Lovers Not Friends

by Helen Brooks

  It was another half hour before the police were satisfied, and by then Amy could see that Blade was in some considerable pain. ‘It’s all right.’ He had caught her gaze on him as he winced on standing up, his face immediately straightening. ‘Just a few cuts and bruises, but I think a couple of the other guys came off worse.’ She couldn’t respond to the lightness, her face whitening still more as she noticed one bronzed cheekbone was already turning blue.

  ‘I’d take her home, lad.’ Arthur was his normal stolid self although his voice was still croaky. No one had mentioned his passing out; Amy had an idea the blunt old Yorkshireman would rather die than acknowledge it. ‘Good night’s sleep and the world will be a different place.’

  A different place? Amy had the insane feeling that she was going to shout and scream and throw herself on the floor, as a combination of shock and bitter pain swept over her in a black flood. If only Arthur knew. He thought this was the worst thing that had happened to her? She closed her eyes against the thought. How she wished it were. If she could leave this place with Blade as his wife and go back to their own home with nothing more serious than Beef’s disgusting image in her mind, how grateful she would be. A desolation too great for words filled her soul, and then she reached out beyond herself for strength and composure to get through the next few minutes.

  ‘That’s not necessary.’ She tried to smile, but found it was beyond her. ‘One of the policemen said he would take me home.’

  ‘I’m taking you home,’ Blade said tonelessly, his eyes veiled as she glanced his way. ‘And don’t argue, Amy, not tonight, not now.’ There was something in the complete lack of expression in both face and voice that stopped the protest she had been about to make more effectively than anything else could have done.

  ‘All right.’ Her voice was small. ‘I’ll get my jacket.’ One thing was blazing in her mind above anything else as they walked out to the car. He could have been killed tonight and it would have been through protecting her. It would have been her fault. Somehow she shouldn’t have put herself in that position, she should have known better. Perhaps something she had said or done had made the gang act as they did? She just didn’t know any more. Perhaps her aunt and uncle had been right after all, that she was bad, vile, a snare to trip men up and bring out the beast in them?

  She brushed her hair back from her face with a weary hopeless gesture as she slipped into the car. She was so tired, so deathly tired and everything had gone so horribly wrong …

  ‘Don’t start thinking any of that was your fault.’ He had read her mind, but she should have expected it, she thought miserably. His discernment was terrifying. ‘Those animals are not fit to draw breath. In every generation a few foul specimens like that rear their heads, but thankfully they are few and far between. They see something beautiful and they want to possess and destroy. They’ll never be any good for anything.’

  His voice was icy cold with contempt, and she remembered with a little shiver how he had moved very close to Beef as two policemen had frogmarched the sullen youth out of the door. ‘Just a minute.’ His face had been on a level with the scowling countenance in front of him and his voice had been low and rapier-sharp. ‘If you ever, ever, come near me or mine again, I shall make you wish you’d never been born. Got it?’ He moved a shade nearer, his eyes blazing. ‘But I shall do it my way, understand? And my fingers reach a very long way indeed, sonny. The world wouldn’t be big enough for you to hide. And you’d want to hide.’ The twist to his lips couldn’t have been described as a smile. ‘You’d pray that you could hide. To be locked away somewhere safe would seem sweet.’

  The police had looked less than thrilled at the blatant threat, and Beef and his cronies hadn’t looked too pleased either as they had left, almost dragging the policemen with them.

  ‘Would you really hurt them, Blade? If they came back?’ She looked at him quietly.

  ‘Yes.’ He spared her a fleeting glance as he started the powerful engine. ‘I didn’t grow up in an American mining town without learning a few nasty tricks, Amy, and also making the odd dubious contact. Now I’m not particularly proud of that part of my life, but if I have to use it to protect what’s mine I’ll do so.’ He smiled grimly. ‘But they won’t be back. Beef is just crazy enough to recognise someone more crazy than himself. And I was crazy tonight. When I saw that slug holding you—’ He stopped abruptly. ‘Let’s say I’d have done whatever was necessary, and leave it at that.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Blade.’ Her voice was a small painful whisper, and he shook his head irritably as he negotiated a difficult bend.

  ‘There’s no need, get that into your head. You didn’t do anything wrong. Forget all the rubbish you were fed before you met me, and trust me. I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours some of the time, but one thing I do know. None of this was your fault. What you’re feeling now, thousands of other victims of mindless violence have felt. That they somehow contributed to the circumstances. That they should have been somewhere else, acted differently, dressed differently, whatever. It’s rubbish. You were innocent, totally innocent, and they acted out of their own greed and darkness. You understand me? Do you understand me, Amy?’ The last words demanded a reply, and she nodded weakly.

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Good girl.’ His eyes flashed over her white face before returning to the dark road. ‘I’m taking you back to my place for the night, OK? I’ll sleep on the couch if that makes you feel better.’ It didn’t, but she dared not say so. ‘Do you want to talk this thing through?’

  She had the feeling that he was talking of more than just the night’s happenings and shook her head shakily. ‘No. I want to forget it.’

  He said no more, concentrating on the short ride home through the sleeping countryside that was still and dark. Was it only yesterday that he had cooked her Sunday lunch? she asked herself incredulously as they turned off the main lane into the little sandy track that led to Blade’s cottage. A lunch that had ended so disastrously, with Blade leaving in icy silence as soon as they had eaten and her sitting in numb frozen stillness all the long hot afternoon? How long could they carry on like this, on this emotional see-saw that continued to empty and fill her until she thought she would explode with the intensity of her heartache? And there was no escape. Not now. Not ever. The best, and worst, that she could hope for was that he would leave her alone.

  ‘Out you get.’ She could tell from his voice that he was trying to be cool and brisk, to give an air of normality to an evening that had anything but. ‘I think a cup of coffee liberally laced with brandy is in order, don’t you? Perhaps you’d see to it while I change my shirt.’ She looked at the one he was wearing, torn and stained with blood, and felt sick again as he opened the door to the cottage and waved her in.

  ‘Blade—’ She stopped abruptly as he swung round, his eyes enquiring. He was so handsome, so strong in mind and body, she loved him so much … ‘I think you should bathe that bruise on your face. Your eye is almost closed.’

  ‘No problem.’ He dismissed the battered state of his face with careless disregard.

  ‘No, please.’ She caught hold of his arm. ‘You sit down and I’ll get some water and a towel. You’ll have to have a bath and soak all the rest of your injuries later; you’re going to be black and blue.’

  ‘I’m not going to argue if you want to fuss a bit over me,’ he said with the quirky smile she loved so much. ‘I’ve missed it.’

  She turned away quickly, the lump in her throat threatening to choke her, finding once she was in the kitchen that she had to unclench her hands from the tight fists they had knotted into before she could collect what she needed.

  As she went back into the room the very air was vibrating, the silence loud and deafening, and as she knelt in front of him and gently touched the cold flannel to his swollen face she found she was praying desperately, a soundless blind prayer that she wouldn’t betray herself, that she would be strong, that—

&
nbsp; ‘Kiss me.’

  ‘What?’ His eyes had been closed, but now they were open and staring straight into hers, dark and glittering.

  ‘I said kiss me.’ As she remained frozen in front of him, his eyes softened and turned warm and meltingly gentle. ‘Please.’

  And so she did what she knew she mustn’t do, what she wanted to do, what she ached and longed to do, touching her lips to the swollen taut skin under his eye and tracing a path across the hard tanned face to his waiting mouth. And he kissed her back, wildly, frantically, like a man dying of thirst at the fountain of life. And after that there was no going back.

  At first his hunger made him almost savage as his mouth devoured hers, bruising and crushing her lips until she thought she would cry out, and then the control he had always drawn on re-emerged, and his mouth became warm and sensuously erotic, helping his hands bring her body to glorious life as he gently stripped the clothes from her body and then his own.

  She froze, just for a second, as she saw the marks on his body that the gang’s fists and boots had inflicted, and then he smothered her pale limbs with his own, soothing her, touching her, until nothing else mattered in the world but the two of them and the sensations he was bringing forth out of her aching form. The riptide of pleasure was impossible to fight, her pale, almost translucent, skin a stark contrast to the tanned hardness of his, her full breasts, heavy with passion, wonderfully aroused against the coarse tight body hair that covered his powerful chest.

  How had she managed so long without him? As his mouth and tongue made searingly sensual assaults on every part of her body, she ran her fingers over the warm male flesh that was so completely hers. He was hers. The knowledge was traitorously exhilarating. From the first moment they had met he had been hers. As she had been his. He meant more than life itself.

  At the moment of possession she was pierced through, for one brief second, with an emotion of such feverish joy and sadness that she cried his name out loud, and then they continued into the heights together as he murmured her name over and over again in an agony of love.

  And then, when it was over, he cradled her close against the comforting bulk of his body, wrapping his arms and legs round her as though to protect her from all the world could inflict, never knowing that what attacked her was from within. She found she couldn’t talk or think, sinking into the deep blanket of sleep as she lay enfolded in his arms, her mind dulled and still, and just content to be held next to the man she loved so much.

  She wasn’t sure what woke her from the thick dreamless lethargy, but she found her eyes were heavy and tired as though she had been drugged. Blade was still asleep, his body curved around her and his limbs acting both as a shield and a cover.

  For a moment the languor was too deep, too somnolent for her to raise herself, and then a burning stream of hot self-loathing flooded her limbs with pure adrenalin. How could she have been so weak, so criminally, stupidly weak? All the weeks of heartache, all the bitter confrontations and painful rows—and for what? She was back where she had been three months ago, about to break his heart for a second time, but this time things would be so much worse. She had run away, and that hadn’t worked. She had tried rejecting him, and look where that had got her. What could she do? What could she do?

  ‘Amy, darling …’ As Blade stirred and then opened his eyes, she saw his face was open and unguarded, his eyes hungry for her. ‘Everything will be all right, sweetheart.’

  She stiffened, her whole body tensing at what she must do. But could she do it? Could she convince him after what they had just shared that it was all a mistake? A physical weakness momentarily appeased. Could she?

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘BLADE, I have to go.’ She jerked out of his arms with such force that she heard his elbow crack against the floor through the thick sheepskin rug on which they had lain. ‘I must get back.’

  ‘There’s no rush.’ His voice was lazy, warm. ‘We’ve the whole night—’

  ‘No!’ She was already pulling on her clothes with feverish haste, and this time the tone of her voice got through to him as he raised himself slowly on one elbow, his face hardening.

  ‘Not again. For crying out loud, not again.’

  ‘You don’t understand.’ She heard him move, a rustle of clothes, a zip fastening into place, and then he was in front of her clad only in his jeans, his face more angry than she had ever seen it, his black eyes blazing like an inferno.

  ‘I’m going to.’ His voice was low and tight, the same voice he had used to Beef in the restaurant. ‘Believe me, Amy, I’m going to. No more evasions, no more double talk. You are going to talk to me tonight, really talk—’

  ‘You can’t make me!’ She could hear the hysteria in her voice herself, and winced at the shrillness even as she recognised that she was frightened. Badly frightened. The coldly dangerous man standing in front of her was at the end of his tether; even if she hadn’t loved him so much she would have known that.

  ‘I can make you, and you know it.’ In contrast to her voice, his had got lower, the deepness chilling her bones. ‘Why did you leave, Amy? And don’t give me that garbage about it not working. That wasn’t the reason was it? Was it?’ The last two words had been like pistol shots in her ears and she jumped visibly, taking a step backwards as she gazed up at him with huge drowning eyes. ‘I’m prepared to stay here for days, weeks, months, until I get an answer. And this John!’ He dismissed poor John with an angry jab of his hand. ‘You don’t care for him. You couldn’t make love with me the way we’ve just done if you did. I know you, Amy. I know you. Try and tell me you don’t love me! Tell me you want me out of your life for good.’

  She put her hand to her mouth as he moved a step towards her, for all the world like a huge dark avenging angel that was going to tear her heart out by its roots. And then it was all too much. Before he could stop her she had fled towards the door, pulling it open and rushing out into the dark night as though she had wings on her feet. She had to get away. Had to escape …

  He caught her before she had even left the perimeter of the house, pulling her round with such force that she felt her head spin as he shook her hard. ‘You will tell me! Now! I love you, I have the right to know! You’re my wife, damn it. What about all the plans we made? Children. A house in the country. Growing old together—’

  ‘I’ll never grow old!’ She was screaming, over and over again, all the pent-up emotion of months breaking forth as she gave up the fight to be brave, to be strong. ‘I won’t, do you hear! At the most I’ve got just a few years before this body begins to break down, to decay, to give up! And then I’ll be on crutches, and then a wheelchair—’

  ‘Amy!’

  ‘No, you listen to me! This is what you wanted, isn’t it, to hear it all? Well, you’ve got what you wanted! I’m telling you now—’

  The slap across her face was just hard enough to break the frenzied hysteria that had brought a red mist before her eyes, and as his dark face swam into focus she was suddenly enfolded in his arms as he lifted her bodily and strode back into the house. She didn’t try to struggle against his superior strength, there was no point, and besides she felt numb and lifeless as the enormity of what she had done washed over her. A living hell. She had condemned him to a living hell. If the knowledge of what was going to happen was too hard for him to bear and he left her, he would carry the guilt with him for the rest of his life. If he stayed—her mind slammed to a halt. What had she done? How could she have told him if she really loved him? And she did, so much.

  ‘Relax, baby, relax …’ He was holding her in the chair now, crooning softly as he smothered her face in tiny comforting kisses that held none of the previous passion in their depths. ‘It’ll be all right, I promise you—’

  ‘It won’t, Blade.’ The strength to speak came from somewhere and she swallowed deeply as she raised herself just enough to look into his face, seeing the hard features and dark eyes that were soft and desperate with love with a mad poundi
ng of her heart. ‘It can’t be.’

  Now she did struggle to get down, but he drew her tightly against him, so close she could hear the crazy throbbing of his heart that belied the outward composure. ‘Whatever this is we’ll face it together, my love, now—’

  ‘Blade, I’ve got a disease that is going to kill me slowly over a period of years,’ she said with icy numbness, her body as stiff as a board. This time he allowed her to draw away just a little so she could look right into his face, and what she saw shattered the numbness into a million tiny pieces. His face was as white as a sheet, his eyes stricken. ‘I won’t be beautiful any more, I won’t be anything. I won’t be able to walk at first, then other muscles will begin to be affected and eventually—’ She stopped abruptly and then forced herself to go on. ‘Eventually I’ll be bedridden on a machine and then I’ll die.’

  ‘Stop it.’ He shook her gently, his hands warm on her cold flesh. ‘Don’t talk like this.’

  ‘But it’s the truth, Blade. You wanted the truth and now you’ve got it.’ She should never have told him. Her mind was screaming denunciation at her. He wouldn’t be able to cope with this thing, why should he? It wasn’t his problem; in all he had only known her for just twelve months. It wasn’t fair to expect him to give up years of his life too when he could be free and happy and—

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked quietly. ‘What have I ever done to you, Amy, that you couldn’t tell me?’ The words seemed torn out of his very soul. ‘Didn’t you trust me at all?’

  ‘I love you, Blade,’ she said dully.

  ‘And that’s an answer?’ He was breathing hard, his voice husky. ‘You love me and so you leave me? You take away the only thing that makes life worth living and you tell me that’s love?’

  ‘Blade—’

  ‘No, you listen to me now.’ He stood up with her in his arms, placing her feet on the ground as he took her forearms in his hands, and she could feel the shaking of his body even through her own trembling. ‘When I came back and found that note I wanted to die.’ His eyes held hers, piercingly dark, and the pain and hopelessness in their inky blackness chilled her bones. ‘I didn’t want to live, Amy. I would never have imagined a woman could do that to me before I met you, and when I did …’ His voice trailed away for a moment, and then he continued slowly, ‘When I did meet you I knew I could trust you completely, I knew it.’