by Alex Ryder
His lips were close. Far too close. And her legs were getting weak. Damn him! In a voice that was barely above a squeaky whisper, she said, ‘The…the shower isn’t big enough for both of us. Any fool can see that.’
‘Which will make it all the more intimate,’ he said with hoarse-sounding relish. His fingers were now slowly and deliberately unbuttoning the front of her blouse, and when it was opened he reached behind and deftly unhooked her bra. She barely had time to gasp before he crushed his lips down onto hers, and then she felt his warm hand cupping and weighing her breast. Her body quivered under the intimate and sexually arousing touch of his hand and she collapsed against him.
‘That’s much better,’ he murmured, taking his mouth from hers and looking down at her with smoky grey eyes. He began caressing the nipple which had burgeoned at the first contact and his lips stretched in a knowing smile. ‘The tongue may lie, Catriona, but the body can’t. It’s aching for love, isn’t it? There’s only one way to satisfy the longing we both have for each other.’
She looked at him in desperate, heart-thudding silence. Somewhere in the dark and chaotic depths of her mind the cold, clear voice of reason was warning her that if she gave in without a struggle she would never, ever be able to face herself in the mirror again without a feeling of sickening failure and self-contempt. Was that worth a few minutes’ pleasure? She was no nearer the answer now than she’d been an hour ago, but now the temptation was becoming more than she could bear.
‘Lost your tongue for once?’ he asked in a harsh whisper. ‘Yet I notice that you can’t even bring yourself to deny the truth with a mere shake of the head.’ Her skirt landed round her ankles in a heap as he undid the zip, and her heart thumped frantically in her ears as he began kissing her on the neck.
Her hands, which up till now had been hanging helplessly by her sides now made a feeble attempt to push him away but ended up assuming a life of their own and sneaking round to encircle his waist. Feeling the warmth and firmness of his flesh beneath the thin cotton shirt, she couldn’t help herself, and her fingertips played over the rippling sinews and muscles of his back.
Sensing her imminent surrender, he gave a growl of pleasure from the depths of his throat and gently slid her briefs down over her hips, leaving her to finish the job by stepping out of them and kicking them aside. The warning voice in her head had gone now, only to be replaced by an exhilarating feeling of unrestrained wantonness. He was a liar, a cheat and a womaniser, and God knows what else besides, but she didn’t give a damn. Her heart was pounding and the rush of blood was singing in her ears. She wanted him. She wanted him now.
After all her good intentions and protestations she was no better than one of those foolish women Madge had warned her about—the type who were attracted by unscrupulous devils like him.
But she didn’t care. This aching desire was more than anyone could bear. She sought his lips greedily as she thrust herself harder against him and trembled with ecstasy as he stroked and firmly pressed the taut, firm flesh of her buttocks.
Their kisses were filled with a fiery, hungry passion for each other and her fingers scrabbled feverishly at his trouser belt.
‘You want me, don’t you, Catriona?’ he asked huskily. ‘I want to hear you say it.’
Was he mad? Of course she wanted him! Couldn’t he tell, for God’s sake! ‘Yes…yes, Ryan. I do,’ she moaned, her voice bubbling in her throat.
‘Good…’ he said. ‘Then I can’t be accused of forcing myself on you, can I? You’re as willing to make love with me now as you were on that first night.’
There was something in his voice that made her blink the haze of hot desire away from her eyes, and she stared in incomprehension at the taunting smile on his face.
‘You’re quite right, of course,’ he drawled. ‘The shower cubicle is far too small and cramped for such an activity. You might slip on the soap and break a leg. On the grounds of safety alone I think it would be wiser to wait until tonight. The bed looks more than adequate for our purposes.’
The words hit her like a deluge of icy water and she made a vain effort to cover her modesty as the full horror of the truth sank in. For a moment her mouth worked in silent outrage then she managed a muffled screech. ‘You…you pig! You rotten…unfeeling bastard! I…I’ll…’
He stifled her outburst with a kiss, then he whirled her round and gave her a gentle smack on the bare bottom. ‘That’s not the kind of language a lady should use. Now go and have your shower. I’ll be back in half an hour.’ With that he pushed her in the direction of the shower, then left the room.
As the door closed behind him she glared at it in outrage, then beat her clenched fist against her forehead. He was a scheming…manipulative…monster. He’d laid a trap to expose the shallowness of her pretence, and oh, how easily she’d fallen in to it. If it had been a deliberate attempt to destroy her self-confidence and make her want to curl up and die he’d succeeded.
The shower cleaned her and cooled her down, and her anger at him was put on the back boiler as she dressed herself. She had carefully removed the labels from the new underwear and she had got as far as donning briefs and bra when he opened the door and came sauntering back in.
He stopped to blatantly admire her. ‘Pure silk? Very sexy-looking, Catriona. It’s a pity you have to wear anything on top. You’d create as big a sensation in the dining room here, as you did at Cardini’s.’
She studiously ignored him and eased herself into a pair of pale green cotton trousers, but she couldn’t ignore him for long. From the corner of her eye she saw him begin to undress. First came the shoes, then socks and shirt. And then the trousers, which he carefully folded across the back of a chair.
It was the nonchalant and unconcerned way he went about it that worried her. Either the man was completely shameless or he was deliberately demonstrating his lack of respect for her feelings. When he at last casually removed his briefs she reddened as he caught her staring at him, and she hurriedly turned her back on him and slid into a blouse, only to hear him chuckling to himself as he made for the shower.
She was staring out of the window grimly, her arms folded and her foot tapping, when he emerged five minutes later. From his reflection in the window she saw that he’d at least had the decency to drape himself in a towel this time.
She had her eyes fixed on a fisherman who was trying a long cast to the far side of the river when Ryan said, ‘You can turn round now and stop blushing. I’m decent.’
With a disdainful sniff she turned from the window, prepared to give him the sharp edge of her tongue, but she blinked in surprise and tried to stifle a laugh at the sight of him in his boxer shorts.
‘I see you recognise them.’ He grinned. ‘Bright red with little yellow teddy bears. They’re the ones you dropped in my lap in Cardini’s. Not my style, really, but I thought I’d keep them as a memento.’
‘You said you were decent,’ she muttered crossly. ‘Put your damn trousers on.’
Enjoying her discomfort, he hummed under his breath as he began dressing, and with a haughty look she marched past him towards the door and said stiffly, ‘I’ll wait for you down in the foyer.’
Downstairs she settled herself on one of the comfortable settees, picked a magazine at random from the table and idly flicked through the pages. Unable to get interested in it, she put it back on the table, then her eye was caught by the public telephone at the side of the reception desk and she wondered if she should call her mother and warn her that she wouldn’t be home tonight. But what reason could she give? She couldn’t very well tell her the truth or the whole McNeil clan would rush here to her rescue and the fat would really be in the fire. She’d have to make up some plausible story for the sake of everyone’s peace of mind.
Damn the man for causing her all this grief and hassle. And how many other lives had he screwed up in his relentless pursuit of selfish pleasure? Did he ever stop to wonder about that? No, of course he didn’t. He just sailed on, o
blivious to the cries of distress and broken hearts in his wake.
She was still smarting from the humiliation he’d caused her over the shower. And in more ways than one, she thought bitterly. It didn’t do a lot for a girl’s self-respect when a man could turn down such a blatant offer as she’d given him, only to be told that he’d take her up on it later on. It was embarrassing to say the least.
It left her with the feeling that either the man had iron self-control or else sex was nothing more than a game to him. A game to be played entirely at his convenience and it was just her hard luck to be one of the pawns.
She’d been staring at her feet gloomily, and happened to look up just as he came striding towards her.
He stopped and ran an approving eye over her as she rose, but before he could say anything she held her hand out. ‘You’ll have to lend me some coins for the phone. My mother will be worried if I don’t return home tonight.’
He dug in his pocket, then offered innocently, ‘Would you like me to explain the situation to her?’
She grabbed the coins from his hand and snapped, ‘No, I wouldn’t.’ Leaving him standing there, she marched over to the phone, her brain already concocting a plausible story about the car breaking down in Inverness and no spares being available until tomorrow.
When that unpleasant job was over she replaced the phone and found him waiting for her outside on the terrace. ‘All right…’ she said coolly, surveying the scenery. ‘So what are we going to do now? Spend an exciting afternoon looking at the river?’
He handed her the keys to the car again and gave his orders. ‘I want to see as much of the area around here as possible, and you are going to do the driving.’
Shrugging indifferently, she followed him down into the car park. She would dearly have loved to know what he found so interesting in a wild and remote place like this, but she’d have sooner bitten off her tongue than ask. If he wanted to waste his time she wasn’t going to stop him. At least he’d be sensible enough not to toy with her emotions while she was driving.
Taking her directions from him, she turned right onto a particularly narrow road about a mile past the hotel. Slowing to little more than walking pace, to avoid the worst holes in the neglected road surface, she complained to him, ‘Are you sure about this? I don’t think this road goes anywhere. It looks abandoned.’
Hardly looking up from the map he was consulting, he growled at her again. ‘Keep driving. I’ll tell you when to stop.’
Bad-mannered lout, she thought. It would serve him right if they ended up with broken suspension or a buckled wheel.
There was nothing to be seen except for the occasional white-painted croft nestling in the heather and bracken at the foot of a mountain, where some poor family kept body and soul together with the aid of a milk cow, a few sheep and chickens and a few acres of cultivated ground.
They were near one of such crofts when he told her to stop the car so they could get out and stretch their legs. She looked around her and said quietly, ‘It’s not much like the King’s Road on a Saturday afternoon, is it? I told you that I don’t think this road leads anywhere. We’d be as well turning back.’
He was breathing deeply at the air, and his grey eyes were narrowly scanning and studying the lie of the land, when he said quietly, ‘Someone’s watching us.’
She blinked and glanced around. ‘Who? I don’t see anyone.’
‘That’s because whoever it is is taking great care to conceal himself in the heather.’
She looked around her again, then eyed him in disbelief. ‘There’s no one here except us. You’re just trying to scare me, aren’t you?’
‘He’s the one who’s scared,’ he declared softly. ‘That’s why he’s hiding. It’s probably a poacher and he thinks we represent authority.’ He took her hand and grinned. ‘Let’s go and have a chat with him.’
She allowed herself to be led up the side of a narrow peat-coloured burn for about a hundred yards and then she saw the figure of a small boy crouching down in the undergrowth, only his dirt-streaked face and a mop of dark curly hair visible. He stood up as they approached—all five feet of him—and eyed them warily, ready to take instant flight.
Ryan grinned and picked up the home-made fishing rod which was lying at the boy’s feet. ‘Having any luck, son?’
The boy looked at each of them in turn before deciding that they were no threat, then he shook his head.
Ryan glanced down into the slow-moving stream. ‘There should be plenty of trout in there. What are you using? Worms?’
The boy nodded. ‘Aye.’ He wiped his nose with the back of his hand, then shrugged. ‘There’s nothing else to use, is there?’
Catriona smiled at the boy. He probably came from the croft which lay about half a mile away. There were carefully patched holes in his jeans and his ragged shirt had seen better days.
‘You don’t need worms to catch trout, son,’ Ryan said with a quiet smile. ‘All you need is one hand. Hasn’t your father showed you that trick?’
The boy shook his head and muttered, ‘My dad was killed. He was a soldier.’
Ryan stared down at him in silence for a moment, then he ruffled the mop of dark hair and said quietly, ‘I could show you how, if you want to learn.’
The boy nodded eagerly and Ryan grinned. ‘OK. Let’s look for a good spot.’
They walked quietly upstream until Ryan suddenly looked at both of them, silencing them with a finger pressed to his lips. Removing his shirt, he lay down at right angles to the stream and lowered his hand gently until it was lying palm upwards on the bottom. She and the boy both crouched down and saw the large brown speckled trout swimming gently upstream. When it was directly over Ryan’s palm he moved his fingers, lightly stroking the fish’s belly. The trout, obviously enjoying this new sensation, remained where it was. Ryan continued stroking for another few seconds, then he jerked his arm upwards and the fish went sailing over their heads to land behind them.
The boy gave a yelp of delight and Ryan stood up. ‘See how easy it is, son? Now we’ll move to another spot and then you can try. Just remember not to grab the fish or you’ll lose it like a bar of wet soap. Just scoop it out quickly.’
It was an hour later when they returned to the car, and Ryan grinned at Catriona and nodded towards the distant croft. ‘Well, that’s one family who’ll be having a decent meal of grilled trout this evening.’
There was nothing boastful in the way he’d said it. Just a satisfaction that he’d been able to help someone. She looked at him strangely. She knew she’d never forget the look of adoration on the boy’s face as he’d thanked Ryan before skipping off home with his catch of three. She’d almost felt like kissing him herself.
As she resumed driving she said, ‘I’ve seen that done before. It’s called guddling. It’s a real old poacher’s trick. Where did you learn?’
‘In the Army. I did survival training about fifty miles south of here. They drop you by helicopter in the middle of the night with nothing but a map, a compass, a knife and a piece of flint. Then they send a hunting party out to look for you. You have to stay free and survive for twenty-one days.’ He finished on a note of nostalgia, as if he missed the life and the challenges it had provided.
She chanced another glance at him…at the craggy profile, the strength and determination in the set of the jaw. He was one hundred and ten per cent male. And most of all he was a survivor. And if he was a survivor what did that make her? What chance did little old her have against the likes of him? Well, at least it was going to be interesting finding out.
Knowing that she should really be giving him the coldest shoulder possible, she was nevertheless becoming intrigued enough to ask him suddenly, ‘If you liked the Army so much why did you refuse to obey orders?’
She’d expected and was prepared for a verbal rap over the knuckles, to be told to mind her own damn business, but to her surprise he seemed quite willing to talk about it.
‘It was during o
ne of those civil wars in Southern Europe,’ he replied with some bitterness. ‘Neighbours were killing neighbours in the name of religion. The UN had organised a ceasefire but the rebels kept firing from their side on a village next to our camp. They’d killed hundreds with their indiscriminate shelling. My men and I wanted to wipe the gun position out but we were under strict orders not to cross the border.’ He paused for a moment and she saw him pass a tired hand over his brow before continuing. ‘When a shell landed on the local infant school it was more than I or my men could stand. We told the UN observer to go to hell, we crossed the border and destroyed the gun emplacement.’
She brought the car slowly to a halt then turned in her seat and stared at him. ‘And they made you resign because of that?’ she asked in a voice of quiet outrage.
He shrugged. ‘Someone had to be sacrificed to appease the politicians.’
Her mouth worked in silence for a moment, then she said forthrightly, ‘The bloody idiots! I’d have given you a medal.’
He turned those steady grey eyes on her, then asked, ‘Why?’
‘Because I’d have done exactly the same as you if I’d been a soldier,’ she said bluntly.
The eyes continued to study her, then he nodded and smiled broadly. ‘I guess you would have, Catriona. Whether you like it or not, you and I are alike in many ways, aren’t we?’
She had a sudden feeling that she was getting into dangerous ground here, and she looked away uncomfortably. ‘Oh…I doubt that.’
He raised his hand and grabbed her hair, and gave her a long, hard, nerve-tingling kiss. Then he let her go and challenged her harshly, ‘You’re a girl who is prepared to go to any lengths to seek revenge or rectify a wrong. Well, so will I. There can only be one winner in our little contest, Catriona. The only question that remains is this. How are you going to reconcile yourself to defeat?’
She gulped painfully and gave the only answer she could think of. ‘I…I don’t know, Ryan. I suppose it depends on how charitable you are in victory.’