Just for a Night

by Miranda Lee

  ‘Don’t,’ James rasped. ‘For pity’s sake, Marina.’

  Her shame was instant, but pride demanded she didn’t back down. ‘Don’t what?’

  ‘Don’t torture me so,’ he groaned.

  ‘And what have you done to me these past two days?’ she challenged. ‘Avoided me like poison, even when I ran into you at the hospital when I went to visit Rebecca with Henry. You didn’t even come home for dinner last night. Then you make an appearance tonight to take me out, looking like Prince Charming on his white charger, trying to seduce me with extravagant compliments.’

  ‘They aren’t compliments,’ he said with a weary sigh. ‘They’re true. You are stunning. And I only stayed away because I could not bear seeing you all the time—just as I could not bear not to do this tonight.’

  ‘What? Try to seduce me?’

  He glared at her. ‘That’s the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it? I could accuse you of trying to seduce me, dressed as you are. Still, I’ll recognise your right to dress as you please if you will recognise my right to react to the end result as any red-blooded male would.’

  She laughed. ‘What a pathetic excuse! Why don’t you just say it, James? Spell it out. Tell me what you had in mind for tonight before you saw how I was dressed.’

  His eyes narrowed upon her. ‘I had nothing in mind,’ he said tautly. ‘I had become quite resigned this past week to being the complete gentleman till the bitter end.’

  She laughed. ‘Sure. That’s why you ordered this little number.’ And she waved her hand around the inside of the limousine. ‘Blind Freddie could see that this is just a boudoir on wheels! What’s the catch, James? Have you got a standing order for one of these whenever you take a girl to the theatre, or wherever else you take them? The ones you want to impress, that is.’

  ‘I did not order this car,’ he bit out frustratedly. ‘Henry did.’

  ‘Oh, sure.’

  ‘It was either this or a taxi. William put the Bentley in for servicing and it wasn’t going to be ready in time. You’re quite wrong about my intentions, Marina. Now stop it, will you? I can’t bear any more tonight.’

  For a moment Marina felt guilty. It had been a hell of a week for him. She knew how worried he’d been about Rebecca. It was to be thanked that the early signs were so good. Rebecca had looked marvellous this afternoon. She’d been chirpy and cheeky, a very good sign. And the doctor had said her early blood tests were more than hopeful.

  But, Rebecca aside, they really did have to sort this out.

  ‘Well, if I’m wrong about your intentions, then tell me what’s right,’ she demanded to know. ‘Tell me what you feel for Tiffany. And what you feel for me,’ she added, her voice breaking a little.

  He closed his eyes and shook his head. ‘Dear God, you won’t give me any peace, will you?’ He opened his eyes to turn his head and look at her again, his face full of frustration.

  ‘I am fond of Tiffany,’ he stated brusquely. ‘More than fond. I have known her for years and we are well matched. The only reason I haven’t slept with her is because she doesn’t want to till we’re married. She has been brought up in a very…old-fashioned…way. For reasons which are complex, I would feel duty-bound to marry her even if I didn’t want to marry her!

  ‘I admit I’ve been having trouble with living a celibate existence,’ he confessed, combing agitated fingers back through his perfectly groomed black hair. ‘But I vowed to myself I would remain faithful, come hell or high water! I just never dreamt that my hell or high water would come in the guise of a fiery, redheaded Australian girl whose spirit and beauty I have come not only to admire but to covet as I have never coveted before!’

  He glared at her, as though this was all her fault. And she was beginning to feel very guilty over her dress.

  ‘I convinced myself I could endure till you left England,’ he went on, blue eyes glittering with desire as they roved down her body, then up again. ‘And I might have succeeded if I, too, had not received a phone call today. From Tiffany.’

  Marina’s heart gave a nervous little leap. ‘What…what did she say?’

  ‘She told me she wanted to wait a while before getting engaged. She said she was worried she was too young for marriage at this stage. She said she needed some time and space to think things over.’

  Marina was astonished. The girl she’d seen at the hospital had clearly been besotted by James. What had happened in Italy to give her last-minute doubts?

  ‘And what did you say?’ she asked James.

  ‘I said I understood, and that she was being very wise if she was at all unsure.’

  It immediately crossed Marina’s mind that James had not told Tiffany in return that he was having doubts. The way remained clear for him to marry the girl, if and when she got over these last-minute nerves.

  ‘How very…convenient for you,’ she said, a bitter taste in her mouth.

  James glowered over at her. ‘There is nothing at all convenient about any of this, Marina, especially what I feel for you.’

  Before she could protest, he slid over the wide red seat and forcefully gathered her hands in his. ‘I have never really fallen in love in my life,’ he confessed. ‘Not with a passion which has lasted anyway. I can’t say what I feel for you is love. I only know that it is different, and infinitely distracting. Desire for you has dominated my every waking moment since the moment we met. My sleep is similarly disturbed. I can think of nothing else but touching you, kissing you, making love to you.’

  He lifted her hands and pressed her fingertips to his lips, kissing them feverishly. He turned over her right hand and snaked his tongue along its palm, then up the wrist, then along the soft, sensitive skin which led up to the elbow.

  Marina’s eyes were wide upon his dark head as it bent over her, his mouth working a shivery magic on her arm. She sucked in a shaky breath every time his hot, wet tongue trailed over a new and seemingly more sensitised spot.

  She would never have believed an arm could possess such erotic zones. He was moving higher now, above her elbow, up to her shoulder and down around the deep armhole of her dress. Her breast seemed to swell as his mouth drew nearer, its nipple tightening. Oh, God! Both breasts were responding now. Her heart began to thud heavily and her lips parted to let the ragged breaths escape her panting lungs.

  When his head lifted to look at her, her eyes felt glazed. He held them while he unhooked the collar on her dress and peeled it downwards, trapping her arms by her sides and baring her shamelessly aroused breasts to his sight.

  At last, his eyes lowered to look straight at them.

  ‘God forgive me,’ he muttered. But it didn’t sound like a prayer. More an expression of ruthless resolve.

  His head began to bend and she just sat there, with her back pressed hard against the seat and her breasts thrust stiffly forward, her mind petrified but her flesh avidly awaiting his touch, and his tongue.

  The first contact of his hands and lips on her naked flesh brought a rushing inward gasp of breath. She held it for several agonising seconds, disbelieving of the way it felt when he sucked on one breast while he caressed the other. Finally, she let the breath out in one long shuddering sigh of total surrender.

  Nothing had prepared her for this, she realised dazedly. Not even Shane. For this was heaven and hell combined. Happiness, yet misery. Agony, and ecstasy. The sweetest pleasure, yet the most poignant pain.

  For the man adoring her body, tormenting it, enslaving it, had just told her he probably didn’t love her. Which was as good as saying he didn’t. She would ultimately prove to be a passing passion, as all his other women had been passing passions. Only Tiffany had his heart. Tiffany, the innocent. Tiffany, the sweet. And it was Tiffany he would marry.

  But it was she, Marina, he wanted to make love to right at this moment.

  And she wanted him to. Oh, she wanted him to so much. There was an ache for him in her body and in her heart which was growing with each sweep of his tongue, with
each touch of his hand.

  She grew mindless with yearning, sliding slowly sidewards on the seat as he tongued her nipples into hard pebbles of exquisite torture. She moaned and writhed against the plush velvet seat, her restless legs screaming out for him to stroke them, part them. She ached to have him undress her further. She wanted to be naked for him. She would have done anything he asked. Given him anything he wanted.

  So she was shaken when he abruptly yanked her upright. His hands felt angry as he dragged her dress up over her throbbing breasts and hooked the collar in place. Her eyes searched his for a clue as to what was going on. Why had he stopped? Had he had second thoughts? Didn’t he want her any more?

  Tears were just a second away when he spoke.

  ‘Forgive me,’ he said, poking a stray hair of hers back into place. ‘I know how you must be feeling. But we’re only seconds away from the theatre.’

  Marina stared at him.

  How had he known that? Had he kept an eye on his watch? Or was he a practised hand at this scenario, knowing exactly how much lovemaking he had time for beforehand, leaving his victim all primed up for the second act, after they came out of the theatre?

  ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he groaned. ‘I said I was sorry.’ And he bent to kiss her on the mouth. His first. But it was a mere apologetic peck. Not a kiss racked with uncontrollable desire. She was the one shaking with uncontrollable desire. James was very much back in control—of himself and the situation.

  Oh, Marina, Marina, you fool. This man is a past master of such games. Didn’t Henry warn you? Did you honestly think you could play with this kind of fire and not get burned?

  No more, she resolved bitterly. No more.

  ‘You’re not at all sorry,’ she flung at him. ‘You planned this. I know you did.’

  ‘I planned nothing,’ he denied curtly. ‘I give you my word. As a gentleman.’

  ‘Then you have a strange idea of what constitutes being a gentleman. Or is it that you think I’m not a lady?’

  His blue eyes blazed. ‘What just happened between us has nothing to do with being a gentleman and a lady, and everything to do with being a man and a woman! God, if I’d planned this, do you honestly think I would be taking you into that stupid theatre at this point? I would be ordering the driver to go round in endless circles while I made endless love to you.

  ‘I can’t win, no matter what I do, can I? That’s what’s been so difficult about this situation from the start. Neither of us has been free to admit—and act on—how we feel. But I see now there are certain things beyond society’s ideas of right and wrong. Beyond rules. What we feel for each other is one of those things. What will be will be!’

  ‘What will be for me is what I decide!’ she argued, though shakily. ‘And I do not decide to be one of your passing passions! Come Sunday, I am going to fly back to Sydney, and Shane. And I’m going to forget you ever existed!’

  ‘You think you can fight the fates, Marina?’ he ground out, an angry bitterness in those beautiful blue eyes of his. ‘I think not…’

  She only had to recall herself a minute ago, lying half-naked and abandoned beneath him, to concede what he was saying was true. But that didn’t make the truth any more palatable.

  ‘You are not to touch me again in this disgusting car,’ came her heated protest. ‘You will get rid of it and take me home in a taxi. Give me your word. As a gentleman,’ she finished challengingly.

  He glared at her for one long, excruciatingly tense moment, then slowly turned his head away, his chin tipping up proudly. ‘You have it,’ he ground out.

  The car slid to a halt as he spoke. The back door opened and the real world rushed back in.

  Noise. Lights. Crowds.

  Marina blinked and recoiled. No, she wanted to scream. No, close the door again. I take it all back. Tell the chauffeur to drive round in circles. Undress me. Make endless love to me.

  Don’t take me out there feeling like this! Don’t make me sit next to you all night in a darkened theatre without being able to touch you. Don’t torture me with this awful craving, this unacceptable, unendurable, unfulfilled desire!

  But he did take her out there. He did make her sit beside him without so much as holding her hand. And he capped off the evening by taking her home in a taxi and not speaking a single word, let alone kissing her or touching her in any way.

  She was in a terrible state by the time James silently opened the apartment door and waved her inside. She was on the verge of humiliating herself totally by begging him to make love to her right there on the black and white tiled floor…when Henry walked down the stairs.

  ‘Good evening, My Lord, Miss Marina.’ He nodded sombrely towards her. ‘I trust the play was enjoyable?’

  The play? She hadn’t heard a word of it, had no idea if it had been a drama or a comedy.

  ‘It was excellent,’ she said, and wondered how she could sound so normal when it felt as if ants were crawling all over her skin, when her breasts ached unbearably and a liquid heat scorched between her thighs. Never had Shane made her feel like this. She wanted to slap James’s handsome face, rake her nails down his back, sob into his shoulder.

  The valet nodded sagely. ‘There is nothing like a night at the London theatre. I do apologise again for the limousine, My Lord, but it was all the hire car company could give me at short notice. William said to tell you that the car will be ready for tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’ James echoed, frowning. ‘What’s happening tomorrow?’

  The valet smiled an uncharacteristically wide smile. ‘The hospital rang soon after you left this evening. They say Rebecca can go home for the weekend.’

  ‘But that’s wonderful!’ James exclaimed.

  ‘Indeed, My Lord. I spoke to the child herself and she was so excited. But she doesn’t want to come here. She wants to go down to Winterborne Hall.’

  ‘But of course! Anything she wants.’

  ‘She…er…especially asked if Miss Marina could go too.’

  Marina’s stomach contracted fiercely.

  ‘She can’t, I’m afraid,’ James said sharply. ‘She has a plane to catch on Sunday.’

  Henry looked a little sheepish. ‘Er…I took the liberty of ringing the airline, and they are more than happy to exchange Miss Marina’s ticket for Monday’s flight. It seems the Sunday flight is always rather overbooked.’

  James’s expression was one of total exasperation. ‘That’s all very well, Henry, but I believe Marina is anxious to get back to Sydney and her fiancé. Isn’t that so, Marina?’

  Marina had to admire his ongoing fortitude. Clearly he had decided to fight the good fight to the bitter end, as he’d said.

  But, perversely, his noble self-sacrifice only made her love him all the more. And want him all the more. Feeling as she did at that moment, his putting the decision in her hands appealed to her dark side, and that awful voice which would not be denied.

  He won’t be able to resist you, no matter what he’s decided. Not away from Henry’s watchful eyes. Not down there, in one of those enormous bedrooms he’s sure to occupy. Maybe he’ll even have a four-poster bed…

  ‘I would dearly love to come down to Winterborne Hall with Rebecca,’ she heard herself saying, with only the smallest quaver in her voice. ‘You did the right thing about changing my flight, Henry. Don’t make such a fuss, James,’ she said, turning to him. ‘It’s only one night, after all. Shane can wait one more night.’

  Their eyes locked and his widened slightly.

  And then he knew. Knew what she was saying. She would give him one night. And give herself one night. With him.

  She watched him struggle with what she knew had to be a wickedly compelling temptation.

  ‘It’s your decision,’ he said slowly, but his fists remained balled by his side.

  ‘I’ve already made up my mind,’ she said.

  ‘So be it,’ he said, and as he stared deep into her eyes his own were strangely cold, yet full of a da
rk triumph.

  He was rationalising her decision, she realised. Seeing it for what it wasn’t. A night of selfish, secret lust which would not stop either of them from forging ahead and eventually marrying others. He did not understand that she loved him with all her heart, that she would never marry any man but him, that she would go to the grave a spinster rather than settle for anything less than what she knew tomorrow night would bring.

  And so the deed was done, and their fate sealed.

  But was it fate? Marina wondered as she lay wide-eyed in the Rose Room bed later that night. Some kind of warped destiny which had thrown them together and forced them along this path?

  She did not know. She only knew she had to do this. Call it fate. Or destiny. Or written.

  Tomorrow night she would spend in James’s bed.

  Tomorrow night…

  Her eyes slid to the bedside clock. Just after three. Would she never fall asleep?

  No, she accepted with a small, dry laugh. There was no sleep for the wicked. No sleep at all.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘I’M GOING home! I’m going home!’

  Rebecca was bouncing up and down on the back seat of the Bentley between James and Marina.

  ‘Do be still, Rebecca,’ James said sharply.

  Rebecca pulled a face at Marina. ‘Uncle James only calls me Rebecca like that when he’s in a bad mood.’

  James sighed. ‘I am not in a bad mood. I’m simply tired. Marina and I went out last night and I was late getting to sleep.’

  ‘I didn’t sleep much, either,’ Rebecca said, beginning to bounce again. ‘I was too excited.’

  ‘Yes, well, I understand exactly what you mean,’ was her uncle’s dry remark. ‘I was pretty excited myself.’ And he threw Marina a scorching look over the child’s bobbing head.