by Penny Jordan
‘Rue—’ he began.
She couldn’t stand any more. If he stayed much longer, she was going to disintegrate completely.
‘Please…’ she begged tightly, completely unable to look at him, and as though he guessed what she was having to endure, he picked up his robe and said quietly, ‘I’m sorry.’
She closed her eyes until she was sure he was gone. Something told her that no matter what she said he wouldn’t leave her here alone, but she drew no comfort from that knowledge, for while he stayed she would be unable to give way to the grief that was tearing her apart.
She loved him, and she had thought he desired her…for wonderful, glorious moments she had thought he wanted her, but it had just been pity, compassion…call it what you would. She had misread the message in his eyes and had caused them both pain and embarrassment.
For both their sakes it would be best if she did not see him again. She because she was not sure she could trust herself not to embarrass them both by revealing her feelings, and Neil… Well, Neil could hardly want to be with her, not now. She had no doubt that, given the chance, he would offer her some face-saving excuse…some tactful explanation of why he had rejected her. Oh, he had tried to pretend that she was wrong, that he did want her, but it had been too late. That hoarse command to her to wait had told its own story.
She sat motionlessly staring into nothing, wondering what it was about her that made her precipitate herself headlong into disaster when it came to her personal relationships.
Neil was no Julian, greedy, selfish, uncaring; the only thing they had in common was that neither of them could love her.
As she waited for the pain inside her to subside, Rue acknowledged drearily that it would have been better if she and Neil had never met…if she had never been brought to realise the truth about her feelings for him. Now it was too late to go back and change things. Her body still held an echo of the desire he had aroused within it. If she closed her eyes and ignored reality she could almost conjure up the sensation of his flesh against hers, of his body-heat and scent…of his touch against her breasts…of the hot, demanding sensation aroused by the weight of him between her thighs. But she mustn’t think about those things. She must obliterate them from her memory and concentrate instead on reality.
She had her home, her business, her friends, and before Neil had erupted into her life she had been content. But now that contentment was gone. The comparison between what her life was and what it could have been if he had shared her feelings was too sharply painful to be borne.
But somehow it would have to be borne. Somehow or other she was going to have to learn to face reality with at least some degree of equanimity.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FOR almost the first time since she had set up in business, Rue felt unable to work; not just because of the physical exhaustion which had weakened her body to the point where all she wanted to do was to simply sit and stare into space nursing a reviving mug of coffee, but also because she had no heart for work. No heart for anything, she acknowledged miserably, bending down to fondle Horatio’s ears as the dog whined and thumped his tail on the floor, sensing her misery.
She had brought his basket downstairs into the kitchen, and despite the room’s warmth she gave a tiny shiver as she looked at the grey bleakness of the sky outside.
Horatio heard the car before she did, his tail beating frantically, his whine one of obvious pleasure, and before Rue could even think about dashing upstairs to put on something a little more decorous than her nightshirt Neil was at the back door.
It was too late to wish now that she had taken more trouble with her appearance, that she had dressed properly instead of coming downstairs with bare feet and legs, her hair tumbling wildly on to her shoulders, her face untouched by any colour, save that which fluctuated wildly under her skin as she fought to dismiss certain far too vivid memories of the previous night’s intimacy.
In spite of herself she felt her heartbeat race into frantic overdrive, a dizzying wave of pleasure engulfing her as she opened the door to him. The only way she could control it was to keep her distance from him as she stepped back to let him into the kitchen.
The first thing that struck her as he walked in was the formality of his clothes. Gone were the faded jeans and worn T-shirt, and in its place was a crisp white shirt, immaculately laundered and starched, and a silver-grey business suit in fine silk and wool. Gold cuff-links flashed dully in the light as he walked over to the basket and bent to stroke Horatio.
‘Don’t,’ Rue cautioned him sharply, causing him to turn round and frown darkly at her. As he straightened up to his full height, she felt vulnerably tiny in her bare feet, uncomfortably conscious of her own near-nudity in comparison with his own formal appearance.
‘I’m not going to hurt him,’ he told her grimly. ‘I thought we’d sorted all that out last night.’
Immediately realising that he had totally misunderstood her, Rue felt obliged to say huskily, ‘No, you don’t understand. It isn’t that—’
His frown deepened and he didn’t allow her to finish, cutting in angrily, ‘Polite lies, Rue. Somehow I suspected better of you, and anyway it’s too late. You’ve already made it very plain that you’re terrified of my touching Horatio. What exactly is it that you think I can do to him right in front of you?’ he asked her derisively.
‘It isn’t that!’ she checked him desperately, taking a half dozen steps towards him in her need to correct his misconceptions. He moved at the same time, swinging round towards her, so that she was easily within arm’s length of him. Too close for safety, she recognised frantically as his abrupt movement stirred the air between them and she caught the scent of his body, clean, sharp, and yet at the same time very male, conjuring up memories of how last night she had almost been drunk on the wine-taste of his skin and the scent of him.
Her colour fluctuated wildly, her body betraying her agitation. The sudden shuddering breath she drew pushed her breasts against the fine cotton of her nightshirt, and Neil, who had been looking directly into her eyes, suddenly shifted his attention to her body. A tremor shot through her, her insides turned hot and weak.
‘It was your suit,’ she heard herself saying huskily in a betrayingly strained voice. ‘That was why I didn’t want you to touch Horatio. He’s moulting, and you’d have been covered in hairs.’
He was listening to her, but he hadn’t shifted his concentration from her breasts, and beneath her explanation she could almost hear the panicky clamour of another voice that begged him not to look at her like that, not to expose her vulnerability.
‘My suit?’
He was standing so close to her that his breath warmed her skin. His eyes were focusing on hers now, and she felt as though she could drown in their molten gaze. Her body quickened tormentingly.
As she felt the familiar ache tighten her breasts, she glanced down at them, hot colour suffusing her skin as Neil followed her glance and then said thickly, ‘You’re beautifully sensitive here…’
Her mind went into shock as he reached out and cupped the soft weight of one breast with his hand.
‘I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking about how you felt and tasted…’
He was lying to her…he had to be. That strained note of desire in his voice was something she had to be imagining. But, because she dared not look up into his eyes and see that he was lying to her, she looked downwards instead, brilliant colour staining her skin as she was left in no doubt of his arousal. ‘See what you do to me,’ she heard Neil saying somewhere above her head, his voice almost unrecognisable in its fine blend of torment and need. ‘Just the thought of touching you has me reacting like a raw teenager. Rue…’
He said her name and somehow or other she was in his arms, whimpering softly beneath her breath at the eagerness which seized her body. One hand tangled in her hair, the other held her waist, as his mouth devoured hers, his tongue fiercely demanding entrance to the moist sweetness beyond her half-par
ted lips.
In a daze of desire and disbelief she clung to him, her hands clutching at his shoulders until he broke the kiss and muttered something against her mouth, abruptly releasing her. As she stared at him with passion-darkened eyes, her skin chilling as it ached for the heat of his, she thought he was going to leave her, but instead he shrugged impatiently out of his jacket, tugging at his tie and then wrenching open the buttons on his shirt.
‘Oh, Rue, don’t stand there staring at me like that…touch me,’ he demanded rawly, taking her back in his arms, pushing her hands inside his shirt and then moaning sharply as she touched him. ‘I’ve been thinking about this all night,’ he told her thickly. ‘I told myself this morning that I wouldn’t…’
His hips ground against her as her hands smoothed his skin. He muttered something against her throat, but its meaning was lost as his body spoke for him, the hard pressure of him against her sending all rational thoughts flying from Rue’s mind, tiny mewling sounds of pleasure and impatience rising in her throat as she did her best to accommodate the hard thrust of his flesh, moving her body eagerly against his, tiny shivers of delight convulsing through her as he moaned against her skin and his hands found her breasts and kneaded their fullness through the cotton of her nightshirt, increasing the ever-growing ache between her thighs.
His mouth was on hers again, his tongue thrusting urgently into hers, as his body arched powerfully against her.
It didn’t need the erotic movement of his tongue and hips to show her what he wanted. She was aware of his need from the tingling tips of her fingers all the way down to her toes.
His tongue touched her lips, caressing them softly, his lips moving tormentingly against hers as he muttered, ‘I want you. I want to take you right here and now…to fill you with my body, and hear you cry out with pleasure. Is that what you want as well, Rue?’ he was asking her urgently, and as though he already knew the answer his hands moved to the hem of her nightshirt, lifting it so that her naked flesh was pressed against him.
Hot excitement licked through her veins, her body responding eagerly to his touch, to the hands that held her hips urging her ever closer to his own aroused flesh.
Desperate for the intimate contact of his flesh against her own, Rue pushed her breasts against his chest, thrilling to the sharp indrawn breath that seized him as he felt the hard points of her nipples rubbing against his skin. His hands slid round to the rounded firmness of her bottom, his hips moving with ever-increasing urgency against her.
His mouth burned her skin, biting into the tender flesh of her throat. Wild with the need he was generating inside her, a need that far outstripped anything she had ever experienced for Julian, she barely heard the metallic rasp of his zip, nor realised properly the purpose behind his movement as he turned her round and half carried and half propelled her back against the closed door.
The sudden sensation of the hardness of his bare thighs against her, the fine hair that grew there rubbing sensuously against her own far more delicate and tender skin made her go wild with need, moaning softly beneath her breath as her hips mimicked the fierce thrust of his, and his hand moved round to touch her so intimately that she had no defences against the sensations he was arousing inside her.
‘You’re so soft and moist,’ she heard him mutter shockingly against her ear. ‘So feminine and tempting. Have you any idea how much I ache to be inside you, Rue?’ And then, without waiting for her to answer, he added tormentingly, ‘Shall I show you? Shall I show you just what you do to me?’
And then it wasn’t just his fingers that were moving arousingly against her, and the need to have him inside her overwhelmed every other consideration and she moved eagerly and enticingly against him, wanting to feel the male strength of him filling the empty ache inside her. She felt his hands on her hips and shuddered mindlessly, anticipating the pleasure she would feel.
In the distance the church bells rang, and then abruptly, so abruptly that she could hardly believe it was happening, Neil released her.
Her eyes opened in pained disbelief to see him standing several feet away with his back to her. She heard him tug up the zipper on his suit, and over his shoulder he said tersely to her, ‘I can’t stay. I’ve got to be in London for one.’
As he saw the look of shocked rejection in her eyes, he swore savagely and came back to her.
‘Oh, Rue, don’t look at me like that…’
Pride made her pull away from him, but he wouldn’t let her go, holding her against the hardness of his body.
‘No, just let me hold you for a minute,’ he muttered against her hair. ‘You have the most disastrous effect on me, I hope you know that. I came here this morning just to see how Horatio was, and to tell you that I’d be away for a few days, that’s all.’
So it was all her fault, was it? She was the one who had deliberately and wantonly tempted him… was that what he was trying to tell her?
Her whole body went cold and she pushed him away.
‘I’m sorry if I delayed you,’ she told him sharply, turning away from him, and then, summoning all her courage and her pride, she turned back to him and said coldly, ‘If you’re so desperate for a woman that the mere sight of one is enough to arouse you, then perhaps you’d better not come here again. I don’t want you in my life, Neil,’ she lied, forcing herself to look directly into his eyes, praying that he wouldn’t guess at the betraying truth that her lies concealed. That she was so desperately in love with him that she was in grave danger of humiliating herself completely.
‘That wasn’t the impression I got five minutes ago,’ he told her tautly.
For a moment she was lost for words, and then she said huskily, shrugging her shoulders as negligently as she could, ‘You’re a very experienced and powerful lover…naturally you aroused me sexually.’
‘And that’s all there was to it, is that what you’re trying to tell me?’ he demanded grimly.
She had gone too far to back down now. If she did, he might start questioning why she had felt the need to lie and protect herself in the first place.
‘Yes,’ she lied bleakly. ‘What else could it be?’
She thought for one moment that he was actually going to take hold of her, but he seemed to think better of it, because he stepped back from her and finished fastening his tie, and then said curtly, ‘There isn’t time to finish discussing this right now, but don’t think I’m letting it go here, Rue, because I’m not.’
And then he opened the door and walked through it, leaving Rue feeling so mentally and physically drained that she simply could not move.
It was almost half an hour before the full import of what he had said sank in, and when it did she got up and walked unsteadily towards the window, staring in the direction of the Court. It frightened her that she should feel so abandoned and lost simply because he was going away for a few days.
Why was he going to London? What would he do there? Who would he see? Women far more accommodating and sophisticated than she was… women who would be only too glad to take what he was offering and… With a tiny moan of pain, she turned away from the window, glad of the interruption when her telephone rang.
To her surprise it was her solicitor, and the news he had for her surprised her even more. It appeared that he had received another approach from the builder’s solicitors, repeating his offer to buy the cottage and its land.
Immediately Rue told him to tell the builder that he was wasting his time and that there was no way she was going to sell.
That night she didn’t sleep well, her dreams haunted by images of Neil. She woke up aching with longing for him, unbearably tempted to take what he was offering her and give in to the tormented urgings of her own body, even while her heart begged her to reconsider, reminding her that she wanted much much more from Neil than sexual gratification…that she would never be content with a brief, meaningless affair, which she suspected would cause her more pain in the long run than if she stood firm now and refused to s
ee him again.
And yet, even as this acknowledgement formed, she ached to see him again. To hear his voice…to be with him… She shuddered, acknowledging the power of her love for him, and its potential destructive effect on her life.
* * *
SHE MIGHT HAVE THOUGHT she had known loneliness before, but she hadn’t, Rue acknowledged as three days passed without her seeing or hearing anything of Neil and she had to face the unpalatable knowledge that it was too late now to try and exclude him from her life. Her love for him had grown so unexpectedly, so quickly, that to tear its roots out of her heart was going to be an impossible task.
Wisdom preached that, for her own peace of mind, once he did come back she should see as little of him as possible, and yet every time she remembered the hunger she had seen in his eyes, the need she had felt in his body, wisdom was drowned beneath the demanding voice of her love.
She told herself that it was just sex that he wanted from her, that she was a convenient body—a safely convenient body, an inward voice of cynicism told her, a woman whose age must mean that she was unlikely to have the same foolishly romantic illusions a younger girl might cherish. And yet he had been so tender to her…so kind.
As he would to anyone who aroused his compassion. Compassion and desire, a potentially explosive mixture, but nothing like as dangerous to him as it was to her.
He didn’t love her. If he had done, surely he would have told her so, would have spoken of loving her, not wanting her. She had so little experience of the male sex…too little knowledge of their emotional make-up.
* * *
HORATIO’S WOUND HEALED; the grey clouds lifted and the sun came out again; her work kept her busy and time should have disappeared like mist in the hot morning sun, but it didn’t.
The nights were the worst. Nights when she unrepentantly lay awake remembering how it had felt when Neil touched her. Nights when she deliberately forsook the panacea of sleep in favour of the torment of fevered imaginings of how it could have been if…