by Penny Jordan
When his thumb pushed aside the thick fall of her hair to rub the vulnerable spot just behind her ear she nearly jumped out of her skin, her eyes widening in shocked disbelief, so deeply violet that they were almost black.
Wicked amusement danced in jade-green depths, so deep that she could almost have drowned in them, the hard masculine mouth curling in faint derision as his thumb slid from her ear down her throat resting on the place where her pulse throbbed betrayingly.
‘What on earth do you think you’re doing?’ Her voice, which she had wanted to sound sharp and cold, sounded breathy and faintly husky.
‘Just testing to see if you actually are still wet behind the ears,’ he drawled mockingly in response. ‘I don’t know who let you out alone without your leading reins, little girl, but they sure as hell must be worrying about you.’
To Somer’s relief, he removed his fingers from her skin, although it still burned where they had been, her flesh feeling as though it were on fire. Not until she was safely inside her room with the door locked did she dare to relax, flinging herself face down on her bed and letting the tremors she had suppressed outside race violently through her. Andrew had been at first disbelieving and then faintly annoyed when she had told him that she was still a virgin. When she had questioned him about it, a little hurt to discover that he was not pleased as she had expected him to be, he had said simply that sex was more fun when one had more experience. He must have sensed her distress though because he had taken her in his arms afterwards and told her not worry about it, but comforting though his words had been, she had been left with a tiny nagging core of uncertainty. She had always assumed that the man she loved would treasure the gift of her virginity, not consider it as some sort of nuisance.
Now, alone in her room these doubts returned to plague her. Even a stranger seemed to know that she was inexperienced, ‘wet behind the ears’, as he had said so mockingly, with a look in his eyes that told her that he was anything but the same. For some reason as she lay on the bed it was the stranger’s dark green eyes and thick black shock of hair that forced its way into her mind’s eye and not Andrew’s fair attractiveness.
Suddenly restless she got up and walked across to the window. She had a view of the hotel gardens; the tennis courts and swimming-pool spread out immediately below her flower-festooned balcony, and beyond it the shrubs of the natural garden and the cliff that led down to the sea, an impossible blue on this perfect summer’s day.
Still feeling restless she rang room service and ordered a pot of tea, wondering when her luggage would arrive. The sight of Judith in her brief white outfit and the holidaymakers down below, enjoying themselves by the pool, made her feel dowdy in her sensible lightweight wool suit, smart enough for shopping in Aberdeen, and bought from a very good shop, but somehow out of place in her present surroundings.
When the tea arrived but her luggage still had not she rang down to reception relieved to find that Judith wasn’t on duty. The girl who answered was pleasant and promised to have her cases sent straight up. Encouraged by her friendly manner Somer asked if she knew where Andrew might be found. There was a brief pause and the girl’s voice changed, a faintly hesitant note entering it.
‘I’m not sure,’ she told Somer. ‘I think he might be in the office at the moment.’
Thanking her Somer rang off. Andrew had promised that he would take a few days’ holiday while she was staying at the hotel and that they could be alone together to talk over their plans. Suddenly Somer longed for him to be with her; to take her into his arms and kiss away all her doubts and fears, to obliterate completely the face of the mocking stranger who made her feel so aware of her inadequacies.
When her luggage arrived she unpacked carefully, selecting a pale lemon wrap-round skirt in cool cotton and a toning tee-shirt, which she changed into as soon as she had showered. Feeling more in keeping with the other guests she debated whether to remain in her room and wait for Andrew, or to walk through the gardens. In the event the decision was made for her. She was just finishing her second cup of tea when she heard a rap on her door.
‘It’s me, darling,’ Andrew’s familiar voice called. ‘Open the door.’
‘Andrew!’ Her cheeks pink with excitement Somer flung herself bodily into his arms, her face raised for his kiss.
‘Let me get inside.’ Andrew laughed, but there was faint uneasiness in his eyes as he glanced down the empty corridor. ‘I am supposed to be on duty you know.’
‘I was hoping you would meet me at the airport.’ They were inside the room now, but Andrew had made no move to take her back in his arms.
‘Oh come on, darling, don’t sulk.’ Impatience edged his voice, normally so warm and loving. Tears suddenly, and appallingly, threatened, despite her efforts to blink them away. She was behaving like a child, what was wrong with her? Andrew saw the betraying sheen and was instantly apologetic.
‘Darling, I’m a miserable brute, but it’s just that I’m so tired. I’ve had to put in extra time to make sure I could take a few days off while you’re here. Forgive me for not being there, but I did send Judith, so at least you were met by a familiar face.’
Suppressing the desire to tell him that she would have been far happier with a completely strange one Somer moved back towards him. His hands cupped her shoulders, and he bent, kissing the corner of her mouth lightly, but despite the caress he was still holding her away from him and she had to suppress a feeling of disappointment. Of course he was tired, and probably the last thing he felt like was making love to her. Traitorous as a serpent the thought slithered into her mind that the stranger in the lift would never been too tired to make love, would never hold the woman he loved at arm’s length when she could be moulded against his body, matching the heavy thud of his heartbeat. Quelling the thought she smiled up at Andrew, reminded herself of her recent proud boast to her father that she was grown up and adult.
‘It’s all right, darling,’ she said softly, ‘I do understand. We can talk at dinner tonight.’
His arms dropped to his sides, and he turned slightly away from her, fiddling with the lamp on the dressing-table. Her room was elegantly furnished with pretty cane furniture, its colour-scheme soft blues and greys, a soft, thick pile carpet in soft blue echoing the same colour.
‘Somer, I’m sorry, I can’t have dinner with you tonight. I’ve got a meeting on with the Manager—something I just can’t get out of. Look, why don’t you have something sent up to your room and get an early night. Tomorrow we can talk, make plans… You must be tired anyway after your journey.’
Somer forbode to point out that a flight of little over an hour was hardly an exhausting ordeal, meekly acceding to his suggestion and wishing the tiny nagging pain inside her would go away instead of flaring into life.
With a brief peck on her cheek Andrew left her. Feeling completely deflated, not knowing what to do with herself after the anti-climax of their reunion. Somer stared blindly out across the gardens and then glanced at her watch. It was six o’clock and the evening stretched emptily in front of her, the thought of a solitary meal in her room somehow unappealing.
Crushing the disloyal thought that suggested that Andrew might have made some time to spend with her on her very first evening, as being that of a child, not the adult she had proclaimed so vehemently to her father that she was, Somer decided that a walk through the gardens might help banish the fit of miseries that hovered threateningly.
She found that she had them almost completely to herself when she walked through the foyer and out into the open air, the pool now almost deserted, only one lone figure distorting the smooth blue water as he cleaved it with the sure overarm motions of a strong crawl. The dark head lifted just long enough for Somer to recognise the unmistakable features of the stranger from the lift, and she faltered just long enough to recognise herself and be dismayed by her own reluctance to cross the pool area in case she excited his attention for a second time in one day.
Her thoughts
, as she made her way through the gardens, were all of her unsatisfactory reunion with Andrew. Her body ached with that same indefinable torment she had experienced at Easter, and she could only wonder at Andrew’s greater self-control. She wanted to be married to him now, she thought rebelliously, not in nine months’ time. It was all very well for her father to say that they would have the rest of their lives to spend together, but right now the nine months he had said they must wait seemed like a lifetime. After this holiday she wouldn’t see Andrew again until Christmas. He had a month off then and was going to spend it in Aberdeen with Somer and her father. It would be the first time the two most important men in her life met, and she was desperately anxious for them to like one another.
Andrew was already predisposed to like her father, she knew. Even when Sir Duncan had insisted that they must wait before marrying Andrew had not lost his temper or protested. He could understand her father’s point of view, he had admitted, and in fact he had been the one to assure her that her father was only acting out of concern for her, Somer remembered, thinking back to that occasion. Unfortunately she couldn’t entirely escape the conviction that her father was not equally responsive towards Andrew. Nothing specific had been said, but she had sensed a certain lack of enthusiasm which was not entirely connected with her age, a certain tension in her father’s voice whenever she mentioned Andrew’s name.
It was over an hour before she returned from her walk, noticing as she did so that dusk was already crowding the vividly beautiful sunset from the sky, reminding her of how much further south Jersey was than Aberdeen where the light nights continued well into the autumn.
Judith was back on duty on reception when Somer walked in. She was talking to the stranger from the lift, now dressed semi-formally in an open-throated soft white shirt that emphasised the tanned column of his throat and tapering black trousers which drew Somer’s bemused gaze to the leanly muscled power of his thighs. He moved slightly as though aware of her scrutiny, even though he couldn’t possibly have seen her where she stood in the shadows of the doorway, flexing his body slightly like a large muscular cat taking pleasure in the fluid response of bone and sinew. Judith followed the brief movement with admiring eyes, leaning slightly forward across the desk so that her blouse tightened revealingly across her breasts. The dark head inclined and although Somer could not see his expression, she guessed that there was an unmistakable sensual appreciation in the jade eyes as they studied the curvaceous outline of Judith’s breasts.
He moved away at last, his business obviously concluded, and Somer almost shrank back into the shadows as he headed for the open main doors and out into the dusk beyond.
‘Now that’s what I call a man,’ Judith smirked as Somer approached the desk and requested her key. ‘Not that you would know what I mean. A man like that would make you run a mile wouldn’t he, little scaredy-cat?’
The mocking taunt stung, and Somer grabbed for her key, colour high in her cheeks. To hide her agitation she asked huskily, ‘Is he a guest here?’
‘You could say that. He’s Chase Lorimer, the photographer. He’s been here for three weeks—working. If you can call taking pictures of bikini-clad models working.’ Judith gave a softly sensual laugh. ‘I must say if he was photographing me it wouldn’t take him long to coax me out of my clothes and into his arms. He’s all man,’ she said it admiringly, ‘and an extremely experienced one at that, if the gossip’s anything to go by. Why the interest?’ she asked, adding tauntingly, ‘Surely you aren’t entertaining hopes in that direction yourself? You wouldn’t stand a chance, he’s been besieged by beautiful women ever since he got here, and even now that his current girlfriend’s gone back to London with the rest of the models, he hasn’t shown any interest in anyone else. And he’d certainly never show any in a frightened little innocent like you,’ she finished derisively, glancing up and down Somer’s slender body. ‘You just haven’t got what it takes, Somer, and I doubt you ever will have. No girl who’s hung on to her virginity as long as you have will ever make a man a satisfactory bed partner.’
‘Andrew wants me.’
Later Somer was to ask herself what had prompted her into such a rash speech. Surely it wasn’t a desire to score off on Judith; to turn the tables and make her pride sting a little.
‘Does he?’ Judith’s smile taunted her. ‘Are you sure about that, Somer? Couldn’t he wait to take you in his arms the moment you got here? Are you spending tonight in his bed? Does he want you so much that he can’t hide his desire for you every time he sees you. Is that how it is between the two of you?’
Her contemptuous laughter followed Somer as she fled towards the lift, each cruel word a barb biting deep into her heart. How could Judith so easily unearth her own secret fears and doubts; how could she have known of her own disquiet that Andrew had not appeared more eager to be with her; to touch her and kiss her as she was longing for him to do? Andrew respected her innocence and inexperience, she told herself, trying to calm her uneasy nerves as she headed for her room. Of course his self-control must put a strain on him; that same strain she had sensed when he walked into her room. Of course the reason he hadn’t kissed her as she had wanted him to do was that he was concerned that their lovemaking might get out of control. Andrew was only acting out of concern for her, and it was both foolish and childish of her to wish that he would sweep her off her feet and into his bed and that he would tell her that it was impossible for him to resist the enticement of her body; that his love and desire for her were so great that he must possess her.
Thoroughly confused by her own feelings Somer opened the door of her room, locking it firmly behind her before going on to her small balcony, trying to will away the self-pitying loneliness that swept her. In Aberdeen her father would be dining with business associates as he so often did during the week. At the weekend he was going to stay with an old friend. They would spend it fishing, her father’s favourite sport. She sighed, half wishing that her father would marry again. She would have enjoyed having brothers and sisters, and her father would be lonely once she was married, but when she had broached the subject he had told her that he had loved her mother too much to contemplate putting someone else in her place. She hadn’t doubted that he spoke the truth, and she flushed a little remembering her impassioned cry after she had first met Andrew, that her father didn’t understand how she felt.
‘I understand all too well, lassie,’ he had told her grimly. ‘I can remember what it feels like to fall in love, and how impetuous girls of eighteen can be. Your mother was that age when I first met her, and although you were born ten months after our marriage, you could easily have arrived very much earlier. Some things never change,’ he had concluded wryly, ‘and human desire is one of them. You may think because I’m your father that I don’t understand how you feel. It’s because I do that I’m so worried for you, but I doubt that you’ll heed me any more than Catriona and I heeded her father, although these days, things being what they are, I suppose I needn’t concern myself too much with the possibility of an unexpected grandchild.’
That assumption on her father’s part as well as driving the rich colour to her face had brought a stumbled protest to her lips that Somer realised with the benefit of hindsight, had been half surprised. Had her father really believed that she and Andrew were already lovers? From his frank statements to her about his relationship with her mother it seemed plain that they had not waited for marriage before consummating their love.
Thoroughly dissatisfied with the train of her thoughts Somer decided impulsively that she had to speak to Andrew. Not now tonight when she knew he was in conference with the hotel management, but first thing tomorrow morning before his working day started. She knew where his room was, and although staff quarters were forbidden to the guests, she knew she could find her way there unnoticed. Half hidden by the clutter of thoughts milling in her brain was the hope that by taking such action she might precipitate the intimacy Andrew had previously been at pai
ns to avoid and that seeing her in his room might urge him to forget caution and only remember their love. Her blood heated to fever pitch at the thought, her body eagerly yearning for the close proximity of his, sensations as yet only half understood coursing through her veins.
Andrew! His name was on her lips when sleep finally claimed her, but inexplicably her dreams held not Andrew’s fair attractiveness, but the dark compulsion of a far different man. A man who shared Judith’s contempt of her, who laughed at her and called her a silly child, even while his green eyes told her that he found nothing childish in the soft curves of her body and if he wished it he could easily take her beyond childhood and into womanhood. ‘No…’ She moaned the denial in her sleep, moving restlessly beneath the light quilt, trying to escape from her dreams and the threat they seemed to hold.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE was awake in plenty of time to put the previous night’s plan into action. From past experience she knew that Andrew would be on duty at seven, stopping to have breakfast later in the staff dining-room, once his working day had swung into action. It was just after quarter to six when she left her room, using the stairs in preference to the lift, knowing that there were unlikely to be any other guests using them at this time of the morning and also that if she went through the fire door on the third floor it led on to the stairs to the staff bedrooms.
As she had hoped she met no one en route to Andrew’s room, and even better his door was slightly ajar, a used tray of tea outside, suggesting that he had put it there and then forgotten to close his door.
Pushing it open gently, Somer tiptoed inside. Although much less attractively furnished than her own room, Andrew’s room was pleasantly large and as she knew, doubled as a bedroom-cum-sitting room, one wall covered in units that held his books and stereo system, as well as the pull-down desk-top he used to work on, and a small portable television.