Caroline was a very passionate and emotional woman—that was the trouble. She was afraid to let herself go, particularly with someone like Mark. But how she yearned to...
The sound of the front door slamming made her breathless. She busied herself with her magazines, pretending great interest in an article about time management.
Mark strode into the living-room. He paused in the doorway for a split second, watching her from beneath his heavy eyelids, an odd expression on his dark, brooding face.
'How's the Bentley?' Caroline asked, lifting her head.
'Not in good shape,' he said flatly, hands black with engine oil. 'I found the alternator on the ground below it.'
'Alternator?' She frowned, mystified.
'It's the mechanism that keeps the battery replenishing as you drive,' he explained. 'It was smashed loose by the crash. So were several other fairly vital engine parts. I've fixed them all back into place, but the battery's completely dead.'
'You obviously know your stuff,' she said, not having understood a word of that. 'Why is the battery dead?'
He grimaced. 'Ah. This is where I have to make a confession. I left the lights on.'
She groaned. 'Oh, no...'
He gave a harsh sigh. 'It was because it was an emergency, of course. I forgot the lights were on. All I was concerned about was getting us both to shelter. One reads so many horror stories of people dying in their cars in blizzards...'
She nodded, watching him through her lashes.
The grey eyes flicked down her long slim legs. 'How's your ankle?' he asked abruptly.
'Much better,' she said with some surprise. 'It throbs a lot, and it's still painful, but it's not agonising any more.'
'I'll bandage it up once the swelling has gone down,' he told her. 'Then you can start to limp.'
She laughed, green eyes wryly amused. 'Thank you, Dr Rider.'
He grinned. 'Not at all.' Suddenly, a gleam came into his eyes. 'A pity you're not responding to my bedside manner, though.'
Caroline laughed. 'Poor Dr Rider! Forlorn and unloved!'
His teeth met. 'Are you laughing at me?'
Her pulses skipped. 'I wouldn't dream of it,' she murmured.
'I hope not,' he said under his breath, an edge to his voice. 'I don't need to tell you what kind of retaliation you'll get if you do.'
'No,' she said softly, wary excitement in her eyes. 'It's constantly on my mind.'
He caught his breath audibly, staring.
There was a brief, tense silence.
Caroline cleared her throat, pulses leaping. 'Hadn't you better go and wash you hands, Mark? They're covered in engine oil...'
He watched her in silence for a second, then drawled, 'You have a knack for sliding out of difficult conversations, Miss Shaw. Very well. I'll go and wash my hands. But I'll be back very shortly, and then you and I are going to have that conversation.'
'Which conversation?' she asked huskily, staring.
'You know very well which conversation,' he said, grey eyes penetrating, and then moved out of the room, leaving her to feel very definitely under threat as she sat there, helpless, one foot stuck in a basin of water.
Outside in the kitchen, she could hear him washing his hands. Her heart was jumping. Her mouth was dry. She didn't want to talk to him—certainly not about herself.
He came back, without his coat, and his hard-muscled body sent quivers of awareness through her. He smiled at her lazily, a glitter of sardonic amusement in his grey eyes as he sank down slowly on the couch beside her, and his hard thigh brushed hers.
Caroline shifted, wary excitement in her eyes.
'My, my,' he drawled softly, 'you are jumpy, aren't you?'
'I'm just not in the mood for a chat,' she said flatly.
'Hardly a chat,' he drawled wryly. 'More like a very personal discussion. One you've been avoiding for a long, long time. You got out of it earlier by spraining your ankle. I let it slide because I figured you needed a moment to recover. Well...' he idly stroked her thigh with one long finger '... you've had your moment. Now it's time to talk turkey.'
'Look, I don't have to discuss anything with you if I don't want to,' she snapped. 'Not even the weather!'
'Tell me about your relationship with Stephen Daly,' he said suddenly, surprising her.
Her long gold lashes flickered. 'What... ?'
'Your relationship with him,' he said coolly, black brows arching. 'How you get on, what you have in common, the things you talk about, what you do, where you go, the --'
'Yes, all right,' she said irritably. 'I... well, let me see. We get on very well. It's true we don't have much in common, but opposites attract, don't they? We talk about his job, my job, our future together. We go to the theatre a lot, sometimes we --'
'What kind of plays do you go to see?' he asked, unsmiling.
She sighed. 'I've got to humour you, have I?'
He laughed and inclined his dark head. 'All the way.'
'And if I refuse?'
'Then I take you upstairs and start making love to you, Caro,' he said softly, smiling lazily. 'And I don't think you'll find it so easy to end the excitement by running away, because... well, you're hardly physically able any more. Are you?'
She flushed deeply, heart thumping, looked away and tried not to betray the wild flare of excitement in her at the thought of being that helpless... the choice would be taken away from her and lovemaking would be something she was forced to accept from him. Oh, God, how she wanted to make love with him. It was becoming intolerable...
'Your recitation, please,' Mark drawled softly beside her.
She tightened her mouth. 'We go to see the current plays.'
'Anything fashionable, then?' he asked, frowning.
'Yes,' she said shortly, and glared at him.
He was silent for a moment, studying her. Then he said, 'My favourite play is Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.'
Her eyes narrowed. 'Is that meant to be a humorous --?'
'I'm merely telling you my favourite play,' he said, smiling lazily. 'What's yours?'
She gave an irritable sigh. 'A Streetcar Named Desire, I suppose.'
'Why do you like it?' he asked coolly.
Caroline folded her arms, giving him an angry look. 'I fail to see what any of this has to do with --'
'Just answer the question,' he drawled, eyes mocking. 'Or it's upstairs to bed for you.'
Heat flooded her and she said unsteadily. 'I like Streetcar because there's a lot of drama, excitement...'
He smiled lazily, then said, 'What's Stephen's favourite play?'
Caroline racked her brains, then said, 'Oh... Anything by Ibsen.'
'How depressing.' He grimaced. 'Do you like Ibsen?'
'Not really,' she answered honestly, shrugging slim shoulders. 'I like Hedda Gabler, but that's about it. Apart from that—he's basically rather grim.'
'I agree,' he said, as though they were two ordinary people having a polite conversation at a cocktail party. 'I prefer passion, drama --'
'Yes, I do too,' she said, relaxing a little. 'I like to feel whirled up and excited by theatre. Dramatic conversations, passionate arguments, hatred and love and desire flooding the stage...'
The grey eyes gleamed at her. 'And Stephen doesn't like that kind of thing?'
'Oh, no,' she said, frowning. 'He's very mild-mannered and easygoing.'
'Have you mentioned your preferences to him?' he asked politely.
'Oh, I couldn't do that,' she said, turning to him. 'He doesn't really know me and I --' she broke off, her face draining of all colour as she stared into his clever, handsome face and saw the trap she had just walked into.
Mark smiled slowly and said, 'Well, well, well.'
Her heartbeat thundered into a gallop. 'I didn't mean it the way it sounded. I --'
'Of course you did,' he said softly, watching her with narrowed eyes. 'You meant every single syllable.'
She coloured hotly. 'You got me to say that, Mark.' Her v
oice was husky, unsteady. 'You made me think you were talking about plays and --'
'And I wasn't.' He moved towards her, his dark head very close to hers as she shrank back from him. He scrutinised her flushed face with those piercing grey eyes. 'I was talking about your relationship with the man you fully intend to marry. Not much of a relationship, is it?'
'I am going to marry him,' she whispered threadily. 'I am!'
'You can't,' he said deeply, watching her. 'Caroline, you mustn't.'
Her lashes lowered. She found herself staring at the tanned column of his throat and her mouth dried with overpowering desire.
'You're not in love with him,' he said thickly. 'Are you?'
Mute, she raised her green eyes to meet his.
'You've never been in love,' Mark said under his breath. 'Have you?'
Nerveless, she shook her head, staring into his eyes.
'Well, that makes two of us,' he said softly, 'because neither have I. And there's nothing wrong in that, Caroline. Just that you mustn't build marriage on it. Taking mistresses or lovers is one thing. Going up the aisle with them and possibly involving children is quite another.'
'This is none of your business,' she said hoarsely. 'And you're wrong about me. Wrong! I do love Stephen. I --'
'You don't even know the man!' he bit out suddenly, and took her shoulders, pinning her to the couch, eyes blazing. 'More important—he doesn't know you. You just said so yourself!'
'I said he didn't know what kind of plays I liked!' she blustered, shaking in his hands.
'Why don't you want him to know who you really are?' he demanded harshly, hands biting into her slim shoulders as he arched above her. 'Why?'
'He does know me!'
'No! He just knows a beautiful, cool enigma called Caroline Shaw. The same cool enigma who works in my office!'
Her breath caught in shock. 'Enigma...?'
'He's not alone, though, is he?' he said tightly. 'You've been keeping me at a distance for months. Giving me that cool, calm, collected front when underneath you're really a passionate little seductress!'
Her eyes blazed. 'I'm not a passionate little seductress!'
'Not with every man?' he asked under his breath, eyes narrowed.
'No...' she whispered, staring into his eyes.
'Just with me?' he asked thickly.
She tried to get away, a groan coming from the back of her throat.
'That's it, isn't it?' His voice was almost slurred as he stared at her. 'You're really attracted to me. You can't help yourself when I'm near. I bring it all out in you. Don't I, Caro?' He studied her, his grey eyes intense. 'I'm the only man who's ever really seen through you, aren't I?'
White, she couldn't look at him, her heart hammering and her breath strangled in her throat.
'Why do you want to hide from me?' Mark asked thickly. 'Caro, if we made love, you'd be freed. You'd be able to lose yourself in my aims, my darling, and you must be aware of that or you wouldn't be so afraid…'
'Oh, that's your answer to everything, isn't it, Mark Rider?' she cut in fiercely, lifting her green eyes to meet his with a sudden flash. 'Go to bed and win every prize on the list!'
'It would free you, Caroline,' he said deeply.
'No, Mark. It would make you feel better but it would make me feel like a stupid little tramp!'
His mouth tightened. 'Don't say things like that!'
'What?' she demanded with an angry laugh. 'Stupid? Or tramp?'
'They're neither of them true!'
'They would be if I ever let you make love to me, Mark!'
'Because I'm not prepared to offer you marriage?' he bit out.
'That's right!' she said thickly. 'I won't let you use me, then walk off into the sunset like a conquering hero!'
'I wouldn't do that!' he said forcefully.
'Oh, no?' Her eyes spat contempt. 'How many women have there been, Mark? How many?'
His mouth tightened. He studied her for a second in silence, then said thickly, 'I don't know offhand.'
'Offhand!' she laughed angrily, hatred welling up inside her. 'And you think I'd let a man like you take my body? My virginity? My love? My self-respect?'
He said nothing, watching her in tense silence. She wondered if she'd gone too far, but her principles were screaming at her, as they had from the beginning, not to let Mark win in this battle.
Suddenly, Mark said under his breath, 'What a passionate, emotional woman you are.'
Her eyes closed in swift, appalled self-defence and she could hear her heart drumming as she struggled not to betray the deep fear inside her as she opened her eyes again and met his gaze in the acute silence that followed. When she did meet his intense gaze again, she almost flinched from the depth of recognition in those grey eyes.
'I was right, wasn't I?' he said softly. 'You haven't just been running from me because you want to make love to me. It goes a lot deeper than that.' His hand touched her face. 'You're afraid to reveal yourself to me, aren't you?'
She looked away, said thickly, 'I don't know what you're talking about!'
'If you make love with me,' he said slowly, eyes narrowed, 'you'll show yourself. No more cool controlled Miss Shaw.'
'I never said I was cool and controlled!' she laughed huskily, pulses leaping as she turned her face to look at him through her lashes.
'No,' he said deeply, 'but it is what you want me to believe. And it isn't true, is it? You really are made of fire—not ice.'
She stared into his grey eyes in silence, her mouth dry and her heart thumping.
'I want to get to know you, Caroline,' he said under his breath, 'in every way possible. Beginning with this...'
His mouth closed over hers with a slow sensuality that made her catch her breath with a smothered gasp of pleasure. It was irresistible. She was too excited already, her body leaping with intolerable response, and she could not stop herself opening her mouth beneath his with that swift, hot gasp of delight.
'Mark...' she said against his hard mouth, and her arms moved instinctively to wind around his neck.
He made a harsh sound under his breath and his arms went around her, tightening, his hands pushing up into the silky gold-brown of her long hair and his mouth moved with fiery passion over hers.
Her eyes closed, her head tilted back, she couldn't resist that intoxicating rush of desire like adrenalin to the head, making her dizzy with sensation, a moan coming from the back of her throat.
The kiss deepened without warning, and her heart was slamming harder as she allowed him to slide against her body with his. There was a new feeling in his kiss. He seemed as in need of her touch as she was of his. They wrapped around each other for countless minutes, mouths moving with slow burning hunger, pressing very tightly together.
Mark raised his head, his breathing harsh and rapid. 'Tell me I'm right.' His mouth moved passionately over hers. 'Tell me how I make you feel, Caro. Tell me I see right through you. That I always have,' His voice thickened, his hands were in her silky hair, his lips shaking against her throat. 'Tell me that I make you lose your head, your self-control... that I make that polished mask fragment into a thousand pieces...'
'Yes, yes...' she admitted through swollen lips, her eyes dazed with the force of her passion.
He groaned, and his mouth closed with fierce passion over hers, a harsh sound of excitement coming from the back of his throat as his fingers gripped her harder and she suddenly felt that throbbing pressure of his body communicating his sexual excitement more potently than words ever could.
His heart thudded loudly above her and his strong hands began to move over her body. She gave a hoarse cry of intolerable need, arching against him.
'Oh, God... Caroline!' Mark said hoarsely, and suddenly his hands were shaking as they slid to the zip of her dress. 'I want you more than any woman I've ever known. I've got to make love to you...got to...'
Panic shot through her and she dragged her mouth from his. 'No!' Her face was deeply flushe
d, green eyes glittering and fevered.
'For God's sake, don't say that again!' he muttered thickly, his heartbeat thudding louder than ever. 'You've just admitted how much you want to make love. How fantastic it would be for both of us. Just let yourself go, Caroline. Don't keep running from me. If we go to bed, I can start to find out who you really are, and I won't reject you, I promise.'
'I don't want to!' she said thickly, a moan in her throat as he licked the pulse that beat there. Her hands tightened in his hair and she whispered, 'Oh, God, Mark...'
'You want me so much you're shaking with it!' he said hoarsely.
Shame burned her cheeks. 'I'm human! I've been locked up in this cottage with you, sleeping with you, looking at you! How can I keep my defences up all the time? They crumble all the time, Mark, because I can't seem to keep them in place when you're around!'
'Caroline!' he said in a shaking voice, his hands moving over her body possessively. 'Oh, God, yes...say that again to me... let me take you upstairs and hear it all night... let me make love to you...'
'What kind of proposition is this, Mark?' she asked shakily, staring into his handsome face. 'Where would it lead if I let you do it?'
'To personal liberty?' he suggested deeply, his hands framing her face.
She gave a bitter laugh. 'Still just sex, then?'
His eyes narrowed. 'It isn't a proposal of marriage, Caroline. It never will be. Haven't I made that clear enough?'
It hurt to hear it, and she felt her mouth tremble as she said huskily, 'Of course! Yes, you've made it very clear. Marriage means a trap to you', Mark, but to me it means love, and that's where we'll never see eye to eye.'
'Darling,' he said under his breath, kissing her, 'see body to body instead. It would be so-fantastic...'
'If we were just animals I probably would,' she said, tears pricking the back of her eyes. 'But we're not. We're both people. We have lives to live, and—more importantly—we have ourselves to live with. I'd hate myself if I let you take me.' Her mouth trembled. 'In fact, I'd despise myself. Is that what you really want?'
He gave a harsh sigh. 'Of course it isn't! But I don't see why you'd feel that way, Caro!'
'My body's weak where you're concerned, but my mind isn't.'
Confrontation Page 11