by Diana Fraser
He grasped her hands and pulled them out either side of her, lifting his body from hers, watching her, just as she watched him. He moved slowly, watching her reactions, teasing and testing her before slowly building to a rhythm that was uncompromising, insistent. He blatantly took command of her sensations, making her a slave to her own arousal. And she let him. She abandoned herself to the needs of her body, all her senses trained on the shifting friction of his body against and within hers. Again and again: each thrust taking her one step further to where she needed to be. Still he drove her on until finally she could hold onto the edge of her bliss no longer and she fell—her exquisite release exploding around him, caressing him until he also came in pulses deep inside her.
Bodies slick with sweat, legs entwined, they lay spent for a moment before Dallas gathered her to him in a possessive embrace. She felt completely sated, for the first time in her life. She rubbed her cheek against his neck. He smelt like heaven. She breathed him in deeply, wanting to hold the essence of this man for as long as possible. She wriggled closer into his embrace—his arms holding her tightly—feeling secure and at peace. She wanted to remain there forever.
Only the soft patter of rain entering the open window, and the steady ebb and flow of the sea on the shore below, broke the silence. It felt like the sound of eternity.
The last thing she remembered was his hand gently bringing her head to rest on his chest and his lips touching her hair, before sleep drifted over her as gentle as his kiss.
CHAPTER EIGHT
She was awoken by the cool light of dawn.
Christ. What had she done?
She reached out tentatively across the bed. Empty—thank God. She eased herself out of bed, holding her head as it hammered with the exertion. Too much brandy. She groaned. But it wasn’t brandy that wasn’t making her feel bad. It was guilt and betrayal.
How could she have slept with Dallas Mackenzie after all her meticulous planning? After all he had done to her family?
She sat on the edge of the bed, her head in her hands, pain streaking through her body, her nerve endings aflame with the anguish of knowing that she’d let her son down.
She could have screamed with anger and frustration. She’d let her guard down because of the emotions of the day before and he’d taken advantage of her vulnerable state and seduced her. No. She had seduced him.
For once, she’d lived in the moment, with no thought of the past or the future, only the present and she’d taken what she’d wanted, what she’d known Dallas had also wanted. But now she had time to think. And to relive the feelings that she’d spent so many years repressing.
The boy’s near drowning had penetrated her defenses, bypassing any thought or pretense. And she’d acted, like she should have acted six months ago, and saved him. She shouldn’t have let Danny go with her father on the boat. She’d felt a shadow of doubt at the time, knowing her father to be depressed, but had ignored it. She’d been a solo mum, she’d had work to do; she’d had commitments to meet. And she’d favored them over her own child. She would never forgive herself and she would never forgive Dallas Mackenzie for tipping her father into a suicide which ultimately led to the death of her son. He was culpable and she was going to make him pay.
How could she? How could she have slept with the man responsible for her son’s death?
She heard movements—the sound of Dallas coming up the stairs—and shakily she pulled a robe around her. Her heart thumped as he backed into the room wearing only jeans and carrying a large breakfast tray.
“Just toast and coffee—I’m no chef.”
The sight nearly undid her. This powerful man bringing her something as homely as coffee and toast. But she held onto the pain and focused on the feelings of hate that had sustained her over the last six months and the revenge that was all she had left. She needed them now.
He turned and stopped abruptly. “Cassandra?” He put down the tray and strode over to her. “Something’s wrong. What is it?”
“I’ve got to go.”
“Go? Where? In case you hadn’t noticed, the boss is requiring you to be at the office this morning.”
“That’s it. That’s just it. You’re the boss. This isn’t right.”
“It looks very right to me.”
His lips cut her words short. She lapsed into forgetfulness, for one long moment, aware only of the needs of her body, and his, before reality hit her once more.
“It looks very right to me,” he repeated hoarsely.
He brushed his lips against hers and then against her momentarily closed eyes. She could feel him inhale, almost drink her in. It had to stop. She snapped her eyes open and pushed her hands flat against his chest. His hands closed more tightly around her arms in response.
“Let me go. I have to leave. Rosa and the others, they’ll be here shortly.”
“So?”
His eyes narrowed. A flutter of panic ran through Cassandra’s gut.
“So, I don’t want them to think that I’m…”
“Some cheap whore masquerading as a PA? Is that what you don’t want them to think? Unless you are some cheap whore, I don’t think you have anything to worry about, do you?”
“Thank you for putting it so brutally. Now please let me go.”
“Not yet. Not until you tell me what this is all about. Why the ice queen melted so spectacularly yesterday and why the woman who was so willingly mine, so lusciously without inhibition, has come over all virtuous again. What’s going on?”
“Yesterday—last night, it wasn’t the real me. I don’t know, it—”
“It was the real you. I know. I was there. It’s this, this coldness, I don’t understand. I knew you were hiding something the moment I met you. My few enquiries came up with nothing. I could have looked further into your background, but I decided not to.”
Relief swept through Cassandra.
“No,” Dallas continued. “I prefer to do this the hard way. It may be more time consuming but, somehow, I think it will be more interesting.”
“There are some things you have no right to know, that are nothing to do with you.”
“That’s for me to decide.”
“I must go.” She tried to walk past him but he blocked the way.
“You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what this is all about.”
“It’s none of your business.”
“You’ve made it my business.” His low tone was barely more than a growl. “You made it my business the day you walked into my office demanding an interview, demanding my attention. Well you have it now, whether you want it or not.”
He took one quick step towards her and stood close, so close her cheek rasped briefly against the stubble of his chin as she instinctively turned to look him in the eye. She had no choice but to close her eyes against his black gaze as his lips found hers and his body pressed hers back against the wall.
As he pressed against her, she received his kiss more deeply, her body responding, burning with lust. She wriggled against his hard erection that grow harder with each movement of her body. He groaned and dropped her hands, pulled her to him tightly, their bodies grinding together. She unzipped his jeans and he pushed her once more against the wall. She jumped up, her legs curling around his waist as he entered her, thrusting himself inside her with an unrelenting urgency that reflected her own.
Each thrust took Cassandra further away from rational thought. She couldn’t contain her ecstatic cries as he continued to pound deep inside of her, breaking down her control, shattering her into a thousand pieces. She was dissolving, annihilated by this passion. She could feel, but could not think. She threw back her head, revealing her neck and bare breasts as white light filled her head and ecstasy coursed through her body. She held him, pulsing around him as he too, shuddered into her, filling her with his seed, claiming her for his own.
She fell against him and slowly slid down his body until her head rested on his chest and she could hear his heart
pounding as if it were her own. She couldn’t look up at him. She felt destroyed at that moment. The anger and passion had combined and become one thing. There was to be no division it seemed. She needed him and he needed her. There would be no end to this passion. And there would be no end to the guilt.
His hands came around her and pressed her head to his chest, holding her still.
“I’m sorry.” His words came faintly to her ears.
She looked up, not worrying now that he would see the tears that filled her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated. “I was rough and I wasn’t prepared. I should have used protection.”
She shook her head. It was the last thing on her mind.
He pulled the robe around her once more, carefully, quietly, this was not a time for words. Both were spent: physically and emotionally. A numbness descended on Cassandra through so much wanting and so much not having.
He tied the robe around her body and held her lightly, before releasing her. “Go and get dressed.”
The tears that glazed her eyes overflowed once she’d turned away from him. There was nothing she could say to him because the truth of her feelings wasn’t acceptable to either of them. She’d fallen in love with him. And she could hardly believe that, despite this, she was still going to ruin him.
What had he done?
He turned away as she closed the door quietly behind her.
What had he done?
He’d let it happen—the thing that he’d always made sure to avoid. He’d seen, in the depths of those blue eyes, her soul and it had touched him. It should never have happened.
He couldn’t deny this, it was too powerful. The lovemaking had been on a different scale to anything else he’d ever experienced. It could have been Cassandra’s body: her breasts rounded, sensuous, quivering to his touch, to his taste; her skin smooth as silk and exquisitely sensitive; her sex, moist, embracing him tightly as she came, body and soul, in tune with him.
That she’d had a change of mood in the morning wasn’t surprising. He knew she had secrets and somehow they involved him.
He turned on the shower, bracing his body against the icy spray.
He knew one thing for sure. He hadn’t spent his whole life avoiding relationships, to cave in now. No. She obviously regretted it and so did he. The way he’d taken her that last time—roughly, without finesse—proved that he was exactly like his father deep down, violent and selfish. It must never happen again; he must avoid getting close to her, must keep it purely business. The feelings might be there but they could not be acknowledged, because he knew that it would hurt her in the long run. Just like his father had hurt his mother. He pulled on a clean shirt and jeans and pushed his hands through his hair. This was wasting time. He had work to do.
It might be a Sunday, Cassandra thought briefly looking at the pile of papers on her desk, but Dallas obviously didn’t imagine she needed a break. Which was fine with her because it meant she’d be alone. Alone with security clearance and time to further her plans. The admin work could wait.
As she carefully negotiated her way through the company databases, digging deeper into its confidential areas, she found it more and more difficult to concentrate. She shook her head. Ridiculous. After months of preparation she was so close to keying in the commands that would rob Dallas of his wealth—would ruin him and his family—and all she could do was see his granite eyes, heated by lust, looking into hers, holding her as they climaxed; all she could feel was the slope of his back, narrowing to his buttocks and the muscles on his arms and chest, powerful and sensual. She flushed with the thoughts that flooded and warmed her in places that were still sore.
Concentrate, Cassandra.
It didn’t take long to get to the point she’d been anticipating for so many months. But instead of proceeding, she stopped. She jumped up and looked out the window searching for peace. But even the rippling emerald hills didn’t bring her peace today.
All week, she’d expected to see evidence of Dallas’s ruthless business acumen, expected to see trails of where his thoughtless lust for money had driven him, expected to see the wreckage of lives, or hopes, all buried under an unstoppable force of money-making.
She’d found none of it.
Perhaps she’d simply been working on the wrong files? Perhaps he’d covered his tracks too well? But she knew that, without a PA and busy as he was, no tracks had been covered. All the correspondence around his business dealings over the past year had been laid bare for her inspection. There had been nothing untoward.
It wasn’t the Dallas that she’d expected, nor the one the popular press enjoyed to feature so much.
Was his one error of judgement the sly take-over of her family’s company that had destroyed them financially and emotionally forever? Was this the one time that he’d acted irresponsibly, hastily, not checking the background papers, not seeing how emotionally unstable her father was, how vulnerable they all were? Not being able to see the devastating, far-reaching consequences of a single decision on her family? Was that the only time?
One error had been enough, though. It might have been out of character but, for whatever reason, Dallas Mackenzie was responsible for the deaths of those she loved most. It only needed to have happened once.
She withdrew a memory stick from her pocket and sat back down at the desk. She’d spent enough time at college with her computer geek friend to know it could be done and a few recent meetings with him had been sufficient to nail down the details. She broke through the final security barrier with ease.
It didn’t take her long to get to the point of no return. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. One key stroke and she could destroy his wealth. He wouldn’t know where to look, where to find it. It would simply have vanished into the ether.
But phrases from his correspondence, decisions he’d made, memories of his interactions with people, flitted through her mind. Instinct told her he couldn’t do such an act; her time with him reinforced that instinct. She hesitated, holding her throbbing head in one hand while she circled the keyboard restlessly with the other.
Suddenly she pushed her chair back from the desk. She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t believe he would have made the decision to ruin her father. He must have been coerced. He mustn’t have been in possession of all the facts. Something didn’t fit. Something wasn’t right.
She had to leave. If her instinct was right and he wasn’t responsible for the death of her father, then she would be wronging an innocent man. She would be guilty of a crime that he would never forgive and for which she could never forgive herself.
If her instinct was wrong, then she didn’t want to know. Because she couldn’t live with the fact that she loved the man responsible for the death of her loved ones.
The light of the computer pressed into her darkness. She closed her eyes briefly before rapidly entering a series of commands to exit the program.
“Sorry, Dad; sorry, Danny—I can’t do it.”
Her whisper sank into the rhythmic sound of the sea as it crept up the shingle beach and crawled lazily down again.
She clicked the laptop closed.
She knew it spelled an end, not just to her plans for revenge, but to the very thing that had kept her going. She had nothing else. She acknowledged her love for Dallas as if appreciating a beautiful object she could never possibly own. She couldn’t let it affect her, couldn’t let it near her. She had to leave.
She took one last look around the elegant room that was her office, complete with the now familiar heirlooms of the Mackenzie family, and closed the door firmly behind her.
She was dressed and ready before first light. She waited until the first lonely calls of birdsong penetrated the pre-dawn light before taking one last look around the room and quietly opening the door. She held her shoes in one hand and her bag over her shoulder as she avoided the creaking boards and tiptoed down the stairs.
So far so good.
There was no sign or sou
nd of activity in the kitchen and she knew that Rosa slept in the other wing. She just had to unlock the door. She’d seen Rosa lock up at night so knew the drill. As she eased the lock across, there was a sound like a dull thud which caused Cassandra to pause. Surely that came from outside? She hesitated, listening, her ears acute.
Nothing. She must have imagined it.
Dallas waited until the soft thud of the automatic garage door clunked into place before entering the garden. Immediately his gaze was drawn to Cassandra’s window.
No lights. It was still early. She’d be asleep.
The thought of Cassandra in bed did nothing to calm him. Visions of their lovemaking had haunted his mind and body throughout the day and night. Despite the company of beautiful women at dinner and afterwards, he’d seen only her eyes in their faces, felt nothing but the want of her in their every look and gesture. He was besotted and he was not happy.
He slung his jacket over his shoulder, despite the chill of the early morning. He hesitated as he crossed the courtyard and looked up at her open window, the gauzy curtain flipping in and out with the breeze. A vision of her lying on the bed, asleep, naked under the covers, filled his mind: hair, curling in damp tendrils close to her head, the rest fanned out over the pillow.
He shook his head. That way lay madness.
Then he heard the front door click and a shadow emerge, hesitantly, onto the verandah. He withdrew behind a high trellis and watched. If it was a burglar leaving, then he was just in the mood to meet him. A surge of adrenalin swept through his veins. He tensed, ready to attack.
Once the heavy door closed, the intruder stepped out into the garden and then stopped suddenly. Dallas shrunk further back. He could grapple with the burglar now. But something made him hesitate as he watched the outline that grew more distinct as it came closer. He knew who it was, even before the faint waft of her scent reached him.
She was leaving.
But he would follow.