“I see.”
“The most interesting aspect of her warning is that she should warn me. I thought it would have been more natural for Benitta to warn Hugh, don’t you?” His tone was pleasant but the fire was back in his eyes, dispelling some of the brooding darkness.
She felt her heart pick up a little faster beat. “Maybe she warned you both, or intended to.”
David lifted one brow. Then, mercifully, he decided to change subjects. “Would you like some breakfast? Could you handle food? I’m starving. I’ve been rescuing maidens in distress.”
Anastasia nodded. “Yes, I’m hungry too. I missed out on supper…and lunch.” She frowned. “And breakfast. No wonder I felt so light headed.”
“Nothing to do with the champagne, of course,” he said sagely.
“Before Hugh poured three glasses for me, I’d had barely two glasses, all night. I was drinking mineral water in large quantities.”
“But you started drinking at four in the afternoon, Benitta told me.”
“Can we agree that I’m hungry and save the cause-and-effect analysis for later?”
He went to the suitcase and pulled out a dressing gown. “Here, you can put this on. Bathroom is through there.” He pointed to one of the doors leading from the room. “Help yourself to whatever you need. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re ready to eat. Just follow your nose.”
She nodded, caught the gown he tossed to her and watched him leave. He snatched up a shirt from the suitcase as he went. Her stomach rumbled in anticipation of solid food. She threw the covers back and realized with a jolt that she was naked.
For a confused moment she sat and reasoned it out logically. Even driven by the purest motives, David would still have needed to take everything off her. Everything she had been wearing was wet, including his shirt and jacket, for her hair would have quickly soaked through even those. And river water could leave horrible stains.
She reached up to feel her hair. It was loose, all the pins removed but she could feel the residue of river water in it. She glanced at the bedside table and saw a glass half filled with water, holding the roses she had pushed into her hair. One of the roses was missing but it was more surprising that any of them had survived their immersion into the river.
Another hollow pang from her stomach pushed her to rise and head for the bathroom. Hunger was only half the goad. She didn’t like to acknowledge that she was hurrying because she wanted simply to be near David. It was the counterpart of admitting that she didn’t want to be apart from him and that admission was too dangerous to tolerate.
Chapter Sixteen
Thirty minutes later, showered, with her hair loose and wet but clean, and dressed in David’s gown, Anastasia found her way downstairs. She had to hold up the hem of the gown, which trailed around her ankles. The gown was ridiculously oversized on her. It needed to be wrapped around her twice and she had folded the sleeves up three or four inches to uncover her hands.
At the bottom of the staircase she oriented herself. She was facing the large double front door, which meant the living room they’d had their “picnic” in was to the left and therefore, the kitchen was off to the right somewhere, for that was the direction David had disappeared in to bring the food that day. She turned in that direction and stepped into the next room. A wrought iron and glass table and chairs told her this was the dining room. Through a door on the other side she could hear David’s voice. She crossed the room and pushed the door open.
The kitchen was on the other side. David sat on a high stool at the counter, a knife in one hand and a cell phone in the other. He was talking but saw her enter and waved her toward the plain kitchen table where two places had been laid. He swivelled on the stool and watched her cross the floor to the table. Anastasia was uncomfortably aware of the fact that she was naked beneath the gown, even though it covered her more thoroughly than a neck-to-knees bathing suit. She tugged the overlapping edge more firmly closed as she sat down and listened to David’s conversation. She knew he didn’t mind her listening, or he would not have waved her into the room.
It took her a moment to realize that she didn’t understand some of the conversation because David kept interspersing his speech with foreign phrases. Chinese, she thought. He’s talking to someone in Chinese.
After a moment or two of listening, David said, “Hen hao. Zaijian,” and disconnected the call. He looked at her. “Let me guess. Coffee, at least two cups. Toast. Scrambled eggs. Orange and mango juice.”
“Wonderful. Very clever of you to remember what I ordered that time.”
“Not clever. Just interested.” He put the phone down on the table next to the second placemat and went to back to the counter to pull out a freshly brewed pot of coffee from the machine sitting against the wall.
“Was that Chinese you were speaking then?”
“Mandarin. I’m not very good at it, because it’s a tonal language and difficult to pick up without formal training. And it’s very easy to say something insulting when you’re trying to be polite, simply by getting the tone wrong, so I don’t try to use it when business is sticky, which it mostly has been lately.” He put a plate in front of her, her coffee and a tall glass of orange juice, then sat opposite. “Eat.” He tapped the phone. “I hope you don’t mind but there is a small crisis happening in my office in Shanghai, which I’m trying to control from this end, so I need to keep close tabs.”
She bit her lip. “That’s why you’re going back, isn’t it?”
“I should have gone back weeks ago. I shouldn’t have left at all, really.” He grimaced. “On my blacker days I wish I hadn’t.” It was almost as if he was speaking to himself. Yet she knew he was talking about her. About them.
She ate, suddenly afraid to push the subject any further. She surprised herself by finishing everything on her plate and topping it off with a few slices of toast, as well as her promised two cups of coffee.
David finished before her and sat back, watching her. She was hungry enough not to let his scrutiny spoil her appetite but when she had reached the end of her meal and was replete, she found herself growing aware once more of the way he was examining her. She sat back too.
“Thank you. It was delicious and exactly what I needed.”
“Good.” He continued to stare at her.
After a moment of silence, she said, “My car is still at the Therion’s. The valets must have wondered how they’d finished with one car left over.”
“I phoned Pierre this morning and said you’d be around for it later. The valet gave him your keys. He’ll be home when you need to collect them.” David’s answer was short, relaying information and nothing else. His gaze remained steady upon her. He let the silence fall again.
She cleared her throat. “Why are you staring at me like that?”
“I’m curious to know how long you’re going to keep up this pretence.”
“I don’t know—”
“Don’t say that,” he interrupted. “You do know what I mean. I’m talking about the one subject that’s been on your mind since you woke up this morning. I want to know how long you’re going to pretend that nothing’s happening, that everything is as it should be.”
“I haven’t assumed for a moment that nothing has changed.”
“You’re doing it now, Anna.” His voice gentled. “Listen to yourself. You know why I need to return to China, you know when I’m going, how I’m getting there. But you’re fighting yourself—you want to know why I’m leaving and you won’t ask me. Why won’t you ask me, Anna?” The darkness had returned to his eyes, the gray of threatening thunderclouds. A furrow creased his brow.
She could feel her heart thud. How had he known she’d been fighting the impulse to demand he explain himself? The knowledge that he was returning to China within hours, to remain for months, perhaps even years, lay like a cold stone at the bottom of her heart, an obstruction in the stream of her feelings. Yes, she wanted to know why he was leaving. Why now, at this
time? Had he grown tired of the game he had been playing with her? Was he bored with her? Had he somehow guessed she had fallen in love with him and now was escaping before the jaws of the trap closed? Why?
“I have no right to demand explanations of you,” she said aloud.
His hand came down on the table, with a flat muffled crack that made her flinch. “Damn it, I knew you would say that.” He leapt to his feet, pushing his chair back with the back of his knees and leaned against the table with both hands, towering over her despite the width of the table that separated them. “You know damn well you have the right to ask me that, Anastasia. Even friendship alone would require an explanation and at the very least we have that.”
She could feel herself drawing back against her chair, astonished and also dismayed at the anger flicking through his eyes. Was the darkening gray indeed a presage of storms? Of a temper she hadn’t suspected resided within him?
Her small movement backward must have been revealing, for David straightened up, brushing his fingers through his hair. “We haven’t been playing a game these last few weeks, you and I,” he said, lowering his voice a little. “And you know it. Your reactions last night are proof of that, if nothing else.” He shook his head, as if fighting for precision in his words. “God help me, Anastasia, you know damn well it’s you that’s driving me back there. I can’t stand it anymore.” And he turned away, thrusting his hands into his pockets.
Her racing heart checked a little. She was right. It was her fault. He was fed up with her. She opened her mouth to reply but David wasn’t finished yet. His voice was level, controlled but he kept his head averted.
“I see you. I want you. I can’t have you. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel? I’ve spent three weeks trying to teach you about me, to show you that you have nothing to fear, to make you see the truth about yourself. All in the hope that you would come to me. I’ve done everything I could and you still can’t see…”
Anastasia froze on her chair. Added to her surprise was uneasiness, for this was the talk of a man who had admitted defeat.
“What do you mean, I can’t see?” she asked. “I can’t see what?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He looked back at her. “I’m going back because I can’t wait any more. I can’t sit and watch you with Hugh any more. I was arrogant enough to suppose I could but I was wrong. Every day I see you with Hugh, or at the office, or even out with me, knowing I can’t touch you, or do anything to make you mine is slowly driving me insane. And then last night…that dress. Yesterday, at the office. Even this morning, watching you sleeping in my bed…” He shook his head again, words failing him. The furrow in his brow deepened.
“David, I—” she began, intending to try to explain her motives, to tell him what was driving her. But he held up his hand, mutely asking her to allow him to finish. She fell silent.
“I tried to get an answer last night.” He rested both hands on the back of his chair. She watched the knuckles turn white under the pressure he was exerting. “It’s obvious to me what your answer would have been had I pressed you. The pressure was enough to drive you beyond good sense, so I know you weren’t about to change your mind.”
There was nothing she could say to that. He had judged her correctly.
He was watching her carefully and somehow she had telegraphed her thoughts, for he nodded, as if she had confirmed his guess. “So I’ve failed. You’ve won. I’m getting out of your life, just like you wanted.”
And her victory tasted very bitter indeed. She swallowed dryly, trying to marshal her thoughts, to string together words that would salvage some sort of relief from the bleak desert she was facing. But the pain in her heart and the hard mass at the pit of her stomach were making her mind reel.
David hadn’t finished yet. He was regarding her steadily, as the gray of his eyes darkened to a discoloured pewter that was close to black, a reflection of his thoughts, as she now knew. “Standing here, looking at you in my dressing gown, in my kitchen, is making me a little crazy.” His voice flattened down to a harsh, controlled tone. “So I’m going to find you some clothes and take you back to Pierre’s to pick up your car, before I do something reckless.” He straightened and strode to the door, moving fast.
She had no idea what it was that prompted her to act. It might have been fear, or love, or both, mixed in with a liberal dose of panic. But the mix was potent enough that it lent speed to her reactions. As David passed her she reached out to catch his hand in hers, holding him back. Preventing him from leaving. And she found herself on her feet, her arms winding around his neck, pulling herself up tight against him as if she could hold him back by sheer physical force.
“Don’t go,” she begged. “Not yet. Have me…take me if that is what you want. Just don’t leave now. Not yet.”
Then his arms were holding her to him, crushing her against his body, one hand twining in her hair, to gently pull her head back to make her look at him. “It’s more than lust, Anna. If it were simply that, I could have taken my fill of you days ago. Don’t offer me a consolation. I can stand everything else, almost. But I won’t stand for that.”
She shook her head. “I’m offering you more than Hugh will ever have.”
David grew very still. His eyes shut, as if he were battling an internal war. She could feel his heartbeat against her body, running fast and strong. His eyes opened and he looked down at her.
“I’m not afraid,” she whispered.
With a groan torn from deep inside him, he brought his lips down upon hers with a pressure that bruised. The pain overrode the small blossom of fear his reaction had unleashed within her. She was afraid but not of him. She was afraid of what she had set in motion.
And then his lips drove away even that thought.
His arms still held her tightly against him, so tightly she could feel her heels lifting from the cool tiles as she was bent against him, a supple bough. His hand in her hair supported her head, bringing her lips up in offering to him, extending the long column of her throat.
She closed her eyes and for the first time in David’s arms deliberately allowed herself to let go, to sink into the deep pool of pure emotion at the very center of her soul. The freedom was exhilarating. It released her awareness, lifting it up to a higher plane, where all perception was filtered through the fine mesh of emotions.
His kiss deepened and the pressure on her back loosened, as his fingers spread across the silk material, feeling the contours of her body beneath. The warmth of his hand burned through the thin material, branding her skin. The knowledge that she was naked beneath the gown created a delicious giddiness in her, for it meant there was virtually no barrier to his exploration. She was completely accessible to him. She trembled at that thought.
His mouth abandoned her lips, following the long tempting line of her throat, tasting the skin and leaving behind a trail of hot kisses, coming at last to the hollows and curves of her collarbone and the sensitive tender skin there. She arched her neck further, feeling his hair tickle and caress her throat. His lips hovered at the neck of the gown, which only just rested on her shoulder and she could feel his warm breath fan her skin. He brought the hand that had supported her up to grasp the edges of the gown.
She felt her heart lurch. She knew he intended to remove the gown and then she would be completely naked and utterly vulnerable.
But he rested his fingers instead on her racing pulse and lifted his head. “Not here.” His voice was a rough copy of itself. He looked through the French doors that led into the central atrium and up. Then, with the same effortlessness he had shown last night, he picked her up and cradled her to him. “I want you where I have seen you in my imagination every night.”
His bed was still crumpled from her brief, solo occupancy and he ignored it. Instead, he lowered her gently to the floor, letting her stand and turned her to face him. His hands caught the ends of the tie around her waist and for a moment he paused and looked into her eyes. She nodded.
He breathed deeply and pulled the belt undone. The gown slithered off her shoulders down to the floor and for a moment he simply looked at her. Despite the fact that he had ministered to her last night, she knew he was really seeing her for the first time.
Then he stepped closer and took her in his arms again and she felt a quiver run through him at the contact of their bodies. His hands clasped her hips, holding her close. “I was right,” he murmured. “You’re as flawless as I had imagined.”
“The flaws are all inside,” she said, remembering with a dull ache in one corner of her heart that this wouldn’t last. After this, she had to let him go. She closed her eyes and brought her arms up around him, resting her cheek against the warmth of his chest.
“I included even those,” he murmured and kissed her, drawing her to the bed.
His lovemaking was slow and infinitely controlled, setting Anastasia afire with a flaring light that burned hot and cold, waxing and waning as he deliberately drew out from her every last possible response. He held his own driving need in check, dammed back by the same extraordinary self-discipline that she had seen in the past weeks. But it was strained now, by the closeness of the fulfillment of his desire. The knowledge that she was taxing him, and had the ability to drive him beyond that control if she wished, was intoxicating.
But she had no chance to test her power, for his lips and hands and body were orchestrating a melody upon her body that kept her almost mindless with the exquisite sensations. She was driven beyond voluntary action by wave after wave of feelings which swept her up toward the crest of a building swell as he explored every inch of her body, pausing to trace out an interesting curve or taste a portion of soft skin, lingering as he wished, where he wished.
His leisurely inspection seemed aimless but when the building sensations reached a critical level inside her and threatened to peak, he would cease, letting her subside before he would continue on, forcing her responses to emerge on a higher, formerly inconceivable level.
Inconvenient Lover Page 16