Ice In His Veins

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘You—you’re disgusting! You can’t mean what you’re saying, Jason,’ she added pleadingly. ‘He’s good, Jason, very good.’

  ‘Is he now?’ he sneered. ‘I really don’t want to hear about his sexual expertise.’

  She gasped. ‘That wasn’t what I meant and you know it! His paintings are very good, some of the best I’ve seen by an unknown artist.’

  ‘And what would you know about it?’

  ‘Quite a lot, actually. Art is Drew’s pet interest, he’s taught me to appreciate it too.’

  ‘I still don’t intend buying any paintings just to support your young lover. Forget him, Eden,’ his voice lowered seductively. ‘He can find his own way in the world if he’s as good as you say he is. What I want to know is when are you going to keep your promise to me?’

  ‘Promise?’ she delayed. ‘I don’t remember promising you anything.’

  He laughed throatily. ‘Half-promised, then. It’s four weeks since the funeral, four weeks of patient waiting when I daren’t even touch you in case I lost control. But I intend touching you now,’ he lowered his head, his lips caressing her throat. ‘More than touching you,’ he murmured.

  Eden’s pulse was racing, her senses spinning. ‘But, Jason, you said—you said you were going to see Isobel.’

  ‘She’ll understand if I don’t arrive.’

  She shivered as he gently bit her earlobe, strange fluttering sensations coursing through her body. ‘But you said she was suicidal. And she’ll be expecting you.’

  ‘Not tonight,’ he shook his head. ‘I didn’t tell her I was going, I just decided to go because tonight I want you very much,’ his mouth was burning a trail of passion across her throat. ‘But now that I have you here I have no need to escape from thoughts of you with Nichols.’

  ‘But, Jason—’

  ‘Just shut up, Eden,’ he ordered impatiently. ‘Shut up and kiss me. The time of waiting is over, and tonight I intend for us to share more than a house.’

  ‘Will it be your bedroom or mine?’ she asked sarcastically.

  ‘Mine.’ He didn’t rise to her sarcasm, but swung her up in his arms and walking purposefully up the stairs. ‘I happen to have a double bed,’ he grinned down at her.

  ‘How convenient!’

  ‘Mm,’ he kissed her briefly on the mouth, only raising his head to kick open the door to his bedroom.

  Eden swayed slightly as he put her back on her feet. ‘Jason, we can’t do this,’ she protested. She couldn’t do it! ‘Jason, please stop,’ she pleaded as he lowered the zip on the back of her dress. ‘Jason!’ she gasped as he smoothed the dress from her shoulders and it fell about her ankles with a rustle of the soft material.

  She blushed as he slowly appraised her almost naked body in the pink bikini briefs and matching pink bra, the lacy cups of the latter only just managing to maintain her modesty.

  ‘Beautiful,’ he breathed softly. ‘But I knew you would be.’

  ‘You—you did?’ She felt strangely mesmerised, held here against her will by the intimacy of his gaze.

  ‘Mm,’ he touched the firm swell of her breasts beneath their lacy covering. ‘Undress me, Eden.’

  ‘I—we—The servants!’ she protested desperately, her hands covering her body as best she could.

  ‘Are too discreet to interrupt. They certainly make themselves scarce when we’re at home together.’

  ‘They don’t think—’ She swallowed hard. ‘Do they think we’re having an affair?’

  ‘Probably,’ he shrugged. ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘It matters to me.’ She bent to pick up her dress. ‘Because it isn’t true.’

  ‘Not yet.’ Jason took the dress out of her hands and threw it on to the bed. ‘Do you want to shower first or shall I?’

  ‘Shower…?’

  ‘Mm. Better still, we’ll shower together.’ He began unbuttoning his shirt with one hand, keeping a firm hold on her with the other.

  Eden wrenched her gaze away from the seduction in his eyes, pulling out of his grasp to clutch her dress in front of her. ‘You just won’t understand, will you?’ she cried. ‘I’m not promiscuous as you think I am. There’s been no one in my life.’

  His eyes narrowed to icy grey slits. ‘What do you mean, no one?’

  ‘I mean no man.’ She pulled her dress on over her head, pulling up the zip with shaking fingers. ‘I’ve never been to bed with anyone, never given myself to a man.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. Before you told me—’

  ‘I told you exactly what you wanted to hear,’ she cut in angrily.

  ‘You think I wanted to hear about your other men?’ His anger exceeded her own. ‘My God, the very thought of them tortures me,’ he added with a groan.

  ‘And yet you did want to hear that from me. You taunted me until I retaliated in the only way I could.’

  ‘In the only way you knew you could hurt me,’ he corrected harshly.

  ‘Hurt you?’ she scorned. ‘Nothing could hurt you. I could sleep with a hundred different men and you wouldn’t give a damn as long as you could be one of them!’ Her voice rose shrilly.

  ‘Is that what you think?’ His face was a livid mask of anger. ‘What you really think?’

  ‘I know it!’ She wrenched open the door.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Jason demanded.

  ‘Out!’ she snapped.

  ‘At this time of night?’

  ‘At any time of night if I feel like going. Don’t wait up for me, I’ll be very late,’ Eden slammed the door after her, running down the stairs to pick up her handbag and run out of the house as if the devil himself were after her. She needed her handbag because her car keys were in it, the keys to the car Jason had given her the money to buy, a bonus on top of the weekly allowance he gave her.

  Her sports car was outside and she got straight in it and drove off, anxious that Jason shouldn’t even attempt to follow her. She didn’t even know where she was going, she just knew she couldn’t stay in the house another minute with him.

  She seemed to drive to Gary’s flat without realising it, the lights blazing in all of his rooms telling her that he was at home. It was ten-thirty, very late to be calling on someone, and yet she knew Gary kept strange hours. He probably wouldn’t think anything of her turning up at this time of night.

  She was right, he didn’t. ‘Come in,’ he instantly threw open the door. ‘Take a seat, I’m just in the middle of some work.’

  ‘Taking a seat’ meant sitting on one of the cushions scattered about the floor; Gary and his flatmate Sean did not seem to believe in chairs. ‘I’m not disturbing you, am I?’ Eden watched as he carried on painting.

  ‘Not at all,’ he answered vaguely.

  ‘Where’s Sean?’

  ‘Staying at Annie’s.’ Annie was Sean’s girl-friend of two years’ standing. ‘How about making me some coffee?’

  She stood up. ‘I hope you have some milk this time, I’m not partial to black coffee. You artistic types, you never think of practicalities like food and drink.’

  She made several cups of coffee for them during the next three hours, the last one black, as true to form, Gary didn’t have enough milk. She watched him work, watched as his ideas went down on canvas, another abstract that she couldn’t appreciate.

  Finally he put his paintbrush down, rubbing his hands on an already paint-daubed cloth. He stood back, looking critically at his work. ‘Mm, not bad,’ he said finally.

  ‘I won’t ask what it is,’ she teased. ‘I’m sure it’s good, whatever it is.’

  Gary shook his head. ‘I’ll have to teach you about abstract art. It’s—’

  ‘Not now, Gary,’ she laughed. ‘It’s much too late in the day, I won’t be able to take it in.’

  He looked at his wrist-watch. ‘You should have stopped me working, it must have been very boring for you.’

  ‘Not at all, I welcomed the peace it gave me.’ There hadn’t been much of that lately.


  He seemed to see her for the first time, taking in the full-length evening dress. ‘Were we supposed to be going out somewhere?’

  She laughed. ‘No. I—I just left home in rather a hurry.’

  ‘Home?’

  ‘Jason’s house,’ she corrected blushingly.

  ‘You’re still staying there?’

  ‘You know I am. But I’ll be moving out now,’ as soon as possible! ‘It was only a temporary measure anyway,’ one she had been loath to break.

  Gary frowned. ‘I don’t want to get rid of you or anything, but aren’t you here a little late?’

  Eden bit her lip. ‘I was hoping you wouldn’t notice.’ She knew that sometimes Gary didn’t bother to go to bed at all.

  ‘You’re much too distracting for me to overlook you,’ he smiled. ‘Had a row with your guardian?’

  She flushed. ‘He isn’t my guardian, I have parents in the States. Jason just looks after the business side of my inheritance.’

  ‘While you rake in all the money.’

  She sighed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, have you argued with him?’ He sat down on the cushion next to hers.

  ‘Yes. I—I was wondering if I could stay here the night, especially now I know Sean isn’t here. I could have his room,’ she explained hastily, not wanting to be misconstrued.

  Gary’s eyebrows rose. ‘You want to stay here?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be any trouble,’ she said eagerly. ‘You won’t even know I’m here.’

  Gary laughed. ‘You have to be joking. A beautiful girl like you sleeping in my flat and I’m not supposed to know you’re here!’

  She gave him a nervous glance. ‘I just want somewhere to sleep for the night. There wouldn’t be anything more to it.’

  He put his hand over hers. ‘I know that, Eden. We’ve become friends the last few weeks, I realise that’s all we are. But it must have been some argument for you not to want to go back tonight.’

  ‘It was.’ She didn’t enlarge on the subject. Somehow she didn’t want Gary to know how close Jason had come to seducing her. She still blushed to think how he had taken her dress off and looked at her with undisguised desire.

  ‘Then of course you’re welcome to stay. Just make yourself at home. Move in if you want to, Sean’s at Annie’s most of the time now, and you’ll have to move out of Earle’s house some time.’

  ‘Thanks for the offer, but I don’t think Jason would let me actually move in here.’

  ‘I’m not asking his permission and I wasn’t aware that you needed it.’

  ‘I don’t. But I don’t see the point of antagonising him needlessly.’

  Gary frowned. ‘Are you frightened of him?’

  ‘Certainly not,’ she said indignantly—at least, not the way he meant. ‘But I couldn’t move in here anyway, it wouldn’t work.’ She smiled. ‘I like to sleep sometimes, and you don’t seem to have any sense of night or day.’

  He laughed. ‘I suppose not,’ he yawned. ‘Although I’m tired now. You’ll have to put fresh sheets on Sean’s bed, he tends to forget.’

  ‘It won’t take me long.’

  ‘Unless you would prefer to share my bed,’ he added mischievously.

  ‘I don’t think so.’ Her second offer to share a man’s bed in a matter of hours!

  ‘I thought not. But it was worth a try. You go to bed, I might work a little while longer.’

  ‘But I thought you were tired?’

  ‘I work better when I’m tired. You’ll find the clean linen in Sean’s wardrobe.’

  ‘Where else?’ she teased.

  ‘If you moved in you could take care of me.’

  ‘I admire your persistence, even if I can’t say yes. Don’t work too late.’

  Eden stripped the bed before putting on fresh linen, feeling so tired she didn’t even want to think. She could still hear Gary working as she fell asleep.

  She was woken by a loud hammering noise followed by raised voices. She blinked rapidly in an effort to collect her thoughts together. It was almost four o’clock in the morning, who on earth could be calling this time of night? She knew Gary had some crazy friends, but—

  The bedroom door flew open with a bang and the light was callously flicked on. When Eden could focus she saw an enraged Jason standing in the bedroom doorway, a sleep tousled Gary standing behind him. That Gary had been woken from sleep too was obvious from his hastily pulled on denims and bare torso.

  Eden looked at Jason over the top of the sheet with frightened eyes, the angry glitter to his eyes and thinned tautness of his mouth telling her the extent of his anger. He was just about at boiling point. ‘Jason….’ she faltered weakly.

  ‘Yes—Jason,’ he snapped. ‘Get out of that bed, Eden. You’re coming home with me.’

  ‘How did you find me?’ she quavered.

  ‘I looked up your young friend in the phone book from the vague directions you once gave me of where he lived. Now get out of his bed and come with me.’

  ‘Hey, you can’t burst your way into my flat and issue those type of orders,’ Gary protested bravely. ‘If Eden wants to stay then she stays.’

  Jason looked at him with glacial eyes. ‘One more word out of you, Nichols, and I’ll put you on the floor where you belong,’ he told the younger man calmly.

  Gary coloured angrily. ‘Don’t think you can intimidate—’ He didn’t get any further before a fist landed on his jaw with a resounding crack, the force of the blow knocking him to the ground.

  ‘Gary!’ Eden was instantly out of the bed, not caring that she only wore the pink bra and briefs. She bent down beside him as he lay dazedly rubbing his jaw. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked concernedly.

  He gingerly tested his jaw. ‘I—I think so. Yes, I’m fine. And he did warn me,’ he grinned up at her ruefully.

  She turned to glare at Jason as he still glowered down at them. ‘You could have broken his jaw,’ she accused. ‘As it is he—’

  ‘Will you get some clothes on,’ Jason ordered through gritted teeth. ‘I realise we’re both familiar with your charms, but that’s no reason for you to parade around half naked.’

  Eden blushed to the roots of her hair as she became conscious of her state of undress, hastily pulling a blanket from the bed to cover herself. She couldn’t look at either of them, her embarrassment was too acute. But she hadn’t thought of modesty when Jason had struck out, being concerned only for Gary’s welfare.

  ‘I’ll wait for you in the other room,’ Jason told her in a stilted voice. ‘I’ll give you just long enough to put your dress on,’ he warned.

  ‘I’d better go too.’ Gary stumbled to the door. ‘Although I meant what I said, Eden, you can stay if you want to.’

  One look at the cold determination on Jason’s face was enough to tell her she had little choice in the matter. ‘I think I’d better go,’ she said quietly. ‘But I’m sorry this brute hit you.’

  He rubbed his jaw. ‘He packs quite a punch.’

  ‘Nichols!’ Jason snapped. ‘Get out of there so that Eden can get dressed.’

  Five minutes later Eden was seated next to him in his Jaguar, glancing nervously at his rigid profile. ‘You didn’t have to hit him,’ she finally remarked.

  ‘Under the circumstances I think I was quite restrained.’

  ‘Circumstances? What circumstances? Just because you have control of my money it doesn’t mean you have any say in what I do. I think it will be better if I just move out of your house. I’ll look for somewhere else later today.’

  ‘You’ll do nothing of the sort,’ he told her calmly. ‘You’re staying right where I can keep an eye on you. And I’m warning you, if you ever run to another man after one of our arguments when we’re married I’ll beat you too.’

  Her mouth fell open. ‘Married?’ She gulped. ‘You and me?’

  ‘That’s right. Just as soon as it can be arranged.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘AREN’T you forgetting something?’

&nbs
p; ‘Isobel,’ he said knowingly.

  ‘She’s only part of it,’ Eden snapped. ‘You’re damned arrogant, assuming I would marry you even if you asked me.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’ Jason had parked the car in the driveway to the house, turning in his seat to look at her.

  ‘No!’

  ‘We’ll continue this discussion inside,’ he dragged her into the house and into his study, closing the door firmly behind them. ‘Do you have any special reason for refusing me?’ he asked tautly.

  ‘Just a very obvious one,’ she sarcastically. ‘We don’t happen to be in love with each other.’

  ‘We don’t?’

  She gave him a sharp look, unnerved by the warmth in his grey eyes. ‘No,’ she told him uncertainly.

  ‘I’m in love with you.’

  ‘You are?’ she gasped.

  He nodded. ‘Very much so.’

  Eden felt numb. ‘But you can’t be!’

  ‘But I am.’ Jason moved slowly towards her, his hands moving up to cup each side of her face as he gazed intently down into her eyes. ‘I love you very much. And I want you to be my wife.’

  ‘Is—is this some sort of joke?’ Her voice quavered. ‘If it is it’s in very poor taste.’

  ‘No joke, Eden. Or if it is,’ he added grimly, ‘I don’t find it very funny.’

  Neither did she! ‘Don’t you think you ought to make your position clear to Isobel before you talk to me like this?’ she challenged.

  He turned wearily away. ‘Do you think I haven’t been trying to do just that?’

  ‘You’ve been trying….’

  ‘Yes. I did take her out before you came back from the States with me, I admit I even thought about marrying her at one time, but it never got to more than a thought. I never told her I was going to marry her, not at any time did I do that. But when David died she began clinging to me, always wanting me around. I’ve tried to break away, but it’s too soon, much too soon. I didn’t intend telling you how I felt about you until I had the situation with Isobel firmly under control, had hoped to hold things at bay until Isobel was strong enough to take the fact that any idea of marriage between the two of us was just a fantasy of her mind.’ His mouth tightened. ‘But you’ve forced the issue, you and your other men. I just can’t stand back and watch this constant string of men passing through your life. And I could kill you for tonight!’ He shook her hard, his fingers bruising her flesh where he held her. ‘How could you go to Nichols after the passion we’d just shared?’