Substitute Lover

by Penny Jordan

  The sun was dazzling her, preventing her from seeing his expression, but she was aware of Carla stepping away from them to greet her husband, and her body tensed in dread, wondering if he had witnessed what she had seen and placed the same interpretation on it. If he had ...

  She forgot that the last thing on earth she wanted was for Gray to sail in the Fastnet, and immediately reached up on her toes, clutching at his shoulder to balance herself as she planted a kiss against his jaw and said huskily, 'No, nothing at all. I ... I was just lonely without you ...'

  She could feel Gray's tension, and understood the reason for it, but by now he too was aware of Alex's presence, and as naturally as though they were indeed lovers he slid one arm round Stephanie's waist, curving her against his side, swinging her round so that the sunlight no longer dazzled her.

  'Now that's what I like,' he responded in teasing tones. 'A woman who's not afraid to say she wants me.' The look in his eyes was that of an ardent lover, who could scarcely wait to be alone with his woman, and it threw her, confusing her, making her forget that she was still clinging to him like a fragile vine.

  'I . . .I have a message for you ...' She relayed it to him, stumbling over the words as she realised that his attention was focused on her mouth. The way he was looking at her was causing the most extraordinary sensations inside her. She realised of course that he was simply doing it for Alex's benefit; that it wasn't real.

  The heat of his arm resting against her body seemed to burn right through her clothes. She could feel the imprint of his hard hip against her softer flesh, and where the side of her breast was pressed against his body a fiery ache was developing that was having the most devastating effect on her senses.

  'I suspect that you and I are most definitely de trop, darling,' she heard Alex say laughingly to Carla.

  'You two must come round and have dinner with us one night. What about next week? We should have the results of the sea trials in by then, shouldn't we, Gray?'

  Without taking his eyes from her mouth, Stephanie heard Gray saying almost abstractedly, 'Yes .... yes . . . I'm more than satisfied with her tests so far. I intend to take her out a couple more times—all I'm waiting for is a good gale.'

  Numbly Stephanie stared up at him, her eyes going dark with shock and fear. She couldn't bear to think of losing Gray to the sea She wanted to scream at him and beg him not to take such a risk. All her normally logical responses were swept away in the fierce tide of fear that burned through her.

  Somewhere in the distance she was aware of car doors slamming and an engine starting, and that small part of her mind that was still functioning properly recognised that Carla and her husband must have left them; but all her concentration, all her attention was focused on Gray and the way he was still looking at her mouth.

  A thrill of some dangerous and alien emotion raced through her. Without being aware of the provocation of what she was doing she touched her tongue-tip tentatively to the dry outline of her lips.

  Someone shuddered. Herself, or Gray ? She looked up at him, and trembled beneath the expression in his eyes.

  'Do that again and I won't be responsible for what happens next,' he warned her in a curiously rusty, hoarse voice, that trapped her attention, focusing it on the shape of his mouth.

  'For God's sake, Stephanie, do you know what you're doing ? You're looking at me as though you can't wait to feel my mouth against yours.'

  The words reached her, shocking her out of her momentary trance. She fought to break free of his enclosing arm, but instead of releasing her Gray pulled her hard against his body, his free hand sliding into her hair, trapping her so that she couldn't move.

  She watched the downward descent of his head with a strange sensation of calm and disbelief.

  His mouth touched hers, and she closed her eyes automatically. 'No . ..' She felt the harsh objection against her mouth, and opened her eyes instinctively.

  'I want to see what you're feeling when I kiss you.'

  'Gray. No . . . don't...' She struggled to free herself, squirming against the almost painful hardness of his body, until she realised the effect her frantic movements were having on him.

  He watched the hot colour scorch her skin with cynical detachment, demanding acidly, 'You're not that naive, surely, Stephanie. Rub yourself against any normal man like that and you'd get exactly the same response.'

  When her embarrassed colour deepened he smiled sardonically and bent his head to her ear and mouthed softly, 'I'm a man, Stephanie, and not a machine, and what you're doing to my body right now is driving me right out of my mind.'

  His grip had slackened slightly and Stephanie pulled back, sickened and shaken by his bluntness. This wasn't the Gray she knew; the Gray who was always so courteous and careful of her, never allowing his masculinity to embarrass or disconcert her. This was another Gray, a Gray she was not familiar with. Carla' s Gray, she acknowledged achingly.

  'What I'm doing to you?' she threw back at him bitterly. 'Don't you mean what seeing Carla has done to you? I'm not blind, Gray, I saw the way you were looking at her before. I saw how you touched her ...'

  Tears started up in her eyes, and she brushed them away impatiently, torn between misery and anger.

  'I won't be used as a substitute for her, Gray. You told me it was all over between you. You ...'

  'It is,' he interrupted quietly, stepping back from her, his eyes watching her with cool dispassion.

  'Alex saw the two of you together as well,' Stephanie told him uncertainly. 'That was why I .. .'

  'Acted as though there was nothing you wanted more than my body against yours, my mouth against yours?' Gray derided savagely. 'Oh, you don't have to explain that to me, Stephanie. I know the score. For God's sake, you can't spend the rest of your life grieving over Paul.'

  He was angry now, and she couldn't understand why, or how Paul had been dragged into the conversation. What did her relationship with Paul have to do with their present discussion?

  She drew in a sharp breath, and remembered the way he had looked at Carla, with both tenderness and compassion, and she said bitterly, 'Why not? That's what you intend to do over Carla, isn't it?'

  She saw him reach out towards her, but she moved back, turning on her heel and almost running out of the yard.

  Once she was outside it, she slowed down to a more normal walk. Her chest felt tight and hurt, her eyes were smarting with unshed tears; her whole body was gripped with tension, and the turmoil of emotions inside her was something she had not experienced for years.

  As she walked back to the cottage she tried to calm herself down a little. A group of fishermen stood by the harbour wall, chatting; one of them called out a greeting to her and she returned it.

  How did the wives of these men cope? she wondered. Only last year there had been a terrible disaster, the entire crew of a trawler lost in heavy seas; some women had lost both husbands and sons. And yet she had heard one of them say on television that if her only surviving son should want to go to sea she would not try to stop him.

  Where did such courage come from?

  CHAPTER FIVE

  STEPHANIE waited tensely for Gray's return, anticipating a confrontation following the way she had run out of the yard, but none was forthcoming.

  Gray simply came into the kitchen where she was preparing their supper, and calmly started to help her as though nothing had happened.

  It took her several seconds to realise that the feeling she was experiencing was something akin to disappointment, as she forced herself to follow his lead and respond to his casual conversation.

  'With a bit of luck I'll be able to take the boat out tomorrow for more testing. They're forecasting heavy weather. Just what we need at this stage.'

  She could almost feel herself blench as she listened to him, and he frowned, putting down the bowl of salad he had been preparing, and taking a gentle hold of her shoulders.

  'Look, Steph, I understand how you feel about the sea, but it wasn'
t the sea that caused Paul's death, it was his own recklessness,' he told her bluntly. 'I'm sorry if that hurts you but it is the truth. Paul disregarded the safety precautions and that was why he drowned. You used to love sailing. I remember when your family first came to the estuary; you were never away from the yard.'

  Sailing was my father's hobby,' Stephanie told him

  stupidly, as though they were strangers and he knew nothing about her.

  'I know, and he taught you well. Too well for you to give it up completely. I used to see you handling that small dinghy of his. You were a pleasure to watch.'

  Gray used to watch her. She stared at him. As a teenager he had seemed very remote and adult, a man while she and Paul were still little more than children. He had been kind to her though, she remembered that ... kind and patient ...

  She remembered Paul teasing her once that Gray 'fancied' her ... How embarrassed she had been, and how she had resented Paul's teasing remark. How could a man like Gray ever want a girl of her age? She remembered now that Paul had often made similar remarks to her about his cousin; after they were married those remarks had taken on a gloating, unpleasant nuance she had instinctively shied away from.

  The memory was a very selective thing; for instance, in the early days after Paul's death she had forgotten his cruelty, both mental and physical, and remembered only her adoration of him.

  She had also forgotten how much Paul had seemed to resent Gray at times... how much he had railed against his older cousin's influence with his parents.

  Her parents had moved to the estuary when she was fifteen; she had been eighteen when she married Paul, and yet she had learned less about him in all those three years than she had in three months of marriage to him.

  Paul had confessed to her once that Gray had been against their getting married. She had thought nothing of it at the time apart from being a little hurt that Gray, whom she looked upon as her friend, had chosen to align himself with their families.

  'Come back ...'

  Gray's deep voice brought her back to the present, his eyes hardening slightly as he told her. 'I won't ask who or what you were thinking about, but whatever it was, it was obviously unpleasant. It's time you got over this phobia you have about the sea,' he added abruptly. 'What is it you fear so much ? That you might drown ?'

  She shook her head forcefully, unable to explain to him that her fear was somehow linked with Paul's death, and those awful, terrifying moments alone in the yacht with him when she had thought he was going to let her drown. Ever since his death she had battled to keep (hose memories at bay, and she knew that to go sailing again would be to unlock the doors she had barred against them.

  But weren't they already unlocked? Today, this afternoon, she had relived those traumatic moments and had found that, while the fear and panic remained, the dreadful soul-wrenching agony of fearing the man that she loved wanted to kill her had gone.

  Not that she thought that Paul had deliberately and cold-bloodedly tried to drown her. It was just that she had seen in his lace such a look of triumph and delight I hat she had sensed in him a wild desire to destroy her; that same desire she saw in him whenever he lost his temper with her and struck her. Paul had had an extremely volatile temperament, his emotions constantly see-sawing. Sometimes she had even wondered if he had perhaps been slightly unbalanced in some way. After all, he had been the one to persuade her into marriage, and he had been the one to grow tired of her once they were married, so quickly that in retrospect his feelings seemed to have changed overnight.

  By mutual consent, she and Gray decided on an early night. She was tired, Stephanie admitted as she prepared for bed, but it wasn't a healthy tiredness, it was a mixture of strain and mental exhaustion.

  What had happened to the Stephanie and Gray who used to stay up until all hours of the morning, talking animatedly to one another ? It was as though Carla was proving to be a catalyst whose presence was causing her to dig deep into the past and re-evaluate very many things in her life. She was causing ripples on the surface of Stephanie's life that were nothing when compared with the deep and complex currents eddying dangerously, far below that surface.

  Tomorrow she would start work at the yard, familiarising herself with its procedures, and thus freeing Gray to concentrate on testing his boat.

  She fell asleep on that thought.

  She was dreaming. She was sailing on an impossibly blue sea; and the bright sails of the small craft were silhouetted against an impossibly blue sky. It was warm, and there was a teasing, dancing breeze. She could see it billowing out the striped sails, filling them, sending the boat skimming across the water.

  It was an exhilarating sensation, and automatically she lifted her face to the sun, her blood singing with pleasure and excitement.

  She wasn't alone in the boat. There was a man with her. He was controlling it. She felt safe and happy with him, fee to enjoy the golden brilliance of the day and to give herself over to the thrill of matching her skills against those of the elements.

  Sailing ... She had always loved it. She leaned forwards to tell Gray so, and he turned his head. Only he wasn't Gray, and she felt a scream of panic rise from her throat as she recognised Paul's lace contorted in a grimace of hatred.

  Suddenly both the sky and the sea turned black, and she was filled with fear.

  She screamed out, and felt Paul lean towards her, taking hold of her.

  'Stephanie ... Stephanie, wake up ...'

  Shuddering, she opened her eyes. Gray was bending over her, his fingers biting into the soft flesh of her arms as he shook her.

  He was wearing a robe and his hair was all tousled as though he had been woken abruptly from sleep.

  'You were having a nightmare,' he told her curtly.

  The lamp beside her bed had been switched on, its soft glow warming the dark room.

  'You called out for Paul. You sounded terrified.'

  She had been. She shuddered violently, remembering her dream. It had been so real... so traumatic. Often in those first months after Paul's death she had dreamed, but in those dreams she had always been overwhelmed by guilt, and had always been reaching out to him, trying to save him.

  It didn't take super-intelligence to understand why she had had this particular dream tonight though, but what she did find disturbing was her remembrance of how happy and safe she had felt when she had thought she was with Gray.

  She sat up awkwardly, snatching at the sheet as it slipped away from her body. The nightdress she was wearing was a fine cotton lawn and, although she knew that Gray was hardly likely to be concerned about any momentary glimpse of her breasts, her gesture was the instinctive protective one of a woman not used to sharing intimacies with members of the opposite sex.

  'I'm sorry if I disturbed you —' she began to

  apologise, but Gray cut her short, his mouth compressing, and twisting oddly as he interrupted sardonically, 'Are you ?'

  His reaction puzzled her, and she reached out automatically, her hand on his arm as he made to get up.

  'Gray

  'You're never going to get over him, are you, Stephanie ? You're never going to let him go. You carry him about in your head with you .. .he shares your bed at night ...' He broke off abruptly and said in a different voice, 'When you touched me this afternoon— were you pretending then that I was him?'

  His accusation stunned her. Her eyes widened as she stared at him, pain forming a hard knot in her throat.

  'No... no, of course I wasn't. I did that to protect you, to ... Carla's husband had seen the two of you together. I ...'

  'You were only thinking of me, is that it? Well, perhaps it's time I repaid the favour, and reminded you exactly what it is you're turning your back on by clinging to your memories of a dead man.'

  Before she could move, his hands were on her shoulders, pushing her back against the pillows, his head descending so that it blotted out all the light.

  She froze beneath the hard pressure of his mouth a
s it look hers in fierce determination. She could feel the sharp pressure of Gray's teeth against her lip and taste the rusty salt of her own blood. She made a muffled sound of protest and, as abruptly as he had taken hold of her, she felt him release her.

  She was quivering with the shock of his unexpected attack. Never in a thousand wild imaginings had she ever believed that Gray would treat a woman like that. If she had given any thought to it at all she had supposed that he would be a considerate, caring lover, not ...Her fingers touched her swollen mouth, tears Hooding her eyes.

  'Stephanie, for God's sake, I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that.'

  Incredibly he was taking her back in his arms, and even more incredibly she was not re sisting him. She felt t he roughness of his robe beneath her cheek as he eased her against his shoulder. 'I ...'

  'I never thought you'd do a thing like that, Gray. I never thought you were the sort of man who ...who liked ... hurting women . ..'

  Fresh tears brimmed from her eyes, and she heard him curse. It seemed incredible after what he had just done that she should have no fear of him. Perhaps her marriage to Paul had robbed her of the ability to experience any more sexual fear.

  She heard Gray curse, and jerked back instinctively when his fingers slid along her jaw, cupping and tilting her face.

  'Stephanie, I'm sorry. I'm sorry .. .1 didn't mean to hurt you.' As he whispered the husky words of apology his lips moved caressingly against hers, imparting comfort and warmth. His arm tightened around her, and as his tongue started to trace the tender outline of her mouth she felt as though she were falling through space, helplessly spinning out of control; floating in a sea of sensations she could no longer understand.