That Devil Love

by Lee Wilkinson

  ‘Annis, this is Hiawa and Hattie Akaka,’ Zan said.

  ‘Aloha.’ Hattie’s voice was deep and warm. ‘Welcome to Oahu.’ Stepping forward, she hung a lei of flowers around both their necks. The pale, waxy blooms were fresh and cool and exquisitely perfumed.

  Smiling back, Annis thanked the woman with genuine pleasure.

  While Hiawa helped Zan to carry in the luggage, Hattie, friendly and garrulous, showed Annis around the small but seemingly spacious house.

  The bedrooms were at road level, and from a central hall a flight of stairs led down to a well-equipped dining-kitchen, while the long, airy sitting-room, with its open-fronted veranda, looked over a terraced garden to the bay.

  It was a quiet idyllic spot. But one that Annis would happily have exchanged for the frenetic bustle of Waikiki itself.

  ‘There’s a tray of drinks waiting on the veranda, and in case you’re hungry I’ve left a supper of cold meat and salad…’ Hattie was saying.

  With a sinking heart, Annis asked, ‘Then you and Hiawa don’t live here?’

  ‘Oh, no.’ Hattie gave her wide smile and led the way back upstairs. ‘We only keep an eye on the place for Mr and Mrs Gilvary. We live in a condominium at the Waikiki Sunrise. During the day Hiawa helps with the hotel’s water sports, and I work at the beach café-bar…’

  All too soon, Hiawa and Hattie had said their goodbyes and were ready to leave. Having thanked the cheerful pair for their services, she and Zan accompanied them to their dusty truck, which was parked beneath some straggly pine trees.

  Standing in the velvet dusk, Zan’s proprietorial arm around her waist, the scent of the cool leis in her nostrils, Annis watched them drive away with a feeling that was close to panic.

  But she mustn’t let herself panic. All she had to do was keep calm, and make it abundantly clear to Zan that last night—rather than being the surrender he wanted—had been an aberration on her part. Something she had no intention of repeating…

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘WE’LL sit on the veranda, shall we? The view’s wonderful at night.’ Zan’s voice, full of dark sorcery, broke into Annis’s uneasy thoughts.

  He led her beneath the resinous pines to where a flight of wooden steps with a bark-covered handrail meandered down to the shadowy garden.

  Over her head leaves and branches made black silhouettes, while a huge, glowing moon hung just above the palms. Mingling with the sweet scent of flowers was the spicy smell of green ginger and a faint salt tang from the sea.

  Gentle waves whispered on to the shore and, just beyond the garden, Annis could see the white surf embroidering lacy traceries along the sand.

  From the lawn two steps led up to the wooden veranda, which had some comfortable-looking cane furniture and was lit by a string of small candle-lanterns. A tray, covered by a piece of spotless muslin weighted round the edges with coloured glass beads, was waiting on the table. When Zan had poured fresh fruit cocktails chinking with ice into two tall glasses, they went to lean on the polished wood rail and look over the moonlit bay.

  But, conscious only of the man by her side, Annis remained taut and silent, sipping automatically, oblivious now to the magic of the scene.

  When her glass was empty, Zan took it from her nerveless fingers. ‘A refill?’ he asked. She shook her head, and he replaced both glasses on the tray.

  ‘You’re very edgy,’ he remarked suddenly, coming up behind her. ‘I can see the tension in your neck and shoulders.’

  As his lips brushed her vulnerable nape she flinched away and spun round. ‘Don’t!’

  He put his hands on the veranda rail, one each side of her, effectively imprisoning her there. His eyes on her mouth, blatant seduction in his look and tone, he said softly, ‘I’ve been waiting all day to kiss you.’

  Too much pleasure was building up inside, too much wanting and aching. Feeling her self-control slipping dangerously, she said raggedly, ‘I don’t want you to kiss me.’

  His white teeth gleamed in a smile. ‘Liar.’ It was obvious that in spite of her reaction earlier that day he was relatively sure of her. ‘No matter what you try to tell me, you’ve been waiting too.’

  Bending his dark head so that his lips feathered across her jaw, he whispered in her ear, ‘It’s terrible to hunger for something, isn’t it?’

  As she quivered, he drew back a little to look at her, at the smooth skin, the clear-cut features and delicate bone-structure. ‘You’re so lovely… All I want to do is take you to bed and make love to you until the morning.’

  ‘And then what?’ She strove to speak lightly, to sound bored, but there was a flush on her cheeks and her aquamarine eyes were brilliant, almost feverish.

  ‘Then I’d want to start all over again. You have the ability to send me to heaven, and I’ll make quite sure I take you with me…’

  So quickly and deftly that she hardly knew what he was about, he began to remove the pins from her hair, allowing it to tumble down her back and over the lei of flowers. Then, cradling her face between his palms, he ran his fingers into the silky mass.

  ‘You want that too…’

  Gazing up at him helplessly, her pulses beating a wild tattoo, she knew it was the truth. Though in her mind she hated and rejected him, her mouth yearned for his kisses, and her body for his possession.

  ‘And I’m going to make you admit it.’

  But what her body craved, her mind must deny, even if the resultant conflict tore her apart.

  It was bitterly ironic that the one man who had been able to melt the ice she’d surrounded herself with, make her want him, was also the man who had, through his uncaring disregard, destroyed not only Maya but the whole fabric of her life.

  Watching her mental withdrawal, the soft mouth grow set, the expressive eyes darken with remembered sadness and pain, Zan frowned. ‘What is it, Annis? What’s wrong?’

  ‘Everything,’ she said jerkily. ‘This “marriage”, the way you forced me into it…’

  He sighed, and his hands dropped to his sides. ‘I should have tried a gentler, more romantic approach, but there was so much at stake…’

  After a pause, as though he was trying to choose the right words, he went on, ‘When you’ve had time to think, you’ll see it’s not as bad as it seems. There are compensations. Linda and Richard are secure and happy, and I could make you happy if only you’d let me…’

  ‘I could never be happy with a man I hate.’ She spat the words at him.

  His face grew taut, and a white line appeared round his lips, a silent betrayal of the control he was exerting. When he made a sudden movement, she flinched away.

  The threads of control stretched and grew thinner. With lethal softness, he said, ‘Though I’d like to take you over my knee, I’m quite aware it wouldn’t solve anything, and I don’t want to put bruises on that delicate skin.’

  His fingers lightly encircled her throat stroking slowly up and down while she froze, watching his face like a mesmerised rabbit.

  Even when his hand slid down inside the V-neck of her blouse and made the top button pull out of the button hole, knowing he was dangerous, on the point of erupting out of control, she stayed quite still.

  Those lean, intrusive fingers followed the valley between her breasts, exerting enough pressure to make the second button pop, then his thumb and little finger spanned from nipple to nipple beneath her flimsy bra before his palm settled over her ribcage.

  Feeling the panicky thud of her heart, her absolute stillness, he asked, ‘Are you afraid of me?’

  Wanting to deny it, she found herself admitting, ‘Yes.’

  Truth proved to be her saviour.

  He muttered something she didn’t catch and, taking his hand away, carefully refastened the two top buttons.

  As she released the breath she’d been unconsciously holding, his manner determinedly normal and friendly now, he asked, ‘Would you like any supper?’

  She shook her head wordlessly.

  ‘Then sh
all we take a stroll along the beach before we turn in?’

  Though the moment of danger seemed to have passed, she disliked and distrusted the romantic implications of a walk along the moonlit beach.

  Her voice sounding thin and breathless in her own ears, she lied, ‘I don’t like getting sand in my shoes.’

  ‘We’ll take our shoes off.’

  Zan’s hand resting lightly at her waist, Annis walked a little ahead, feeling the cool brush of undergrowth against her bare legs as they made their way down the winding path.

  When they reached the deserted beach they slipped off their shoes and sandals and left them by the ridged trunk of a leaning palm.

  He took her hand, making her heart lurch unsteadily, and, fingers interlaced, they began to walk by the edge of the moon-silvered sea.

  The sand felt smooth as warm silk under her bare feet, and the surf was cool and tingly when, with a little rush, it washed over her toes.

  Gradually her tension relaxed as they strolled in silence, hand in hand, the cool, scented leis they were wearing completely in tune with the tropical night.

  At the far point a dark, rocky outcrop stretched dragon-like into the water. For a while they sat, their backs against the warm rock, enjoying the balmy air, before starting homewards. As they approached the sloping palm, Zan moved a little ahead to retrieve their footwear. Looking up into the dark sky where a warm wind was blowing the stars about, Annis sighed at the beauty of the tropical night.

  The sigh was still on her lips when she stubbed her toe against a half-buried piece of driftwood and stumbled.

  With a quick movement Zan turned and caught her against his chest. Off balance, she lay against him. He was like the rock, strong and unyielding, yet her soft, womanly curves fitted against his hard male frame like two pieces of interlocking jigsaw.

  Fire raced through her, swift and all-consuming, filling her body with a wanton heat.

  Holding her against him, so the leis were crushed between them, he tilted her chin and looked down at her.

  Her eyes were wide and alarmed, her lips trembled. But when he bent his dark head to kiss her they parted beneath his touch, and as though there was no help for it, her arms crept up across his broad shoulders to wind around his neck. His hands shaped her slender hips and held her firmly against his lower body. She was only vaguely conscious of the intimacy of the contact because all her attention was focused on the invasion of his mouth.

  She was bemused and enslaved when he finally lifted his head and set his lips to chase chills down the side of her neck and linger at the base of her throat and the warm hollows of her shoulderbones.

  ‘Do you want me to make love to you?’

  The whispered words brought a rude awakening, and passion shut off like dousing a light.

  ‘No!’

  At her strangled cry he paused, then began to trail kisses back up the path he had just traced downwards, bent on recapturing her mouth, hoping to repair the tear his whispered question had made in the web of sensual enchantment he was spinning around her.

  Realising his intention, she buried her face in his shoulder, moving her head in negation.

  His hands began to stroke her back, gently, soothingly. When she relaxed slightly, he eased her away from him and tilted her chin to look into her cloudy eyes. ‘No…’ she said again.

  Unable to hide the rueful twist to his lips, he murmured, ‘Perhaps I need a sense of timing even more than a store of patience. Ah, well…’

  He retrieved her sandals, and going down on his haunches took a folded handkerchief from his pocket and brushed the sand from her slender foot, before slipping them on.

  His own shoes and socks he tucked under one arm and walked back barefooted, while she moved beside him like someone in a trance.

  When they reached the house they went straight upstairs. All the luggage, she found, had been put in the bedroom overlooking the sea.

  Recoiling, she said raggedly, ‘If you think I’m going to share your bed—’

  ‘I don’t.’ Zan’s interruption was curt. ‘If we shared a bed I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off you. But Hiawa would never have believed that a newly married couple might want to sleep apart.’

  He came towards her. Her face half lifted in anticipation, the breath caught in her throat, she waited.

  Black head bent, he seemed to hesitate fractionally, then he straightened, and picking up his case, went out, the door clicking shut behind him softly but decisively.

  For a few moment she stood quite still, staring at the closed door. Then, taking off the bruised lei, she unpacked her nightdress and prepared for bed, all the time trying to stifle a hollow feeling of disappointment.

  How could she feel so lost, so empty, just because a man she hated had gone without kissing her? After the traumas of the evening, she should have felt pleased and relieved, delighted that she’d been able to get rid of him so speedily.

  It was this inability to control her emotions that she found so frightening. This terrible pull between what she felt and what she ought to feel.

  Her mind was at war with her body and the conflict seemed likely to destroy her. Just the fact that she wanted him was a rent in the fabric of her self-respect. And she did want him.

  She knew with sickening certainty that out there on the beach, if he hadn’t spoken when he had, just laid her on the sand, she would have forgotten her hatred, forgotten about Maya, and rendered him passion for passion.

  How could she be so stupid, so weak? She flayed herself until she felt raw and bleeding.

  Next morning she awoke to hot sunshine and an icy determination to stay in control. She must make sure they were alone as little as possible, and when they were alone keep him at arm’s length.

  Of course it would have been much easier if she hadn’t once surrendered to him. The fact that she had had undermined her whole campaign of resistance, and given him renewed hope.

  Given him justification for his patience.

  And he had patience. But he also had a primitive sensuality, a ruthless purpose, and when his patience came to an end and he was still thwarted, instead of letting her go, as he’d promised, would he take what she refused to give?

  No, surely not. She believed he’d keep his word. She had to believe it.

  But one thing was crystal-clear. She had been right to doubt her ability to lead him on for the satisfaction of ultimately rejecting him. It was far too risky. Now if he made any move to make love to her she would freeze him off immediately and keep freezing him off until his patience was finally exhausted.

  But Zan gave her no chance to put her decision into practice. It soon became plain that he’d gone back to being the friendly companion he’d been during those days in San Francisco.

  With one difference only. Now he didn’t kiss her goodnight.

  The deliberate omission unsettled and worried her. Was it that he dared not trust himself? Or did he no longer want to?

  No, she couldn’t believe that was the case. Though he disguised it well, every so often when he looked at her there was a tiny lick of white-hot flame that told her his desire was still burning fiercely.

  In the days that followed, he showed her everything, from the excitement and bustle of exotic Waikiki and Honolulu to the moving environment of Pearl Harbour, and the spectacular Pali Cliffs where King Kamehameha—the first ruler to unite the Hawaiian Islands—had driven his enemies over the thousand-foot drop.

  She found that sophistication vied with simplicity, crowded beaches with quiet coves, native shops with trendy boutiques, and traditional Polynesian-type fare with American fast food.

  After the first strenuous week of sightseeing, Zan quietly, unobtrusively began to slow down the pace, interspersing picnics, swimming, and more leisurely days spent on the beach.

  Resolutely shutting out all the anxieties waiting like vultures to beset her, Annis enjoyed it all, including the hot tropical sun.

  Unlike most true blondes she tanne
d easily, without freckling or burning, and her pale skin turned to a becoming clear gold.

  Even when heat gripped the Island like a sweaty fist, she never looked hot and sticky and crumpled, as did a lot of the less fortunate women.

  One afternoon when they were in Honolulu, with the sun beating down and the pavements throwing back an oven heat, they stopped to have a drink at an open-air café. Ignoring the shade of a palm-thatched umbrella, Annis chose instead a place in the sun.

  Watching her sitting there, coolly elegant despite the heat, a strange note in his voice, Zan remarked, ‘You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. Even the Hawaiian sun seems unable to melt that Snow Queen image, that cool perfection.’

  Softly, he added, ‘Yet you have such a passionate mouth. It’s fascinated me right from the start, that combination of fire and ice.’

  She had often wondered what Zan saw in her. Now, the way he spoke, and the glint in his eyes, made the tiny hairs on the back of her neck rise.

  While they did some shopping and picked up tickets for the luau Zan was taking her to that evening, his words stayed in the forefront of her mind.

  Back at Lani House, when she began to shower and change for the luau, they were still echoing through her head. Fire and ice…

  After the comparative calm of the past three weeks, she all at once felt jumpy and unsettled. Telling herself not to be a fool, she selected a white sleeveless dress with a slim skirt and a halter neck and matched its navy trim with navy sandals.

  She was in her undies, her light make-up already applied, brushing out her long flaxen hair when, from nowhere, came a clear memory of Zan’s bedroom at Griffin House.

  The room she had thought almost spartan in its cool, elegant simplicity, until she’d seen the Spanish dancer, passionate and sensuous, in a dress like flame. Fire and ice…

  Realising she matched the room, she felt curiously shaken. Shaken too to find he had guessed so accurately what sensuality and passion lay beneath her cool exterior. She hoped he hadn’t also guessed how, since her surrender in San Francisco, she had lain awake night after night with a relentless gnawing ache inside.