Secret Passion

by Carole Mortimer

  Aura swallowed hard, knowing he had offered it to her—and she had thrown it back in his face. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pried.’ She pushed her hair back from her face. ‘I was feeling bitchy, and I—I hit out at you.’

  ‘Because I’m trying to get too close,’ he acknowledged, his eyes narrowed.

  ‘Because you won’t go away and leave me alone,’ she nodded abruptly.

  ‘If you don’t feel anything towards me, why should it matter so much?’ he reasoned.

  ‘You don’t understand.’ She shook her head. ‘It isn’t a question of how you make me feel,’ she sighed. ‘I don’t want to become involved with you. I like my life as it is—’

  ‘You like shunning affection from other people because that way you can’t be hurt again? You like being alone even when you’re with other people? You actually like living on that island of emotions where nothing can touch you?’ he rasped harshly.

  The tears welled up and splashed over, wetting her cheeks. He knew, this man really knew what it was like to exist in that sort of solitude, to feel the pain of loneliness deep inside you where it never went away!

  ‘It doesn’t have to be like that, Aura,’ he groaned, his arms going about her shaking body. ‘God, I’m not asking you to give up that protection to take a chance on me. All I want is that you try, Aura, try to give a little at a time. I won’t ask for more than you want to give.’

  He had already taken so much from her, his own disillusionment with the past making him understand her too well, able to knock down the protective walls about her heart with his persistence. ‘There’s nothing for me to give you.’

  ‘There’s that warm, beautiful woman inside you,’ he corrected. ‘The woman who cares for a mother a lot of people would have become impatient with and placed in a home.’

  ‘My mother isn’t insane,’ she flared defensively. ‘She’s just—different.’

  He nodded. ‘That doesn’t alter the fact that a lot of children in the same circumstances would have had her locked away,’ he said grimly. ‘I want the woman who loves her mother enough not to do that. Also the woman who cares enough about her friends to help them when things get rough—not many would have taken on a child like Jonathan for a week the way you did.’

  ‘They would for a friend like Helen,’ she insisted vehemently. ‘When everyone else—’

  ‘Yes?’ James prompted softly as she broke off abruptly.

  ‘Helen stood by me at a time when I desperately needed—a friend,’ she evaded tautly. ‘I couldn’t do any less for her.’

  ‘Because that’s the sort of woman you are,’ he nodded. ‘The sort of woman I want.’

  ‘Why me?’ she cried. ‘There must be hundreds of women out there with the same qualifications.’

  ‘Not in quite the same combination. Besides,’ he added teasingly, ‘I’ve become addicted to your freckles.’

  ‘James—’

  ‘Oh, Aura, this is why it has to be you,’ he told her throatily as his head lowered and his mouth moved against hers.

  She gave a choked cry, leaning weakly against him, wanting to push him away, but needing his strength at that moment. This, the blinding sensual pleasure they found in each other’s arms, had been right between them from the beginning, and she needed him too much to fight it.

  ‘Aura!’ He trembled violently against her at her surrender. ‘Oh God, Aura!’ He drew her fiercely against him.

  He nibbled, he sipped, he drank from her parted lips, crushing her body against his, pushing them both to the point of madness.

  Aura knew her blouse had been pulled free from the waistband of her trousers as she felt James’s hand sear her naked flesh, his fingers splayed across her back, moving in a sensual rhythm.

  Her head was thrown back as that hand closed possessively over her breast beneath her lace camisole, her fiery gaze meeting his openly hungry one, watching the emotions flickering across his flushed face as he caressed her, her breath catching in her throat as his thumb brushed across her nipple.

  ‘Look at me,’ he pleaded as her head dropped against his chest. ‘See what touching you does to me!’

  Her blouse was unbuttoned, her camisole raised, her uptilting breasts bared invitingly, the nipples deeply pink from his caresses. It was agony to see the sensual torment on James’s face.

  ‘Watch,’ he instructed gruffly as he bent his head and lightly sucked one pouting nipple into the moist pleasure of his mouth, moving back slightly to trace the hardness with the tip of his tongue.

  Aura was lost in the spell of the eroticism, mesmerised by the darkness of his cheek against her creamy flesh, the sucking movement of his lips and tongue drawing her fully into his mouth, filling her body with a fiery warmth, feeling a moistness between her thighs, aching there.

  She cradled his head against her now, increasing the pressure, wanting more, wanting—

  ‘Touch me, Aura,’ James anticipated her need, guiding her hand down on to him, instantly feeling the leap of his desire.

  She wanted him. In that moment she wanted him to the point of madness, could taste him, felt the imprint of his body against hers, and she wanted so much more, sobbing her need.

  She was going to explode in a moment, going to shatter into a million pieces. She needed, oh God she needed—

  ‘No more.’ James moved sharply away from her as she twisted against him, groaning as he saw the pain of rejection in her eyes. ‘Darling, if I made love to you now—and God knows I want to!—you would never forgive me. A little at a time,’ he reminded her soothingly. ‘We’ll give each other a little at a time. And then maybe eventually we’ll be able to give it all.’ He gently straightened her camisole and rebuttoned her blouse, smoothing her tangled hair.

  Aura looked at him dazedly. He could have made love to her, could have taken the one thing most other men were interested in. Instead he had said no for both of them, hadn’t rejected her but had taken the control she had momentarily lost.

  This man was too much, too gentle, for her to say no to!

  And that frightened her.

  ‘James, I—’

  ‘What was that?’ he asked sharply, turning to listen.

  Aura frowned. ‘I didn’t hear anything.’ She shook her head.

  A puzzled frown marred his brow, and then he shrugged, relaxing slightly. ‘Maybe I was mistaken—no,’ he rasped, releasing her to turn away. ‘I did hear something.’ He strode across the room to the door, wrenching it open. ‘What the—oh no,’ he groaned, bending down on one knee, his head bent.

  A feeling of panic assailed Aura. ‘What is it?’ she rushed forward.

  James turned to stop her before she reached his side. ‘Please don’t—’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ She stared in horror at the bundle of orange fur that lay at his feet, the once glossy coat now matted with dirt and blood, lots of blood. ‘Marmaduke!’ she groaned weakly.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  ‘I DON’T think you should try to move him.’ James held her back as she would have picked up the injured cat.

  Her hand froze in mid-air, her gaze fixed on the cat that had been with them ever since he was a kitten. ‘Is he still alive?’ Her voice was hushed.

  ‘Barely,’ James revealed grimly. ‘What little strength he had left seems to have been used to drag himself up here. He looks as if he was hit by a car. Do you have the telephone number of your vet?’ he frowned.

  She couldn’t take her eyes off the tiny bundle of fur, so still now when he had been into mischief from the moment he came into their home at nine weeks old, the smoothness of his tummy barely moving as he breathed. ‘It’s in the book next to the telephone under V,’ she answered James distractedly. ‘I can’t believe my holding him would hurt him any more than when he crawled up here to us,’ she looked up at James appealingly. It just didn’t seem right not to give her old friend the comfort of her loving touch.

  James looked undecided for a moment and then he nodded. ‘I know I don’t have
to tell you to be careful with him; you’re infinitely gentle with those you care about.’

  Marmaduke gave a little cry as Aura gently picked him up, his eyes flickering open, licking her arms as he saw who his rescuer was. The tears streamed down Aura’s cheeks as she sat with him cradled on her lap, just letting him lie there, not attempting to touch him in any other way in case she caused him more pain. He seemed to be very badly cut, and James was probably right about the cause being a car; the traffic could be very heavy in this area. Marmaduke had lived in a more rural area for the first four years of his life, had ruled his territory with iron paws, and he hadn’t adjusted well to his change in environment.

  It was all her fault. If she hadn’t moved them—

  ‘He’s coming right over.’ James ended his call to the vet. ‘How’s Marmaduke?’ He came down on his haunches beside them.

  ‘In pain,’ she choked, flinching as the cat gave another low cry.

  ‘Hey,’ James chided, touching her tear-wet cheeks. ‘Cats have nine lives, remember?’

  ‘He’s used up more than that since we came to live here,’ she groaned. ‘He didn’t see many cars before that, and now he just seems to think they’re large cats that he doesn’t want intruding on his territory.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Is there anything wrong, Aura?’ her mother called down the stairs. ‘I heard James leave, and then I heard voices down here again. Are you—Marmaduke?’ She had reached the foot of the stairs, crossing the room, looking more fragile than ever in the pale blue nightgown and robe she wore.

  She frowned at her mother’s pained expression. ‘Mummy—’

  ‘Is he—is he—?’ Her mother’s face had drained of all colour as she saw the cat’s unnaturally still body and the blood matting the fur. ‘Oh my God, he’s—’

  ‘No, Mummy, he—’ Before Aura could reassure her any further her mother had sunk to the floor in a dead faint.

  She closed her eyes as the world seemed to close in about her, opening them just in time to see James lifting her mother from the floor and placing her carefully on the sofa. ‘Marmaduke was a gift to my mother from my father,’ she revealed dully.

  ‘I see,’ James grimaced, looking down at the pale-faced woman.

  Aura could see that he did see. ‘If anything happens to him …’

  James looked at her sharply. ‘You don’t think she’ll survive it?’

  ‘No,’ she choked. ‘Silly as it sounds, I don’t think she could.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound silly at all,’ he assured her grimly. ‘We’ll just have to make sure the cat lives!’

  If sheer will-power alone could do it then Marmaduke wouldn’t dare leave them, James telling the cat over and over until the vet arrived to examine him that he had to live because too many people loved him, leaving the cat’s side only once, and that to soothe her mother as she regained consciousness. Once the vet arrived James didn’t relinquish control, instructing the man to do everything in his power to save the cat. When Aura’s mother became too distraught by the examination he helped her up the stairs to her room and put her to bed, assuring her he would let her know the news as soon as they knew anything.

  The examination revealed several severe cuts and loss of blood, but there appeared to be no broken bones, and no internal injuries. Aura thought she was going to faint when the vet anaesthetised Marmaduke and began to stitch up the wounds, James insisting the cat couldn’t be moved to the surgery as the other man wanted him to be, assuring him that he couldn’t get better care there than he would at home.

  Once the cat had been cleaned up and stitched up and put in his basket to sleep off the pain and the effects of the anaesthetic Aura went up to see her mother while James showed the vet out.

  Wide brown eyes looked at her in panic as her mother sat stiffly in the bed. ‘Is he—?’

  ‘He’s fine,’ Aura quickly soothed, briefly outlining the injuries, not wanting to frighten her mother more than she already was. ‘The vet says there’s a fifty-fifty chance,’ she finished reluctantly.

  ‘Is James still here?’ her mother surprised her by asking.

  She frowned. ‘Yes. But—’

  ‘Then everything will work out,’ her mother nodded, her usual air of calm and tranquillity settling over her, just as if those few minutes of terror had never taken place.

  Aura knew that look so well, accepting it because she had no other choice. ‘Mummy, James is only human,’ she tried to reason. ‘We can all only hope now.’

  ‘James will make sure everything works out,’ her mother insisted lightly. ‘He’s a man who makes things happen.’ She got out of bed. ‘I’ll just go down now and sit with Marmaduke.’

  Aura frowned as she slowly followed her mother down the stairs. Her mother was endowing James with powers neither he, nor any other human being, possessed, and she was coming to rely on him completely to make her world a safe and tranquil thing. It was too great a responsibility to ask of anyone, let alone a man who had only known them for a week!

  ‘All right?’ James prompted softly as her mother sat on the floor crooning to the unconscious cat.

  Aura still looked troubled. ‘She has this idea that you can somehow make everything magically right.’

  ‘I will,’ he told her quietly. ‘It’s time you had someone to share a little of the responsibility.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’ She shook her head. ‘Marmaduke is still very sick, you heard what the vet said about the severity of the cuts and how weak he is; my mother could be expecting what amounts to a miracle.’

  ‘Aura, we all have to hope for them sometimes.’ His expression softened as he looked at her still-crooning mother. ‘If love can cure him that cat will soon be out terrorising the neighbourhood again!’

  Her face was still shadowed. ‘And if it doesn’t?’

  ‘Have a little faith, Aura.’ He touched her cheek gently. ‘Sometimes it’s all we have.’

  The next twenty-four hours, the crucial time according to the vet, were absolute hell. When the cat woke up he was in so much pain that they called the vet out to him again. Aura’s mother sat by him the whole time, refusing to leave him even to get dressed, Aura bringing her clothes down to her.

  James insisted Aura open the shop the next day, only leaving them long enough to return to his apartment to change before coming back to spend the day with her mother.

  ‘He’s very nice,’ said Jeanne when James had brought them both down a cup of tea.

  ‘Very.’ And after this, no matter what the outcome, she couldn’t ask him to stay out of her life.

  He was unique; how many other men in his position, with a very important business of their own to run, would take a day off from that to help them through the crisis of their injured cat? Even her father, the man she had adored, had been fallible. James had a strength that enveloped all about him.

  With those odds on his side it was impossible for Marmaduke not to pass the danger point and begin to regain his strength; he wouldn’t have dared do anything else! Aura sat beside her mother and wept when the cat got up and wobbled out of the basket he hadn’t left for over a day to make his way to his food-bowl, looking up at them expectantly when he discovered it was empty. A light diet when he was up to it, the vet had instructed, and as Marmaduke liked nothing better than boiled fish, and received it only on special occasions, he quickly emptied the plate.

  Aura left her mother and the cat together in the kitchen, going through to the lounge to tell James the good news. He sat alone, his eyes closed, and she stood for a moment just gazing her fill of him. She could love this man, could love his loving generosity, his tenderness. There wasn’t a single thing about him that she couldn’t love, that she didn’t love, even that arrogance he occasionally displayed.

  The colour drained from her face as she realised what a fool she had been. She loved James, had from the moment he had been so understanding about the way her mother was. She had known it was madness to become invol
ved with him, she just hadn’t been able to stay away. Oh God, what did she do now?

  James’s eyes flickered open, frowning his concern as he saw her pallor and the tears on her cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry.’ He quickly crossed the room to her side. ‘The vet did warn us that there was only a fifty-fifty chance,’ he comforted. ‘You—’

  ‘Marmaduke is fine,’ she assured him stiltedly, evading his touch as she stepped back. ‘He’s been eating. I—I think you should go home and rest now. You look exhausted.’

  ‘I’m not tired,’ he dismissed, frowning as she moved about the room aimlessly picking up ornaments before putting them down again. ‘Aura, what’s wrong?’

  He even knew too much about her, about the way she reacted to things, the way she felt. ‘Nothing,’ she told him abruptly. ‘I just—the cat is out of danger now, and I think you should go and get some sleep.’

  He sighed, those tell-tale grooves appearing and disappearing in his cheeks. ‘You’re asking me to leave?’

  God, that sounded so ungrateful after all the help he had given them. But he could destroy her and the life she had made here with her mother. ‘I’m suggesting you go home and rest,’ she carefully corrected.

  ‘And never come back,’ he rasped harshly. ‘Aura, what did I do wrong between cooking dinner and now?’

  After years of taking care of her mother and herself it had come as a shock to return upstairs after her day’s work and find James in the kitchen cooking dinner and the table laid—for three.

  She had felt a moment’s resentment then, felt as if James was taking over and not merely trying to make a place for himself in her life. And then he had turned and smiled at her, taken her in his arms and kissed her, and that closed-in feeling had changed to anticipation.

  He hadn’t done anything wrong between dinner and now, she was the one who had realised she was in love with him!

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she dismissed coolly. ‘It’s just that Mummy and I can cope now, and—’