believe, them or your own instincts?'
'Both, they both tell me the same thing!'
The hazel eyes gleamed with pleasure and laughter as he leaned forward in a confiding manner and Sarah instinctively leaned forward also.
'Do you know what the dictionary definition of "flirt" is?' His face was disconcertingly close and as she watched the words form on his lips she was swamped by a sudden surge of desire. She wanted to pull his head even closer, run her fingers through that silky black hair, feel the movements of that mobile mouth against hers. The feeling was so intense that she had difficulty controlling it, and grasped her hands tightly in her lap to prevent them betraying her by reaching out for him.
' "To pretend to make love",' he quoted softly, insinuatingly. 'I don't qualify, Sarah. I don't pretend.'
'You told me you didn't use the word "love",' said Sarah, her voice husky, eyes fixed on his face, inextricably caught in a web partly of her own making.
'I'm not talking about emotion. As the description of a physical act the word is very apt. When I go to bed with a woman we don't just "have sex", we engage in a mutual ravishment of the senses. Purely physical gratification doesn't require a partner—but to make love . . .'
Sarah felt her skin bloom with colour and struggled to overcome what seemed to be an acute lack of oxygen. Her breasts rose and fell quickly as she began to breathe rapidly to make up the deficiency. She could not have felt more flustered if he had suited his actions to his words.
'Does that frighten you?' He seemed to be flattered by the idea, so that she would have liked to deny it, but she didn't.
'Yes.' It was like being on a high board, wanting to feel the exhilaration of the dive, and aware that fear played a part in that exhilaration.
'But it excites you, too,' he read her perfectly. 'As you excite me.' He moved in for the kill, catching the hand that came up as though to fend him off. 'But it's more than purely physical, Sarah. I like your mind, I admire your independence ... I understand it, we're two of a kind in that respect.'
In the midst of the toils of desire, Sarah denied that. 'I want to be free because I know what it's like to be a prisoner. You want me to be free because it absolves you from any kind of responsibility, because an independent woman won't clutter you up with emotional demands.'
'Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black?' Max said drily, the banked fires still visible in his guarded eyes. She was aware that he was stepping delicately and she couldn't blame him. It had been a stupid thing to say, because she was going into this thing with eyes wide open, as selfishly as he was. She too was scared of emotional clutter. Desire without responsibility, that was what she wanted.
'Don't you want us to meet as equals?' he asked, and suddenly she found her answer, looking at her hand enveloped in his.
'No.' His face altered, though he masked his uncertainty well, and Sarah smiled, putting all the feeling she could into the lazy invitation in her darkening eyes. 'I don't want to be an equal partner—' she paused, deliberately heightening the tension between them—'I want to be seduced, I've never been seduced before. What's it like?'
There was an incredulous silence. Then he laughed abruptly, with as much frustration as humour. 'Just when I think I'm beginning to work you out—! My God, that's another first. . . I've never been asked to seduce a woman before, at least not in words. I begin to wonder who is seducing whom.' He gave her a long, slow look—her eyes, her mouth, her bare shoulders, the golden promise of her breasts. 'But I accept the invitation, of course, how could I re
fuse without ruining my reputation?' Now both of his hands held her submissive one. 'You're so elusive that even the colour of your eyes shifts. They're dark, almost purple at the moment. What colour will they be when you're aroused, I wonder? Or are you aroused already?' The last word slurred to almost a whisper and one hand slid to her wrist. Her pulse beat hard and fast against his thumb and she could feel a slight ridge of hardened flesh on his palm. Another scar? Soon she would feel it on the soft skin of her body and she went weak with imagining it.
With slow deliberation he brought her hand up to his mouth, palm upwards and bit gently, voluptuously into the soft base of her thumb. It was a statement of sexual power and Sarah's eyes" half closed as she felt a deep, molten flowering inside her, her body softening in a way that made the man across from her catch his breath.
She was hardly aware of leaving the restaurant, or of the journey home. Only of Max beside her, controlling the powerful car with ease, glancing sideways every now and then with barely concealed impatience.
He followed her up the darkened stairwell to the studio where she had left a single, soft orange lamp burning. She kicked off her shoes and floated over the polished wood floor towards the light, like a moth drawn inexorably towards the flame.
CHAPTER NINE
The dark volume of the night pressed against the wide expanse of uncurtained window; cloud hung like smoke across the thin, pale face of the moon. There was no wind, not a sound but the chorus of crickets outside in the darkness, no witness but the large, soft moths beating their wings against the glass, drawn like Sarah to the spell of the light.
She was trembling. Here in familiar surroundings what had seemed so inevitable now seemed less certain.
She heard a soft footfall, felt hands descend lightly on to her shoulders.
'Have you changed your mind?' There was a thread of amusement in the voice that caressed her ear. He knew so much about women, he must know what she was feeling. 'If you have, tell me, this is supposed to be seduction, not rape.'
He turned her slowly around and she stared hard at the black tie, sensing rather than seeing his mouth curve.
'Shy, mistress? You wanted me to take the first step and I have. All you have to do is say yes.' His hand tipped her chin up and held it until her eyes lifted to meet his. What she saw there made her tremble anew. 'Say yes, Sarah,' he urged softly. 'Say yes. I won't hurt you. I promise.'
Without really being aware of it she allowed her body to sway, drawn by the magnet of his. Her voice held a question as well as an answer.
'Max? ... I. . .'
It was enough. One lean, dark hand slid around to the back of her head, gripping her firmly, pulling her forward. He bent and brushed his open mouth tantalisingly across hers, drawing back as she stirred and tensed like a warm, wild animal in his arms.
'Relax. Don't be frightened,' he soothed.
'I'm not, it's just . . .' Sarah gasped as he nuzzled her neck, finding with his tongue the throbbing pulse at the base of her throat. 'I don't remember—ever—feeling like this.' The words slowed and slurred as she threw back her head to allow his mouth access to the sensitive skin just under the curve of her jawline.
'You never have,' he muttered against her with sensuous satisfaction. 'Nor have I. We're a unique combination and the way we feel and fit together will be unique too'. I want to pleasure you and show you ways to pleasure me ... we have all the time in the world ... we can take it slowly, gently . . .'
He was keeping a tight rein on his passion and Sarah rebelled. She was a woman and wanted to be treated like one. She didn't want restraint, she wanted Max as she sensed he could be—fierce, passionate, volcanic— excitingly male. The driving need inside her would be content with nothing less.
She freed her hands, crushed between her body and his and held his head, stilling it. The hard shape of his skull in her hands was strangely affecting. Such fire and strength and intelligence inhabited that delicate structure. Such a man. Her eyes widened, showing him dilated pupils almost swallowing the violet-shadowed irises.
'Not too gentle, I hope.' Her bewitching dismay died under the ravishment of his lips. She made a soft, contented sound and his mouth hardened, deepening its erotic penetration. The darkness grew in around them, the orange pool of light like a glowing bubble of sexual tension enveloping them, isolating them.
Sarah stretched her arms and wound them around his neck, leaning into him on tip-toes, closing her eyes and drinking him like an intoxicating draught. She felt his hands move on her head, then the weight of her hair began to shift and she realised what he had done. Her head jerked back and he let her go, watching as she moved out of his arms and raised shaking hands to struggle with the unanchored pins.
'Let it down,' he ordered thickly. 'I want to see it down around you, I want to hold it in my hands.'
Impatiently she shook her head to release the knot and the heavy, luminous mass fell down. She heard a sharp hiss of indrawn breath as Max stared, following with his eyes the rich, rippling glow as it veiled the curves of her body. He had seen her with her hair down before, in the studio, but now he was looking at her as if he had never seen her before, the expression on his face fascinated, absorbed. For the first time in her life Sarah felt a true sense of feminine power.
As the seconds ticked by the tableau remained, Sarah as fascinated by Max as he was by her. He stood as if transfixed, feet slightly astride, hands hanging loosely at his sides, breathing slowly and deeply, eyes half-closed, face drawn tight, nostrils flared. He looked magnificent, savage, stripped of all that elegant charm that masked the elemental man. And in Sarah the elemental woman was fired in response.
Provocatively she turned her back on him, finding the last of the pins and drawing them out of her hair, placing them on the table beside the lamp. Then she began running her fingers through the tresses, pretending she had forgotten the man behind her.
He moved at last, with sudden violence, pulling her back against him so that she felt the hard muscularity, sliding his hands around her waist, splaying long fingers over her stomach as he buried his face in the scented curtain at her nape.
'I've run you to earth at last, little vixen,' he growled. 'There's no escaping me now; no laying of false trails or doubling back. Just you, and me, and this.' He moved his body deliberately against her so that its heat penetrated to her very bones, turned them soft with exquisite anticipation. She tried to twist around in his arms, but he wouldn't let her, hands tightening over her hip bones, tangling in the fine ends of her hair.
'Don't be so impatient,' he tantalised, a warm, exultant note of laughter in his voice. 'You must earn your satisfaction. I promise you, my wanton innocent, the pleasure will be all the more intense for it. Relax. Enjoy what I'm going to do to you.'
There was nothing she could do but obey, arching towards his hands with a sigh as they slid up to cup the aching fullness of her breasts, his thumbs brushing teasingly over the hardening tips. Her head fell back on to his shoulder, her safe, ordinary world exploding into a rapturous excitement of the senses beyond anything she had ever known. A stinging desire that streaked along her skin and nerves until her whole body was afire with it. At last, when she thought she could bear the slow, tormenting caresses no longer he turned her closely in his arms, the hardened contours of his body evidence of his own arousal.
He kissed her eyes and nose and mouth, and her hair where it waved thickly over her ears, and lifted his head to look at her dreamy face, touching her dark tresses.
'I know now why you keep it hidden. Like this it's too much of a temptation. Glorious, beautiful, infinitely sexy . . .' he said the words slowly, tasting them on his tongue, taking fistfuls of the softness and winding it loosely around his hands, drawing her mouth back to his. Her arms went around his waist under the jacket, locking him closer.
His hands stroked her hair and it clung, crackling, to him like a live thing. Sarah's mind blurred and tumbled weightlessly, the song of the crickets outs
ide merging to vibrate with the high, unending song of longing that Max was creating with his hands and mouth. Like a virtuoso with a beloved instrument, he handled her with consummate skill, touching the chords of forgotten notes, discovering new ones.
At some point her dress slithered into an insubstantial heap at their feet and Sarah shivered at the friction of his clothes on her heated skin.
'Still no compliments for me, darling vixen?' Max taunted softly, forcing her back over his arm so that the weight of her hair pulled her head back, but she could only moan helplessly, eyelids fluttering closed not wanting him to stop. Not wanting him to ever stop . . .
'It seems I shall have to use force . . .' and he took the bare sacrifice of her throat, trailing fire with his lips and tongue to the taut offering of her breasts. Tiny cries escaped her as he kissed the captured peaks, his mouth opening, moist, knowing, as he explored her arousal with a sensual expertise that had her twisting in voluptuous agony.
'Give in?' as his mouth returned to hers for the final onslaught.
'Yes . . . yes . . . yes to everything . . . please . . .' Sarah felt disorientated and clutched wildly at him as she felt herself whirling, falling, but he was only pushing her down to the soft white sheepskin rug beneath their feet.
It seemed an age that he stood staring at her as she lay, satin body framed in auburn silk, a strip of delicate black lace her only covering. Then slowly, deliberately, Max stripped off his jacket and tie and threw them down, tugging open his shirt, scattering cufflinks with a soft patter across the floor, and then threw the discarded shirt down, too.
The smooth olive skin gleamed bronze in the lamplight, silvered with dampness and rippling as he moved to kneel beside her. He plunged his hands into the broad swathes of her hair and lifted them, letting the strands run through his fingers like water to splash over her body.
'How could I ever have thought you anything but what you are—lovely, desirable . . .' His voice roughened into harshness and his hands clenched her waist. 'My God, I want you—'