It was scathing, but beneath her anger Maria still felt uneasy. She half believed him now, simply because she knew a man like Luke wouldn’t invent something of this nature, but the belief was shot through with a conviction that he was talking about more than sating an inconvenient lust. He wanted to punish her for something she wasn’t sure of.
‘Oh, yes,’ he agreed tautly. ‘What do you think I am? Obviously your co-operation—your consent—is required.’
‘I’m not giving it.’ Pride raised her head and flashed in her eyes.
‘No, it seems evident that it’s not going to happen tonight unless your mood undergoes a drastic change.’ He smiled faintly. ‘I’m no longer even sure that once will be enough. I used to think it would be, but…God! When I think that up until last night I was even hoping that I might look at you and wonder what it had all been about—that I’d feel nothing! But you’ve retained that particular quirky beauty that calls to something in me, some random or rogue streak, and this time I’m answering. Your intermittent adventures with Jones haven’t destroyed or even marred it. If anything, you’re more intriguing as a woman than you were as a girl. You’re smarter, with more to say for yourself…We may need weeks, or even months.’
‘We? Didn’t you hear me?’ The demand was a little shaky. ‘Do you seriously think I’d let you touch me, when all I feel for you is loathing? When you talk to me the way you do? When I hate you?’
‘Quite passionately, as we’ve already agreed, which adds a certain zest to the other thing that’s between us. And don’t imagine that either is one-sided, Maria.’ His voice had hardened briefly as he added the caution, but when he went on again it was low and musing. ‘Hatred and desire. Passion plus passion. It could be an explosive mixture.’
‘Desire?’ she prompted scornfully. ‘Not this side!’
‘No, that’s also mutual.’ The glitter in his eyes set off a jangling alarm in her mind. ‘That’s what it was all about six years ago, why you were a bundle of nerves every time I came anywhere near you—because you couldn’t cope with your feelings. They frightened you. Perhaps you hadn’t even identified them properly…And they haven’t changed. I suspected it last night, and you confirmed it for me when I touched you in the lift on the way up to the restaurant tonight. Like me, you’ve been waiting all these years, whether you knew it or not.’
He was closer to her now, and Maria took a step backwards.
‘I didn’t confirm a thing! Did I fling myself into your arms? Beg you to make love to me?’ she taunted.
‘You will,’ Luke asserted, the prophecy blending a breathtaking arrogance with pure threat as he reached for her.
‘You agreed that my consent was necessary,’ she reminded him, sudden appalling agitation making her breathless.
‘Your consent to our becoming lovers, as the inaccurate word is…and I will have it,’ he added in a low, intense mutter, almost as if he spoke to himself, as his hands closed over her hips. ‘But I’m not asking for permission to touch you. I warned you, didn’t I? This time I don’t have to consider you…That damned undeserved consideration that turned out to be selfinflicted purgatory six years ago, and so bloody unnecessary in the end. For that, if nothing else, you owe me.’
‘What consideration did you ever show me?’ Bitterness drenched the question.
‘I left you alone, didn’t I? But I don’t have to now. I can’t, anyway.’
His grasp on her tightened, and as she looked up into his face, so ruthlessly intent, Maria felt the urge to go on fighting slipping away from her. Heated darkness was swamping her mind and anticipation locked her throat, while her heart knocked frantically.
Luke’s hands, still at her hips, pulled her lower body to his abruptly, and it was as if their clothing didn’t exist, the outer heat that flowed between them creating an inner one as liquid flame engulfed her loins.
It was too much, too soon, and she went white, the shock physical, making her shake and leaving her head oddly weightless. Her hands fluttered at his upper arms and then clung, her fingers digging desperately into the material of his jacket sleeves to prevent herself sagging and falling.
She had never experienced anything like it, instant, total domination of the senses, and she was lost and helpless as she watched the dark head bend, the taut face come closer.
‘Don’t,’ she whispered, clinging to the last vestige of whatever part of her identity remained to her, pride perhaps, or simple self-preservation.
‘I must,’ Luke retorted harshly, eyes darker than grey, almost black, his lips nearly touching hers.
Then they were touching them, and the fierce thrust of his tongue confirmed his spoken answer as his hands moved upward from her hips to the bare skin of her midriff, his fingers trailing fire across her flesh when they travelled round to her back and from there up to the smoothness of her shoulders.
There was nothing tender or exploratory about his kiss; there was only an incandescent passion and a simultaneous assertion of his mastery. He fed her this first taste of himself in absolute confidence that she would accept it, and an anguished sound came from deep in Maria’s throat as she accommodated him, mindlessly obedient to the command of his mouth.
Locked together now, welded, this was purely a matter of power and its absence, history’s eternal lesson of the powerful absorbing the powerless, as first her lack of resistance and then her wild response empowered Luke—to take, to give, to plunder or to reward at his pleasure.
Touching her, he owned her. It was a stray fragment of thought, swiftly vanished.
‘Although only heaven or more probably hell knows why I must,’ he murmured unevenly, apparently as an addendum to the words that had been dragged from him just before he kissed her. ‘Why should I want someone like you, whose squalid dreams of passion can encompass no more than the petty attentions of a man like Jones? I appal myself…’
As the abrasive words poured into her ears, he was moving her against an ornamental lacquerwork cabinet of hip height and bending her backwards, a hand dealing with the intricacies of her bustier with a sure skill that bore witness to a wealth of experience with even the most esoteric of feminine garments.
Somewhere within herself she registered the contempt and forced a husky response: ‘I hate you!’
‘Yes, I know.’
It was supremely indifferent, but, even as it burned into her like acid, her fingers were plunging into the midnight darkness of his hair as she invited his kiss again, the tumult of his mouth on hers and in it already a necessity, wildness running in her veins, the heavy aching beat of desire unchecked at the deep core of her womanhood.
Luke’s kiss, withheld to torment her for a moment while he stared into her darkened eyes, was an insult when it came, and yet insufficient to her hunger, because his mouth was torn away from hers again almost at once, plunging to suckle hard at one exposed breast for several agonising seconds, the message blatant—she was desired, and despised.
His tongue stabbed once at her nipple and then he was raising his head.
‘I degrade myself with you, as you degrade yourself with Jones,’ he grated.
‘You won’t get the chance!’ Now she was fighting him, her conscious will restored by his scorn. ‘Get out of here!’
Realising she meant it, Luke released her at once, his glance straying briefly to the proud lift of her breasts before he stepped back.
‘All right.’ But the reservation, or warning, was unmistakable. ‘But I want you, Maria. I have a ghost to lay, remember.’
‘You want to punish me,’ she corrected him intensely, her voice little more than a whisper as the conviction lodged itself more securely in her consciousness.
‘That too, probably.’ The light tone was belied by the steely resolution that held his face. ‘Except that I can’t, can I? Because you want me too. We have something together that can crash barriers, go beyond the boundaries you must have accepted in your tawdry affair with Jones, since I suspect that he’s capab
le of only the most limited kind of passion.’
‘You don’t know the first thing about my relationship with Florian!’
The words blazed from lips now denuded of artificial colour, their natural flush wrought by the man—the enemy—she confronted, but she made herself be silent when they were said. She would not explain. She would not let him matter.
‘I know that in thinking he’s worthy of you, you become worthy of him.’ Utterly contemptuous.
‘Which makes you equally unworthy,’ Maria countered.
‘Oh, yes.’ Disgust betrayed him into passion. ‘If I knew another way of effecting this exorcism, as you’ve aptly called it, do you think I’d touch you?’
‘Get out!’
The unremitting contempt had become unendurable, although it occurred to her for the first time that Luke might actually resent her.
‘There’s that show at the Hoover Theatre tomorrow night,’ he reminded her, excess emotion quickly controlled. ‘I’ll let you know what time I’ll fetch you. Goodnight.’
When he had gone, Maria sank to her knees on one of the soft, silken Chinese rugs strewn about the marble-tiled entrance hall, to bury her face in her upraised hands but not to weep.
She knew now, consciously at last and with absolute clarity, why she had always reacted so intensely to Luke Scott. Subconsciously, she must have sensed the potent effect he could have on her, an instinctive recognition of the dangerous power he would assume if once she had known his touch.
Laid waste. The peculiar phrase, forgotten as soon as she had put away her school Latin textbooks, made an idiosyncratic return. That was what Luke had done to her. He had laid waste—everything; her senses most of all, but also her pride, her independent will, and even her anger and hatred, for the time that he was touching her.
She had to ensure that he never touched her again.
But how?
The heat of humiliation surged to the surface of her skin as she became conscious of where she was and what she was doing, kneeling there still bare-breasted, her attitude one of despair and defeat.
She got up angrily and went through to her bedroom and bathroom to prepare for bed. It was past midnight, so this was the start of Sunday, and Sundays in Taiwan were not going to bear much resemblance to Sundays in the countries she had known so far. She didn’t officially begin her regular duties until Monday, which she planned to start with a meeting of all available personnel at the station, but between them she, Cavell and Penny Seu Chen had managed to fill up most of Sunday with their planning.
She switched on the bedroom radio, tuning to her new station’s waveband—her competitive curiosity had prompted her to attempt an assessment of the English-language opposition earlier—and discovering a laidback DJ playing jazz and fusion between taking a few calls from night-owl listeners, their character common around the world—shift-workers, troubled or lonely insomniacs, late-night revellers and cramming students.
But for once in her life, not even her beloved radio could distract her. Luke Scott was soon back in her thoughts, and it was a long time before she slept. She had switched the apartment air-conditioning off, distrusting its effect on the health, and for a while she tried to convince herself that it was the unaccustomed humidity that made her so restless, but she didn’t really believe it, and the eyes that looked back at her from her bathroom mirror in the morning were shadowy, and hunted.
Or haunted. No, it was Luke who claimed to be haunted. There was an hysterical edge to the thought.
Luke telephoned her early to tell her, tersely, what time he would fetch her that night, and although she put a frigid resentment into her voice Maria didn’t demur, since it was in their public, professional capacities that the radio station’s personnel had been issued with complimentary tickets to the first Taiwanese appearance of a fairly famous American singer.
She had left herself the early part of the evening free, and she had just finished dressing when Florian and Nicky dropped in to show her some new photos of the fair South African child who went by the name of Joni Jones, Florian having insisted on the first and the name with which he had replaced his original, paradoxically both more and less ordinary name, having been legalised in both countries whose passports he held, the United Kingdom and South Africa.
‘You look gorgeous, Maria,’ Nicky said generously, also already dressed for the gig, although Florian had still to change.
Maria looked at Nicky’s transparent emerald outfit and smiled piquantly. ‘So do you, and I’m glad I won’t be the only one! I wasn’t really sure about displaying so much, but Cavell said it wouldn’t cause offence.’
‘Only a sensation.’
‘That’s what she’s after.’
‘Joni’s a cute kid, isn’t she?’ Florian boasted, bored when ignored, glancing indifferently at Maria’s outfit before growing exuberant. ‘Hey, I’ve got an idea! Have you got your camera here, Maria? Take a photo of me for her. You can be in it too, Nicky.’
‘Isn’t he magnanimous, Nicky?’ Maria taunted, irritated by the peremptory command. ‘Letting you share the limelight! Don’t be such a baby, Florian.’
‘Ah, come on, Maria,’ urged Florian. ‘Just get your camera—I know you always have one. It won’t take a minute.’
‘And you’ll hold your breath until you turn blue if I won’t, I suppose?’
Nicky Kai laughed in response to the apologetic look Maria threw her. ‘No, he’ll just nag until you give in out of sheer boredom, and probably also make us all late for this evening’s affair.’
‘I remember,’ Maria returned feelingly, giving Florian a disgusted look as she left the room.
‘On the couch, I think,’ he said when she came back with her newest camera, photography being one of her most seriously pursued hobbies.
‘I must let Rachel know my new address,’ she reminded herself as Florian arranged himself.
‘Then you can send the photo with your letter when you write,’ he said as the doorbell rang.
Maria stiffened. ‘That will be Luke Scott—he’s my escort again.’
‘Then Nicky and I won’t hang around. Don’t sound so worried,’ Florian added. ‘We’re usually quite civilised when circumstances make an encounter unavoidable. Go and let him in, Nicky, while Maria takes some happy snaps quickly.’
Her hands were shaking as she obliged, so the photos were going to be blurred, and she put the camera down hastily when Nicky returned to the lounge with Luke.
He greeted Florian coolly, yet the glance he sent Maria was scorching as she murmured unintelligibly.
‘We were just taking some reciprocal photos for my kid,’ Florian explained insouciantly as he stood up, indicating the photos of Joni scattered over the glasstopped coffee-table. ‘Maria’s goddaughter, incidentally. You could help us out, in fact, if Maria doesn’t mind handing her precious camera over. Daddy and the two women in his life. Come here, girls.’
Maria was nearest to him, and he pulled her into the circle of one arm, holding out the other to Nicky.
‘Not the most brilliant thought you’ve ever had, Flo,’ Maria ventured tartly, moving away again, avoiding Luke’s eyes although she could literally feel the weight of his attention on her.
‘Among the worst,’ Nicky supported her calmly. ‘It wouldn’t be right.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Luke said indifferently.
‘Oh, they’re both still worrying about the amount of flesh they’re showing, as if Joni would mind!’ Florian said cheerfully, directing a would-be ‘men together in the face of feminine foibles’ grin at Luke.
‘Rachel and her parents might,’ Maria retorted, and he grimaced in rueful acknowledgement.
‘Anyway, we should be getting back upstairs, as you still have to change,’ Nicky mentioned. ‘As usual, we’re probably going to be late.’
‘As I’m always on time for my breakfast show, I consider I’m entitled to be late for everything else.’ Now Florian adopted his spoilt-rotten superstar voic
e, and Maria couldn’t help smiling sardonically, recognising the onset of one of his boisterous moods.
‘Yes, I nearly choked laughing when I heard you were doing a breakfast show. In Sydney, I remember, you never got up before midday.’
A glance at Luke obviously caused Florian to think better of the quip she could see hovering on his lips.
‘I’m a changed man,’ he offered instead. ‘We’ll let ourselves out. See you later with the whole gang, right? Out in force again, taking the town by storm, Taipei’s favourite radio station, dedicated to the payola. Just kidding—I mean the music. Don’t forget to get those photos developed and posted, Maria, my love.’
When they had gone, Maria glanced at Luke, but to her relief he was looking down at the photos Florian had left behind, his expression inscrutable.
Her awareness of him was debilitating. She felt almost physically ill with it, nerves a knot in her stomach, and she couldn’t dismiss the feeling because there was no rationalising it away. A real threat existed, because she responded to him physically, a threat to so much that she valued as part of her individual identity, autonomy, independence, pride, all of which would be lost if ever the weakness he created in her led to her succumbing to the dark attraction he held for her. It was shaming enough to be so acutely aware of a man who despised her, and whom she hated, but to actually yield——
She shuddered slightly. Self-loathing would destroy her in a way his contempt never could.
She jumped slightly as Luke raised his head abruptly and looked at her, his smile like a knife, brilliant and deadly, slicing at her.
‘The arrangement is even more cosy than I imagined, with all these domestic details. And you’re actually godmother to the child. Whose idea was that?’
‘Rachel’s,’ Maria told him in a quietly biting tone, although she was still shaking inwardly. ‘I might have known you’d put such a sordid construction on it all.’
‘You’ll concede that it is sordid? I just wonder what the little girl will make of it all when she’s older. Daddy and the two women in his life,’ he mimicked Florian’s facetious phrase.
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