by Helen Brooks
‘Intimidate you?’ He turned to face her then, and his face was as white as a sheet. ‘Is that what you think I’m trying to do?’
‘Well, what, then?’ she shouted despairingly. ‘If not that, then what?’
‘I can’t…’ He raked back his hair and she saw, with absolute amazement, that his hand was shaking. ‘I can’t explain,’ he ground out bitterly, ‘and not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t know how to. I’ve never had to talk to anyone, explain anything. All my life I’ve had to be self-sufficient and one step ahead of everything else. I don’t know how to let go.’
‘But I’m your wife!’
‘I know that. Hell, I know that,’ he bit out, so harshly she took an involuntary step backwards and almost tipped the frying pan off the stove.
It startled them both, and with a muttered oath Zeke was at her side. ‘That’s all I need on my conscience,’ he said with bitter irony, ‘for you to end up in Casualty with first-degree burns on the coldest day for years.’ He swiftly turned off the gas.
Quite how she came to be in his arms Marianne wasn’t sure; she only knew she wanted to be there. His body was hard and strong, and as she put her hands on his upper arms, felt the hard, bunched muscles beneath her fingertips, she felt such a fierce surge of desire she couldn’t contain it.
She met his hungry mouth with a fervent passion that matched Zeke’s, and as his hard male body ground into her she moved against him with equal voracity.
One hard thigh pushed between her legs and she folded herself round the thrusting need, his chest creating a voluptuous, crushing pressure against her aching breasts that was pure, exquisite pain.
He was devouring her with his body, his mouth and tongue creating their own magic until she moaned for more.
The towel had long since slipped to the floor and now, as her clothes followed it, Marianne was too bewildered with pleasure to resist.
There was a tight, hot congestion at the core of her and she knew what it portended, and then, as he moved her to the sofa and began to caress every inch of her with his lips and tongue, she arched against him, relishing the familiar feel of his mouth and body.
He was a master of his craft, and as his mouth worked slowly and provocatively over her taut breasts, her belly and down towards the V between her thighs, she shuddered, every muscle straining in the release of ecstasy only he could bring.
Zeke was hugely aroused, but even as she spread slender, supple limbs and urged him into the silken path of her his control held. He continued to touch and taste her until she was almost fainting with the pleasure of it, the rhythmic undulations that began at the core of her gathering greater and greater impetus.
And then he was inside her, possessing her so completely that nothing else in the world existed but the moment, and like an explosive trigger the contractions deepened and swelled until she was floating in another time, another universe, where all was blinding light and sensation.
Zeke gave a fierce groan of shattering gratification at the moment of their mutual climax and their fulfilment was total, their satiation absolute.
They lay for long, indolent minutes wrapped in each other’s arms as their flesh cooled from the feverish intoxication, but as reality rushed in with all its crystal-clear brutality Marianne became tenser.
What had this meant to him? she asked herself silently. She knew what it had meant to her—a complete giving of herself, a union so elemental as to be all-consuming. But Zeke? Zeke was a man; he could separate the sexual act from his emotions much more easily.
‘Zeke?’ It was a tiny whisper, and then Marianne said the words she would normally never have voiced. ‘What are you thinking?’
She felt him tense, she even thought his lips touched the tangled silk of her hair for a moment, and then he said very softly, which somehow made it all the worse, ‘That this was totally unfair. I’m sorry, Marianne, I should never have touched you.’ And then he lifted himself off her, and she felt a desolation so profound as to be indescribable.
CHAPTER SIX
MARIANNE forced herself to eat a bacon sandwich before she left for the supermarket, although every mouthful felt as if it was sticking in her throat.
Zeke, on the other hand, ate his six rounds of bread with half a pound of bacon and lashings of tomato sauce with every appearance of enjoyment, washing it down with two more mugs of tea.
She glanced at him as she pulled on her coat, wishing with all her heart that it didn’t thrill her to see him sitting on her sofa, but it did. Which probably made her the most stupid person in all of England, she reflected silently.
He caught her eye, smiling the smile he used so rarely but which had the power to turn her inside out, before he said softly, ‘Sure you don’t mind me staying a while longer?’
‘Not at all.’ She tried to sound brisk and matter-of-fact, but it was not easy in view of the fact he was practically naked. ‘Just let yourself out when your clothes are dry and you’re ready to go.’
‘We never did have that talk.’
Story of their lives together, really. ‘No, we never did,’ she agreed evenly, her throat tight. If he’d ever really intended it, that was.
And then he made her feel guilty for the unworthiness of her suspicions when he said, quite humbly for Zeke Buchanan, ‘Can I stay until lunch-time and we’ll talk then? We need to get a few things sorted.’
More than a few. She nodded carefully, searching in her mind for how best to phrase her next words. ‘I think it might be better if you came to the shop and we went for a bar snack, something like that,’ she managed steadily. ‘In view of the separation we shouldn’t really be…’
Her voice trailed away as words failed her.
‘Copulating?’ he suggested expressionlessly.
Okay, pretty basic, but then what had she expected? Marianne asked herself savagely. ‘Making love’ would have been slightly out of place, in the circumstances, although that was exactly what she had done. And Zeke had copulated.
‘I break for lunch at one,’ she said stiffly.
‘I’ll be there.’
Selfish, unfeeling, arrogant pig of a man! She found she was calling him all the names under the sun as she ran down the stairs after a hasty goodbye, and then she stopped just before the door into the street, leaning against the wall for a moment. But he had been sufficiently disturbed by what she had said to him the night before to lose a night’s sleep, she reminded herself hopefully. That was good, wasn’t it?
Or had his nocturnal musings merely confirmed that they weren’t suited and should part? He hadn’t said anything to the contrary; in fact, if she thought about what he had said, rather than what he had done, every indication was that he had decided they should part. And she had fallen into his arms like a ripe peach the minute he had touched her! She groaned quietly, the chill from the wall behind her nothing to the bleak rawness that swept through her as she remembered her total capitulation.
When she opened the door she stepped into seven or eight inches of snow, which immediately swamped the one pair of shoes she had brought with her from the apartment. Great, just great. She stared down at her already soaking feet in exasperation. Thank goodness the supermarket wasn’t a few blocks away! Well, it looked as if a new pair of boots was on the agenda for lunch-time, as well as her date with Zeke. Or perhaps Mrs Polinkski would let her nip out mid-morning and do a spot of essential shopping? She didn’t fancy presenting herself to Zeke as the little waif and stray, especially not after this morning. He needed to see her as cool, calm and confident, perfectly able to take care of herself and her own destiny—not orphan Annie.
Lunchtime saw Marianne snug and warm in the new winter coat and boots which had effectively cleared out the last of her bank account, but she didn’t care. Her life was in ashes round her feet, her husband wanted a separation—she ignored the little voice reminding her she had been the one to set the ball rolling—and she had made a terrible mistake in sleeping with Zeke that
morning, but she intended to look like a million dollars for this lunch date.
Never mind that it was basically to confirm the end of her marriage and all the hopes she’d had for the future; she would go out of his life like a glittering star, not a damp squib!
It was in that frame of mind that she sailed out of the shop at one, glancing round for Zeke as she did so.
‘Marianne?’
She hadn’t seen the BMW, parked, as it was, between a large van and a big four-by-four, but as Zeke wound down the window and called to her she lifted a gloved hand—new beige leather gloves which matched the boots and complemented the chocolate-brown coat perfectly—and walked carefully over to the car. It had stopped snowing but was freezing hard, and the pavement was like glass.
‘Hallo, Zeke,’ she said shortly, her cool voice belying the rapid beating of her heart as he left the car and walked round to open her door for her.
He had obviously been home to change; the big lean body was clothed as immaculately as ever, a different overcoat open over a crisp designer suit that dared a flake of snow to spoil its spotless perfection. He looked what he was—a powerful, wealthy, handsome man with an excess of intelligence and a raw magnetism that was lethal. As different from the grey-faced, tormented individual she had opened the door to first thing that morning as chalk from cheese.
Would the real Zeke Buchanan please stand up!
As she slid into the car and he closed the door, before walking round the bonnet to the driver’s seat, she found herself watching him.
She had seen two facets of his complex personality this morning—one, a tongue-tied, tortured creature, and the other a devastatingly accomplished and confident lover. Now she was seeing a third—the man he usually presented to the world in general. But it was the first one who interested her. She hadn’t seen him before, and something deep inside, born of her love for him, told her she had to see that Zeke Buchanan again if there was any hope for them.
He had been very low this morning, exhausted with all his defences down, and so the mask had slipped for a while. She would have to make it slip again.
And she wouldn’t do that by dressing herself up as she had this lunch-time and trying to act a part—the part of cool, self-contained woman of the world. She had to be herself, whatever the cost. In fact, as she looked back over the last twenty-six months and saw how much she had tried to clone herself to fall into line with the Lilianas of his empire, she was surprised and shocked at herself.
Zeke had fallen in love with an ordinary young girl who hadn’t known one designer label from another, who had been exuberant and fresh and outspoken.
Admittedly that young girl hadn’t realised how complicated and perplexing the object of her devotion was, but she was still the young Marianne inside, only with the benefit of more than two years’ wisdom and maturity as Zeke’s wife. He was hurting badly, he had shown her that in the brief glimpse of himself that morning, and she had to try and get him to open up to her.
It didn’t mean she wouldn’t go through with her plans for the future; she needed to do that for her own sake. Zeke was too consuming a husband, too dominant for her not to have her own interests and career. She needed that to balance their roles. Their marriage could only benefit from it.
Of course this was assuming she still had a marriage. Her mouth twisted wryly and Zeke, who had just slid into the car and started the engine, said quietly, ‘That’s a Mona Lisa smile if ever I saw one. What are you thinking?’
The young Marianne would have told him, and so she did. ‘I was wondering if you have written us off,’ she said baldly.
The car swerved slightly but the male enigma held. ‘I rather thought the boot was on the other foot,’ he said coolly. ‘And they are very nice boots, by the way. You weren’t wearing them this morning, were you?’
Very neatly done, she thought irritably. He had sidestepped the issue with a sugar-coated pill to make her sweet. ‘No.’ She smiled brightly. ‘I bought them to impress you, if you must know. Along with the new coat.’
This time he couldn’t hide his surprise, the grey gaze flashing over her face for a moment before he said, ‘They have. Impressed me, I mean.’
‘Good.’ She returned to the attack. ‘So, have you decided we’re finished, Zeke?’
There was a heavy silence for a moment, and then he said, his voice very tight, ‘It’s not as easy as that, and you know it, Marianne. The bottom line is that being married to me is destroying you, and I see that now.’
‘And this morning, when we made love?’ she asked, with an evenness that was pure will-power as her heart thumped so hard against her ribcage she was sure it must be rocking the car. ‘Because that’s what we did, Zeke. We made love. We didn’t copulate like a pair of animals or a one-night stand. We made love to each other.’
‘That doesn’t alter the way things are,’ he said coldly.
But she had caught the hidden note of pain in his voice and it gave her the courage to say, ‘No, it doesn’t; I know that. But things don’t have to be that way, do they? You said, when you first arrived at the bedsit this morning, that you loved me. Do you? Do you love me?’
‘Of course I love you.’
‘There’s no “of course” about it,’ she said with a braveness she was far from feeling. ‘People fall out of love all the time, we both know that, and sometimes it’s said as a prelude to letting someone down gently—’
‘Hell, Marianne, what do you want from me?’ It was a harsh growl, and then, as he braked violently to avoid running into the car in front of them, he said grimly, ‘Can’t this wait until we’re having lunch?’
‘No, because you’ll shut down again then and I won’t even have a snarl from you,’ she shot back angrily.
The traffic was stationary, and as the grey eyes swept across her hot face she saw reluctant amusement in the dark depths. ‘Is that what I do? Snarl?’ he murmured softly.
And she wasn’t going to be charmed away from the main thrust of what she wanted to say either. It had happened too many times in the past and enough was enough. ‘Occasionally,’ she said evenly. ‘If all else fails.’
‘I’m surprised you’ve stayed with me two years, considering your low opinion of me.’ He said it lightly, but there was a definite edge there.
‘Perhaps it’s because I love you,’ she said quietly.
‘History is littered with people who loved each other and ended up in a hell of their own making.’ He met her eyes and held up a hand as she opened her mouth to protest. ‘No, you wanted me to talk so I’ll try and tell you how I feel, Marianne.’
The lights changed, and as the BMW purred forward he said tensely, the words seemingly wrenched out of him, ‘I’m not making excuses, so get that straight from the start, but I owe it to you to tell you how it is; I see that now. It was self-indulgent to marry you. Quite how self-indulgent I didn’t realise at the time.’
She sat quite still, her hands clasped together and her eyes staring ahead as she willed herself to listen quietly and show no emotion.
‘I’d had other women before you, Marianne, but you know that,’ he said grimly. ‘They were on the whole confident, perhaps even aggressive, career women: women who knew exactly what they wanted out of life and what they were aiming for, who wanted their personal lives to be controlled and uncluttered. They didn’t expect or want the emotional involvement that comes with commitment, but none of them were promiscuous, not even Liliana.’
She inwardly flinched at the name but remained absolutely still outwardly, her face expressionless.
‘All they required, as did I, was the assurance that for as long as the affair continued it would be monogamous, with both parties being totally honest.’
‘It sounds very cold-blooded,’ she said quietly, keeping all trace of censure out of her voice.
‘It was.’ He nodded sharply. ‘I liked it that way. You see, Marianne, the one thing I brought out of my childhood and youth was autonomy. For the fir
st five years after my mother had placed me into care she visited now and again, and at that stage she refused to consider letting me go for adoption. She lived a pretty wild lifestyle by all accounts, and in a strange sort of way I think I was her security blanket.’ His mouth twisted cynically.
‘Then she met a guy, a rich guy, who didn’t want to have someone else’s kid in the background, and when he proposed marriage I never saw her again. She signed the papers for adoption then, but I was a disturbed little boy, difficult. I—’ He paused, and then bit out tightly, as though he resented having to say the words, ‘I missed her.’
Her heart was turning over in pain for him but she was wise enough not to show it. In all the months they had been together his past life had been a closed book to her, apart from the bare essential facts he had told her in the first weeks they’d met. Any approach by herself to discuss his childhood had always met with a firm rebuff and change of subject. ‘How old were you when the first adoption attempt failed?’ she asked softly.
‘Six and a half.’
There wasn’t a trace of emotion in his voice, but she now knew that meant nothing. Inside there was still a small hurt boy, and she’d been a fool, such a fool, not to see it. Perhaps if she’d been older, more experienced, when they had met she would have understood better, even persuaded him to show the festering wound the clean, healing light of day? But she hadn’t understood. And he hadn’t said a word.
‘That must have been hard for you,’ she said steadily.
‘It wasn’t too easy on the prospective parents either,’ he said with a touch of bitter amusement. ‘They had chosen a cute little boy with black curls and a serious face—their description, by the way, not mine—who virtually wrecked their house and turned their neat, orderly way of life upside down. We all made mistakes—I was crying out for help—’ she thought it indicative of how damaged he was that he couldn’t, even now, say love ‘—and they reacted in all the wrong ways.’