by Penny Jordan
Jonas groaned as her nails raked against his shirt-clad back, and it gave her a savage sense of satisfaction to think that she had hurt him, until she saw the hectic flush of colour staining his skin and felt his body’s immediate arousal. His hands held her hips, imprisoning her against the swollen pressure of his thighs.
Rick had never touched her like this, had never blatantly imposed his sexuality upon her in the way that Jonas was doing. His behaviour towards her had always been gentle and restrained, his kisses tender rather than demanding.
Sara drank in air greedily as Jonas released her mouth, her breasts rising and falling hurriedly. The darkness in Jonas’s eyes as his hands moved up over her back, pressing the rounded warmth of her breasts into his chest, almost strangled her breath in her lungs. The harsh, almost tormented sound he made in his throat was shockingly painful. She found herself caught in wholly unexpected and very dangerous cross-currents, her body telling her one thing while her mind screamed another, and then miraculously Jonas was releasing her, freeing her from the dark spell of his physical dominance.
‘Have dinner with me tonight?’
His voice was slurred, dark coins of colour still staining the high cheekbones, his eyes almost black with arousal.
Automatically she eased herself away from him, gasping at the pain stabbing through her back.
‘No…’
She saw his mouth tighten and could almost sense his frustration.
‘If you won’t come for my sake, then how about making the sacrifice for your brother’s?’ he suggested tightly.
‘Sam?’
The expression of hostility and bitterness in his eyes would have frightened her if she hadn’t been so angry with him.
‘Is it so unbelievable that he might want Vanessa to himself? Think about it; the way he is at the moment he can hardly invite her out. They haven’t had much opportunity to be alone together. You guard him like a mother hen with one chick.’
His use of the word ‘guard’ and the sardonic expression in his eyes galled her. Her mouth compressing, Sara was just about to refuse for a second time when she remembered what Sam had said to her about Vanessa. Jonas was right, Sam would welcome an opportunity to have Vanessa to himself, and it was hardly fair of her to deny it to him simply because Jonas had been the one to point it out to her.
‘I can’t go out to dinner dressed like this!’ she pointed out to him.
He shrugged powerful shoulders. ‘So you need to go home and get changed. I’ll pick you up in an hour.’
She didn’t want to go out to dinner with him, but it suddenly struck her that he was giving her the ideal opportunity to tell him how little she welcomed his advances. At least in the civilisation of a restaurant, surrounded by other people, she would safely be able to tell him that she wanted him to leave her alone.
‘All right.’
She watched as he grimaced, his voice rough as he told her, ‘Don’t overtax yourself in showing enthusiasm, will you? And don’t try backing out.’ he added softly as he walked with her to her car. ‘Because I’m perfectly capable of making sure you go through with it.’
Sara didn’t doubt it.
Vanessa showed a remarkable lack of suprise when she announced that she was dining with Jonas, and it struck her that perhaps the whole thing had been arranged between brother and sister beforehand. It seemed unlike Vanessa to involve herself in anything in the slightest way underhand, but if she was in love with Sam, wasn’t it only natural that she should want to snatch at any opportunity to be alone with him? Strangely, the fact that Jonas might genuinely be taking her out merely to facilitate his sister’s relationship with her brother was not the relief it should have been.
To punish herself for her weakness, she deliberately changed into the dress she had bought for Rick’s annual office ‘do’. It had never been worn because Rick had been killed before the dinner dance took place, and now, as she removed it from its protective wrapping, Sara shuddered slightly, suddenly realising that for the first time, when she thought about Rick, his mental image had not automatically formed in her mind. In fact, when she tried to conjure up his familiar features they stubbornly refused to appear, and she rushed in panic to her dressing table to snatch up his photograph.
The sight of his familiar smile eased her tension. Holding the photograph in front of her, she felt her breathing ease and her heartbeat slow down.
Knowing that if she wasn’t ready on time Jonas was perfectly capable of coming upstairs to discover why, she showered and changed in almost record time. She was just putting the final touches to her make-up when she heard a car outside.
‘Jonas is here,’ Vanessa called up to her.
‘I’m coming down now.’
Pulling a brush through her hair, she snatched up her bag and hurried to the door. A glimpse of herself in her full-length mirror threw back a reflection that was startingly unfamiliar. It had been so long since she had even thought of dressing up that the sight of herself made her check and stare.
She had always been a slim girl, but not all of the weight she had lost in the first few weeks after the accident had been regained, and the dress, which had fitted snugly when she had bought it, was now just loose enough to hint at a delicate fragility. The long sleeves ended in tight cuffs which seemed to emphasise the narrowness of her wrist bones. The bodice of the dress was cut high on her throat at the front, dipping very low at the back to expose her skin. The silky-fine fabric hugged her waist, flaring out gently over her hips. The neckline and low back were etched in a deep band of satin, like the wrist bands and at the back of her neck the dress fastened in an ornamental satin bow.
Its misty lilac colour seemed to emphasise the delicacy of her skin, turning her eyes from blue to amethyst, and imparting a deeper lustre to her hair.
It was a dress that a woman bought with a man very much in mind, and that she should be wearing it tonight for Jonas and not Rick, tore at her heart with sharp knives of anguish—all the more intense because she recognised that one treacherous part of her did want to dress for Jonas, no matter how much her heart and mind might resent it.
Vanessa was waiting for her at the bottom of the stairs, her face lighting up in an appreciative expression when she saw her.
‘Jonas, just wait until you see this!’ she called out gaily to her brother.
A choking panicky feeling closed up Sara’s throat as she recognised that Vanessa was openly hinting that Jonas would find her sexually desirable. It was on the tip of her tongue to announce that she had changed her mind, but as Jonas appeared in the doorway to the sitting-room and studied her with a steel-grey glint in his eyes, Sara knew that any attempt on her part to extricate herself from their date would meet with very severe resistance.
It was for Sam’s sake that she was doing this, she reminded herself as she allowed Jonas to hand her into his car.
To see a Rolls-Royce outside the door, even if rather an old one, was not what she had expected, and it was Vanessa who, correctly reading her surprise, laughed and said bubblingly, ‘It belonged to Jonas’s uncle, and it had done such a small mileage and had been so carefully looked after that it seemed a waste to ger rid of it. I think it suits him, although Jonas prefers his Land Rover.’
‘It does have its advantages,’ drawled Jonas, interrupting his sister.
‘Yes, it’s got seats that recline—unlike the Land Rover,’ Vanessa teased, and even though Sara knew her remark had been directed at Jonas rather than herself, she could not help her skin going hot with betraying colour as Jonas helped her into the luxurious car.
As he closed her door, the rich smell of the leather upholstery engulfed her, and she could not resist stroking an appreciative finger along the burr-walnut panelling.
Even with her eyes averted, she was aware of the exact moment Jonas slid into the driver’s seat. His door closed with a dull thunk, and he switched on the engine.
There was a moment’s delay while he fastened his seat belt,
and then, just when she expected him to drive away, he told her coolly, ‘You mustn’t take Vanessa’s remark too much to heart; I promise you I’m way, way past the stage where I attempt to make love to my dates on the front seat of a parked car. These days I prefer the comfort and privacy of a large double bed.’
The images so unexpectedly conjured up by his drawled words were so disturbing that Sara had to take refuge from them by staring fixedly out of her window. If she looked at Jonas now he would see quite plainly that in her mind’s eye she had seen that double bed and that, moreover, the slim female body entwined with his on it had quite unmistakably been her own.
The intensity of her arousal frightened her, making gooseflesh shiver over her skin. What was happening to her? She didn’t want this to happen. She didn’t want to feel this way about him…about any man! She had already lost one man she had loved; she couldn’t bear to lose another, and the only way to prevent that from happening was not to let herself fall in love again.
Fall in love? That was impossible. She could never fall in love again; she loved Rick. The familiarity of her thought patterns was reassuringly soothing, and helped her to dismiss the sudden surge of desire Jonas’s comments had aroused. Even so, she felt bitterly resentful that he seemed to have this almost frightening ability to bring such a strong surge of sexuality out in her. It made her feel unsure of herself, and dangerously vulnerable, that a man she disliked so strongly as a human being should have such a powerful effect on her physically. It was disturbing to realise that she was not fully in control of her own responses, that part of her could be so wilfully blind to the strictures of her mind.
‘That’s a very attractive dress you’re wearing.’ Jonas observed. ‘It has a touchable quality that seems to be missing from a good many modern fashions. Almost, dare I say it, a quality of sensuousness that’s very appealing to my sex. I’m flattered that you chose to wear it for me.’
His last comment was delivered in a tone so soft and low that Sara barely caught the words. When she did she froze, and turned to glare glacially at him.
‘I didn’t choose to wear it for you,’ she told him bitingly, ‘I had to wear it because it happens to be the only evening dress in my wardrobe.’
That wasn’t strictly true, but in her intensely emotional state she wasn’t prepared to recognise her own lie, her eyes flashing angry warning signs as his attention shifted momentarily from the road to her face.
Sensing that he didn’t believe her, she added hotly, ‘If you must know, I brought this dress to wear for…for my fiancé, only he was killed before…’
She broke off, conscious that her throat was so thick with tears that to continue talking would be to subject herself to the indignity of breaking down completely in front of her tormentor.
Without knowing why, she sensed that to be held in Jonas’s arms while she sobbed out her misery and guilt against his shoulder would shift the axis of their relationship completely, and that was something she didn’t want. She wanted to resent and dislike him, she recognised numbly. She didn’t want to admit that he might have characteristics that she could find attractive—and why? Because she was frightened of what that admission might mean.
Engrossed in her own thought, she was conscious of him swearing and the car swerving sharply. As her seat belt reacted to his momentary sharp pressure on the brakes, she felt it bite into her flesh.
At first she thought he had braked to avoid a bird, or perhaps a rabbit, but when she saw the look of bitter fury on his face as he turned towards her, his knuckles almost white as he gripped the steering wheel, Sara realised that she was responsible for their abrupt halt.
As his hands left the steering wheel and gripped her shoulders, her seat belt prevented her from cringing away from him. His eyes had the metallic gleam of someone pushed beyond their limits, the tension whitening the skin round his mouth and nose, making her shiver in sick apprehension.
‘If I thought for one momet that you were trying to substitute me for your dead lover, I’d…’
‘Substitute you for Rick?’ Sara felt her own anger rise to meet his, only hers was an anger that was spiked with fear: fear of him and fear of herself, combined with a sure knowledge that she was running headlong into the very situation she had been determined to avoid.
She let her anger against herself as well as against him underscore her words with scorn.
‘You could never take Rick’s place,’ she told him heatedly. ‘You’re not half the man he is. You never could be. You… What do you think you’re doing?’ she demanded thickly as he suddenly re-started the car and turned it round, with impatient jerky movements, driving back to the crossroads at a speed every instinct told her was dangerous.
It struck her as they reached the crossroads that he must be intending to take her home, but instead of turning off, he kept on going until they came to the gates of his house. Only then did he slow down, turning the heavy car into the drive.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ demanded Sara in panic. ‘We’re supposed to be going out to dinner…to…’
‘I’m going to do something I should have done the first time I met you,’ Jonas told her grimly, bringing the car to a sudden standstill outside the front door. ‘I’m going to show you once and for all that your fiancé is dead, and that you and I are very much alive. You can’t cling to the past for ever, Sara. It’s time you recognised the truth—that your precious Rick is dead…that he can never ever again hold you in his arms…that no matter how much you might claim you still love him, memories are no substitute for the pleasure of a warm living body in bed beside you…a man’s hands on your skin, giving you pleasure.’
He caught her wrist as she lifted her open hand to strike him, his grip bruising her fragile bones.
‘I’m glad you did that,’ he told her thickly, his eyes glittering beneath black narrowed lashes. ‘It makes it much easier for me to do this.’
The hard pressure of his lips on hers was shockingly intimate, his tongue thrusting into her mouth in a fierce rhythm that made shivers of erotic sensation slide down her spine.
It must be her anger that was intensifying the sensation so much, she thought dazedly, fighting against matching his furious assault with her nails and teeth in a response that had nothing to do with making him stop what he was doing to her.
His hands were on her bare back, she realised, his thumbs probing the satin band where it touched the outer curves of her breasts. She shivered as his thumbs eased beneath the fabric, touching her bare skin, and then, shockingly, his hands weren’t on her back any more, but were pressing against the chiffon-covered fullness of her breasts.
What was it about this man that so completely destroyed her self-control? she wondered hazily as she felt her nipples peak and thrust tautly against the heat of his palms. The way his fingers tightened on the outer swell of her breasts, his palms pressing against the diamond-hard nipples, told her that he was as aware of her arousal as she was herself. The knowledge should have been humiliating, but, shockingly, it was not.
Indeed, it was almost as though her anger had sparked off a chain of reaction that was leading to some sort of osmosis that completely changed her feelings for him, from dislike to desire.
Lost in the sensations evoked by his mouth and hands, she felt it a shock to be abruptly released. His fingers curled sharply into her arms as he held her at arm’s length.
As she tensed against the derisory comment she expected him to make, it was doubly shocking to her to hear him saying thickly, ‘I don’t know what it is about you that makes me feel like this, Sara; I only know that you’re the only woman I’ve ever met who arouses me to such a frenzy.’ He leaned forward and touched her half-parted mouth with fingers that visibly trembled.
‘We have to talk,’ he told her, ‘but not out here. Let’s go inside.’
As though she had suddenly lost the ability to move independently of him, she let him guide her out of the car and into the darkened house
. Without taking his hand from her arm, he switched on the hall lights and then opened the door into what appeared to be a library-cum-study.
Still shocked by the raw emotion she had heard in his voice, Sara let him lead her across to a large leather chesterfield, obediently sinking down on to it, and watching with wide, bewildered eyes as he sat down beside her.
His movements were edged with a tension that in a less aggressive and assured man she might have thought nervousness, but the thought of any woman making Jonas nervous, least of all her, was so ridiculous that she instantly dismissed it.
Now that she was out of his arms and removed from the powerful spell he seemed to throw over her senses, she felt a renewal of her earlier hostility and resentment. The passion that had flared between them in the car was something she preferred to dismiss.
‘I almost wanted to kill you when you told me you bought that dress for him, do you know that?’
The words were delivered so flatly, it took her several seconds to realise it was not a joke.
Hard, flat patches of colour burned his cheekbones, his mouth compressed so tightly that she could see the fierce beat of the pulse in his throat.
‘I want you, Sara,’ he continued in the same flat, hard tone. ‘I wanted you from the first moment I saw you, but more than that, I’m falling in love with you.’
It took several seconds for his words to sink in. When they had, Sara could only stare at him in incredulous disbelief. He had fallen in love with her? Impossible! She opened her mouth to tell him so, and was surprised by the ferocity of the anger and fear that suddenly engulfed her. How dared he claim to love her? Rick had loved her and she had loved him, but Rick had never treated her the way Jonas did. Rick had revered and respected her…had never touched her in furious desire and anger. Rick had…Rick… A sob of pure anguish lodged in her throat, a sense of fear and betrayal flooding her senses. How dared this man claim to love her; how dared he try to seduce her away from her precious memories? She didn’t want his love. She didn’t want anyone’s love. Unadmitted, buried deep in her subconscious, was the knowledge that to open oneself to love was to open oneself to pain. She had travelled down that road once in her life; she wasn’t going to travel down it again.