Savage Obsession

by Diana Hamilton

  Reciprocally, the community returned that interest, and with a vengeance! Nothing the Savage family did escaped the notice of at least one vil­lager, who would then proceed to pass it on to everyone willing to listen. And most were more than willing, although her father had once grunted, 'Gossip may be a normal human failing, but this time it's going too far. I pity the poor devil, having to lead his life in the full glare of public scrutiny and mindless tittle-tattle—he's having a hard enough time, without knowing that every last move he makes is avidly discussed on every doorstep.'

  And even now she could still hear her mother's patient reply. 'The gossip isn't malicious. People are sorry for him—especially now that James is working abroad. Poor Charles has simply gone in on himself, shutting himself away in that great empty house, brooding. He was obsessed by that Zanna Hall, everyone knew it. And now she's left him. People say she refused point-blank to marry him and tie herself down.'

  '"People say"!' her father had repeated scathingly. 'They might well say, but how much do they actually know?'

  'You'd be surprised.' Her mother had quietly continued with her knitting. 'Anyway, you can't hide something as obvious as an all-out obsession. Everyone said no good would come of it. And it hasn't, has it?'

  No, no good had come of it, Beth reflected sourly. And Charles would be perfectly well aware how tongues would wag—with utter disgust this time—if the gossips were to get hold of the infor­mation that he'd thrown little Beth Garner-that-was, the respected local GP's daughter, out on her neck to make room for Zanna Hall and their ready-made family. Which was why he would move heaven and earth to make himself seem the injured party! He wouldn't want to lose his standing with the local population, many of whom were his tenants, she decided cynically.

  And he seemed to be sleeping late, she thought, swinging her legs over the side of the high, old-fashioned bed. Though how he could do that, on the small, uncomfortable sofa, she hadn't the least idea. But she was utterly thankful that there was no sound of him moving around when, as her feet touched the floor, the familiar morning nausea hit her.

  She only just made it to the bathroom in time and emerged ten minutes later, grey-faced, to pull on a pair of well-worn jeans and an emerald-green cotton blouse. After a glass of water and a slice of dry toast she would be fine. Ready to face what the day had in store. That it would be nothing pleasant, she knew full well. But, somehow, she would handle it.

  At least Charles hadn't surfaced to witness her violent bout of morning sickness, she consoled herself as she picked her way downstairs. She had no intention of telling him about the child they had conceived. It would smack of emotional blackmail.

  If he preferred Zanna, and of course he did, then she wasn't going to use their unborn child as leverage to make him stay with her. The thought of tying him to her, knowing he was in love with someone else, made her feel ill. Besides, he already had a child, a son to carry his name, given him by the woman he had never stopped loving, a son who would soon legitimately bear his name.

  It was something she had already accepted and the sooner this day was over and she was free to get on with the rest of her life, the better it would be. And the very first thing to do was to tackle Charles head-on, tell him she knew what he was up to, what he was trying to prove.

  And then, she thought, she would tell him to go to hell! Because maybe, just maybe, she was at last beginning to get some sense! How could she possibly love a man who could do that to her? And when they came face to face she would tell him pre­cisely how despicable he was, not worth a mo­ment's thought. And by saying it out loud she might make it the truth.

  But easier said than done. A thorough search of the tiny cottage—which didn't take longer than a couple of minutes—told her he wasn't around. And his car had gone.

  As she stood in the centre of the clearing, the mud now rapidly drying out in the morning sun, her green eyes clouded with exasperation. Where the hell was he?

  And half an hour later she was still asking the same question, but more with anxiety now because surely he wouldn't have gone to the trouble to bring her here, only to disappear into thin air himself?

  A sudden thought sent relief spurting through her and she dived for the small fridge, pulling it open then closing it slowly, something more than dis­appointment making her shoulders slump.

  So he hadn't gone to the nearest village for sup­plies, she thought drearily. The fridge was fully stocked. And he must have spent some time here, she thought, pouring a glass of water and sipping it reflectively. The store cupboards, too, were well stocked with tinned and dried food and she knew he had a few changes of clothing in the drawers upstairs. And it couldn't have been his intention to bring her here and dump her goodness knew how many miles from another human being, no means of transport and no phone!

  But worse than that uncomfortable thought—so very much worse—was the tight ache inside her chest that came from missing him! And that knocked her former theory that her pride wouldn't allow her to go on loving him right on the head, didn't it just!

  At the sound of a car drawing into the clearing she went weak with relief. He was back! She fled over the room and out through the door, her heart racing. No need to wonder why she suddenly felt so light-hearted, she thought drily, why the relief that he had not, as she had begun to fear, been taken ill in the night and had driven away, looking for medical assistance, was almost intoxicating. She still loved the swine. Her foolish heart refused to listen to the wisdom of her head.

  She stood watching him as he got out of the car, his movements relaxed and smooth, and she pushed her hair back out of her eyes. Her hand was shaking. And something of what she was feeling must have got through to him because he walked slowly towards her, stopping, towering right over her, and he said lightly, his mouth curling upwards just a little, 'Missed me?'

  Totally unable to deny what she was sure any fool could read on her face, she said thickly, 'Where were you?' and suddenly felt claustrophobic, as if the tall trees were moving nearer, crowding her, smothering her. But it had nothing to do with the forest. He was doing the crowding. He hadn't moved, he hadn't needed to, his very presence was suffocating her.

  And there was more than a smile in his eyes right now.

  The narrowed grey slits were knowing as they rested for a lingering moment on her wide, shocked green eyes then drifted slowly down, assessing the suddenly soft trembling vulnerability of her parted lips, and down again to the revealing peaks of her breasts as they pushed in aching invitation against the fine cotton of her blouse.

  And there wasn't even a hint of a query now as he moved a pace nearer and repeated, a shocking glint of something triumphant, alive and deep in his eyes, 'You missed me.'

  She picked up the danger and desperately tried to negate it, shaking her head, her denial too ve­hement as her pulses suddenly changed gear, racing.

  'You're crazy! I thought you'd dumped me. Wondered how far I'd have to walk, dragging a heavy suitcase, before I got back to civilisation—that's all.' Her eyes met his defiantly, impressing the lie, but she saw the soft insolence of his smile and shuddered.

  He didn't believe a single word, and the angry reaction to the way she had actually worried about the brute had her snapping out, 'Where the hell were you, anyway?'

  'Finding a phone and arranging for one of my secretaries to present herself on your former boss's doorstep to deal with your unfinished professional business.' He laid slight stress on the 'professional' but his shrug was minimal as he moved in, stating, 'It's not important.'

  And what was? she wondered chaotically, as those narrowed, steely eyes undressed her, ab­sorbing the fine tremors that invaded her skin. That she had missed him, worried about him? Did he get his kicks out of making her emotions go into a I state of aching confusion? Turning her into a gib­bering wreck while he stayed so calm, so coolly aloof?

  But there was nothing aloof about the slow burn she glimpsed behind his eyes, nothing aloof about the way he br
ought his hand up, the tanned skin of his long, hard fingers brushing against the peachy softness of her cheek, lingering for one tantalising moment against the fullness of her lips, making them part, revealing her trembling vulnerability.

  Oh, nothing aloof at all.

  Beth shuddered, watching her control slide out of existence with a strange detachment. He only had to touch her…

  Touch her. The warm pads of his fingers were resting now on the tiny pulse that was beating so frantically at the base of her throat and he said thickly, 'You are so beautiful.'

  He had never said that to her before and, for a brief space of time, for a few glorious, heady mo­ments, she believed him. Could believe nothing else as his mouth took hers, his strong, inescapable arms drawing her so close to the hard length of his body that they seemed to be fused together, divided only by the thin superfluity of clothing, paradoxically made whole by the very separateness of their sex.

  And her senses went haywire as his hands shaped her body, making it blossom beneath the sliding sensuality of his touch.

  Greedily, lost in the wanton responsiveness only he could call forth, her body moved against his, soft breasts crushed against the heated masculinity of his chest, hips pressing urgently on to his, the obvious strength of his arousal making her mindless, boneless, utterly receptive. And her head was spinning, her brain functions on hold, as he swept her up into his arms and carried her back to the cottage, his long stride purposeful. And her head fell back against the taut breadth of his shoulder, her lazy eyes sweeping languorously to his profile, and her heart almost exploded with ra­pacious sensation as the glint of resolve in those j predatory, narrowed eyes, the dull flush of naked desire that brushed the taut skin across his angular cheekbones, the sensual curve of that hard, bold mouth told a story that was as old as time…

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  In a daze of receptive sensuality, Beth felt as if she were being wafted upstairs on the wings of a dream. In reality, Charles's arms were holding her close, his dark head dipped as his mouth curved erotically over the exposed skin of her long white throat, the delicate angle of her jaw, the sensitive hollow just below her ear. And that was so much better, infi­nitely more satisfying than any dream.

  And a drugging mist of fantasy kept her pinned to the bed, her body so boneless that she felt as if she were drowning in honey, and languorously she became plastic beneath the sureness of his hands, her breath swelling within her as he slowly unbut­toned the green cotton blouse, pulling it away from the gleaming slenderness of her shoulders as if it were a thing of no substance, dissolving in the heated, narcotic sexual tension that throbbed and sighed in the air.

  A tension that inexorably began to tighten. She could feel the build-up, the spiralling heat so deep inside her, felt it and caught the echo of it coming from him, calling her, binding her. And as the last of her clothing disappeared beneath the wicked magic of his hands, he straightened, the heat of desire marking the high slash of his cheekbones, the brooding intensity of his eyes holding hers captive as his hands went to the buckle of his belt.

  And he said thickly, 'You want me. That has to prove something.'

  And something sharp, very painful, exploded darkly in her brain. It killed the wanting, the over­powering need, made all that magic turn to dust, translating into a raw sob as she twisted round on the bed, burrowing beneath the covers as if she could hide from the hateful, shameful knowledge that he had deliberately set out to prove just how easily she could be turned on—by any passable man who happened along, regardless of emotion. That she didn't care who that man was, that even the man she had repeatedly asked for a divorce could make her delirious, begging for sexual release!

  'Just go away—leave me alone!' she howled, self-disgust and the icy knowledge that she was just part of a vile experiment, part of his plan to discredit her, making her voice a disjointed, anguished sound beneath the smothering duvet.

  Merciless hands dragged the unlikely shield away from her body, his voice no less unyielding as he told her rawly, 'Never. And you'd better believe that.'

  And then he was on the bed beside her, one long, hard-muscled, hair-roughened leg across her, pinning her down, and she raised her white-knuckled fists to beat him off, her blood pounding in burning outrage, but one of his hands, quite slowly and oh, so effortlessly, pulled those totally ineffective little fists above her head and his voice was silky as he told her, 'Don't make me fight you for what we both know we want.'

  His dark head dipped, his daunting mouth fastening around one pulsatingly aware nipple, playing with it until she thought she would go out of her mind before he gave his exquisitely tor­menting attention to its twin. And his voice sounded strangely muffled, reaching her consciousness in wave upon wave of disorientating sensuality. 'I only have to touch you—like this, and this…' And her treacherous body gave up the fight.

  And then the last of the small bright flame of resistance, of common sense, was quenched in the heat, in the moist and sultry pool of desire. And her body instinctively relaxed, moving, arching be­neath his, opening to receive his throbbing need, answering it, matching it with the passionate flowering of the silken sheath of her womanhood.

  'Are you hungry?' Beth opened her love-drugged eyes slowly to find Charles propped on one elbow, looking at her. And she stretched, supple as a cat, a voluptuous smile curving her kiss-swollen lips. She could tell him she was hungry for him, again and again, but he might think her immodest.

  The slow smile twitched into a wide grin at that much too belated notion and he knew her thoughts—of course he did. He made a small, rough growling sound in his throat and circled one erect nipple with the tip of a finger.

  'Later, my insatiable little cat. Later, and more, and better.'

  More. The very thought made her womb pulsate, that low, telling heat beginning to throb again, and she squirmed over on to her stomach, burying her face into the pillow that smelled of him, of the spicy cologne he wore, the musky scent of masculinity that was his alone.

  And it couldn't possibly be better, she thought, feeling him leave the bed, hearing the rustle of his clothing, the faint scratchy sound as he dealt with the zip of his jeans. So many times during the long summer morning, so many times, all of them re­vealing a different aspect of his sexuality—savagely masterful, tender, slow, so slow with the sensuality of the true voluptuary. So many times and all of them beautiful…

  A light tap on her naked backside, a tap that almost lingered, hovered, just, and so tantalisingly, on the edge of a new discovery, pulled her out of drugging memory and he said, 'Food. Ten minutes. OK?'

  And she simply nodded, on a plane too divorced from reality to speak because that tap had lingered, full of promise—if promises were needed…

  Twenty minute later, showered, dressed now in a full filmy cotton skirt with a toning peacock-blue sleeveless blouse tied just beneath her breasts, she wandered down to the tiny kitchen. She still felt disorientated, as if she had been drugged, reality blurred and suspended. But her nostrils quivered appreciatively at the aroma of grilled bacon and she said lightly, 'So you mastered the stove. You deserve a medal!'

  It was a cranky-looking monster, and ran on bottled gas, and to Beth's jaundiced eye it looked about a thousand years old, but Charles gave her an odd, tight smile, hunched one shoulder and turned to yank at the door of the oven. And she looked at him, weak still with the ecstasy of what had happened, a weakness compounded by what her lingering eyes drank in—the tall, lean strength of him, the wide, rangy shoulders covered in the dark cotton of his shirt, the worn jeans that snuggled to spare hips, neat buttocks and long sexy legs.

  But he wasn't looking at her as he extracted two plates from the oven, holding them with a cloth. And he walked quickly over to a ramshackle apology for a breakfast bar which, she saw, he had taken the trouble to spread with a checked table­cloth and had set out with fruit conserves, a crock of butter, a rack of fresh toast and a big brown pot from which he began to pour stea
ming, fragrant tea.

  'I'm starving,' she admitted, pulling up a stool and sitting down to a plate mounded with bacon and mushrooms.

  He joined her, picking up his cutlery, and instead of agreeing he said, 'Tell me exactly why you de­cided to walk out on our marriage.'

  It was like being flung into a bath of cold water. It took her breath away and, for a moment, she couldn't reply because they were back to reality again.

  And, suddenly, she didn't think she could face it, not the cold, hard reality of him and Zanna and Harry. Yet, staring down at her plate, she knew she had to. What had happened this morning had to be firmly placed right at the back of her mind, along with the consequences of their lovemaking over six weeks ago.

  Somehow she was going to have to make a life for herself and the child she was going to bear, and now was the time to start, she informed herself tartly, not feeling too brave about it.

  So she said, in what she hoped was a tone of level reasonableness, 'I told you why, before I left. Surely you can't have forgotten.'

  She couldn't bring herself to mention Zanna. She had already told him how she'd overheard that damning conversation, and he might begin to put two and two together if she as much as mentioned that woman's name.

  Her pride, or what was left of it, demanded that he should believe that she was the one to abandon their marriage. She was not, in his eyes at least, willing to appear as the spurned and discarded wife!

  'I haven't forgotten a single damn word,' he re­plied heavily. Then, 'What I want to know is why. You lacked nothing. We were good together.'

  Her mouth tightened, her fingers knotted together in her lap. Did he think that material things counted for anything? Did he want blood? Did he really want her to confess that her already wounded pride had made her leave before he got the oppor­tunity to throw her out? Would his male ego con­tinue to be piqued until he had wrung just such a confession from her? And she snapped at him heatedly, 'Good together? I disagree. For three months you didn't come near me, stayed away more often than not—you couldn't bear to touch me.'