Sleeping Partners

by Helen Brooks

  ‘That’s not true.’ She didn’t know what was driving her but the night was timeless and enchanting and she had loved him so much for so long, and then to be disappointed afresh…

  ‘No?’ He opened his mouth to make some light, throw-away remark—she saw it in his face—but then as his eyes met hers he froze and it seemed as though they both stopped breathing. ‘Robyn…’

  ‘What?’ She moved even closer, her heart thundering at the look on his face. She might never get a chance like this again.

  ‘This is madness.’ It was a husky murmur, almost a sigh. ‘You’re a baby.’

  ‘I’m not a baby.’ She was hardly aware of reaching up to put her arms round his neck, her body pliant as the delicious smell of him wrapped round her. She’d show him she wasn’t a baby.

  Slowly and very gently his arms pulled her against the hard solid wall of his chest, and as his face had come nearer she waited for the kiss in a rush of excitement that was too intense to bear. The taste and the feel of him was spinning in her head as his lips met hers, and as she gave a little moan of longing he answered it with a harsh, guttural sound of his own, his mouth becoming urgent and hungry.

  At first she felt a slight sense of shock, the tiniest recoil as his tongue moved probingly against her lips, but almost immediately it was replaced with waves of delight as sensation after sensation began to bring her tinglingly alive.

  Her body was moulded against his now, the vital male smell of him filling her nostrils and the alien sense of his hidden power and dominance becoming real as the thrust of his body against hers proclaimed his arousal. How long they continued to kiss she didn’t know, but their bodies were so close she could feel his heart slamming against his ribcage and feel every small tremor as his mouth left hers to blaze a burning trail down her throat and into the soft swell of her breasts.

  He tried to move away at one point, his voice hoarse as he said, ‘We have to stop, Robyn, now. You’re Cassie’s little sister for crying out loud…’

  But she pulled his head down to hers in answer, her love for him taking precedence over anything else and her surrender complete. His kisses and caresses were better than her most erotic dreams and she knew—she knew—she would never love anyone but Clay. She was moving mindlessly against him as he kissed her with a hungry intensity that was thrilling, his hands exploring her soft curves and causing her to arch and twist.

  Her dress was off her shoulders now, exposing the pure creamy skin enhanced provocatively by the special lacy strapless bra she had bought. Then that too was peeled away from her hot skin and the full thrust of her breasts laid bare.

  She should have felt shy; this was the first time she had even kissed a boy let alone been caressed and touched like this, but she felt nothing but elation and a wish to be even nearer to him as first his hands and then his lips made her arch with pleasure. This was Clay, she had dreamed of this moment, tasted it.

  What would have happened if her name hadn’t been called into the dark shadows in which they were enclosed, she didn’t know. Or then again she did, only too well…

  Robyn twisted jerkily in the bath, a wave of water slopping perilously close to the edge as the memories became almost too painful to contemplate.

  Cassie and Guy had been ready to leave the reception and she had been missed. As their bridesmaid she had to wave them off.

  She had tried to ignore the searching voices but Clay had frozen at the first shout, his muscled chest clenching before his breath had been hissed out between his teeth as he had very firmly put her from him, drawing first her bra and then her dress into place with hands that had shook slightly.

  She remembered she’d made a small sound of protest, her arms reaching out to him again, but he had stepped back a pace, his voice grim as he’d said, ‘This should never have happened, Robyn. Hell, it must be the wine and the atmosphere and the fact that you’re so different tonight. But you’re too young, a child still, and I should never have touched you.’

  ‘I’m not a child.’ It hurt, terribly. ‘I’m over sixteen.’ She couldn’t believe he’d called her a child again.

  ‘Sixteen?’ His laugh was harsh, like a bark. ‘Damn it all, I’m twenty-three.’ And he glared at her.

  ‘I don’t care.’ The voices were still there in the background and she felt desperate to make him understand before they were found. ‘I—I’ve loved you for ages.’

  ‘Loved me?’ The note in his voice cut her in two and it was in that moment she discovered that love and hate are different sides of the same coin. ‘You’re barely out of nappies for crying out loud. How can you know what love is?’

  She stared at him, too devastated to say a thing, and he glared back at her as he continued, ‘I don’t know what you’ve been up to with boys at school but judging by tonight it’s too damn much. I came very near to having you just now; do you understand that? Now, whether it’d be the first time or not for you is neither here or there, I know I should never have laid a finger on you. I’ve let Cassie and Guy down as well as myself.’

  Cassie’s voice rose above the other calls and on hearing it Robyn whirled round and away from him, skimming across the grass like a will o’ the wisp, her hands pressed to her lips as she struggled not to cry. She paused to catch her breath before she emerged from the concealing shadows into the lights of the massive patio outside the room her parents had hired for the reception, adjusting her clothes and smoothing her hair. Then, forcing a smile to her face, she called, ‘I’m here, Cass.’

  ‘Where on earth have you been?’

  It was her mother who spoke, her voice irritable, but Robyn ignored her, running over to Cassie and Guy and flinging her arms round her sister as she said brokenly, ‘Oh, Cass, I’m going to miss you so much.’

  ‘No, you won’t! I’m only going to be a few minutes away and you can come round whenever you like. And think, Robyn, no more fights over the bathroom!’ Cassie said, her own voice husky.

  Their hugs and kisses masked Robyn’s shock and despair; everyone took her tears as emotion at Cassie having married, knowing how close the two sisters were.

  And then Guy’s brother called that he’d brought the car round to the front of the hotel and they all poured through reception and out onto the drive. Guy’s brother and cronies had done a good job on Guy’s Cavalier, with shaving foam, ribbons and a supermarket-load of tin cans, and soon the happy couple were off in a hail of rice and confetti and ribald shouts from Guy’s football cronies, some of which made her mother’s face tighten.

  Robyn stood stiff and still looking after the departing lights of the car, willing herself not to give way to the storm of emotion that was like a great hot ball in her chest. She had to get through this with a modicum of dignity, she told herself silently. No one, no one must guess what had happened, not a hint. She wouldn’t be able to bear it. She wouldn’t.

  The whole episode hadn’t been Clay’s idea. She had followed him out to the lake when he had made it perfectly clear all evening he didn’t want to have anything to do with her. She had thrown herself at him, quite literally—offered herself on a plate. No, not even offered, she corrected painfully—forced herself on him more like. She’d instigated everything, everything. What had possessed her? And now he thought she was loose, anybody’s…

  And then his voice sounded just behind her, saying coolly, ‘Robyn, we need to talk.’ His hand took her elbow, turning her to face him. His face was closed, inscrutable.

  ‘Let go of me.’ Her voice surprised her: she didn’t expect it to be so firm or so cold considering what she was feeling like inside. ‘Don’t you dare touch me.’

  He complied, instantly.

  ‘I’ve nothing to say to you, Clay, beyond that I’m as sorry as you at what happened tonight,’ she said tautly. ‘So, can we leave it at that?’ She stepped away from him as she spoke.

  The other guests were moving back inside and her mother approached them, sniffling loudly as she gushed how wonderful Cassie had loo
ked and how desperately they were going to miss her. Robyn took her mother’s arm, making some light comment that she was quite proud of when her heart and her pride were in tatters, and once inside the hotel she slipped into the ladies’ cloakroom, locking the door of one of the cubicles behind her. She stayed in there some time, sick and numb with agonising misery and shame, and when she emerged Clay had already left.

  She discovered the next morning, listening to her parents chat over breakfast, that Clay had apparently had a plane to catch having pulled off some big deal in the States. Her father was full of it, declaring they had been lucky to see him at all considering the way Clay’s particular star was rising in the world of business since his father had died.

  ‘He’ll go places, that young man,’ Mr Brett stated firmly. ‘He might have been born with something of a silver spoon in his mouth but he’s not your average, spoilt rich kid, not Clay Lincoln. He’ll go to the very top, you mark my words.’

  Robyn knew exactly what Clay Lincoln was, and also the place she would like him to go. Shame and disillusionment and pain ate her up for months on end and she buried herself in working for her A levels, refusing all offers of dates from any young hopefuls and keeping herself strictly to herself.

  Time passed. She gained first-class grades in her examinations and went to university with the wounds having healed to some extent. But she was wary, extremely wary, of the opposite sex. The odd date, a casual friend or two was fine; anything other than that and she wasn’t interested. It wasn’t that she purposely shut her mind and heart to love and commitment, more that it would take a special man to give her the confidence to become vulnerable again.

  The special man hadn’t come along, the years had passed, and now she was twenty-eight and liked her life the way it was.

  She sat up suddenly in the bath, angry that she had so completely indulged herself with memories that were difficult even now to come to terms with. They said that time heals all wounds… Robyn grimaced to herself as she stepped out of the bath and wrapped a big fluffy towel round herself, sarong fashion. Maybe, in ninety-nine per cent of cases that was true, but where Clay Lincoln was concerned the scar tissue was almost raw. But that was her problem.

  Her soft mouth tightened, and the chocolate brown eyes fringed by thick black lashes that drew so many male glances on a day-to-day basis lost their velvet warmth and became as hard as iron as they narrowed reflectively.

  She had thrown herself at him that day so many years ago and had probably got exactly what she had deserved. She had come to terms with that years ago, but it had taught her a lesson about the ruthless, hard quality of the opposite sex she had never forgotten. He had made her feel less than the dirt under his shoes that night, and however stupid she had been—and she had been stupid all right—she still didn’t think she’d deserved that. She’d only been sixteen for goodness’ sake.

  But it didn’t matter. She walked through to the bedroom, sitting down at her small but exquisite dressing table that had been her grandmother’s. She stared into the misty mirror at the large-eyed girl staring back at her, and nodded defiantly. No, it really didn’t matter. Clay Lincoln was a figure from the past; it had been Cassie’s talk of him that had triggered these reflections. He was in a different world from her now.

  He had had the meteoric success in the business world her father had predicted, his star dazzling, and she had caught glimpses of it now and again in the newspapers and had heard reports from Cassie and Guy who still saw him very occasionally. But she had made sure their paths never crossed. It had been better for everyone that way.

  She had known when he had got married in the States to an American girl a short time after that fateful night at the lake, and also when his wife had died some years later, but she never pursued a conversation about Clay Lincoln. She had told Cassie and Guy she didn’t like him, pretending it was just that she found him abrupt and cold and that she disapproved of the playboy image he had adopted after the death of his wife. If Cassie had ever wondered at her animosity regarding Guy’s old friend she had never said so.

  Robyn breathed in deeply, reaching for the rich moisturising cream in front of her without taking her eyes off the ones staring back at her from the mirror.

  She neither wanted nor needed to see Clay Lincoln again. Not ever. And nothing would ever make her change her mind on that point. And as for Cass’s suggestion of approaching him with a view to him having a stake in her business, her own special baby—she would rather go bankrupt!

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘ROBYN, you remember Clay Lincoln, don’t you? Guy and Clay were at university together.’

  Robyn had just stepped into Cassie’s large open-plan lounge where her sister’s dinner guests were gathered in celebration of Guy’s thirty-fifth birthday. She had been smiling as she’d walked into the room but in the last moment the smile had been wiped off her face with shock. According to Cassie there had been three couples Robyn knew quite well invited to dinner tonight, along with Guy’s brother whom Robyn was partnering due to Cassie’s sister-in-law being away in Blackpool at a conference the bank she worked for had organised and which Beryl had been unable to get out of.

  But the tall, lean man in front of her was definitely not dear old Jim. And the photos she had seen of Clay in the newspapers over the last years had failed to do him justice. Twelve years ago he had been pretty stupendous; now he was easily the most handsome man she had ever seen in spite of the jet-black hair she remembered now being liberally streaked with silver.

  He was bigger—broader—than he had been at twenty-three but only in the breadth of his shoulders and chest; the leanness that had always given his good looks an almost animal quality was still there, but made all the more powerful by maturity.

  The youthful face had changed into one in which cynicism had scored deep lines which annoyingly only heightened his attractiveness; the silver-blue eyes were piercing in the deeply tanned skin and his mouth was possessed of hard worldly sensuality she was sure had not been there twelve years ago.

  It was a disturbing face, magnetic in quality but almost too male, even cruel. But why was his face—along with the rest of him—present in Cass’s house tonight? Robyn took a deep, hidden breath, silently thanked the guardian angel who had prompted her to make a special effort to look her best tonight, and said carefully, ‘Hello, Clay; it must have been years since I saw you last,’ as though she wasn’t aware of the exact date or circumstances.

  ‘Yes, it must.’ His voice was the same—dark, smoky—and it caught at her nerve endings making them tingle. ‘Cassie and Guy’s wedding I believe, so that’s all of twelve years in a couple of months time,’ he said easily.

  ‘Really? That long?’ How could Cass do this to her? Robyn was intensely, almost painfully, aware of the narrowed blue eyes taking in every detail of her appearance, but the expensive cream shot-silk chiffon dress and matching sandals, and the sparkling Cartier diamond studs in her ears which had been her twenty-first birthday present from her parents, more than stood up to the piercing scrunity. Which was a darn sight more than her legs felt able to do right at this moment!

  She knew her face was flushed—she had always blushed easily, it went with the red hair and creamy skin—but there was nothing she could do about that and perhaps he wouldn’t notice.

  Clay, on the other hand, was as cool and contained as she remembered, his handsome, finely chiselled face faintly smiling above the designer summer-weight suit and blue silk shirt and tie he was wearing, and the tall, lean body relaxed. She could have kicked him. Hard. Very hard.

  ‘I…I didn’t know you were going to be here tonight?’ As soon as she’d said it she realised it was a mistake. It suggested he was important enough to be mentioned in advance.

  ‘Didn’t I mention it?’ Cassie entered the conversation now from her vantage point of interested spectator, and her voice was suspiciously offhand. ‘I meant to give you a ring a couple of days ago, Robyn, but the twins are still pla
ying up at night and with the way I am…’ She laid a hand over her rounded stomach in a silent plea for sympathy. ‘I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on,’ she added with a winsome smile at Clay.

  Believe that, believe anything. Their conversation of six days ago was suddenly crystal clear in Robyn’s mind and she knew, she just knew, this was one of Cass’s ruses. Her sister had decided that Clay would be the perfect business associate and had acted accordingly. Cass never let the grass grow under her feet.

  ‘Jim got the opportunity to join Beryl at the conference—all expenses paid—so he rang us to explain, and it just so happened Clay was in town…’ Cassie’s voice dwindled away happily.

  ‘How fortuitous,’ Robyn said stolidly, her eyes holding her sister’s until Cassie had the grace to look slightly discomfited. But only slightly. Still, Cass had no idea of the true state of affairs between she and Clay, Robyn reminded herself silently. Perhaps she should have told her a little of what had transpired all those years ago to avoid just such a situation as this one. He was her partner for the evening. As disasters went, it was a biggie.

  ‘I’ll leave Clay to look after you, then. I just need to go and check a couple of things in the kitchen.’ Cassie managed to look faintly preoccupied as she drifted away although Robyn knew full well everything in the kitchen would be working like clockwork. Occasions like this were her sister’s forte and always went like a dream due to painstaking preparation and careful planning.

  ‘Let me get you a drink, Robyn. What would you like?’

  If she told him what she would like—namely for him to be transported somewhere, anywhere, but here—it would be the death knell on poor Guy’s birthday celebration. She could feel that her cheeks had cooled a little and she hoped her voice was several degrees below its normal warm tone when she said, ‘A glass of white wine would be lovely, thank you.’