by Susan Napier
'I… I think you'd better go.' Clare set down her glass with a click, feeling unbearably flustered. Was he saying he thought she was beautiful and fascinating, after all the beautiful, fascinating women he must have known? She wouldn't let herself believe the lie.
'Why? Have I embarrassed you? By complimenting you? Why do you treat me so gracelessly? Didn't your husband teach you to accept compliments in the spirit in which they are offered? Didn't he tell you that you were beautiful?'
Clare couldn't bring herself to look at him in case he was laughing at her. Her hands were twisting in her lap. She felt as if she was on a train, rushing towards some unknown destination. 'Yes, but—'
'But what?' he asked, distracted by the new freckles revealed by her charming blush.
'But he wasn't...flirting.'
'He didn't flirt with you?' He frowned disapprovingly.
'Yes—no—you're confusing me,' she said feebly, wishing now that she still had her glass to fiddle with. 'Lee was my husband.'
'And you were a faithful wife?'
'Very,' she said firmly.
'And you still are?' There was a faint question mark at the end of his soft statement, but Clare ignored it. Certainly her thoughts of the last few days hadn't been very faithful to Lee's memory. She got up, suddenly stricken with guilt, but before she could suggest that he leave David changed tack.
'Virginia said that Lee played classical guitar. She said that he had a very bright career ahead of him.'
Clare half turned, so he wouldn't see the quiver of her mouth. She would bet all she had that Virginia hadn't mentioned the other side of the coin, her son's bright career in rock. 'Yes,' she said. 'Everyone agreed he had loads of talent. It's a pity he didn't record more than he did.'
'You mean he made a record!' David's surprise contained a faint suspicion he was being had. Clare looked too sweet and rosy and innocent and amused.
'He made several professional recordings. He wasn't famous by your standards, of course, but within New Zealand he was very well-known.'
'Then why haven't I heard of him? Did he record under another name?' She could see David sifting through his formidable memory.
'No, his own. In fact, I have one of his albums here. Would you like to hear a track?'
'I'd love to,' he said with enthusiasm. Not only would he be able to satisfy his curiosity about Clare's husband, but he would have an excuse to stay in the quiet intimacy of her company for a little longer.
Clare found the Myth album and put it on the turntable, making sure that David didn't get a glimpse of the cover. She adjusted the volume fairly high. The rooms at Moonlight were all insulated and fairly well sound-proofed, and Tim was a solid sleeper.
She wished she had a camera when the first thundering chords of the electric guitar vibrated around the lounge. David winced, shock, dismay and finally comprehension streaking across his dark features. Clare was openly laughing at him when he rose slowly to his feet.
'This is your husband?'
The vocals started and Clare turned the volume down slightly as she nodded, her eyes limpid blue. 'What's the matter, don't you like it?' She was fairly sure of his answer, and was therefore stunned when he tilted his head and listened for a moment to the strong, husky voice doing the vocals and the clever, catchy rhythm that threaded behind it, beginning to click his fingers and move to the beat.
'It's good. I like it.' And as if that entirely settled the matter he moved towards her, still in rhythm, shoulders and hips gliding sinuously in time. 'Dance with me.'
'We can't,' said Clare automatically, dragging her eyes away from the intriguing tilt of his pelvis.
'Why not? There's nobody to see us.' He danced around like the Pied Piper, forcing her to turn to keep him safely in sight. 'Doesn't the music make you want to move? That's the hallmark of good rock, it makes you want to illustrate the beat. Come on, Clare,' he invited mockingly, 'you know it's irresistible…'
And it was. She was already swaying without realising it. 'This is ridiculous,' she whispered as she let him loosely clasp her wrist and draw her across the lounge to the empty space in front of the big windows. He was a marvellous mover and she couldn't help but respond, her own love of dancing overtaking her, challenging her to better him. Soon they were embarking on an absorbing interaction that banished her self-consciousness. She wasn't even aware that one track had melted into another, until David's hands were at her waist and she realised that they had reached the slow number, the last one on that side. They had been dancing for twenty minutes. When she tried to ease out of his grip he wouldn't let her. He held her wary eyes with his, drawing her into their dark fascination, beckoning her with the tantalising brush of his body.
'We move well together, don't we?' he murmured smokily, his hands on her waist turning her so that her hip moved against his, one of his thighs briefly pressing between her legs. He turned her again before she could protest the intimacy…if she had wanted to. They danced in silence a few moments longer, then the eyes which held her captive dropped to her mouth. Clare became exquisitely conscious of his body, the arousal that he teased her with every time he moved against her. Yet perversely she didn't feel threatened. Yes, he was aroused and not trying to hide it, but explicit in the dark admiration of his eyes, was the promise of seduction, not rape. His body, though taut with desire, was relaxed, asking rather than demanding.
'David…' she began shakily, trying to find the strength of will to deny the unspoken question.
'Do you like the taste of my name in your mouth?' he whispered, eyes dark slits as he watched her lips move.
She wanted to taste more than his name, and he knew it. Clare shivered, pressing herself inadvertently against him, and he gave a soft groan.
'Yes, darling… move like that… again… Clare…' One hand was now binding her waist, the other sliding up into her thick, clean hair. 'Mmm, you smell so good…' He continued his erotic dance as he kissed her, enjoying the faint quiver of her mouth before it opened obediently to the gentle thrust of his tongue, accepting the inevitable. She filled his senses, her warm, womanly curves fitting to him, making him arch to relieve the ache that was threatening to explode. It wasn't enough. He broke the kiss slowly and with the greatest of reluctance, his fingers tightening in her hair as he looked down at her upturned face, flushed with the heat of mutual desire. Her eyes were the colour of a stormy sky, her mouth as lush and ripe as the rest of her, faintly swollen by his quest for the pleasure within. Had he bitten her in his delirium? He lifted his hand from her waist to trace the over-full bow.
'You have a lovely mouth.' It seemed natural to let his hand sink down again, over the delicate arch of her jaw, down her soft, warm throat to the creamy, freckled triangle of skin above the modest embrace of her robe. Clare's eyes fluttered closed, shutting out the hunger that hardened the aggressive angles of his face. She mustn't see…she mustn't let him see, know, how much she wanted to appease that very male hunger.
He knew what she was doing. 'Don't hide from me, Clare. You don't have to hide yourself from me.' He kissed her again, and from somewhere Clare found the sense to stiffen the arms she had braced against the hard wall of his chest. Even so, her tongue curled treacherously around his as she dragged her mouth away, as if she couldn't bear to let go of the sinful delight of the symbolic possession.
'No, please…' She couldn't seem to breathe very well, the roomy robe seemed too tight. 'David…'
'It's all right, it's all right, Clare,' he soothed her trembling with tender kisses along her averted jawline, his fingers abandoning their tormenting of that tender triangle of skin as they moved instead to the tie of her robe. 'It's all right. I'm going to go. I just want to see what you're hiding. I won't hurt or frighten you…'
He wouldn't, but Clare frightened herself. She wanted him to see her body, even though she was afraid he would find it disappointing. She looked at his face, dark and intent, as he slowly unwrapped her robe, deliberately prolonging the agonising
moment of anticipation.
His hand clenched on the soft lapel of the robe as he stared at the lavender drift of pure silk which faithfully loved every dip and curve of her body from breast to knee. The lace bodice cupped her breasts with exquisite restraint, the transparencies in the pattern providing tantalising glimpses of creamy flesh bearing its own random pattern of freckles. The tight points were modestly covered, but that only made them all the more obvious.
Clare waited for him to touch her, to slide the silk against her heated skin, her abandonment complete as she saw not disappointment but the flattery of raw desire in his silent appreciation.
He sighed, the hard body seeming to arch slightly towards her yearningly before he shook his shaggy head and firmly rewrapped her robe, tying it more tightly than was necessary.
Clare went pale, then hot with shame. She had practically melted into his arms, and he didn't want her. He had been just flirting. Probably he was amused that she was so easy, after all! She tried to pull away, but he wouldn't let her.
'Clare, do you know what the time is?'
'What?'
'Tamara's movie will be over. And if I know her, she's not going to sit quietly in our room until I come back. She's going to come looking for me.'
'Oh?' Clare's eyes shot everywhere but to his face, and he gave her a little, sharp shake.
'Clare, I'd love nothing better than to make love to you in that lavender piece of nothing, but even now you're having trouble looking me in the eye. Imagine how it would be tomorrow morning, if I stayed and did what we both want. I came here to talk, not to seduce you. The seduction comes later.'
'Oh, really? You mean you have a schedule you have to stick to?' said Clare, infuriated enough by his arrogance to glare directly at him.
'No. But I think you do. I don't think that you're the kind of woman to sleep with a man on the first date.'
'This wasn't a date!'
'Even worse!' He looked shocked, and she very nearly succumbed to his teasing. Just in time, she stopped the smile.
'David—'
'Let it go, Clare. You really don't want to pursue this.' And suddenly she didn't. He looked all too confident of where it would lead. She wished she had the kind of sophistication that could shrug off what just happened.
'Now, show me nicely to the door and give me a consoling goodnight kiss, and bear in mind when you wake up next morning that I've been incredibly self-sacrificing!'
Smug wretch! He didn't get his kiss, but it didn't seem to bother him. Clare could hear him chuckling all the way back down the hall to his room.
She went over and switched off the stereo, offering a silent apology to Lee's photograph on the back of the album cover.
If only Lee were here to protect her now. The trouble was that he wasn't, and she couldn't help remembering one of the last things he'd said to her, in the hospital, when he knew there was not much time left.
'Life is for living, Clare, you just remember that. You've gotta take your chances as they come. If you don't, you're only half living!'
CHAPTER SIX
'Hello, Tamara, have you seen Grace? She's not in the kitchen.' Clare didn't really hold out much hope of a positive answer from the figure scrunched in the huge, over-stuffed chair by the french windows in the spacious lounge. Tamara ignored people and things that she didn't like, and Grace was not in her good books. The cook's habit of responding in kind to surliness and bad manners was an unpleasant shock for someone who was used to more satisfying reactions of outrage and anger.
'No.' Tamara was frowning morosely at a layout of stunning models in one of the glossy fashion magazines that she had brought back from her last trip to Rotorua. Clare felt a tug of empathy. She, too, had mourned over the world's unreasonable expectations of feminine beauty when she was an adolescent—tall enough to be a model, but not thin or pretty enough. Temporarily abandoning her quest for the dinner menu, she wandered over to where Tamara sat and was about to make some wry comment about air-brushed fantasies when her eye was caught by a burst of activity down on the lake shore.
'What's going on down there?' David and Tim were jumping about on the grassy slope bounded by lake, lodge and bush, flapping their arms loosely, the small, sticklike figure of her son an absurd contrast to the solid, muscular man in a white polo-necked sweater and black jacket and jeans.
'I don't know,' said Tamara with airy indifference, not looking up and thereby revealing that she was very well aware of the two males outside. Had she been hoping that her father would look back up to the lodge and feel guilty at the lonely silhouette in the window, or was she really trying to follow Clare's advice at the gym, and struggling to assert her independence?
Clare nibbled her lip. 'Tim is supposed to be practising his violin. It's his sacred after-school ritual. I'm surprised that even your father could lure him away from it.'
'Dad doesn't have to lure. He just is,' his daughter said with a mixture of childish pride and adult resignation. Then she cast a sly look at Clare. 'People usually end up giving him what he wants. Especially women. It's embarrassing how far some of them will go to try and please him. But in the end he just pleases himself. You'll see… if he really wants to take Tim away to his school, he will… and have you helping him do it.'
Take Tim away. The words echoed in Clare's mind, as no doubt Tamara intended them to. When Tamara had discovered that her father had spent part of the evening two nights ago in Clare's suite, she had reverted to open animosity, until she had noticed that, far from improving the acquaintanceship, whatever had passed between them had stalled it. It had taken Clare a long time to get to sleep that night, and her dreams had been so full of forbidden music that she had been relieved to wake up the next morning. Her vulnerability had appalled her. She had behaved like the proverbial sex-starved widow. Thank goodness he had not taken advantage of her momentary weakness—although, far from being grateful to him, she was outraged. His self-control made her lack of it all the more humiliating. And he had the gall to suggest that her falling into bed with him was a foregone conclusion!
On the other hand, he hadn't renewed his attempted seduction since. On the contrary, he made no attempt to be alone with her or be anything but passingly friendly. That raised Clare's hackles, too. Either he was confident that she would eventually come begging for his attention, or he had had some deeper, darker motive for treating her like a desirable woman. Like Tim. He might not be able to take Tim away from her physically, but there were other ways to loosen the tie between mother and son. Could she trust David, as a confused parent himself, not to use a subtle form of propaganda to pressure Tim's young, impressionable mind into rejecting her parental authority? Or should she trust that other instinct—fear—which warned her to run like hell?
'Well, you may not be interested, but I am. Coming?' Clare opened the french doors and stepped outside, her shoulders set determinedly.
'No, thanks,' said Tamara, content with having stirred the pot. Now her father's playful idyll with the interloper would be broken up and Tamara hadn't even had to lift a finger. She could afford to feel virtuous.
Down at the lakeside, man and boy continued to imitate the birds who winged gracefully above the cold, still waters. As Clare neared their capering she could see Tim's face aglow, his breath whitening the cold afternoon air. He looked quite warm in his down jacket and jeans, but his hair and his sneakers were damp, and she could hear the faint rattle in his throat.
In spite of her determination to be casual, she was aware of the faint bite in her tone as she said, 'I think it might be a good idea if you came inside now, Tim. You know you're supposed to do your homework before you come out to play.'
'But I'm not playing. I'm practising!' He looked surprised at his mother's sharpness, and she couldn't blame him. Usually she was pleased to see him enjoying himself in the fresh air.
'For what? Flying?' Clare refused to look at David, preferring to pretend she wasn't aware of him with every nerve cell in her body
.
'David is showing me some relaxation exercises. He always does them before he plays. He told me to call him David,' he added quickly as he saw his mother frown at the familiarity.
To her annoyance, David moved up beside the boy and put a casual arm across the thin shoulders, as though protecting him. 'Usually I'm called plain Deverenko by my students, but I didn't think that would fit in with Tim's description of your notions of propriety.'
He made her sound like a prig, but politeness was essential when one lived in a hotel. Clare looked at him, her eyes as cool as the mist beginning to form on the lake behind them. 'Besides which, Tim is not one of your students,' she pointed out succinctly.
He inclined his head in silent amusement at her tartness, and the word yet vibrated silently between them, causing the tension in Clare's stomach to coil tighter. He looked uncompromisingly masculine in the soft black leather jacket, with a dark shadow of re-growth on the hard jaw and a glitter of challenge in the dark gaze. His eyes flickered down over Clare's simple grey tailored dress with its flared skirt, cuffed collar and long sleeves. It was very demure, and the white lace bra and briefs she wore underneath were equally demure, so why did she suddenly feel sexy from the skin out? Unconsciously Clare pressed a nervous hand to her chest, and when David's eyebrows rose she snatched it away, angry at the defensiveness the gesture had revealed.
'Well, I think you've done enough for today,' Clare redirected her wayward thoughts to her small son. 'It's getting pretty cold and damp out here and I don't want you catching a cold. Run in and get out of those damp clothes, and I'll get you a hot drink from the kitchen. Then you can settle down to your homework.'