Mistess of the Groom

by Susan Napier

  'Are we fighting?' she said with honeyed innocence. 'I thought this was the way you always conducted your business ... you know-threats, insults, physical maul­ings...'

  His temper was momentarily leavened by a flicker of admiration at her sheer audacity.

  'You want to be mauled, sweetheart, you're going the right way about it.' He lifted her hand in a parody of politeness and took a stinging nip out of her wrist, just below the ruffled edge of her glove.

  'You just can't bear to lose, can you?' she hissed as a fierce tingle shot up her arm and radiated down over her breasts, drenching her with a hateful awareness. 'And stop calling me sweetheart.'

  'Just getting you in the mood.' His hard glance shafted over her shoulder. 'Dan's on his way back to the table and he's the one who'll be doing the mauling. I hope you're ready to earn your money because I understand he prefers his sex rough ... He may like you to be a lady at the table but it's a slut he wants in bed.'

  His bluff had failed, so now he was trying to frighten her into giving his ten thousand dollars back.

  'Better him than you,' she jeered, hell-bent on making him suffer before she let him off the hook.

  'Then, I guess we have a deal.'

  He picked up the room key and pressed it into her captive palm, folding her fingers slowly down over the rectangular piece of plastic, one by one, his blue eyes smouldering with deadly challenge.

  'So be it.'

  Jane's breath stopped in her throat as she realised that he wasn't going to back down. He was daring her to go through with their devil's bargain! He really didn't care about the money ... he was rich enough not to miss the odd ten thousand, and had already proved that he would go to extraordinary lengths to gather her totally under his power.

  Her head whirled in confusion, one certainty forming in the increasingly foggy muddle of thoughts: he was never going to give up and go away. Maybe the only way to win against him was to let him have the revenge he craved. Maybe then he would leave her alone.

  But Sherwoods never gave up! Her father might not have had any principles but Jane had created a set of her own that she had sworn to live by: her word was her bond, never cheat on a deal, never betray a friend. And this man-this man was the reason she hadn't been able to live up to those high ideals. He had haunted her past and now here he was once again trying to seduce her into forgetting her principles, turning herself into a cheat and a liar. A coward.

  'Well, are we going to party, honey?' Dan asked, his hand appearing over her shoulder to plonk his empty brandy-glass down on the table. He tilted the back of her chair with a suddenness that made her gasp and clutch the seat, and grinned teasingly down into her up­turned face.

  Jane glanced back at Ryan, but he had swivelled away to put his signature on the bill which had been presented on a silver tray, the slashing downward strokes of his pen almost penetrating the paper. His angry profile was bleak and unrelenting.

  'Sure...' Her voice seemed to come from a long, long way away as she let Dan help her to her feet. Her brain felt oddly separated from her body and her feet seemed to float above the floor as she accompanied him out of the restaurant into the thickly carpeted foyer of the hotel, conscious of Ryan prowling silently on their heels. She could feel his brooding stare pressing on her rigid back like the barrel of a gun--cold, hard and lethally unfor­giving.

  An icy calm settled over her. Time seemed to stretch, acquiring a dreamlike unreality as they walked past the reception desk to the bank of lifts where the two men shook hands and exchanged final pleasantries. Ryan sounded smooth and unruffled, but when Dan noticed that the receptionist was idle, and told Jane to summon the lift while he scooted over to check his messages, she discovered otherwise. She found herself abruptly backed into the nearest pillar, corralled by a solid body and big hands planted flat against the marble on either side of her shoulders.

  'He's old enough to be your father--doesn't that even bother you?' Jane could feel Ryan's burning gaze raking her pale, averted face. If she moved she would have to touch him so she froze, barely breathing, hoping that passive resistance would serve where open confrontation had so miserably failed.

  When she didn't answer, his voice hardened sardoni­cally. 'The next customer mightn't be so much to your taste. What happens then, Jane? You're selling your right to say "no". What happens if I offer your services to someone who makes your skin crawl? Will you close your eyes and think of the money while some sweating pig of a man grunts and heaves between your legs?'

  Jane's response to his lurid taunts was to retreat deep within herself, beyond the reach of his controlling fury.

  His hands fell to his sides and he stepped back, as if suddenly contaminated by their closeness. 'You know that if you do this there'll be no going back,' he warned harshly.

  'Thanks to you I have nothing to go back to,' she pointed out, stepping around him to smile brittly at Dan, who returned just as the lift doors opened to disgorge a group of American tourists. She slid her arm through his and tugged him inside the vacant lift, not caring that her eagerness to get away from Ryan might be interpreted as something else.

  Like a sleepwalker she accompanied Dan to room 703, handing him the key-card to unlock the door and watching him prowl around, twitching the curtains and switching on the radio, turning the lights on and off until he had created the effect he wanted. He left only a small, shaded lamp burning on the long, low, polished wood dresser, and Jane was glad of the near-darkness that shrouded the other side of the room where the big double bed loomed.

  The room itself was luxurious, bland, anonymous ... containing nothing to jar the senses or cling in the memory, and for that she was also grateful.

  She put her black drawstring bag on the spindly table by the door, but even that movement took an effort. A stunned inertia weighted the limbs that had minutes ago been floating free of gravity, and rational thought eluded her.

  She had made a deal ...

  The thought blazed through the fog in her brain as she let Dan take her into his arms. His hands felt dry and leathery on her skin as he tugged her face down to his. His cologne was sharp and unpleasantly astringent as it mixed with the strong aroma of alcohol on his breath.She turned her head so that the lips that were about to fasten on her mouth crawled moistly down her cheek instead. She had to do this, she told herself desperately. It was a matter of honour. She had to do it to prove ... to prove.

  She couldn't remember what she was supposed to be proving or to whom. The cloak of inertia began to slip. A vague sense of panic broke through the drug-induced lethargy and the blood thumped in her ears as she pushed frantically at Dan's chest, conscious of the bull-like strength compressed into his stocky frame.

  'What? What's the matter?' Dan lifted his head, his brown eyes puzzled rather than annoyed, and Jane felt her brief burst of terror subside as he allowed her to ease away.

  'Oh, there's someone at the door,' she said shakily, having realised that the source of the thumping wasn't inside her head.

  Her knees almost crumbled in relief. Ryan! It had to be him! His conscience had got the better of him. In spite of his callous threats he hadn't abandoned her to her just deserts. For that she was almost prepared to forgive him!

  'Oh, good, the champagne's arrived!' Dan crowed, opening the door and beckoning the hotel waiter inside. 'I ordered it while I was down at the reception desk,' he told Jane sheepishly. 'Know how you girls like your bubbly ... and flowers and chocolates-so I got some of them, too...'

  Somewhere deep inside her she had been certain that Ryan would come. 'I...I have to go ... to the bathroom,' she muttered from the depths of her shock, and dived through the door behind her, her hands scrabbling with the lock.

  She braced herself over the marble basin, staring at her bloodless face in the mirror. Two hectic hot spots glowed on her cheekbones where Collette had applied blusher, and although her lipstick had completely worn off her lower lip was still red where she had been un­consciously worrying it wit
h her teeth.

  She looked down at her hands. Although there was no pain the left glove was beginning to strain at the seams. Soon her circulation might be affected. Better to take the gloves off now than have to have them cut off later...

  She peeled back the tight satin casings, having to tug hard to free the puffy little finger of her left hand. She looked at the exposed damage with detachment, deciding that the mottled bruising wouldn't be too obvious in the subdued lighting of the next room.

  The next room, where champagne and Dan Miller waited ...

  In other circumstances she might actually have quite liked him, Jane thought woozily. Downstairs he had been boisterous and full of brash insensitivity, but in private the rough diamond had revealed himself as something of a closet romantic. No matter what Ryan had said, she didn't believe that the older man would physically hurt her.

  The knowledge gave her the courage to venture out, leaving the discarded gloves screwed up on the van­ity unit.

  She was grateful to discover that the curious waiter was gone, and accepted a brimming glass of champagne with fatalistic calm. No one was coming to rescue her. She would have to do it herself. Before, Dan had just been a cardboard cut-out figure in her consciousness, just a prop in her private battle with Ryan. Now he was all too real, a human being, someone who was gruffly gen­erous and capable of being hurt.

  It was all Ryan's fault!

  Jane drained her glass quickly and then sat down on the edge of the bed as she found her head spinning. 'Dan ...' She had something important to tell him, she knew. Something very, very important...

  'Of course, my dear,' he said with exaggerated cour­tesy, sloppily refilling her glass before she could tell him that that wasn't what she wanted. She realised that he was none too steady on his feet, either. Although Ryan had ordered the wine that had been served with their dinner, he had drunk even more sparingly than Jane, and as a result it had been Dan who had ended up consuming most of the two bottles.

  He staggered and she instinctively grabbed hold of the elbow of his jacket and pulled him safely down beside her, then bent to place her glass on the floor. The blood rushed to her head and the glass wobbled on the thick carpet, tipping over and sending ice-cold bubbles splash­ing over her feet. Jane squeaked, kicking off her dripping shoes, the flurry of her legs sending her toppling back on the bed, her dress riding up around her thighs.

  Dan fell back beside her, the champagne bottle still clasped in his hand, and Jane let out another shriek as the golden liquid foamed out of the narrow neck onto his chest. He merely grinned at the sight of the fizzing cascade and she raised herself on her left elbow, righting the bottle and instinctively brushing at the huge wet patch that had appeared on his half-unbuttoned shirt.

  'Why don't you just lick it off me, honey?' he invited good-humouredly, his free hand sliding under her hip to roll her on top of him.

  Engrossed in their damp tussle, neither of them heard anything, but suddenly the door to the room crashed open and, almost simultaneously, Jane felt herself plucked off the bed and set ungently on her feet.

  'Sorry, mate--change of plan.'

  Ryan Blair reached down and hauled Dan up from the bed by his soggy shirt-front, plucking the champagne out of his hand as he marched him to the door. When Dan spluttered a protest, Ryan bent to murmur something in his ear and the older man's resistance col­lapsed like a pricked balloon. With a muttered goodbye in Jane's vague direction he allowed himself to be bun­dled into the hall, hurrying off even before the door was kicked shut with a polished heel.

  Jane stared at Ryan as he leaned back against the door, shooting the privacy bolt behind him with an ominous clunk. His pale jacket seemed to glow in the dimness, warning her of the volatile energy sheathed within its smooth contours.

  'Wh-what did you say to him?' she demanded defen­sively. 'And how did you get in?'

  The door was still intact, so he couldn't have broken it down, and she was horrified by the thought that some­one from Housekeeping might have glimpsed her rolling around on the bed with Dan.

  He chose to answer her second question first. He tossed something with a clatter onto the table beside her evening bag. 'I booked the room, remember?'

  A key. He had kept a key!

  He folded his arms across his chest. 'And I told Dan that I'd regretfully just found out that you were suffering an occupational disease in its most infectious phase ...'

  Jane flushed with humiliation. 'Why, you-'

  He kicked away from the door. 'Be careful. Be very, very careful what you say, Jane. I'm not in the pleas­antest of moods.'

  She circled warily away from him. 'You never are!' Suddenly the mental fogginess was gone, her lethargy replaced with a raging restlessness, her body taut with a fierce readiness. Everything around her came into sharp focus, colours were more vivid, sounds more penetrat­ing. She could even hear his breathing, quick and shal­low, and the whispering rasp of his clothing against his skin as he moved. If she listened carefully enough, she believed she could hear the blood pulse in his veins. Certainly she could see it throbbing heavily in his temple as he prowled closer. The shadow on his jaw seemed darker, emphasising the image of almost overpowering masculinity.

  She put her hands behind her, where he wouldn't be able to see them shake.

  'What are you doing here, anyway?' Her effort to sound strong and assertive came out like a sullen com­plaint.

  He slid his jacket down his arms and threw it care­lessly onto the floor. 'Ungrateful bitch!'

  Her flush deepened in the knowledge that his taunt was partly justified. But did he expect a meek 'thank you' for rescuing her from a predicament that was mostly of his making? She glared at him defiantly, and was immediately punished for her sin.

  'It occurred to me that I might have been a trifle hasty in employing you without any references. So I decided to conduct a personal evaluation of your services before I allowed others to avail themselves of your expertise...'

  He deftly unknotted his tie and stripped it from under his collar with a slow hiss of silk that was a provocation in itself.

  Jane was appalled by the little thrill of excitement that skittered along her exposed nerves.

  'You really were going to do it, weren't you?' he observed with a dangerous calm, dropping the tie on top of his crumpled jacket. 'You were going to sleep with an old man for money.'

  'Dan isn't old,' she muttered distractedly as she watched him reach for his cuffs. His eyes narrowed and she added quickly, 'Look, if you're calling off the deal, that's OK by me. You can have your damned money back.'

  She fished in her cleavage with her good hand and to her horror came up empty. The cheque must have slipped to one side of her bra while she was trying to wrestle free of Dan.

  'It's your money now,' Ryan told her, sliding his gold cuff-links into his trouser pocket as he stepped across his discarded clothes.

  Jane backed away, almost tearing the delicate Italian lace as she burrowed frantically deeper. With a silent sob of relief she finally extracted the warm, crumpled cheque.

  'Here, take it. I never meant to keep it, anyway,' she said, holding it out as if it were a talisman that would ward off the dark demon of her wicked imagination.

  'Did you not?' It was evident from the cynical curl of his mouth that he didn't believe her. He ignored her outstretched hand, his smoky-eyed gaze roaming from her tense face to the ruffled halo of her hair, riding the waves of midnight silk down to the glittering cap-sleeve which sagged off her left shoulder, revealing the emer­ald-green strap of her bra.

  'No!' Her sticky toes curled into the carpet at the ex­pression on his face as he visually traced the lacy strap down over the creamy upper swell of her breast. The oxygen in the room seemed sharply depleted. Jane gulped a steadying breath, and hitched up her errant sleeve with the hand that held the cheque. 'You know damned well I was just trying to pay you back for in­sulting me-'

  'I can think of a better way...' he murmured, h
is gaze shifting to centre on the rapid movements of her breasts. The flashy little number she wore suddenly felt as if it were made of transparent shrink-wrap. Never had Jane been more conscious of her overblown ripeness!

  Her nerve broke as his eyes lifted back up to hers and his hands moved slowly to the collar of his shirt. 'What do you think you're doing?' she croaked as he undid the first button with unhurried fingers.

  'Exactly what you think I'm doing,' he averred softly, moving down to the next button with the same tantalis­ing deliberation, revealing a sliver of bare chest that was sculpted of pure muscle and covered with a fine dusting of dense black hair. 'What you hoped I was going to do...'

  Jane was belatedly aware of the hushed isolation of the sound-proofed room, the double-locked door barred by his solid bulk. Keeping her attention fixed on Ryan, she tried to edge to her right.

  'What I was hoping is that you were going to step aside so that I can leave-' She broke off, diving for the bathroom, but he was primed for an evasive manoeuvre, faster as well as bigger, his strong hands catching Jane by the waist, reeling her inexorably in towards him as she dug her bare heels into the carpet.

  'Liar!' he accused darkly. 'This moment has been a long time coming, hasn't it, Jane? Years, in fact...'

  'I don't know what you're talking about,' she panted, twisting in his grip, pushing at him with one fist, handi­capped by her need to keep her left hand out of harm's way.

  'The hell you don't!' Blue flame leapt in his eyes as he shifted his weight, lifting and swinging her around until her back hit the wall beside the elegant table, trap­ping her there with his hips while his hard hands slid down and curved over her flanks.

  'It's been there between us right from the start. Unspoken, but always there-this hot, itchy feeling of mutual awareness ... '

  'No!' He was stirring up long buried feelings that he had no right to disinter. She lashed out with her bare feet-a mistake, since it enabled him to slip sideways between her scissoring legs and push up against the cen­tre of her body. She twisted her torso, tossing her head wildly so that her hair lashed his face, catching in the slight roughness along his shadowed chin.