by Margaret Way
"What have I done to deserve you?" he swiftly countered. "What was it you told that cowardly cur you married that sent him storming out of the party?"
She drew a jagged breath. "I was cruel."
"Don't!" He rejected that entirely. "You couldn't be."
She shuddered. "I told him that I was leaving him that very night. I wasn't coming home. I'd made arrangements I would never come back to him and if he threatened me I'd go to the police, his boss, his mother, his family, everyone he knew and tell them what sort of man he really was. Something about me must have convinced him I really meant it. Had I told him when we were alone in our home I'd have risked my life."
His heart contracted at a possible truth. "Instead you started to get your life on track."
"With Blair out of the way, yes. I'm as sure as I can be, he didn't intend suicide," she said. "I've thought and thought about it. He had to live to fight another day. Such was his tormented nature he wasn't going to give me up. We were both destined to live in a dark, dangerous secret world. His death was an accident."
"And you're asking me to keep what sort of man he was a secret?" He tilted her chin, made her raise her eyes to his. "I don't know if I can do that, Isabelle. My role is to protect and defend you."
"But Ross would know," she said sounding distressed about it.
"Ross will internalise it and understand," he said firmly. "You had found the courage to leave Hartmann. Personally I'd like to shut a few people up. For a start that appalling woman Evelyn Hartmann. No one is going to spread false rumours about my wife. You have to leave it to me now, Isabelle. Will you?"
In the half light his eyes glowed golden. "Yes, David," she said.
CHAPTER TEN
THE storm broke with tremendous power some time after midnight. Such was its savagery Samantha felt a shuddering wave of panic. Storms could be extremely destructive leaving people to not only mop up their homes but their lives. She rose from her bed where she'd been tossing and turning fretfully, to go to the high arched doors that led onto the verandah. She literally jumped as thunder rolled across the heavens then broke asunder with a tremendous cracking noise like forest giants being felled. The tall pier mirror behind her turned a blazing silver, reflecting the electrical power of the lightning bolt that drove through the highly charged atmosphere to plant its spearhead in the shuddering earth.
She padded out onto the verandah in her bare feet, drawing back almost instantly as the rain came down, suddenly chilling and remorseless. Its deep throated roar seemed to her excited imagination like an army on the march. The wind shrieked above it. The force of it almost took her breath away. She couldn't imagine what it would be like in a cyclone. Terrifying! She dared not go near the balustrade. Rain enveloped the immediate world. Driving walls of water that almost immediately began to challenge the guttering of the huge roof. It didn't seem possible the guttering could handle such a massive volume of water. She had a nightmare moment when she thought the roof could collapse.
The hem of her nightgown, lifted, fluttered, whipped around her body, already soaked. Not that she cared. The power of the storm was so mesmerising even as she trembled before nature at its most frightening and majestic she continued to stare out in thrall, her vision periodically seared by the great jagged flashes of lightning. This side of the homestead had to be exposed to the worst of the lashing. Sheets of water drove across the verandah intimidating her to the point where she fell back against the shutters. She didn't want to close them against the spectacular theatre of the storm, but she would have to before the rain entered the bedroom. It was utterly black out there. Black and silver. To be out in the storm's fury!
"Samantha?"
Even through the cacophony she heard his voice.
She wasn't dreaming. She turned her head in its direction, her heart heaving a great surge of elation at the sight of his tall hard muscled figure striding along the verandah towards her. All she had wanted was for him to come to her.
Yet his manner was far from loverlike. "What the hell are you doing?" he demanded, gathering her up and drawing her back forcibly into the shelter of the bedroom. "Don't you know when a storm is in full swing you can be struck by lightning?"
"What?" she asked dazedly. "It comes in under the roof?"
"You bet your life it does. Lightning can reach you if you're standing in front of a window inside a house. I just knew you'd be out here lapping up the pyrotechnics."
"Well, they're pretty impressive aren't they?" Her nerves were screaming like the wind. Excitement whipped up in her at a tremendous rate, fraught with sexuality. She had him all to herself, quite alone in her lovely bedroom. She had to make the most of it. She had to get through to this complex man that she loved him. That no secrets were hidden from him. They could make a good life together.
"You're wet." He ran his hands in a near frenzy down her slick arms, his proximity to her rendering him as weak as Samson shorn of his mane.
"So are you," she stood on tiptoe to whisper into his face. "Who cares?"
"I have to close the shutters," he said tersely, turning his dark head, a man drunk on beauty. Dazzled by it. "At least for a while. We'll have to make do with the ceiling fan."
"You're going to stay with me? I thought you'd decided it was time for me to get out of your life?"
"Don't start," he gritted, already on razor edge. She shouldn't tease him when he felt this way, strung out with yearning, his blood roaring in his veins.
"Don't close them yet," she begged. "Let's watch."
"Then I'll hold you." His hand closed tightly over her shoulders as a fierce white light lit up the world. Rain streamed across the broad verandah. "A minute more." He couldn't help but understand her excitement. Her excitement was his. And much more. It was a provocation, almost a directive to action he couldn't ignore.
"Just the two of us together." She smiled back up at him, a smile that drew him like the moon draws the tides.
"Didn't you call me?" he challenged tautly, doing as desire commanded. He turned her fully into his arms, pressing her wet body against his, consumed up by his own arousal.
The stimulation was violent. His blood heated to sizzling point. There she stood within his embrace, near naked except for a froth of silk. Wet silk he could so easily rip from her. The passion for her he had been holding under such tight rein broke loose like a wild stallion that would not be controlled.
The rain was heavier now. Deafening. He groaned softly, feeling the answering tension in her body, painful, sublime, tension as great as his own. She seemed to have lost weight since her ordeal. He could feel her nipples flooded with blood hard as berries against the palms of his hands. Her breasts were smaller he thought taking their delicate weight. The heat in his body rose to a fever. He could feel her ribs through her satin skin. He let his hands slide down to her narrow waist, over the curve of her hips and thighs unable to stop himself from directing his caresses to the heart shaped apex of her body.
"Do you want me?" she whispered, drawing a shuddering breath.
"I want to keep you forever," he muttered almost fiercely into her neck. "I'll show you!"
Energy seethed and snapped around him like blue burning electricity. The storm was forgotten. He was bewitched. With one movement he pushed the wet nightgown down from her shoulders, letting it pool at their feet.
An elemental flash of lightning picked her out like a spotlight. She looked exquisite. Lovely luminous face. Beautiful small breasts, rosebud nipples, tapering waist, delicate hips, sex hidden by wisps of gold, slender sculpted legs, high arched feet.
"Samantha," he breathed, lowering his mouth to hers while she swayed into him, twining her arms around his waist.
Passion poured into her so she felt her legs would give way. She clung to him as though he was all there was in a rocketing world.
"My most beautiful Samantha."
Her breath caught. How the passion and the tenderness in his voice worked on her! The bloodrush to her
extremities !
His tongue was filling and exploring her mouth. She opened it wider to receive such ecstasy.
"You want to torture me, do you?" he muttered strangely.
"Never! I want to love you." She felt weaker and weaker, sinking deeper into his embrace. The fierce tug of contractions began deep in her womb. The pain and the pleasure. His mouth was taking her very soul.
Roughly, his movements spurred by his desperate passion and all the little exciting sounds that issued from her throat he lifted her effortlessly and walked back to the bed and deep shadows. In sheer abandon he threw her onto the tumbled bed watching her roll away from him across the coverlet.
That would never do. He wanted the two of them together. Fused. As one. He wanted her to open her heart and her mind and her body to him.
Another clap of thunder bombarded the house. They heard it but it didn't distract them.
"Why have I got my clothes off when you've got yours on?" She lifted herself onto one elbow. "Come close to me, Ross. Please come. I want you so badly. I hate it when you're angry with me."
How shamed he suddenly was. "Not angry with you. Angry with myself. I've had demons to fight."
"Then let me help you." She held out her arms.
"You're a sorceress!" Her body was glistening like a pearl.
"Your sorceress. No one else's."
"Then you'll have to prove it," he said a little raggedly. He stripped off his shirt and sat on the side of the bed.
She was eager to help rid him of his clothes, coming behind him and laying her heated face against the breadth of his back. Not satisfied she inched closer spreading her slender legs to encircle his hips. "I love you madly." She rained kisses on his velvety skin, loving the very smell of him, the glowing masculinity.
"Aaah!" His breath seeped from himm in a long voluptuous sigh. He threw back his head back, revelling in her attentions. After a moment she rose up onto her knees, leaning against him. "Do you love me? I know at first you didn't. You didn't even like me."
He turned his head so their mouths could meet. "Liking didn't even enter it," he told her moments later when she was lying across his lap. "I wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you. As well you know."
"Do you remember our first kiss?" She would remember it for centuries.
"I'm still marvelling," he exclaimed as he stood, turning her over onto the bed. He was seized by the desire to be as naked as she was. "You don't think I'm going to let you tease me all night?" he asked, staring down at her.
"I love to tease you." Fever flooded in. Sweet intoxicating fever.
"Well I've come for you," he said. Swiftly he stripped off the rest of his clothing and stood before her, a marvellous looking man his erection full and hard.
"Now's my time," he murmured in the deepest, most seductive voice. He sank onto the bed, pulling her in his arms, immersing himself in her fragrance. "Oh God, that's so good," he groaned. "Just to touch you is to solve all my problems in one swoop. I love you, Samantha," he said with boundless tenderness.
Her heart jumped into her throat. "Repeat that please."
"I love you." His tone was even more darkly erotic.
"And I love you!" She hugged him closer, insides melting, her joy was so extreme.
"Go on," he commanded. "Tell me. I'm your perfect mate."
"You are!" She let her hands move luxuriously over him in perfect freedom. "No other man in the world will do."
"That's good, because I cannot, will not, share. You're mine."
He held her face to him and Samantha's eyelids fluttered then closed.
It seemed to him he was starving, ravenous for sex with this one woman favoured above all others. All other thoughts, all the impotent rage that had given him hell all week fell away. They were together: That was all that mattered. The world was washed clean.
His hungry mouth began a long voluptuous slide down over her body, opalescent in the semi-dark. "Trust me, do you?" Quickly he raised his head.
"With my life." Her fingers sank into his thick curling hair. Emotional tears sprang to her eyes, as all her senses heightened into an exquisite, excruciating awareness.
"That's good, because I want you for life," said he tautly. "I've struck gold, Samantha, with you. I'll never give you up."
"As long as we both shall live?" She put all pretence aside.
He was still for a moment, his face resting against her thigh. "Yes." It was said very quietly but it resonated like a vow.
"Then that's all I could ask."
Outside the tumult of the storm grew less and less. The distant roar of thunder began to fade away. Every tree, every shrub, every flower to the blades of grass glistened and glinted with rain. A crush of scents entered the room. Petals, aromatic herbs, exotic fruits.
Out of love and need, their courtship continued to undeniable delight and it had to be said, growing frustrations. Spread eagled on the bed, Samantha couldn't stifle her tiny, high pitched moans. The teasing was so exquisite it was quite simply an agony. Once she tried to speak but instead exhaled deeply, the hollow of her back arching up from the bed as he tongued her most secret place.
Sensation flared into flames miles high.
"If anything happened to you I don't think life would mean anything to me." He lifted a face taut with passion. "Do you know what that's like for a man?"
"But how could I replace you?" Samantha spoke up, though she couldn't seem to get her voice above a whisper. "I've told you what you are. You're everything to me."
"Then we ought to get married." He stated what he so fervently wanted.
Samantha's eyes went wide. She lay there, stunned, speech for the moment beyond her. Then a tremulous query, "Ross?"
"I thought I was making that clear, my dearest heart," he said gently. "I'll make it formal. Will you marry me, Samantha Langdon? Will you become my beloved wife?"
She repeated the wondrous words like they were the lyrics of the most beautiful love song every composed.
"Yes, marry." He laughed at her reaction, rising up so his powerful torso was suspended above her, supported by his strong arms. "You're not allowed to say no."
"Would I dare?" She gave a little broken laugh, rapture pulsing through her making her entire body glow.
"Not if you're longing for more love making, you won't!"
"Then it's yes!" Everything about her bespoke her delight. "Yes, yes, yes."
"Perfect." He allowed himself to collapse full length beside her, turning again on his side to face her. "Then that's settled."
"Not yet," she whispered. "Continuing to make love to me was part of the bargain."
"Which of course I intend to honour." He wound her long hair around his fist. "So...first your face-" he caressed, stroked, kissed her face all over "-then your neck .... no, I'm rushing things.. .your lovely mouth..." Long moments later... "Your breasts ... how the nipples flare to my touch.. .the curve of your stomach, so smooth..." More kisses that moved downwards. Exquisite. But they soothed her not at all.
"Come to me," she begged, her limbs flailing in mounting ecstasy.
"Don't cry."
"I'm not crying." But she was. "Please..." Her voice trailed off as he took hold of her body and entered her powerfully.
Two bodies. One flesh. A ritual when performed with love that is indeed a consecration.
Outside in the rain washed sky the moon made its reappearance from behind a bank of clouds as if on cue.
It shone far into that enchanted night. On Isabelle and David, asleep now after making love with such tenderness and mutual adoration. Isabelle on her side, her dark head pillowed on his shoulder, David on his back with one arm draped protectively around her.
On Samantha and Ross lost in the magic of their passionate coupling.
Fate had brought them all together. Their entwined futures were thus laid out. The moon, a fabulous illumination in the dark wind tossed night, was witness to that.
Margaret Way, The Cattle Baron's Bride