by Penny Jordan
‘She wouldn’t much approve of me, then,’ he had countered, and although she had shaken her head Sylvie had been forced to admit that he was right. She had confided to Wayne how uncomfortable it often made her feel that she should be so privileged. Alex gave her an allowance and her mother was constantly visiting her and fussing over whether or not she was eating properly and wearing the right kind of clothes. Her mother had never wanted her to go to university. She had bemoaned the fact that girls like Sylvie no longer had the opportunity to ‘come out’ properly, as she had done as a girl. Alex had been the driving force behind her moving off to university. Time, he said, for her to grow and find out about herself.
It had not been long after her disclosure that she received an allowance that Wayne had asked to borrow money from her. Of course she had given it to him. He was a friend...
And then, after she had given Wayne the money he had asked for, she had discovered that she needed to buy some new course books, and that stupidly she had not realised that she had an advance rent bill due for the small flat she lived in.
She had had to telephone Alex to ask him for an advance on her forthcoming allowance. She had felt uncomfortable about doing so, but after a small pause, when she had stammeringly explained that she had loaned some money to a friend, he had said quietly that she could leave the matter with him.
Naively she had assumed that that meant that he would send her a cheque, and suddenly she’d had more important things to worry about than money. David, her friend, was dead. He had collapsed at a rave party and been rushed into hospital, but it had been too late to save him.
His family had taken him home to bury him and they had also made it plain that they did not want any of his university friends to attend his funeral.
‘They blame us for what happened to him,’ one of his other friends told Sylvie angrily. ‘They’re the ones who are at fault. He never wanted to come here...’
Sylvie was too upset to make any comment when Wayne asked for another loan, and he was moody and sharp-tempered with her, mocking her upbringing and taunting her with her naiveté and innocence.
That hurt Sylvie but she said nothing. She knew that he would soon be leaving the city to join the eco-warriors, who were beginning to drift away from the site of their recent defeat over a large motorway extension and to make their way south to meet up with another group, who were trying to persuade the Government to give permission for some land previously owned by the Army to be opened to the general public.
To Sylvie it sounded a good cause.
‘Come with us,’ Wayne suggested, and then he laughed sneeringly as he added, ‘But no, of course you won’t... Mummy wouldn’t like it, would she?’
Sylvie said nothing. She was still too numbed by David’s death. University life, which at first had seemed to promise so much freedom...which she had hoped would be the passage which would carry her effortlessly into womanhood and Ran’s love...was proving to be far more painful and difficult than she had envisaged.
She had lost weight and hope, and now her work was beginning to suffer too.
The weather was hot and sticky, with the threat of thunder forever present in the air. They needed a good storm, Sylvie reflected early one evening as she returned to her small flat. She wasn’t hungry, and the prospect of an evening spent over her books didn’t appeal in the least. She missed David and their discussions and she missed Ran even more.
The day had been so hot and the flat was so airless that she showered in a vain attempt to get cool, pulling over her naked body an old cotton shirt which had once belonged to Alex, too drained and lethargic even to think of getting properly dressed. Half an hour later Wayne arrived, carrying a bottle of wine which he insisted on opening even though she told him that she didn’t want anything to drink. In the end it was easier to give in than to argue, but she stood her ground over the drug he offered her, firmly shaking her head.
‘Please yourself,’ he told her easily, but Sylvie noticed that he didn’t have one himself either.
‘Any chance of letting me have that money?’ he asked her a few minutes later as he lounged on her small sofa, watching her as she tried to work. There was a look in his eyes that made her feel uncomfortable, and not just because she couldn’t give him the loan he wanted; no, it was more than that, and suddenly she was acutely conscious of her nudity beneath Alex’s shirt.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t...not at the moment,’ she apologised. ‘I...I’m waiting for Alex to send me a cheque. Wayne, I don’t want to be a bad host, but really I have to work...’
‘You want me to leave...’
‘If you don’t mind,’ Sylvie agreed, waving her hand in the direction of the books she had spread out on the small table in front of her.
For a moment she thought he was going to argue with her, but to her relief he didn’t, walking instead towards the door. Eager to see him leave, Sylvie went with him. As she opened the door for him she saw the Land Rover pulling to a halt a little further down the road and her heart started to race with frantic excitement. As though aware of her loss of attention, and angered by it, to her shock Wayne suddenly reached for her, grabbing hold of her and forcing her back against the open door, his mouth hot and wet on hers as he kissed her roughly.
Immediately Sylvie pulled away, but not in time to stop Ran, who was stepping out of the Land Rover and walking towards her, from seeing what had happened, nor from witnessing how she was dressed, she saw uncomfortably as she felt his glance scorch her shirt-clad body.
To her relief Wayne’s mobile phone had started to ring and he was already heading for his car, his back towards her as he talked in a low voice into the telephone.
As Ran’s long-legged, determined stride brought him closer to her door, Sylvie could only stand and watch.
‘Ran!’ she exclaimed weakly when he reached her. ‘What a surprise. I didn’t know... I didn’t expect...’
‘Obviously not,’ was Ran’s terse response as he stepped past her and into her small hallway, firmly closing the door behind him as he told her sardonically, ‘I’m sorry if my arrival is inopportune, although something tells me that it would have been a lot less opportune had I arrived, say, half an hour ago.’
Sylvie’s face flamed as she saw the way he was looking at her and realised what he meant. Ran thought that she and Wayne were lovers.
‘It’s not...we weren’t... Wayne is just a friend...’ she finally managed to tell him defensively.
Ran’s eyebrows immediately shot up.
‘A friend! Tell me, Sylvie, do you normally receive your friends wearing just one of their shirts...?’
‘This isn’t Wayne’s shirt; it’s one of Alex’s old ones,’ she protested, hot-faced.
What was Ran doing here? Why had he come to see her? Her heart started to thump frantically.
‘Alex’s shirt?’ Ran was frowning at her as he studied her.
‘Yes... I...I like to wear it... It makes me think of home...of Alex and you. I miss you both,’ she told him daringly, holding her breath as she waited for his response.
There had to be some reason for his being here and his reaction to Wayne’s presence... Was she daring to hope too much in thinking that beneath his anger he might just be a little jealous? She was a woman now, she reminded herself, not a child, and— ‘Home...?’ Ran cut across her increasingly buoyant thoughts. ‘I doubt your mother would enjoy hearing you describe Otel Place as your home.’
Sylvie bit her lip. It was true that her mother did not approve of her attachment to Otel Place and would have preferred it if, like her, Sylvie had been a city person.
‘I’m an adult now,’ she told Ran bravely. ‘I make my own decisions, my own choices...’
‘I see... And entertaining your friends wearing nothing but one of Alex’s shirts is one of those choices, is it, Sylvie?’
Her face burned. There was no hint of jealousy in his voice now, only a familiar older-brother note of censure.
‘
I...I wasn’t expecting Wayne to come round. It was so hot. I had a shower and...’
‘Wayne... This wouldn’t be the friend who’s borrowed half your last quarter’s allowance from you, would it?’ Ran challenged her.
Sylvie blanched. Alex had obviously told him about that; she wished that he hadn’t.
‘I... He’ll pay me back.’ She defended both Wayne’s request and her own acceptance of it.
‘Things have certainly changed since my time at university,’ Ran told her cynically. ‘Then it was the man who did the chasing, the pursuing, not the woman who had to secure the man’s attentions by offering him money.’
Sylvie stared at him, unable to keep either her shock or the pain his words had caused her from showing in her eyes.
‘It isn’t like that... I haven’t been pursuing Wayne. I don’t...’
She stopped abruptly and looked away from him. How could she tell Ran of all men...people...that she didn’t run after his sex, when he had good reason to believe otherwise after the ways she had so blatantly revealed her feelings for him? Now he was looking at her in that horribly cynical way, his mouth twisting in mocking contempt.
‘Alex asked me to come,’ he told her as she remained silent. ‘He’s had to go away on business but he asked me to come and give you this...’
As he spoke Ran was removing a cheque from his wallet which he handed to her.
Swallowing hard, Sylvie took it from him.
‘You could have posted it to me,’ she told him in a small voice.
‘Alex wanted it delivered in person.’
‘It’s a long drive... I could... Would you like something to drink...to eat...?’
‘Coffee will be fine,’ Ran told her shortly, following her as she automatically started to walk into her small living room.
The bottle of wine Wayne had brought with him was still on the table, her own glass nearly empty, and Sylvie saw the hard look Ran gave it as he walked past her work table.
A wooden divider separated the living room end of the room from the small kitchenette, and Ran leaned against it as Sylvie bustled about making them both a cup of coffee.
‘You’ve lost weight,’ Ran told her abruptly when she finally handed him his mug. ‘It is just sex this friend of yours is dealing in, isn’t it, Sylvie...?’
As the meaning of his words sank in Sylvie put down her own mug of coffee, her face burning with indignation.
‘I’m not taking drugs, if that’s what you’re suggesting,’ she told him angrily. ‘I’m not that stupid, Ran.’
She closed her eyes momentarily, thinking painfully of David and the waste of his young life. No, drugs would never be something she would be tempted to use, and it hurt her that Ran thought she might.
The buoyancy and joy she had felt earlier had all gone, evaporated, burned away in the raw heat of Ran’s anger and contempt. Suddenly she felt slightly tired and sick—the combination of no food, alcohol and too much painful emotion, she guessed miserably.
As tears filled her eyes she reached out impulsively, her fingers curling round the soft fabric of his shirt as she pleaded despairingly, ‘Ran, why does it have to be like this between us? Why...can’t we be friends...?’
‘Friends...?’
She shrank back as she heard the bitterness in his voice.
‘And what kind of friendship do you propose that we should have, Sylvie? The same kind you share with your friend who’s just left? What’s wrong? Isn’t he satisfying you in bed? Do you need someone to compare him with? Because if so...’
Sylvie had had enough.
‘That’s not what I meant at all,’ she cried out. ‘I hate you, Ran... I hate you,’ she told him tearfully, the child surfacing over the adult she had wanted to be...had wanted him to see...as she pummelled furiously at his chest, desperate to break down the barrier he had thrown up between them.
‘Sylvie, stop it.’
As Ran caught hold of her small fists and held her away from him Sylvie realised what she was doing. Shamefaced, she started to look away from him, tensing in his hold when she heard him curse softly under his breath, and then suddenly he was sliding one hand into her hair, holding her head still as he bent his own towards hers, his breath fanning hotly against her face, her lips, his mouth...
His mouth!
In the shock of feeling Ran’s mouth actually caressing her own, Sylvie immediately forgot everything which had preceded it— their quarrel, his anger and contempt—and remembered only her love for him!
Instinctively she moved closer to him, opening her mouth beneath his, responding joyously and passionately to his kiss, naively believing that despite everything that had happened he must care for her after all; he couldn’t be kissing her like this and not do so, could he?
Innocently she pressed her body even closer to his, shivering in ecstatic pleasure as she felt her own response to his nearness. Beneath Alex’s shirt, her breasts swelled and hardened; blissfully she anticipated Ran touching them, caressing them.
‘Ran.’
His name was a soft plea whispered against his lips, her tongue-tip delicately touching them, exploring, tasting. She could feel him shuddering against her and, greatly daring, she darted her tongue into his mouth, seeking and then finding his, motivated, driven by instinct rather than knowledge; but the effect of her innocent exploration on Ran was so explosive that initially it took her off guard, half shocking and wholly exciting her. His hands started to move possessively over her body, down her back, shaping her waist and then moving lower to urge her lower body even closer to his as his tongue lunged repeatedly into the soft moistness of her mouth, carrying her inexorably to the point where she no longer had any control over either her emotions or her physical responsiveness to him, teaching her just what a world of difference existed between her own shyly tentative exploration of his mouth and his passionate male possession of hers.
Against her body she could feel the hard outline of his, and her whole body burned with virginal excitement as it registered and recognised the sensual heat of his physical arousal; the reality of what was happening between them rolled over her, engulfing and totally possessing her as she gave herself up willingly to its domination. She wanted to see him, touch him, taste him, absorb the reality of him with every single one of her senses. She wanted, needed, craved, to be fully a part of him; to have her whole body melt in the heat of their mutual passion so that she could be totally absorbed into him. She wanted...
With a small moan she wrenched herself away from him, her whole body trembling as she looked into his eyes and told him, begged him, ‘Ran... Not here... I want... Take me to bed...’ she whispered, her face flaming with the directness of her own request. But there was pride in her eyes, not shame, as she looked at him. Why should she feel ashamed of loving him so much? After all, he was the one who had kissed her...held her...
‘Sylvie...’
The unexpected harshness in Ran’s voice unnerved her a little, but she refused to pay any heed to it. Instead she walked up to him and, holding his eyes, very deliberately reached out and touched his body, intimately, there, just where she could see the way his arousal, his erection, was straining against his jeans.
She felt his reaction jolt right through him, as though her touch had burned him, but the drift of her fingertips had been as light as the wings of a butterfly.
‘You want me, Ran,’ she whispered shakily, ‘and I want you...’
And then, without waiting for his response, she turned her back on him and walked very slowly and very deliberately to her bedroom door.
Once there she turned round and looked at him gravely.
He was still standing where she had left him, his face unfamiliarly pale, his eyes blazing with...
Quickly she looked away and then, before her courage could desert her, she tugged open the buttons of her borrowed shirt and shrugged it off.
Standing still and naked in full view of Ran whilst he watched her in silence was probably th
e hardest thing she had ever had to do, she acknowledged, but, somehow, doing it made her feel strong and brave and very, very womanly.
There was an odd glittering brilliance in Ran’s eyes, and her stomach muscles tensed as she saw the way his jaw tightened as he looked away from her.
‘Ran...’ she commanded softly.
‘Sylvie, for God’s sake...’
Ignoring the tough grimness in his voice, she turned her back and walked fully into her small bedroom. Seconds later he had followed her there, slamming the bedroom door shut as he bent to retrieve her discarded shirt.
‘Here. Put it back on,’ he ordered curtly.
Sylvie looked at him.
He was standing just over an arm’s length away from her and she could see that despite the hardness of his jaw his body was still aroused.
Uncertainly she licked her lips, tiny flames of excited nervousness flicking along her spine as she saw the way his glance followed her involuntary movement.
‘You put it on for me, Ran,’ she whispered provocatively, taking a step towards him, and then another, and then, before she could stop herself, she discovered that she was the one looking at his mouth, and then at just where...
She heard him groan, saw out of the corner of her eye Alex’s shirt as he hurled it away and then, blissfully, she was in his arms, her naked body pressed close against his fully dressed one as he covered her face, her throat, her mouth with hot, fevered kisses.
In his arms Sylvie shivered in mute delight. Every nerve-ending in her body was singing in joy and triumph.
‘Oh Ran... Ran...’ She whispered his name ecstatically as she wrapped her arms around him. ‘I want you so much... I love you so much...’ she told him, but she doubted he heard the words because they were silenced before she could properly form them as he continued to kiss her.
‘I want you to take your clothes off,’ she told him huskily when she finally could speak. ‘I want to see all of you, Ran... I want...’
There was a hooded and unbelievably exciting look about his eyes as he stepped back from her and started to comply with her shy demand, never removing his glance from hers as he thrust off his clothes, his shirt first, revealing the hard-muscled expanse of his chest with its male pattern of silky dark hair. Sylvie caught her breath as she watched him. She had seen his bare torso before, had seen him in fact wearing little more than a pair of swimming shorts, but somehow this...this was different. Then his attitude towards his own semi-nudity had been laid-back and totally sexless; now...