Dark Fire

by Robyn Donald

  Aura’s teeth sank into her lower lip, worrying the soft flesh. Exhausted, wracked by bitter pangs of conscience and equally bitter need, she asked herself why this had to happen to her. Just when she was getting her life together, when she could see some sort of peace and tranquillity ahead, she had to be dealt a wild card like Flint Jansen.

  But that was self-pity; she had seen it render her mother ineffective too often to surrender to its power.

  Like a force of nature, Flint had happened. And somehow she was going to have to deal with him and his effect on her life.

  After the final curtain came down she stopped her polite applause and got to her feet, went out with him and into the car park. It was chilly; she shivered and instantly Flint switched on the heater. The motorway was surprisingly full of traffic, some of it erratic. Aura watched a car swerve in front of them without feeling any concern. Insulated from the world by her dilemma, she struggled to stay behind the facade of good manners.

  Almost immediately the wayward car swung back into the next lane. Flint muttered something short and crisp, but his hands were steady on the wheel and he didn’t show any outward sign of irritation.

  ‘The driver must be drunk,’ Aura said remotely.

  ‘It certainly looks like it.’ His voice was hard and unhurried.

  The errant car wove its dangerous way through the traffic, then without warning shot over into their lane. Aura’s hands covered her silent gasp. There was a terrifying squeal of brakes, the seatbelt tightened unbearably across her chest, and she heard her voice cry out Flint’s name. Sparks flashed as the two vehicles collided in a nightmare of noise and motion, then the front car pulled away again, tearing off into the darkness.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Flint demanded in a voice she didn’t recognise.

  ‘Yes.’ The whisper of sound alarmed her, so she repeated it more loudly. ‘Yes, I’m perfectly all right.’

  ‘I’ll pull off and make sure we haven’t done any severe damage to the car.’

  Gritting her teeth, Aura wondered how on earth he could be so controlled, his hands so steady on the wheel.

  ‘I got his number,’ she said numbly, and quoted it before she forgot.

  ‘Good girl.’

  Such a tiny compliment, meaning nothing, yet the glow of his words affected every cell in her body.

  Once they’d rolled to a stop on the verge he picked up a cell phone and dialled the emergency number, gave the number of the offending vehicle and his own name and address, and suggested crisply they get a traffic officer to intercept it quickly before the idiot killed himself or others.

  The person at the other end said something. ‘Oh, yes,’ Flint replied in a voice as cold as ice, ‘I’m more than happy to be a witness.’

  Aura’s skin prickled into a cold sweat. Putting the phone down, he commanded, ‘Stay there,’ before opening the door.

  In the glare of the motorway lamps and the hard white headlights of the passing cars he looked harsh, like an ancient god of war, of strife and death, his features outlined strongly as he checked beneath the bonnet of the Jag. When he returned Aura asked quietly, ‘Anything wrong?’

  ‘Nothing that I can see, but there’s a strong smell of oil. I’m not going to drive the rest of the way to your place in case I’ve missed something. My flat’s only a mile from here, so I’ll take you there and ring a taxi to take you home.’

  ‘I thought your flat was being decorated,’ she said foolishly.

  Sending a swift glance in her direction, he set the Jag in motion again. ‘We won’t be inside long enough for the smell of paint to worry us.’

  He lived in the top floor of a big apartment building on the side of Mount Hobson, another of the small volcanoes that dotted the isthmus of Auckland. This building was not brashly modem like Paul’s apartment block, and the security was unobtrusive. The porter looked up as they came in and nodded at them both, but beneath the respectful smile Aura was sure she detected a prurient interest. On the way up in the lift she shivered again, and once she had started she couldn’t stop.

  ‘Shock,’ Flint said succinctly. ‘I’ll make some tea. You sit down and try to keep warm.’

  Ignoring her protest, he stripped off his coat and dropped it around her shoulders. Warm and a little heavy, it smelt of his particular masculine essence. Rubbing her cheek for a guilty second against the collar, Aura watched as he moved about the luxurious kitchen with self-contained familiarity. He looked bigger in the stark white shirt than he had with the jacket on.

  Her eyes lingered on the breadth of shoulder, the long arms, the way the muscles flexed as he leaned over to pour the hot water into the teapot.

  Because this would probably be the only time she would ever be in his apartment, she dragged her gaze away and tried to look around, but she was unable to absorb anything beyond a dim impression of size and spartan elegance. After a minute or so she gave up and concentrated on stopping the tremors that racked her body.

  Counting as she took in even breaths failed dismally, and she was beginning to wonder just what she had to do to regain control when Flint emerged from the kitchen with a mug of tea, only half full.

  ‘Try this,’ he said.

  The hand she held out was shaking so much that she stared at it in dismay.

  He said, ‘I’ll hold it for you.’

  She braced herself stiffly as he sat down beside her on the sofa.

  ‘I can’t get it to your mouth if you turn your face away,’ he said, the amusement in his words making her cringe.

  Every instinct shouted at her to grab the mug herself, but his lean fingers held it firmly, and she was not going to indulge in an undignified wrestle for possession which would probably spill the wretched stuff.

  With a stubborn effort of will she turned her head and let him hold the mug to her lips. The liquid within was hot and milky and disgustingly sweet.

  She must have pulled a face because he said instantly, ‘I know it tastes foul but drink the lot, it will stop that trembling.’

  Her teeth chattered on the china.

  He made an impatient sound, jerked the mug away and put it on the table, then gathered her into his lap like a baby, cradling her in his warm embrace. ‘No, don’t move,’ he said quietly. ‘You just need a little reassuring.’

  ‘I f-feel s-stupid,’ she managed to say, but that wasn’t entirely what she meant. As well as weak and fragile, she felt an overwhelming urge to give in, just lie in his arms and let whatever was going to happen, happen.

  ‘Why? It’s a perfectly normal reaction to shock,’ he said gravely, picking up the mug. Patiently, he held it to her lips until all the tea had gone.

  ‘I’m s-sorry,’ she muttered. ‘It’s so silly—I don’t normally fall to bits like this.’

  ‘You’re in the habit of being clipped on the motorway?’

  His voice sounded harsher, even a little grating. If she looked up she would see the angular line of his jaw.

  Her smile was distorted into a grimace. ‘N-no.’ She drew a deep, jagged breath, trying to summon the energy to get up, move away.

  Now that the sweet, hot tea was working its cure Aura was too aware of other things, the flexed muscles beneath her thighs, hard as a sheet of steel, the rise and fall of his chest against her shoulder, a faint masculine scent more erotic by far than the finest perfume. The steady, solid thud of his heart pulsed through her body, a primitive counterpoint to the skipping, thudding beat of her own. His heat encompassed her, at once comforting and a warning.

  Aura was still trembling, but for a different reason. Needles of desire, sharp and pitiless, coalesced in the base of her stomach, were transformed by some mysterious sorcery into a fire that sprang full-blown to raging life. She was assailed by hunger, fierce, basic, not to be gainsaid; the moments when she had seen the other car hit them and wondered whether they were going to live or die had edged every emotion, sharpened sensation to a pitch that wouldn’t be denied.

  Yet deny it she
must.

  She said thinly, ‘I’m all right, now, thank, you. I think you’d better ring for the taxi.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  But when she went to get up her legs didn’t want to support her, and she had to clutch his shoulders to get her balance.

  Startled, she looked down into eyes that were a continuation of the flames licking through her body, eyes that held a stark, heated promise, eyes that demanded and threatened her with pleasure untold.

  She thought she whispered a denial, but if she did it was far too late and far too quiet, because he kissed her as though she was the gold at the end of his rainbow, the summit of all his ambitions.

  His mouth was cruel, taking, not asking, and she could have fainted with the ecstasy of it. Yet the kiss frightened her, too, for it freed the wildness she had spent years trying to conquer and control, the wildness that urged her to yield, to follow where that kiss led, to grasp what it promised.

  Temptation consumed her with its beckoning lure, tearing her apart. Aura had to resist it with every small bit of courage left.

  She tried to push him away, but when her hands reached the collar of his shirt they curled around it, holding him close. Closing her eyes in surrender, she gave in to the demand that was eroding her will into nothingness.

  After a moment his head lifted. Her lips were soft and red and throbbing, and they felt bereft.

  Now, she told herself sturdily. Pull away, stand back, lift your head and let him see that you don’t want any more...

  ‘You kiss like a dream,’ he said softly. ‘But then, I knew you would. Your mouth is like a crushed rose, enigmatic yet sensual, hiding secrets and sweetness. I’ve wanted to kiss you ever since we met, when you looked at me with those hungry eyes, surprised yet expectant, as though you’d been waiting for me all your life.’

  Shaking her head, Aura sprang free, backing away with her eyes fixed on his face. The scar stood out in bold prominence, thin and white against his bronzed skin.

  ‘No.’ But she stumbled over the word.

  ‘Yes. You want me, Aura. Admit it.’

  ‘No!’

  Another step backwards, slow and secret, holding his fierce raptor’s gaze with her own so he wouldn’t notice her sly progress towards the safety of the door. Faced with such extreme danger she wasn’t conscious of thinking; she reacted like a small animal in the presence of its greatest predator, doing what instinct bade her.

  In a second she would turn and run for the door and the safety of the lift. He wouldn’t chase her across the foyer with a porter on duty. Once outside, once free of the mindless enchantment that was scrambling her brain, she’d be safe.

  He said roughly, ‘Stop looking so terrified. I’m not going to hurt you.’

  It seemed a good idea to acknowledge that. She nodded, and slid her other foot behind her.

  Swift as a hawk striking death from the sky, moving with the lethal grace of a hunter, he was on his feet, and before she had time to turn he had caught her by the arm and swung her back, shaking her slightly.

  ‘You’re not running away from this,’ he said calmly enough, but there was a ring of inexorable determination in his voice.

  ‘Let me go!’ she panted, trying to jerk her arm free.

  His fingers tightened, and she cried out at the pain.

  Swearing, he loosened them, but his free hand came up and caught her other arm so that she was held in a remorseless grip. Aura dragged air into tortured lungs, eyes measuring distances, measuring him.

  She would have to knee him in the groin. She had never deliberately hurt anyone in her life, and she didn’t think she could do it to him, but panic expanded inside her like a balloon, blocking out logic, blocking out everything but her knowledge that one kiss had changed everything.

  Very quietly he warned, ‘Try it, Aura, and you’ll regret it more than you’ve ever regretted anything.’

  She said desperately, ‘Flint, I have to go home.’

  ‘Not until you admit that you want me.’

  ‘Go to hell,’ she whispered, letting her lashes fall to hide her frantic gaze.

  ‘Admit it, Aura. You want me to kiss you—that’s what frightens you so much. You want to go to bed with me, lie with me in a tangle of sheets while we discover each other’s mysteries, and then lose ourselves in them. You want me, Aura. Say it.’

  Her pulse was rocketing into the stratosphere, his quick words summoning a white-hot response from deep within her, but although she had to dampen dry lips and swallow, she shook her head. If she once acknowledged his power she’d have no control over the rest of her life.

  He laughed, and she thought she saw a flash of unwilling respect in the golden gaze. Then he pulled her close against the fierce heat of his body and kissed her again, a deep, deep kiss that probed past more than just the physical barriers of her resistance.

  Aura tensed, but for the first time ever there was no faint niggle of disgust, no automatic rejection that had to be controlled before she could relax. Yet she would not give in.

  Struggling, she turned her head from side to side, bit at him with small, sharp teeth. He laughed again, and bit her back, her lips and her cheek, under the fine line of her jaw, and down the sweet smoothness of her throat, little nips just short of pain that stimulated her unbearably.

  The shock of strong teeth against her skin sapped Aura’s resistance. She said something, words she didn’t recognise escaped from her astonished mouth, and he lifted his head and kissed her again.

  And she was lost.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  This was what she had longed for, this intimate mingling, the knowing, fierce exploration of her mouth, the sudden thrust that gave birth to racking shudders of sensation. Without volition her hands slid up, reached past shoulders as broad as the sky, to finally cling to his neck. He pulled her savagely into a body that was rigid with need.

  Never before had Aura experienced such a feeling of rightness. She felt like the first woman, offering everything she was to the only man.

  Flint wanted her. He couldn’t hide that; he didn’t even try. This man who could steal her soul with a kiss was as much at her mercy as she was at his. Stabbed by delight, by burgeoning rapture, she pressed against him, desperately trying to get closer to the male vigour and potency that had called to her from the moment she saw him.

  He laughed deep in his throat. ‘Yes, you like that, don’t you. Do you like this?’ as his hand slid around to cup the full curve of her breast.

  Aura wavered, but the instantaneous excess of response as his thumb passed across a wildly sensitive nipple stopped the unborn protest.

  ‘I see you do,’ he said, and kissed her again, sealing her mouth as he carried her across the room to lower them both on to the long sofa, burying his face in her scented throat, his fingers working in the heavy mass of her hair to free it from confinement. As soon as the shining waves slithered across his wrist he lifted his head and stared intently at the burgundy floss that clung like living silk to his fingers.

  Fascinated, Aura watched him spread a wide swathe across her throat. He looked at her with fierce hunger in the glittering golden depths of his eyes.

  ‘At first I thought you dyed it,’ he said, his voice raw. ‘It’s like wine transformed into silk, fire rendered into solidity...’ He teased the tress apart, then kissed her white throat through the licking, curling flames.

  His words and the unexpected caress affected her unbearably. Shuddering, she whispered his name on an expelled breath, reacting helplessly when the contours of his face hardened even more, drew into lines of desire that should have terrified her.

  But this was what she had been born for: to have Flint manoeuvre the fastening of her dress down and shape with gentle fingers the contours of her breast, the slightly rough tips of his fingers eliciting tremors that stoked up the inner heat at the junction of her body.

  Lost in a sensual haze, abandoned by principles, by reason and logic, Aura touched her lips to his
throat, licking the spot where his pulse throbbed. Instantly, his slow, seductive exploration stopped.

  The harsh noise that erupted from deep in his chest brought her lashes up; she froze, but he said through clenched teeth, ‘Go on.’

  With wondering fingers she flicked the front of his shirt open and as her breath stopped in her lungs found the hot skin of his chest. Beneath the antique pattern of hair it was smooth and as fine-grained as satin.

  Instinctively responding to a great surge of need, she tensed her muscles, arching her back. He cupped her breast, moulding it into the shape of his hand, and bent his head and kissed it, his mouth closing over the pleading peak.

  Aura bucked with surprise and a fierce, untamed craving that whipped from the top of long-repressed desire like spindrift in a storm, carrying her with it. She groaned, the little sound guttural and surprising in the quiet room.

  Beneath his tongue her nipples clamoured with a ruthless sensitivity that could only be soothed by his ministrations, yet the heat and moisture of his mouth did nothing but intensify it.

  Aura didn’t know when he slid her dress down so that her breasts were barely covered by the soft lace, she only knew that he was looking at her with such violent hunger that it summoned an answering depth of longing. Now she knew why people died for love, why kingdoms had fallen and governments toppled and lives been ruined by this savage delight.

  He lifted his face. Almost all colour had been burned away in his eyes so that surrounding his enlarged pupils there was a rim of pure, blazing gold. Aflame in the dark fire of his gaze, she made no protest when he pulled her dress down to her waist and ripped his shirt open. Instead she went eagerly into an embrace as hard and final as fate, her breasts crushed by the hard wall of his chest. He kissed her, and she responded with the same fierce power, undulating her hips against the betraying rigidity that revealed he wanted her as much as she wanted him.

  The pressure at once appeased and exacerbated her need. Winding her arms around him she pushed against him once more, rejoicing in the mounting thunder of his heart, yielding herself in a surrender she barely understood.