'What else? Have you ever done a decent day's work before today?'
She was silent. No point in telling this arrogant man of the volunteer work she did at the hospital four days each week, when she visited sick children and spent many hours reading to them and helping them with their school work. He would not believe her. And if he did, he would not care.
'Have you ever really known who your friends were?' The question was unexpected. It also held a depth of understanding which defied Kelly to brush it aside with an untruth.
'Sometimes,' she replied guardedly. 'I know that Gary wants me for myself.'
He would return with a sarcastic comment, she thought, and braced herself to meet it. When he remained silent, she asked curiously, 'And you, Nicholas, does it mean anything to you that I'm Robert Stanwick's daughter?'
'Not a thing,' came the indifferent answer. 'Disappointed?'
'No,' Kelly said simply. She did not tell him that she was filled with a strange kind of elation. For a moment it did not matter that he did not like her, that he made no secret of his contempt. After years of men who fawned on her, who danced to her every whim, it was a novelty to come up against a man who was so strong, so self-sufficient, that social subterfuge was beneath him.
She was acutely aware of him, standing so near her in the darkness. She knew already how it felt to be in his arms. But it seemed that he did not even need to touch her for her senses to react to him. There was something primitive and basic about him, a compelling maleness which was so intoxicating that it called forth an answering response from deep inside her, a response that was just as basic, and intensely female. A response which she had not even known existed.
He was so near to her that she could reach out and touch him if she wanted. And knew that it was what she did want. The depth of her wanting frightened her. Kelly had always prided herself on her common sense, on the fact that she had both feet firmly on the ground, that she was in control of her emotions. She had thought she knew herself so well. It came as a distinct shock to find that she did not know herself at all, to know that if Nicholas were to reach for her in the darkness she might not have the strength to resist him.
'Goodnight,' she said, glad that she was able to keep her voice so matter-of-fact. Even Nicholas could not guess at the turmoil raging inside her. 'I'm off to bed.'
'As we're going the same way,' he said, falling in to step beside her, 'we may as well go there together.'
She stopped quite still. Her body was rigid with shock. The cottage lay in a different direction from the hotel and the rondavels. They could not be walking the same way. Unless... But no! She had not misunderstood what Mary had said to her earlier that day.
'I don't think I understand.' Her voice was stiff.
'No?' The low chuckle rang out in the dark, close beside her—too close. The sound of it was so sensuous that it set Kelly's pulses racing. 'It's quite simple. We're both sleeping in the cottage.'
'No!' she cried urgently.
'Yes.' Casually, but with unmistakable finality.
'But Mary said ... she said...—it was hard to speak through the dryness in her throat—'you'd be sleeping in the hotel, and...'
'I'm sure she did say that,' Nicholas agreed pleasantly.
Kelly stared at him incredulously. 'She—lied to me?'
'Nothing so dramatic.' There was a mocking crispness in his tone, as if he found her confusion amusing. 'I had in fact meant to sleep at the hotel.But a couple arrived just before dinner. There was no spare room for them. I gave them mine.'
'They had a booking?' Kelly asked tautly.
'No.'
'You could have turned them away.'.
'That would have been foolish,' Nicholas said smoothly. 'Great Peaks needs every penny it can get. Especially now.' He put his hand on her arm and propelled her forward. 'Come along, Kelly. It's getting late.'
She was silent as she shook her arm from his grip, wishing that his touch did not do such alarming things to her senses. She needed to think, and she could not do that when the blood was pounding in her head.
'I won't sleep with you,' she said at length.
'I don't remember suggesting it.' Again the mockery which she so hated. 'Though I don't deny the idea is tempting. You're a desirable female, as Andrew Lang no doubt wasted no time in telling you.'
'Andrew Lang is a gentleman,' she threw out burningly.
'Where sex is concerned?' Nicholas questioned idly. 'I wonder.'
'You're the most hateful man I ever met!' Her voice -was low. 'You will not sleep with me, Nicholas.'
'Not "with", my dear Kelly,' he agreed equably, 'but alongside.'
She thought of the double bed, and shivered. She could not sleep with Nicholas in that bed. Even if he did not touch her, and she doubted if she could trust him on that score, there would be no sleep for her with the long virile body at her side.
'Please, Nicholas..Her voice was eloquent with pleading. 'We can't ... I can't ...'A little desperately she searched for a convincing argument. 'What would Gary think if he knew?'
"Your fiance has showed very little interest up to this point. There's no reason why he should start now.'
'You take every chance to belittle him, yet he's worth ten of your kind, Nicholas Van Mijden.' Kelly wished that she sounded more positive. 'Anyway, this conversation is futile. It's solving nothing.'
'As far as I'm concerned there's nothing to solve.' There was no mockery in the vibrant voice now. No derision. Just a complete lack of concern.
'You know that I will under no circumstances spend the night in the cottage with you.'
'And every room at the hotel is occupied.' Nicholas paused. When he spoke again his words were deliberate. 'Since the idea of sharing a bed with me is so distasteful, why don't you ask Andrew Lang if he will let you in for the night?'
Kelly bit her lip. 'You know I can't do that,' she said unhappily.
'Why not? Since he's so pure your virtue would be protected.' And now the mockery was back, hard and biting. 'If you do have any virtue left to protect.'
They were at the cottage now. Kelly spun round, caught by the meaning in his tone. He was so close to her that she had to lean against the door, but even then she could feel his warmth reaching her through the thin fabric of her clothes. 'What the hell are you trying to say?'
'Only that the role of outraged virgin doesn't suit you.'
It was hard to breathe through the tightness in her chest, a tightness that owed less to the malice of his words than to a closeness which was more intoxicating than anything she had ever known. 'I am a virgin,' she managed.
'Keep that one for Andrew Lang. He might believe you.' Nicholas spoke with uncompromising coldness. 'You travelled with Gary, you shared a room with him. You're no virgin, Kelly Stanwick.'
'I shared a room with Sheila,' she whispered.
'You don't make a good liar,' he accused harshly. 'Open the door, Kelly.'
'No!'
'Very well.' Roughly his arm thrust past her, pushing her a little aside, so that he could reach the knob. At the same time his arm rested against her breast. The feel of it sent a tremor through Kelly's nerve-stream. For a moment she could not breathe, could not move.
Then the door was open. With unaccustomed politeness Nicholas waited for her to precede him into the cottage. Quite suddenly Kelly's mind cleared. With a show of outward docility and reluctance she walked slowly through the doorway, then she whirled around to close the door. She had moved very quickly, but Nicholas was even quicker. A foot was thrust through the opening, blocking the movement of the door. Still Kelly did not give up the struggle. With all her strength she pushed against the door. The struggle lasted no more than a moment, then a broad shoulder pushed the door easily back at her.
Very deliberately he closed the door. She stood quite still, watching him, her reactions numbed, her body stiff with fright. Too late she eyed the open bedroom. If she had acted more quickly she might have made the room and locked th
at door. But it was obvious that Nicholas had anticipated that route of escape, for the tough wall of his body had already moved to a point where she could not get past it.
He stepped closer to her. An unholy light gleamed in the dark eyes. The line of his jaw was long and rigid and with the hint of steel that seemed such an intrinsic part of the man. Above the formal shirt he had worn for dinner, his throat rose strong and bronzed. The cut of his expensive trousers was narrow, revealing long muscled legs. Transcending the cut and quality of his clothes was an aura of sensual virility, of power and strength and uncompromising ruthlessness.
Kelly opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. She was rendered totally speechless by the sheer primitiveness of the male figure towering so ominously above her. His eyes ravaged her face, taking in every detail of the wide green eyes, luminous and frightened, the trembling half-open lips, the little pulse beating too quickly at the base of the slender throat. Then, blatantly, insolently, they moved downwards, over the rapid rise and fall of her breasts occasioned by the unevenness of her breathing, and then further still to the gently rounded hips beneath the soft fabric of her dress.
'Please, Nicholas ..she managed to whisper at last, in an unconscious repetition of her earlier unheeded pleading.
'Please, Nicholas,' he mocked her. 'Please what? Are you asking me to make love to you, to show you what you've been missing in your milksop of a fianc£?'
She was so frightened now that she could only shake her head violently. The blood was pounding in her temples, and her legs were so weak that she could hardly stand.
There was no softness in the grey eyes that came up once more to hers. No understanding, no compassion. There was no tenderness in the hands that pulled her towards him, in the lips that closed on hers.
Just when she needed her strength the most, her limbs were weaker than they had ever been. But she did not give up the struggle easily. Later she would remember that she had pummelled his chest hard with her fists, that she had tried to twist her head away from his, and that, failing in her efforts to do so, she had bitten him and had had the satisfaction of tasting blood.
But with the memory came the knowledge that the struggle did not last long. For as his hands moved over her, moulding her body to his, and as the pressure of his lips increased, forcing hers open, the kiss deepening so that it tasted and probed and explored, treacherous flames of delight seared her body, and the effort to oppose him became even more an effort to oppose herself.
Nicholas raised his head once. 'Stop fighting me.'
'Never!' The word wrenched out on a sob.
'You want this as much as I do,' he said roughly. 'Stop kidding yourself, Kelly.'
She tried to answer, but his lips were on hers again, and the lean-fingered hands were sliding over her back to her hips, her thighs. And then he was lifting her in his arms, and as easily as if she was a doll he carried her into the bedroom.
She could not speak as he put her down on the bed. She could only stare at him with the tears welling in her eyes. She tried to sit up, but he held her down easily with one hand, while with the other he took off his shirt. Just as easily he slipped the dress from her body. He seemed to take her protests as nothing more than token resistance as he turned her sideways and slid down a zipper with an expertise which spoke of much practice.
Not a word passed between them as he undressed both her and himself. Kelly shuddered as he lowered himself on to the bed and she felt the weight of his body on hers. Dimly she knew that she must get away from him, that she must find a way to save herself before it was too late. But it was becoming increasingly hard to think as waves of sensation cascaded through her. Even while the last vestiges of rational thought rebelled against Nicholas's behaviour, her femininity responded with elation to the maleness which seemed to envelop her, to the strong beat of the heart against her breasts, to the roughness of his cheeks and the tautness of the long thighs against her own soft ones.
Nothing she had ever experienced had prepared her for the ecstasy which filled her senses and dulled her brain. A hand left her back and went to a breast, cupping its fullness, then the lips which had ravaged her face descended to her throat, and finally to the other breast. Quite involuntarily her arms went around his back, and her fingers knotted in his hair. She heard his swift intake of breath, and then he was lifting himself from her. She saw him unbuckle the belt of his trousers.
It was at that moment that sanity returned.
'Nicholas...' a sobbing gasp, 'I really am a virgin.'
His hand was still on his belt as he looked down at her. His breathing was ragged, but the eyes that studied hers were bleak and hard. If she was devastated by what had happened between them, there was nothing in his own expression to indicate that he felt anything at all.
'Nicholas...'
'I believe you.' His voice was harsh. 'Perhaps I'm a fool, but I believe you.'
'Then you won't... won't...' She could not finish the sentence.
'Rape you?' A short laugh. 'I get my fun whenever I want it, Kelly. Raping virgins doesn't happen to be my scene.'
He stood up. She was still lying on the bed. Her hands were on her breasts now, covering them from his sight, irrationally oblivious of the fact that he had touched them, that his lips had tasted them, oblivious of everything except an unaccountable feeling of bereftness and disappointment. Insanity it might be, but more than anything else she wanted to feel his arms around her again.
'Goodnight, Kelly.'
'Will you go back to the hotel?' she managed to ask.
'There isn't a room—you know that. But it just so happens that I prefer to bed down on the couch in the living-room.'
She should have been relieved, but perversely she was not. For there was insult in his words, and his meaning could not have been clearer. He had found her wanting. She had not come up to the standards of the women he knew. Serena de Jager ... In his eyes Kelly was not a woman.
'Sleep well, Kelly,' he said as he turned to the door.
Sleep well? She wondered if she would sleep at all. Long after Nicholas had closed the door, she lay quite still, just as he had left her. She heard him moving about the living-room. He was whistling softly, the sound of a man without a care in the world.
At last all was still. Very quietly Kelly lifted herself from the bed, walked to the door on bare feet and opened it just a crack. The room was in darkness, and she could hear the sound of slow steady breathing. She closed the door again and went to the mirror.
The face she saw there was quite unlike the one Kelly Stanwick normally presented to the world. Auburn curls were tangled and untidy. Her cheeks were flushed, and in her green eyes was a look of searing wildness. On her lips was a spot of dry blood—Nicholas's or her own? She remembered she had bitten him. Was it possible that he had retaliated? Gingerly she took a tissue and wiped away the blood. It was indeed Nicholas's. But she saw that her own lips were bruised.
Quietly, for she did not want to waken Nicholas, she took a shower and put on her nightie. Then she slid beneath the sheets of the double bed.
CHAPTER FIVE
FOR hours, it seemed, Kelly lay sleepless. The curtains were open and so were the windows, for there was a netting-screen to keep out the insects of the night. The fragrance of the tropical shrubs wafted in from the garden, and the sky was studded with stars.
She lay very still. Looking out into the darkness of the African night, she relived all that had happened. Her body was bruised from the struggle with Nicholas. Her emotions were battered.
The rational part of her mind was still outraged with the manner in which Nicholas had forced himself on to her. It was this rational part which told her that she hated him now more than ever before; that the sooner she could leave Great Peaks Lodge and never see Nicholas Van Mijden again, the better it would be.
But there was another part of her which spoke differently. Paradoxically, this part was filled with a strange kind of elation. For Kelly knew that in
all her life she had never felt quite so vital and alive, quite so feminine. And with this realisation came another. Lying alone in the stillness of the night, she could admit to herself that Nicholas had stirred her to such an extent that she had been fighting herself even more than she had been fighting him. There had come a moment in his love-making when her barriers of resistance had crumbled. At that moment there had been only the wish to surrender, to be as close to him as a woman can be to a man. She wondered what would have happened if Nicholas had not given in to her plea.
If this knowledge filled her with elation—for she had never known she could be so stirred by a man —it filled her as well with despair. In the society in which she moved there were many women who took their fun where they could get it. Kelly was different. She had always associated sex with love, and love with marriage. And here was the reason for her confusion. She did not love Nicholas—she could not love him. She was in love with Gary. And yet there was no denying that Nicholas had raised her to heights she had never dreamed existed, and in doing so he had turned her world upside down.
What would he say if he knew how she felt? Would the grey eyes light with the mockery she so detested, and the mobile lips curve in a cruel smile? But he would never know, she vowed. As soon as Mary Anderson returned, Kelly would be free to go back to Durban. She would not see Nicholas again. And she could only pray that his image would eventually cease to haunt her.
It was a long time before she closed her eyes. Finally she fell into a deep and exhausted sleep. She was awoken quite suddenly. Behind her closed lids there was darkness, but from somewhere near her came the aromatic smell of freshly-brewed coffee.
A little dazed, she sat up and rubbed her eyes. Only half awake, she was not yet fully conscious of her surroundings. And then her eyes opened, and she saw that she was in the double bed of the Andersons. Standing next to the bed was Nicholas, and in his hand was a cup of coffee.
Hastily she clutched at the sheet and drew it up to her neck. She stared up at him wide-eyed, disconcerted by his sudden grin of amusement.
Kelly's Man Page 6