by Penny Jordan
'No, I'm not going to ask you to stop,' she told him proudly. 'You owe me this, Val. You've destroyed my life, my future. I was happy with what I had, but you weren't. You didn't care that I was content, so you decided in your arrogance to take what I had away from me. And now there's nothing. Add to that the fact that I'm a virgin at twenty-four, and it shouldn't be too hard for you to see what you've done to me.
'Who's going to want me now, once they know the truth? How many men do you know who'd want a woman of my age, totally without any kind of sexual experience? Or am I supposed to lie to them? To let them believe otherwise, until it's too late?' she asked him cynically.
'I don't want to spend the rest of my life alone, Val. Eventually I shall want to marry, have children, and I can't do that while my virginity hangs round my neck like a curse, making every man who finds out about it wonder what the hell is wrong with me.
'It's your fault that all this has happened, so it seems only fair that you should be the one to give me my freedom, doesn't it?' she said quietly, and her hands went to the buttons fastening her kilt-style pleated skirt.
She saw his face drain of colour, and had a moment of savage satisfaction. She had got to him now, made him realise just what he had done with his meddling. For the first time she saw him looking hesitant and unsure.
'What's wrong?' she goaded him. 'Is it too much to ask, after all? You said you desired me,' she told him flatly. 'Then prove it to me, Val.'
Something in her face snapped his self-control, and he reached for her, saying fiercely, 'Oh, I will.' And then it was his hands and not hers that were removing her clothes, and then his own, the last cold, clear light of the March day illuminating the golden beauty of his body.
Unlike her, he didn't seem to be embarrassed by his nudity, nor chilled by the coldness of the room. He saw her glance flicker to the bed, and he reached for the quilt, spreading it on the mattress.
'You do want it like this, don't you?' he asked her with exquisite and very distant politeness. 'Out in the open, without any concealing shadows.'
At first she thought he was making a taunting allusion to her teenage experience, but she realised she was wrong when he continued savagely, 'After all, it isn't as though we're going to need any comforting shadows to cloak the intensity of our emotions, is it? Because there won't be any emotion. I thought I knew you, but I didn't. I didn't know you at all. I thought you were vulnerable… tender…' He drew a shaky breath and she steeled herself against her hurt.
Yes, she was all of those things and more, but he had driven her to inflict this punishment on both of them, and she wasn't going to draw back now, not to save her pride or his.
'What's wrong?' she asked him coldly, giving him a significant look. 'Worried that you might not be able to?'
'To what?' he asked her acidly, coming round the side of the bed and grabbing hold of her, his hands hard against her waist and hips as he moved deliberately against her.
'To what?' he demanded again, letting her feel the power of his sexual arousal while he bent his head and said something so cruelly explicit in her ear that she shivered with the coldness that touched her heart.
'I learned a long time ago to take advantage of the opportunities that life offers,' he told her grimly. 'I told you that when I worked as a geologist, the opportunity to indulge in feminine companionship was rare and had to be made the most of. Don't worry, Sorrel, I won't be the one to back down.'
And neither would she, she promised herself hardily, refusing to give in to the slow, burning throb of sickness that was gradually invading her body, as the shock of the scene with Andrew faded and fear took its place.
Val felt the tiny shudder that tormented her and said mockingly, 'Having second thoughts?'
She shook her head, but she couldn't look at him. Held like this in his arms, in what was a cruel parody of a lovers' embrace, while her body remained chilled and unaroused, was bringing home to her the enormity of what she had done. And it was all her own fault. She had goaded and tormented him, deliberately driven him. And now, when the reality of what she had done was making her hurt as she had never hurt before, it was too late to draw back.
'We'd better get it over with then, hadn't we?' he said silkily. One hand left her body and clasped the back of her neck, his fingers playing with her hair, almost as though he couldn't resist its silky feel.
'I'm a man who always pays his debts, Sorrel. Remember that.' And then his head came down and his mouth possessed hers with a cool insolence that made her weep inside as she remembered how it had been before. Her body, knowing how it was being insulted and short-changed, refused to relax and warm. His mouth was skilled and knowing, but it wasn't enough. When his hand cupped her breast, she tensed in protest, forgetting for a moment that it was she herself who had instigated this. She trembled slightly as his fingers touched her flesh, aching to close her eyes as she looked into his and saw the cold indifference there, his attention moving from her face to her body, drawing hers with it, so that she was forced to watch the ultimate humiliation of seeing his fingertip draw slow circles around the peak of her breast. It should have aroused her. She wanted it to arouse her. She wanted to drown in self-contempt, so that when he was gone she could destroy the love she felt for him by reminding herself of this humiliation, but her body had a will of its own and refused to respond, her flesh as cold as his eyes. Her body knew the difference between desire given freely and that which was manufactured.
When his head lowered to her breast, she jerked away from him, unable to endure the thought of his touch. Tears of anguish and despair lodged in a solid lump at the back of her throat. He lifted his head and looked at her, his eyes remote.
'Do you want me to go on?' he asked her cordially.
She wanted to say yes. She wanted him to suffer the humiliation she was suffering, to know what it felt like to… But some spark of sanity intervened and she shook her head, unable to say the small word of denial.
There was no relief when he levered himself away from her body. No sensation of having made the right decision. Nothing but a vast blank nothingness, an intense feeling of failure and despair.
She lay motionless, staring at the ceiling, without blinking, aware of him getting dressed, but making no attempt to move. Perhaps if she lay here like this, fate would be kind and make it possible for her to slip away into some kind of protective permanent darkness. She heard him cross the floor and open the door, and her body shook with a dry sob. Downstairs she heard him open the back door and then the sound of the car starting. He was leaving her here. Well, she was safe enough, wasn't she?
She lay for what seemed like a long time, simply staring into space, not thinking or seeing, but just lying there, and then suddenly she had a vivid memory of how she had felt the night they had danced together, of how precious and desired he had made her feel. Then the tears came, scalding hot and bitter.
She rolled over and reached for the quilt, wrapping herself in it, crying until exhaustion overwhelmed her and she fell into a deep sleep.
It was the sound of the fire that woke her, the cheerful crackle of the logs that reached into her sleep and made her open her eyes sleepily and disbelievingly. But the fire was burning, she could see the flames from the bed. The curtains were closed as well, and someone had made the bed properly, putting a pillow under her head and wrapping her tenderly in the quilt.
For some reason she thought it must be her mother, but it wasn't her mother who was standing broodingly beside the fire, his face turned toward the bed, watching her.
She went still, the air whooshing out of her lungs.
'You came back,' she said stupidly.
'I had to. You didn't really think I'd leave you up here on your own, did you?' He came over to the bed and looked down at her. She couldn't help it, she flinched, remembering what she had done, what utter madness had possessed her.
'You've been crying,' he said abruptly. 'Why?'
'Why?' She looked disbelieving
ly at him. 'Do you really need to ask?' She turned her face away from him and added in a small suffocated voice, 'I want to apologise… for what… for what I did. I… I…'
She started to shake violently, and wished she could close her eyes and simply make him disappear.
'Oh, Sorrel, please don't. I'm the one who ought to apologise.'
Suddenly he was on the bed beside her, lifting her in her cocoon of bedding and holding her, rocking her as though she was an infinitely precious child.
'I'm sorry you've lost him. I'm sorry I hurt you. I never thought you loved him. I was so sure I could make you love me, you see—so arrogantly determined that I would make you a better lover, a better husband, that I could teach you to forget your fear of giving yourself. I was so caught up in my own needs, my own desires, that I wouldn't let myself believe that what you felt for him mattered. What can I say?'
Sorrel had gone still as she listened to him. Was she really hearing this, or had she started hallucinating? She raised her head from his shoulder and looked round the room, frowning slightly. Perhaps this was all a dream, wish-fulfilment, a chimera she had created out of her own need.
'Sorrel…'
It was a dream, she decided firmly, and since it was… She looked up at him and smiled at him, all her love for him shining in her eyes.
'You don't have to say anything,' she whispered softly. 'All you have to do is show me, Val.'
She heard him gasp, his eyes going black with emotion, and a tiny ripple of concern touched her spine. Was she really capable of dreaming such an intensity of emotion? She decided that she was and nestled against him, giving a faint sigh of anticipation. If she couldn't have Val himself, then she supposed this dream might well be the next best thing.
'Are you saying what I think you're saying?' he asked her uncertainly.
'I don't know,' she answered him promptly. 'Tell me what you think I'm saying, and then I'll let you know.'
'I think you're saying that you want me to do this,' he told her thickly, bending his head to capture her mouth, kissing her with all the fierce sweetness she remembered, so that her bones melted and her body turned fluid in his arms, leaving her with just enough strength to lift her arms and fasten them round his neck as he groaned against her quiescent lips, drinking from the sweetness of her mouth as she gave herself up to him without stint.
This was a very satisfying dream, Sorrel decided happily, clinging to his shoulders, letting her instincts guide her as she closed her mouth round his tongue, caressing it as he had been caressing hers. The reaction she got made her murmur blissfully deep in her throat, and press herself tightly against him. The quilt was in the way and she pushed crossly at it, murmuring little breathy words of pleasure in his ear as she fumbled with the buttons on his shirt.
He was trembling, actually trembling in her arms. She gave a tiny catlike smile, her eyes slitting with feminine pleasure, her nails flexing against his skin as she tested its satin-hard texture.
A sound not unlike a purr trembled in her throat as she placed her mouth against his skin, tasting its heat. It felt good to touch him like this, to have the strength of him in her arms and to know she had the power to make him tremble like a child.
She heard him speaking to her, the words mumbled and indistinct, felt the cold shaft of air as he pushed her away—and for a moment she thought she was going to lose the dream, but almost immediately he came back to her, and her eyes widened as the firelight enhanced the golden nakedness of his skin.
She let him lift her out of the nest of her quilt, her breasts needing no enticement to reveal her pleasure as he held and caressed them, first with his hands and then with his mouth, her body arching and twisting as fire darts of pleasure she had never imagined tormented it. He was kissing her as she had kissed him: fierce, open-mouthed kisses against her skin, as though he wanted to bite into her and devour her. She made soft murmurs of encouragement, stroking him, teasing him, watching him with passion, heavy eyes, her body voluptuous with pleasure. Since it was only a dream, there was no need to conceal her love, no need to hide her feelings or the little words of praise and invitation that tumbled from her lips. She was even able to laugh when she saw the shock of excitement that ran through him, jerking his body as taut as a bow-string as she told him how much she wanted him and where.
She touched his eyebrows with her fingertips, kissed them with tender lips, bit gently at his throat and let her body mould itself invitingly to his, welcoming the fierce throb of his alien male flesh.
She wanted to touch him there—to caress him and show him how much she gloried in his maleness, but he wouldn't let her, and that didn't seem to fit into her dream. She was free to dream whatever she wanted. It was, after all, her dream. She murmured something to that effect, and heard him laugh shakily and say something about it being his dream too, but adding a rider that on this particular occasion there wasn't going to be time, and all the while he was talking to her his hands were touching her, shaping her and then finally and blissfully caressing her so that she felt she would melt… dissolve… explode and die of the pleasure of that sensation.
She sighed her thoughts aloud and heard him say fiercely, 'Oh, Sorrel, are you trying to drive me out of my mind?' And then he was moving her, holding her, entering her, and her body was accommodating itself to him, loving the feel of him, gathering itself around him so that each thrust of his flesh drew soft whimpers of delight from her lips, and the rhythm he was teaching her was so pleasurable to respond to that the sharp spasm of pain interrupting it was a mere moment's irritation to be brushed aside and forgotten in the growing swell of delight ripening and gathering inside her, awaiting the magical moment of release, which she knew instinctively he would give her if she simply listened to the message of his body.
When it happened, it was more pleasurable than anything she had imagined. More intense, more… more everything, and she told him so dreamily, watching him as the dream slipped away and she returned to oblivion.
She woke up slowly, a soft smile curling her mouth, her eyes hazy with remembered pleasure. The fire still burned and it was dark outside the window. Something wasn't quite right. She frowned and tried to gather her thoughts.
Yes, that was it. The fire should be out, the room cold and empty. After all, that… that mind-destroying pleasure had just been a dream. Val had gone, hours ago.
But he hadn't gone, she realised shakily. He was lying right here beside her, one hard thigh thrust possessively across her body, his breath warming her skin, his arm curling round her, as it had done that first night she had slept here in this bed with him.
She started to tremble violently. 'It wasn't a dream.'
'What wasn't?' Val asked her huskily.
He was awake. It was even worse than she had thought. She swallowed nervously, hardly daring to look at him. When she did, what she saw wasn't reassuring. The quilt they were wrapped in had slipped, revealing his bare chest. There were small dark marks on his flesh from which she hurriedly averted her eyes.
Had she made those telltale small bruises? Had she?
'What wasn't a dream?' he asked her again.
He was leaning up on one elbow now, watching her quietly.
'You… me… this.' She waved her hand in an encompassing gesture, pink colour touching her face. 'I thought… I thought… I thought it was just a dream.'
He had gone very still, and now his free hand cupped her chin, turning her face so that she was forced to look at him.
'Just a dream?' His mouth twisted slightly, and she had the odd feeling that she had hurt him. 'So those very special words you said to me meant nothing, then, Sorrel, is that it?'
'What special words?' she asked him, but she had a sinking feeling that she knew exactly what they were.
'You said you loved me,' he told her inexorably. 'Were you lying?'
Lying… She gave a small soft moan of pain.
'You know I wasn't,' she admitted despairingly, and then she remembered so
mething very important. She stared at him with an arrested expression. There was a look in his eyes that seemed to urge her to leap some final hurdle, to overcome some final obstacle. Her throat went dry, and she dared not look away from him in case she lost her courage; her throat seemed to close up and her voice was a strained plea as she said uncertainly, 'You said you loved me. Did you… did you mean it?'
'What do you think?' He saw the pain start to dawn in her eyes and said harshly, 'No, Sorrel… listen to your heart, not your mind. Think… remember how it was between us. Do you imagine it could ever have been like that if I didn't?'
She was shaking as much with shock as with relief, unable even now to take it all in; her last rational memory was of him driving away, everything since then had an otherworldly magic about it that had made it seem impossible that any of it had happened.
'Of course I love you,' Val groaned, gathering her into his arms. 'I've loved you from the first moment I saw you. Not that I wanted to admit it. All my life I've had three big sisters bullying me, and now it looked as if they'd won out again.'
Sorrel was completely lost, and a frown puckered her forehead.
'I don't understand.'
Val laughed and hugged her.
'It's simple, really. When I said I was going to look up the Welsh side of the Llewellyn family while I was over here on business, my three bossy sisters warned me that I could end up following in the family tradition and bringing back an English bride.
'I told them they were out of their minds. I was even crazy enough to make a bet on it. I should have known better,' he groaned against her throat. 'I couldn't believe it when I saw you. Couldn't believe it and didn't want to believe it; and then you went and told me you were going to marry another man.'
'I had no idea,' Sorrel said helplessly. 'You never gave any indication.'
'Not to you,' he agreed wryly. 'But the rest of your family weren't slow in putting two and two together. I think your mother's already warned mine to start preparing for a wedding.'