by Penny Jordan
Her heart jerked dangerously against her ribs, her own breath unsteady and erratic; his mouth touched her skin, his fingers pushing her hair back from her face, stroking the soft skin just behind her ear, making her tremble and close her eyes, the small sound that could have either been denial or pleasure muted in her throat as his lips followed the path of his fingertips.
She could feel her whole body starting to shiver with delight, to come alive, and without making any conscious effort to move she was suddenly standing closer to Daniel, so close that she could actually feel the heavy, unsteady thud of his heartbeat, the tension in his muscles, the warmth of his flesh beneath hands she hadn’t even realised she had raised to touch him.
Dizzily she watched the strong pulse thudding at the base of his throat, felt the heat coming off his body, the subtle change from controlled exploration to less controllable desire in the movement of his lips against her skin—and her own response to it.
She wanted him. Against all logic, all reason, she was conscious of a chemistry between them, a desire for him that was so strong that, even though it ran completely contrary to what she wanted to feel, she was totally powerless to control it.
A feeling of fear and panic filled her but instead of strengthening her need to pull away from him, to stop what was happening, all it did was increase her weakness, her inability to resist the powerful flood engulfing her.
She did try to stop him, to protest, but her shakily whispered words were lost, silenced by the warm pressure of his mouth as he gathered her closely, kissing her with such soft, slow determination that it felt as though her whole body was dissolving and melting into him, and not merely her willpower.
No man had ever kissed her like this before, made her feel like this, not just aroused to physical desire, but filled with so much emotion that it made her eyes burn with tears behind her closed eyelids and her throat ache with yearning, every bit as much as her body ached with longing.
She had no will, no life, no power that was not controlled by him, her mind, her body, her emotions joyously obedient to the increasing demand of his mouth, the subtle caress of his tongue as it stroked persuasively against her lips coaxing them to soften and to part, to allow him the kind of intimacy she had somehow always believed she was too fastidious ever to want to enjoy.
Enjoy…No way did that small, simple word encompass the sensations, the emotions that poured through her now, sensitising every inch of her body, both outside and in, to such an extent that she could scarcely bear the heavy pressure of her clothes against her skin, nor control her shuddering reaction to the caress of Daniel’s hands, the hot hard pressure of his body.
‘No…’ Frantically Christa pushed herself away from Daniel, breaking their kiss, and the dark, magnetic sorcery of her unwanted and far too dangerous thoughts.
Her face burned hotly with chagrin. She could scarcely recognise herself in the wanton eroticism of her thoughts and desires.
When Daniel moved towards her as though he intended to take her back in his arms, for a shocked heartbeat of time Christa actually felt that she wanted him to, that she actually wanted him to take hold of her and silence her protests with the hard, passionate demand of his mouth, to physically overrule the logic of her thoughts and allow her body, her senses, the aching desire and need that crawled so treacherously through the pit of her stomach to her head.
Her heart jerked violently against her ribs in a mixture of fear and shock, the panic of knowing how close she had come to totally losing all self-control propelling her into another step back.
She saw Daniel frown, the hand he had stretched out towards her dropping to his side, the smile slowly dying from his eyes.
‘I’m going back inside,’ Christa told him shortly.
No wonder he had stopped smiling at her. Sickly she wondered how many other women before her had been deceived by the false promise of his oh, so seductive kiss, the sensual delicacy of his touch, the pseudo-vulnerable tension in his body as he released her, as though he could hardly bear to let her go, the quick way in which he had turned his body slightly away from her as though trying to disguise its erotic arousal.
Oh, he knew all the tricks, how it made a woman feel to know that she excited him so much and to know that he wanted to protect her from his arousal.
The hot tears stinging her eyes as she hurried, head down, across the kitchen, and the faint tremor in her body, weren’t just caused by the fright Clarence had given her. Tellingly, as she reached the door, against all her own better judgement she stopped to turn her head to look at Daniel.
He was standing motionless, watching her, his hands on his hips, his forearms bare, his hair, like the soft cotton open neck of his shirt, ruffled slightly by the breeze through the open back door.
Could he see from that distance the soft flush that was engulfing her body; did he know that he was the cause of it; did he care about what he was doing to her, about the pain he could potentially cause her?
No, of course he didn’t. His kind of man never did, Christa reflected bitterly, as she turned on her heel—and her hand pushed open the hall door.
Her shoes, she noticed, the expensive, soft leather loafers she had bought herself as a special treat only months ago, were thick with mud; there were splashes of it on her trousers, and the breeze, which had done little more than flauntingly caress Daniel’s skin, highlighting the strong play of muscles beneath the tanned flesh of his arms, had much more unkindly reduced her flesh to pinched, goose-fleshed chilliness.
It was too late now to regret not packing the thermal underwear which had served her so well all through last winter, she admitted morosely as she went back upstairs in search of something warm to put on.
But once she reached her bedroom, instead of completing the task which had brought her there, she went instead to stand unseeingly in front of her bedroom window, oblivious to the magnificence of the view beyond it, the mountains, stark and awesome, their sheer sides falling away from the snow-capped pinnacles. Her thoughts instead were locked on those few minutes she had spent in Daniel’s arms.
A small, sharply self-judgemental sound of anger escaped from her lips.
How could it have happened? How could she have allowed it to happen…wanted it to happen?
‘No.’ The husky denial came too late to stop the insidious, mocking question her subconscious slid so damningly into her mind. She had not wanted it to happen; she had not…
Not what? Not wanted Daniel to kiss her?
Her body trembled. She closed her eyes against the self-torment of the inner taunt, knowing full well that she could not rebuff the mocking whispered question without lying.
She had wanted Daniel to kiss her, to touch her, to…
This was crazy; she was an adult, for heaven’s sake, far too mature, too sensible, too aware to fall head over heels in love with a man simply because his kisses did things to her that no man had ever come anywhere near doing before.
Head over heels in love. That spinning, dizzying, frighteningly disorientating feeling, as though the ground was no longer completely stable under her feet, could not have been caused, surely, by something as simple as the threat of having fallen in love with Daniel?
A threat which was surely laughable in its complete impossibility.
Yes, she might be sexually attracted to him, she admitted cautiously, and yes, it had been a mistake—and one which she would not repeat—to allow that attraction to get the upper hand and make her behave with unfamiliar recklessness; but in love…No…Never. Not her, and certainly not with a man like Daniel.
If she was to stay here…
If. There was no ‘if’ about it. She had to stay, she reminded herself sharply. If she left now, not just Daniel but everyone at home would assume that it was because she could no longer stand by her outspoken statements.
She had to stay, and she had to find a way of controlling her unwanted sexual awareness of him. Remember what had happened to Laura. Laura had fal
len in love too, and look what had happened to her.
Character-building mountain hikes, team-building exercises, canoeing!
Angrily Christa threw down the programmes Daniel had given her. Did he really think any of that was going to change her mind?
The canoeing trip was fixed for tomorrow. She frowned as she looked out of the window. She could just see the silver gleam of water where the lake reflected the cold grey-blue of the sky.
She had never really been an outdoors type; she liked the heat and the sunshine, not the cold and the wet; her most recent experience of being afloat had been in the Greek islands, a far cry from Wales, and the captain of the Greek craft had been nothing like Daniel—nothing at all, she reflected, mentally contrasting the Greek’s portly, sturdy body with Daniel’s: the cold grey dullness of the Welsh mountains now that the early morning brightness had gone with the warmth and sunshine of the Aegean sea; and, before she could stop herself, Daniel’s normal apparel of jeans and shirt with a pair of faded cut-off shorts, the rest of his body bare beneath the hot Greek sun apart from the fine, soft covering of dark hair that ran so tantalisingly from his breastbone to the waistband of his shorts.
Her mouth, Christa discovered, as she fiercely dismissed the tantalising mental image her traitorous senses had called up, had gone very dry and her pulse was very fast.
Well, at least she needn’t worry about Daniel wearing nothing more than a pair of shorts tomorrow, she acknowledged wryly. Wetsuits were apparently to be the order of the day.
It infuriated her that she should be so perversely and so ridiculously affected by Daniel as a man.
It wasn’t just angry impatience with herself that she felt, though, was it? There were other emotions there as well. Anxiety, apprehension…uncertainty and…
Tiredly she closed her eyes. It wasn’t logical that she should feel desire for such a man; that she should want him…ache for him. Such feelings would have to be suppressed…destroyed…denied.
‘Ready.’
Christa threw Daniel a murderous look as he stood at the side of the small jetty waiting for her. They had changed into their wetsuits in the changing-room provided inside the small but well-equipped boat-house next to the jetty, and now Daniel was standing next to the wooden ladder leading down to the water.
Gritting her teeth, Christa walked towards him. Below her on the water she could see the canoe, an impossibly fragile thing, bouncing lightly on the waves.
‘You can’t possibly expect me to risk my life in that,’ she protested in disbelief. It looked like a child’s toy.
‘It’s perfectly safe,’ Daniel assured her. ‘Completely unsinkable; the worst you can do is turn turtle in it…’
‘Turn turtle?’ Christa demanded suspiciously.
‘Yes,’ he agreed, explaining, ‘An inexperienced canoeist can cause it to capsize, but these things are specially designed so that they right themselves again without any damage to either themselves or the people in them. That’s why we use them.
‘You’ll be perfectly safe, Christa. I wouldn’t take you out in it if you weren’t…’
‘Oh, no?’ Christa muttered under her breath, but he had obviously heard her, because she just caught the hard gleam of anger in his eyes before he masked it and asked her lightly,
‘What were you expecting: that I’d take you out to the middle of the lake and threaten you with death by drowning if you didn’t agree to change your mind?’
She hadn’t thought anything of the kind, of course, but now, hearing him say the words and seeing the open amusement in his eyes made her feel so defensive and angry that she retaliated acidly, ‘I wouldn’t put it past you. After all, you must be pretty desperate. A place like this succeeds or fails on its reputation…’
‘And you have sufficient influence to ensure that success or failure?’ Daniel asked her silkily.
It was a justifiable taunt, Christa knew, but even so it still surprised her. She was the one who made the nasty snide comments, not Daniel.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, let’s just get the whole thing over and done with,’ she demanded sourly.
It was a cold, grey day, the sky threatening rain, the wind whipping the surface of the lake into angry, choppy little waves.
Christa shivered as she looked at them and then looked back at the brightly painted canoe. But she wasn’t going to reveal her apprehension, to back down and have Daniel taunt her.
Taking a deep breath, she walked to the end of the jetty.
‘I’ll go down first,’ Daniel told her.
There was nothing uncertain or lacking in confidence about the way he headed down the wooden ladder and eased himself easily into one of the canoe’s two small spaces, Christa acknowledged grudgingly, watching as he manoeuvred the small craft close to the bottom of the ladder and then told her to come down.
Far less confidently Christa did so, shivering a little as she reached the last rung of the ladder.
‘It’s all right, you’re doing fine,’ she heard Daniel telling her. ‘Now, just step over here and ease yourself into the canoe.’
For a moment she was tempted to refuse. Her mouth had gone uncomfortably dry, her body tensing as she clung to the ladder. Daniel was holding the canoe stable, one hand on the ladder, the other reaching out to help her, but if he let go…
‘It’s all right, Christa…’
Chagrined that he had so easily seen her fear, Christa gritted her teeth and stepped forward.
She had a wild moment of panic as she let go of the ladder and eased herself down into the canoe, but she fought it down, willing herself not to betray her feelings in front of Daniel, and then blessedly she was neatly tucked inside the small craft and Daniel was reaching for the paddle, sending them skimming across the grey surface of the lake at a speed that made Christa catch her breath. Even through the thickness of his wetsuit she could see the powerful strength of his shoulder muscles.
No need to wonder now, with that perverse feminine curiosity, where a man who was primarily an academic had come by them.
‘Normally in this exercise we send a group of four students out with one instructor in one of our larger canoes, initially.
‘Once he has demonstrated all the safety techniques and he is satisfied that they know the basics of handling the craft, he then removes all but two of the paddles, which are given to separate members of the group. They, then, between them, have to make their way back to the jetty by co-ordinating their paddling and directions in a group effort where they are all mutually dependent on one another.’
‘Sounds like a recipe for mass murder,’ Christa told him sardonically. ‘If something like that happened in real life, one of them would try to gain control of both paddles and then…’
‘And then what? They wouldn’t be able to keep control of them and manoeuvre the craft while holding the others at bay, would they?’ Daniel reasoned.
‘They could dispose of the others, kill them with the paddle, push them overboard…’
‘Mmm…they could, but wouldn’t it make much more sense for them to work together, to share the task of reaching dry land?’
‘In a perfect world, perhaps, but this isn’t a perfect world,’ Christa pointed out irritably.
‘No. Then maybe we should try harder to make it one…’
He couldn’t really think she was gullible enough to believe he actually thought such idealism could workcould he? Christa wondered derisively.
They were well out into the middle of the lake now and the small waves had become much higher and stronger.
‘What would you do now, Christa, if we were to lose both our paddles?’
‘Sue?’ Christa suggested sweetly.
Daniel laughed.
‘You’d have to get back to dry land first,’ he pointed out to her.
‘I can swim,’ Christa told him.
‘It’s a long way and the water’s very cold. Try thinking a little more laterally,’ he coaxed her. ‘Hands can make very g
ood paddles, especially with the two of us working together, but first one of us would have to get up and turn round.’
‘There’s no way I’d turn my back on you…’ Christa answered immediately. ‘No way!’
‘So you’d prefer to stay out here rather than risk giving me your trust? Fine,’ Daniel told her calmly, but there was a glint in his eyes that warned her he was losing patience with her, and then, to her horror, he let go of the paddles, and while Christa was staring at them in disbelief, watching them float away, he stood up in one easy motion and lowered himself into the water.
‘Daniel, what are you doing? You can’t leave me here like this,’ Christa protested in panic as he released the canoe and started to swim towards the shore.
He paused, treading water as he turned to look at her.
‘It was your choice, Christa,’ he told her.
Her choice. Her choice to be abandoned here in the middle of a lake that was God alone knew how deep and filled with icy cold water.
Daniel was several yards away now and quite obviously had no intention of turning back.
Panic filled her, but her pride wouldn’t let her call out to him. One of the paddles was still floating tantalisingly close by. Using her hands, she steered towards it and then reached out to grab hold of it, only she wasn’t quite close enough and she had reached over too far.
The feeling that hit her as she felt the canoe capsize and the cold lake-water drench her made the panic Clarence had induced in her fade to a mere nothing.
She did everything she knew logically she ought not to do, from crying out and gulping in mouthfuls of water to thrashing around in the lake instead of keeping still, convinced that her last moment had come and that she was about to drown.
The realisation that the canoe had righted itself; that she was no longer lying in the water and that, moreover, Daniel had turned back and was deftly manoeuvring himself back into the craft in front of her, instead of bringing her relief caused her to feel an intense and overwhelming surge of furious anger spiked with chagrin. So intense, in fact, that her whole body trembled under the grip of it as it rendered her totally speechless.