His eyes narrowed. 'Another rejection,' he rasped, drawing in a ragged breath. 'Hell, why not? They're more effective than a cold shower!'
She had hurt him again, she, who didn't want to hurt anyone. She had just wanted to live her life quietly, enjoy her friends; how had she got into this mess? Why did Caleb keep forcing his feelings on her when he knew how she felt about them!
'I—I think I'll go and have a soak in the bath,' she told him woodenly. 'My legs are starting to stiffen up,' she added, lightly, although there was no answering softening to his features.
'Skiing will do that to you every time,' he bit out nastily.
She frowned her confusion with his aggression.
'One day, Cat,' he ground out fiercely, 'and you may consider it as far away as hell freezing over!—I'm going to make your body ache from making love with me!'
She gasped her indignation at the claim. 'You were right, Caleb, it is as far away as hell freezing over!' she told him forcefully before spinning on her heel and running from the room.
She didn't stop running until she reached her bedroom, although she knew Caleb hadn't come in pursuit of her. It wasn't him she was running from, but her own imaginings! Although they weren't all dreams and imaginings now, her breasts had ached and throbbed from Caleb's ministrations after she left him last night. Would her whole body know that pleasurable ache if he made love to her completely? She daren't even allow herself to think about it!
Keeping thoughts of Caleb firmly at bay she ran herself a bath, liberally adding some of the perfumed bubble-bath that she found in the cabinet over the sink, taking a book with her as she gratefully sank down into the water, intending to have a long soak while the heat of the water eased her aches and pains.
It didn't seem as if she had been in the bath any time at all before the door was swung wide open with a loud crash, Luke Steele standing in the doorway supported on his crutches.
Cat instinctively dropped the book she was reading down on to her breasts, grateful for the bubbles left floating on the water to hide the rest of her body. 'How dare you?' she gasped. 'What do you think you're doing bursting in here?'
'Looking at you,' he drawled. 'Don't worry, I've done it before. Of course, that time dear old Daddy was almost lying on top of you, but—'
'What do you want, Luke?' she demanded furiously, colour heightening her cheeks. How dare he just walk in here uninvited!
He shrugged, unconcerned with her obvious outrage. 'Dad says you didn't like having your phone call listened in on.' He admitted he had been the eavesdropper without a shred of guilt attached to it. 'He seemed to think I owe you an apology.'
Well now you owe me two!' Her eyes flashed angrily as she kept the book pressed against her breasts.
He arched mocking brows. 'For walking in on you when you're having a bath?' he scorned. 'Good God, woman, I can't do much about your nakedness in my condition.' He looked down pointedly at the plaster on his leg. 'You're acting like some damned—my God,' he breathed slowly as the thought occurred to him, looking at her flushed cheeks with narrowed eyes. 'I don't believe it,' he finally derided. 'You can't be!'
Cat glared at him resentfully. 'Would you get out of here!'
'A virgin,' he looked at her wonderingly. 'Dad has the hots for a virgin!' he mocked. 'Even my mother couldn't claim to be that when he married her!'
'From all accounts she was a lot of other things, though,' Cat snapped—and instantly regretted her bitchiness. She was angry and upset, but that was no reason to be disparaging about a woman she didn't even know. 'I'm sorry,' she said abruptly. 'I shouldn't have said that. Please don't think it was anything your father said—'
'Don't apologise, Miss Howard,' Luke drawled. 'Even though my mother is on her fifth husband my father never tells people of the bitch she was and is, so please don't think that I believe my father was your informant. My mother is a famous actress, everything she does is news—and she makes sure that it is,' he added derisively. 'I just can't believe Dad would get himself involved with such an innocent as you.' He shook his head wonderingly.
'Your father isn't involved with me,' she told him firmly. 'And might I remind you that neither of us had any choice about the night I spent in his bed!'
Luke looked at her consideringly, from the flyaway blonde hair secured in a single braid at the moment, the face without make-up, over creamy shoulders, down to the spot where the top of her breasts met the water. 'You don't look like a virgin—'
'We don't come with a label attached!' she snapped impatiently.
'There's nothing—odd about you, is there?' he asked curiously.
Her eyes flashed. 'Nothing that punching you in the mouth wouldn't cure!'
'Then why haven't you ever had a lover?' He frowned his puzzlement.
'Is it compulsory?' she challenged heatedly.
'When a woman is as beautiful as you are, yes.'
She blushed at the statement, knowing it had been too bluntly made not to be sincere. 'Well, I haven't,' she dismissed. 'And as my bath water is getting cold…' she added pointedly.
'Don't mind me,' he drawled.
'Luke!' she warned. 'You've had your fun,' she bit out, 'but don't push me too far or I might start asking a few personal questions of my own.'
The amusement faded from his eyes as his expression became guarded. 'What do you mean?'
She sighed. 'It doesn't matter,' she shook her head wearily.
'I want to know what you meant,' he said forcefully.
'Luke, please,' she sighed again. 'I spoke out of turn, please forget it.'
For a moment longer be looked rebellious, and then he gave an abrupt nod of his head. 'I take it the fact that I listened to your phone call will also be forgotten?' he challenged.
'As soon as you tell me why you felt the need to bother,' she gave a tight smile.
He shrugged. 'I was interested in who you were telephoning, wondered if you had a lover. As soon as I realised it was another woman you were talking to I rang off.'
'Are you a voyeur?'
'I listened. Cat, I didn't look,' he rasped. 'I just wondered what Dad would say to you having another man in your life.'
'Nothing,' she said abruptly. 'I wish you would get it through your head that there is nothing between your father and myself.'
'I witnessed the Romeo and Juliet scene, remember,' he said disgustedly.
'I believe your father is a little old for Romeo,' she derided.
Luke smiled. 'So you do have a sense of humour after all.'
'When something is genuinely funny and not just cruel,' she told him pointedly.
'A lot of women would have envied you that night,' he dismissed. 'Besides, you got your interview in the end, didn't you?'
Yes, she had got her interview, although it was taking until the last day of her stay here to get it.
She wondered if what she was going through with Caleb and Luke was worth it!
Lucien Steele was once again absent from the dinner table that evening, while Norm opted to have his dinner on a tray in his room while he did some work, and Cat sat between Luke and Caleb as if waiting for a time-bomb to go off. The final tick could be heard as she poured them all coffee in the lounge after their meal.
'Did the book dry out OK?'
Cat looked up to find Luke was talking to her. 'Book?' she repeated in a puzzled voice, suddenly wary of his jovial politeness after he had virtually ignored her throughout the meal.
'The one you were reading in the bath when we talked earlier,' he explained, with all the innocence of a child discussing the flavours of ice-cream!
It took all of her courage to turn and look at Caleb, and once she had she wished she hadn't. He had gone rigidly still, his mouth a thin angry line, his cold gaze raking over Cat and Luke, before it finally came to rest on—Cat! She swallowed hard, knowing Luke's deliberate attempt to cause trouble had once again succeeded.
'You invited my son in for a chat while you were taking your bath?' he dem
anded furiously.
'No, I—'
He stood up forcefully. 'If I'd known your taste still ran for boys I wouldn't have bothered you,' he rasped coldly.
'Caleb, you—'
'He isn't Harry, Cat,' he told her cruelly. 'And closing your eyes and wishing he were will never make it sol' He stormed from the room.
'Who is Harry?'
Cat turned furiously to Luke Steele, striding across the room to slap him powerfully across the cheek.
CHAPTER EIGHT
She glared down at Luke as he put a hand up to the cheek she had just struck, red welts already beginning to show against his pale skin, 'Who was Harry?' she repeated furiously. 'He's a man whose boots you aren't even fit to lick!'
'A saint, is he?' Luke drawled. 'What a bore.'
Cat was breathing heavily, sick of this young man's acts of cruelty and destruction, sick of the self-pity that he thought gave him the right to commit those acts, of the belief he seemed to have that he was the only one to have ever received an unfair kick from life. Most of all, she was sick of him.
'For all I know he could be exactly that,' she bit out forcefully.
'A bore or a saint?' Luke derided.
'A saint!' Her eyes flashed a warning he was too self-centred to see. 'He was good and kind, hated to have to hurt anyone.'
'You should have married such a paragon,' Luke scorned.
'I would have done,' she assured him with dislike.
'But he found you too much of a bore, hmm?' Luke taunted.
'He loved me as much as I loved him!'
'Obviously not enough to make it legal,' he drawled. 'Now I—' He broke off, looking sharply at Cat, at the paleness of her face and the fire in her eyes. 'You keep talking about him in the past tense…' he realised. 'Cat, is he…?
'Dead?' she finished harshly. 'Yes, Harry died. On our wedding day.' She watched dispassionately as Luke flinched, his face even paler. 'He was nineteen years old, a wonderful loving man, and I loved him. Now I don't know what makes you think you have some God-given right to the monopoly on misery and despair, but let me tell you it isn't yours; I have more than my fair share!' she told him shakily.
His eyes were dark bottomless pools in his white face. 'How did you survive all that?' he asked in a numbed voice.
'I had no choice,' she rasped. 'I wasn't in the car with Harry when he crashed.'
'I—oh God,' Luke stumbled to his feet with the help of his crutches. 'Excuse me.' He couldn't look at her. 'I—I have to go. I need——' He hurried as best he could from the room.
Cat dropped down weakly on to a chair. She had never before lost her temper in that way over Harry's death. She had felt despair, impatience, bleakness, and finally acceptance. But just now she had been so angry.
She hadn't meant to say those cruel things to Luke, to hurt him any more than he was already hurting, she just hadn't been able to stop herself. Shame washed over her for inflicting such a rebuke on him. His pain was now, not five years old, and whatever it was it was tearing him apart as much as losing Harry had her«
She had to find Luke, explain—
'Have Mr Caleb and Master Luke finished their coffee?' A puzzled Mrs McDonald looked down at the three untouched cups of coffee that sat on the tray.
'Er—Luke didn't feel too well, and—and Caleb helped him up to his room,' she invented lamely. 'Could you tell me which bedroom is Luke's?' she enquired innocently. 'I just want to check that he's all right now.'
'Of course you do.' The friendly woman saw no harm in her request. 'You'll find his bedroom at the top of the stairs, turn right, and it's the third door along. Mr Caleb's is the one opposite.'
Cat wasn't sure why the other woman added this last piece of information, and she didn't bother to find out either, hurrying from the room.
A knock on the door of Luke's bedroom received no response, and so she knocked again, softly calling his name this time, encouraging him to open the door.
The thing that she had dreaded most happened, the door opposite Luke's flying open, a furious-faced Caleb standing there.
Colour instantly flamed into her cheeks. 'I was looking for Luke—'
'He isn't there,' Caleb rasped coldly, his eyes narrowed.
She drew in a ragged breath. 'I upset him earlier—'
'God, you didn't reject him too, did you?' he rasped scornfully.
'No, of course—'
'Of course not,' he finished icily. 'He's nineteen and available. Does he look like Harry, too?' he derided.
Cat flinched. 'You know he looks like you—'
'But you don't need a substitute for me,' he bit out. 'I'm all too available to you!' he said with self-disgust.
'Caleb., you don't understand,' she pleaded.
'I understand that you entertained my son while you were in the bath—'
'As he said at the time,' she snapped, 'when I demanded an apology from him for walking in uninvited,' she emphasised, 'in his condition he couldn't do much about it.'
'You're an innocent if you don't realise there are—ways,' Caleb bit out.
Cat looked up at him unflinchingly. 'Yes, I am,' she challenged. 'I'm really not that experienced.'
He continued to glare at her, until finally some of the rigidity left his body, and there was pain in his eyes. 'I could have killed you both with my bare hands when I thought you had invited him into your room,' he admitted in a strangulated voice.
'Don't you realise that you—' She broke off with a gasp, her eyes wide.
'I?' Caleb prompted huskily.
She swallowed hard, shaking her head dismissively. 'Caleb, I said some very cruel things to Luke downstairs just now; I have to find him and apologise.'
'He's with his grandfather,' he supplied softly.
'Oh,' she frowned.
'I?' he prompted again, closer now, so close that Cat found herself at eye-level with the dark hair on his chest, his dinner jacket and tie discarded, his shirt partly unbuttoned. 'I, Cat?' he encouraged throatily.
She put her head back to look at him with defiant eyes, 'It was nothing,' she dismissed. 'I'll talk to Luke in the morning.'
'And you'll talk to me now,' Caleb held on to her upper arms to prevent her leaving. 'There have been more misunderstandings in this relationship than—'
'We don't have a relationship,' she instantly denied.
'We have a relationship,' he told her gently. 'And it's time for it to progress. Maybe then the misunderstandings will stop. Although I wouldn't count on it,' he said drily.
'Caleb, no,' she protested as he led her inside his bedroom and closed the door.
'Caleb, yes,' he insisted harshly, pulling the combs from her hair so that it cascaded down past her shoulders. 'God! Caleb, yes!' He tilted her chin, his thumbtips gently parting her lips for his kiss. 'Just for once admit what you feel for me, Cat,' he encouraged against her mouth. 'Admit it and take me!'
She wanted him, God, how she wanted him. And not just in her dreams, those ethereal dreams that would no longer come to her. She wanted the flesh and blood man, the man who made her forget everything but him.
She moved the small distance between his mouth and hers, her arms going up about his neck as she kissed him with all the pent-up longing inside her.
'That's it, my darling,' he encouraged throatily. 'Take me.'
He meant it too, giving her no help at all as she undressed him with shaking hands.
'Let me.' He finally took pity on her efforts to unfasten his trousers, his chest already bare, his shirt thrown to the floor. 'You act as if you've never done this before,' he teased, as Cat kept her head bent as she stripped the last of his clothes from him, looking up at him questioningly as he became suddenly still. 'Cat?' He put out a hand and pulled her to her feet, his gaze searching. 'My God—Cat?' He frowned at the innocence he read in her eyes.
'Does it—matter?' Her voice was husky.
'Does it ? My God, Cat, do you have any idea how it makes me feel to know I'll be the first?'<
br />
And the last, she silently added. Only this man made her feel this way, and when he no longer wanted her she would be alone again. And she would stay alone.
'Will you give me what you never gave Harry?' he asked in a humbled voice.
Her gaze became troubled. 'Only because he wouldn't take it,' she admitted. 'Caleb, I—I would have—'
'But you didn't,' he smiled. 'You didn't!' he repeated exultantly. 'God, Cat, this is the most beautiful night of my life!'
Tears glistened in her eyes, 'I thought you knew, that you realised—'
'No,' he echoed. 'Otherwise I wouldn't have— I didn't frighten you, did I, those other times I tried to make love to you?' He frowned at the thought.
'I'm a virgin, Caleb, not a simpleton,' she gently mocked.
'And I'm stark naked,' he realised awkwardly, picking his robe up from the chair to pull it on and belt it about his waist. 'Would you like to take a bath? A shower? Or something?' He still frowned.
'I bathed just before dinner, if you remember' she refused. 'Caleb,' she added softly, 'I'm supposed to be the shy and innocent one,' she chided. 'You're the man of experience.'
He swallowed hard. 'Never this experience,' he admitted gruffly.
'Luke knew.' She grimaced, as his face darkened ominously. 'He accused me of acting like an outraged virgin when he burst into the bathroom.'
Caleb's scowl deepened. 'That young man needs a lesson in manners around a lady.'
'But not now,' she encouraged throatily.
'No,' he groaned, 'not now.'
Clothes fell to the floor by her hand and Caleb's, she wasn't always sure which, Caleb's lips gentle on her body as she lay naked on the bed beneath him. His kisses on her heated flesh were a torment and a heady delight at the same time, until she cried out at the agony and the ecstasy.
'Patience, my love. Patience,' he softly chided. 'I have no intention of hurting you, no matter how you plead.' He laughed huskily at her groan of outrage, soon making her gasp anew as his lips sought that secret place no other man had known.
Waves of pleasure crashed into themselves as she writhed on the bed, her arms held gently at her sides as she would have pushed Caleb away, the pleasure almost beyond bearing. Almost. Caleb knew exactly how far to take her before stopping the torment, his mouth returning to hers as he languidly caressed her breasts.
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