He only spoke when he was standing close to her.
‘I’m not looking for love.’
It wasn’t what she had been expecting to hear. She had expected to see that shutter clamp down over his eyes, the way it had the first time she had told him how she felt, had expected his impatient dismissal.
‘No?’ she said as nervously as if he was touching her, when in fact his hands were in his pockets.
‘Love complicates things,’ he continued in that same, flat voice, ‘and I don’t want my life to be complicated. I want you—something about you turns me on, maybe that openness of yours is more dangerous than I originally thought—but I don’t need a woman who’s going to be cloying afterwards.’
‘No,’ Claire repeated obediently, even though she was too mesmerised by him to take in much of what he was saying.
‘I’ve done my damndest to fight this thing, this attraction I feel for you, but, as you say, you’re no longer a child.’
‘Yes,’ she contributed helpfully. What happens now? she wondered. Throwing herself at him had been easy, she had acted purely on instinct, but the way he was laying out the terms and conditions of his seduction confused her, even though, looking at him, she wanted him more than anything or anyone in her entire life.
‘If I’m scaring you off,’ he said abruptly, ‘please leave.’
‘You’re not scaring me off,’ she whispered timidly, venturing a smile, and placing a hand on the top button of her blouse. Did he want her to undress here? Was this how it would be done?
He pulled her hand away and smiled, and it altered the contours of his face completely. She wasn’t intimidated now. She let him take her up to his bedroom and when he shut the door behind him she only felt excited and a little frightened at the same time.
She had never been up to his bedroom before. Mrs Evans cleaned certain rooms in the house and this was one of them, so she stared around her in open curiosity.
It was very large, large enough to accommodate an entire three-piece suite at one end, while at the other was a massive desk, with yet another computer terminal on it, as well as a telephone, uncomfortably modern amid the lush, potent eighteenth-century atmosphere of everything else.
The wardrobes lining the room were out of deep wood, richly polished and gleaming, and the king-size bed was in colours of burnished reds. It was a man’s room, without any of the softening touches a woman would not have been able to resist. But then why should there be any feminine touches, she thought, when he had already told her that he didn’t care for women cluttering up his life?
She looked at him wordlessly and he said under his breath, ‘Relax. You look as though you’re preparing yourself to face the Chinese Water Torture.’
That made her laugh and he said approvingly, ‘That’s better.’
‘I’ve never…’ Claire began awkwardly. ‘You’re the first…’
‘That’s good,’ he murmured huskily, loosening his tie to toss it across on a chair, followed by his shirt.
She placed the palms of her hands on his chest and gave a sharp intake of breath. After all this time nurturing her dreams, it was almost unbearable to feel his skin against hers like this.
‘You don’t know how exquisite you are,’ he said, cupping her face with his hands. ‘Those big blue eyes, that look of innocence. I feel like the big bad wolf.’ He smiled and she looked up at him shyly.
‘Don’t. I wouldn’t want anyone else to make love to me.’ She almost said because she loved him so much, but then she remembered what he had told her, and she bit back the words.
‘Unzip my trousers,’ he told her and she raised trembling hands to the waistband, not daring to look at what she was doing. She had never seen a naked man before and the thought of seeing him now, without any clothes on, was scaring her half to death, even though she knew that he was taking his time with her, being very gentle.
She could feel his arousal pushing against the zip, though, and she unsteadily pushed the trousers down, watching as he stepped out of them, his eyes never leaving her face.
Then he began to undress her, kissing her at the same time, his mouth lingering over hers while his fingers brushed aside the flimsy barrier of her clothes.
He lifted her and carried her to the bed, then he said seriously, ‘There’s still time to change your mind. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to.’
‘I want you, James Forrester,’ she said honestly, ‘I’m not going to change my mind about that. Ever.’
‘Nothing in life is permanent, remember that,’ he said shortly, and she wished that she hadn’t said it, but he wasn’t about to enlarge on his comment. He placed light little kisses on her neck, then, as if he could no longer restrain himself, his mouth covered hers in an urgent kiss that barely gave her room to breathe.
He stripped himself of the final barrier of his clothing and she felt him hard against her thigh, and the sensation sent a shudder running through her. Tentatively she ran her hands along his back, tracing the taut, corded muscles of his shoulders, and he bent his head to nuzzle against her breasts until she could no longer stand it and pressed his head over one aching tip, groaning as he took it into his mouth and suckled hard on it.
He was letting her set the pace, controlling himself so that she could dictate when she was ready for their lovemaking to progress one stage further.
He caressed the smooth lines of her body, running his hand quickly and expertly along her side and thigh, and she parted her legs for him so that he could cup the moistness between them, gradually exploring her until she cried out in frustrated longing.
She had felt inhibited to start with, she had wondered whether, for all her love and hunger for him, she would feel the requisite need, or whatever it was she should feel, when he began to make love to her.
Now, with each electrifying caress making her body melt, she urged him on to bring her to the final peak. As she felt him move inside her, her body tensed fractionally, then he began thrusting slowly and gently, building up more momentum as she relaxed, and finally moving aggressively against her, taking her to an explosive climax.
All this time later, Claire could still remember vividly how she felt that very first time, a mixture of wonder and desire and bottomless love, although she was already learning quickly to keep those thoughts to herself.
‘We didn’t take any precautions,’ he said, facing her. ‘I don’t suppose that you’re on…’
‘No, I’m not,’ Claire said quickly.
‘I don’t want you getting pregnant, and I shouldn’t imagine that you would want it either.’
‘No, of course not,’ she said, meaning I can’t think of anything nicer than having your babies, but knowing that to express anything of that nature was out of the question.
‘You’re young,’ he said heavily, ‘you have your whole life ahead of you, and as for me, let’s just say that I want an heir to the “throne” even less than I want a woman with whom to share it.’ He looked at her when he said this and Claire tried to school her features into an expressionless mask because she knew what he was doing. It was what he had done from the very beginning, warned her off him.
‘Why are you so bitter?’ she asked, looking into the green eyes.
‘Is that how I sound?’ He appeared to give the matter some thought. ‘I suppose it is. The fact is that experience teaches you a lot of lessons, and the first lesson is that it’s a mistake to be too trusting.’
‘Were you? Too trusting, that is?’ She reached out to stroke his face and he caught her hand in his.
‘The second valuable lesson,’ he said, ignoring her question, ‘is that curiosity killed the cat.’
‘Meaning that you don’t want me asking any questions about your private life.’
‘That’s right.’
‘But I want to know you! I want to find out about you.’ The words were out before she could stop them and she saw the expression on his face become closed and terse. How could he change so
quickly? she wondered. One minute he was tenderness itself, the next it was as though she was staring at a stranger and one who was adamantly going to remain that way.
‘And I don’t need a woman clinging on to me, Claire, trying to understand me. You’re an attractive girl, but you’re not that attractive.’
She felt tears spring to her eyes at this and she looked away quickly. At least, she tried to console herself, he was being honest, at least he wasn’t giving her some airyfairy story about everlasting love just because he wanted to have a fling with her. She supposed she ought to be grateful for that.
‘You certainly have a way with words,’ she said unsteadily, and the lazy smile returned to his face.
‘So do you.’ He kissed her and she closed her eyes, losing herself in a renewed surge of passion.
If what he wanted was an affair with no strings attached, then that was what she would give him. Love, she thought, did funny things to a person. It makes them blind to the consequences of a relationship. She would never have dreamt that she would find herself in the position of mistress, accepting the rules of someone else’s game. She had always imagined that when she fell in love, it would be reciprocated, that all that romantic bliss which she had yearned for would be returned. She had watched her sister from the sidelines, bringing home her boyfriends, breaking up with them, falling in and out of love, and she had made up her mind that she would never fall victim to that. Love, for her, would be a grand affair of the heart. Everything in her life had conspired in those childhood dreams. Her sister’s temperament, bold, outspoken, extrovert, had inadvertently moulded her own shy girlishness, and, pampered and protected by parents who only had watchful eyes for her more streetwise sister, she had been left ample room to build her castles and knights. How was she ever to guess that this mad desire, this foolish love, would be painful and, worse, one-way?
She also never knew that it would have the power to hold her in its grip even though, time and time again, common sense told her to pack her bags and run.
In retrospect, she wondered whether she had ever had any choice in the matter, or whether the sheer power of her emotions had had her at its mercy from the very first minute she clapped eyes on him.
Deep inside, there was still a ray of hope that one day he would turn around and tell her that he loved her, that she had somehow managed to break through that barrier of his which stood between them like an invisible shield, however desperately she tried to break it down.
In the beginning, she had had all the confidence of youth, the glorious belief that her love would win the day, that in the end he just wouldn’t be able to resist the devotion she was so eager to shower on him. She had never been in love before, and the compulsion to be with him, the ecstasy when she was with him, swept her into a strange, timeless orbit where normal thought processes and common sense had no place. And he wanted her. That was something that never failed to thrill her, but when she asked him about it, hoping to elicit the responses she wanted to hear, he only ever smiled and looked at her as though she would know the answer to her question if she looked hard enough.
She didn’t know the answer, though, and she could remember looking at him after that first time that they had made love, not really caring one way or another. She had been living on a day-to-day basis, prey to her emotions for the first time in her life, and quite happy to flow with the tide.
She could remember wishing that he would show more emotion at the thought of her no longer working for him, though.
‘Will you miss me?’ she had asked, arching up to nuzzle her chin against his cheek, which was rough with darkened stubble. She had felt wildly romantic. She was so in love, what more could she have asked than for this dark, powerful, utterly devastating man to have taken her virginity?
He looked genuinely perplexed at that question. He raised his eyebrows and said, ‘Why on earth should I?’
‘I shall miss you,’ Claire said with a smile. ‘I’ll miss everything about you. The way you look, the way you speak, the things you say…’
He looked at her as though torn between irritation at this admission, and satisfaction.
‘I’d rather,’ he said at last, ‘you kept your words of endearment to yourself.’
‘Why?’ Her brow cleared. ‘You mean because you don’t want to have to keep reminding me that this is a relationship with no strings attached?’
He shrugged, his mind wandering as he turned his attention to her body. He had a way of looking at her that made her want to be uninhibited. There was almost a physical sexual pleasure to be derived from the way his eyes lingered over every inch of her. Just being the object of his lazy observation was more potent an aphrodisiac than anything she could imagine.
‘I always like to make it clear to the women I…date…that I’m not on the look-out for a prospective wife.’
‘Is that supposed to turn me on?’ she asked, and he raised his eyes to hers. There was a proprietorial flare in them that made her giddy with want.
‘Everything about me turns you on,’ he murmured, tugging at her lower lip with his teeth. ‘Haven’t you already told me so?’
‘You’re very modest!’
‘I know.’
‘Is that,’ she couldn’t help asking, ‘what women see in you?’
‘Maybe,’ he said, and there was a touch of coolness in his voice now. ‘Or maybe it’s the size of the bank balance.’ He looked at her and she met his gaze steadily. ‘I soon make it clear that this particular bank balance isn’t up for grabs, though.’
‘How straightforward,’ Claire murmured, refusing to let that remark niggle away at her. All right, so he insisted on warning her off. Didn’t he know that it was too late, that she had already taken the bait? She stroked his broad shoulders, then kissed his neck, her tongue flicking catlike along down to his chest, then back to his mouth. She felt wanton, and it was such a novel experience for her that she couldn’t get enough of it.
‘You still haven’t told me whether you’ll miss me,’ she murmured huskily. ‘You’ve issued dire warnings, informed me in no uncertain terms that I’m only here on a temporary basis, but the question is, will you miss me when I’ve gone?’
‘You’re a persistent little creature, aren’t you?’ he said with a slow smile. ‘As to missing you, I might have if it weren’t for the fact that I know you belong to me.’
A man accustomed to having what he wants. The thought flashed through her head, but she didn’t feel the slightest twinge of alarm at that. She was too busy relishing the idea of being wanted by him in the first place.
‘Does that mean that we’ll continue to see each other?’
‘Why not? And no bus trips to facilitate it either. I want you to use the cottage in the grounds. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that sooner. That flat of yours is a dump.’
‘I could move out, go somewhere better. Somewhere more…’
‘Hygienic?’ he contributed. ‘What makes you think that you’ll be able to find anything better?’
‘Because,’ she explained, ‘I’ve got a job now. I’ll be able to afford more.’
‘What? A flat?’
‘Probably not,’ she admitted. ‘But I’d be able to rent a better room in a better house in a better location.’
‘There is no better location for you than the cottage,’ he said easily. ‘That way all I have to do is reach out and have you.’
That should have made her angry, and from anyone else it would have, but all she felt was a thrill of desire. His warm hand cupped her breast, massaging it slowly, languorously, and she half closed her eyes with pleasure.
‘I can’t stay there,’ she said unsteadily and his hand stilled.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’d feel like a kept woman.’
‘I want you, Claire. This warm, willing body of yours drives me to distraction. It’s quite unlike anything I’ve ever experienced before, and I want to have you close by. I don’t want to have to make lo
ve to you in silence, in a house where other people are around, listening.’
‘Then at least let me pay rent,’ she said quickly, and he glanced at her with a smile, as though the thought amused him. He named a nominal, ridiculous figure and she protested, at which his look of amusement grew.
‘I don’t need the money,’ he said smoothly and she frowned.
‘That’s not the point. This has nothing to do with whether you need the money or not. It has to do with…’
‘Pride?’
‘Something like that.’
‘How charming,’ he drawled. ‘And I thought that pride was an outdated commodity. Sometimes your ingenuousness is just a little too good to be true.’
Claire looked at him, bewildered. Underlying everything he said there was always a thread of cynicism that confused and intrigued her at the same time. He could be warm and direct and open, but she always felt that there was something else, something altogether more complex and enigmatic just beneath the surface.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I have yet to meet a woman who has refused my generosity on the grounds of pride. I’ll be very interested to see how long this endearing naivete lasts with you.’
That made her wince, but instead of apologising he laughed under his breath at her reaction.
I amuse him, she thought, I’m a curiosity, a species of female that he hasn’t chanced upon for so long that he’s forgotten we exist.
In the months to come, she wondered whether she shouldn’t have left him the day that realisation dawned on her. She kept fooling herself, though, that she was still in control of the situation, even though she was so madly in love with him that she would have done anything to remain a part of his world. It was ironic, she sometimes thought, that after a lifetime starved of any sort of relationship that meant anything to her she should hurl herself without caution into the arms of a man who had nothing to offer. It was as if she had lived her life in a stoppered bottle and now she had become a slave to the man who had freed her. Aladdin and the lamp.
Shadows of Yesterday Page 5