Charlotte Lamb

by Charlotte Lamb

  Johnny Crewe got to his feet, clapping, then shouted out, 'Can I have a shot at limbo-dancing?'

  'Come on up, man,' the leader of the dancers said.

  Nadine watched, smiling wryly. Johnny was loving being the centre of attention, getting applause, his face flushed, his eyes very bright.

  He was surprisingly supple and to everyone's amusement very quickly picked up the rhythm, moving his hips and swaying sensually, and was soon limbo-dancing as if born to it. The audience loved it and clapped noisily, then others went up to try, and Johnny called out to Nadine to join them.

  She shook her head. 'No, thanks, I'll just watch.'

  Johnny ran over, barefoot now, flushed and excited. 'Come on, Nadine,' he urged, grabbing her hand and pulling her to her feet. 'Dance with me!'

  Sean was on his feet too; he moved like greased lightning, clamped his fingers around Johnny's wrist.

  'She said no, chum! Are you deaf?'

  'She can talk for herself, can't she?' Johnny said belligerently, and Nadine suddenly realised he was drunk. Sober he would never have challenged Sean, especially tonight. Tonight Sean had the look of a man poised for battle, his eyes glittering, his body as tense and lethal as an unsheathed sword. Nadine had the distinct impression that Johnny had merely given him the excuse he needed to do something violent.

  'She did talk. She said no,' he told Johnny through his teeth and detached Johnny from her somehow.

  'Now look ' began Johnny but never finished

  the sentence. The next second Sean took hold of both Johnny's shoulders, lifted him off the ground, his bare feet kicking, and hurled him backwards.

  Johnny landed with a thud and a scattering of sand. Everyone else had stopped to watch the short fight. Some people actually clapped; others laughed. Johnny got up, staggered, covered in sand, and looked as if he was coming back for round two, but Luc rushed over there and caught hold of him, put an arm round him in a friendly hug.

  'Come and show us all how to do it, Johnny!' He urged him back to the limbo-dancing and Johnny ambled with him.

  Nadine turned on Sean furiously. 'You had no business doing that! He didn't mean any harm. He was only trying to be friendly.'

  'I know what he was trying to do, and it wasn't friendship he was after,' Sean said bitingly.

  She sensed the watching eyes, the listening ears, the fascinated curiosity of their fellow guests.

  'Oh, shut up! You've got a nasty mind!' she told Sean and hoped they could all hear.

  Turning on her heel, she walked away, down the beach, out of the ring of firelight, the yellow flares of naphtha. The shouts of the dancers and the bursts of laughter and applause died away behind her; she couldn't even see them any more as she followed the curve of the beach out of sight, but she knew that Sean had followed, was walking slowly some way behind her.

  She heard the lapping of water around his legs as he strolled through the waves at the beach edge. He made no attempt to catch up with her, however; kept at a distance, as if shadowing her, like some detective in a thriller film, so she pretended she hadn't noticed him.

  The moon swam silently through the deep blue sky, like a round silver fish, spreading shimmering silvery patterns in its wake like fish scales, fell across the Caribbean waters in swaths of white silk, turned the palm leaves in the garden to finest filigree, laid paths of silver through the trees and made the shadows seem blacker, almost sinister.

  Nadine paused to stare out across the rippling waters towards the glimmering horizon and sighed. The scene was so peaceful: they could have been marooned on a desert island. It was easy to forget that just around the curve of the bay lay the hotel with its lighted windows and the noisy crowd on the beach with their faces lit by naphtha flares and the jewel-like coloured light bulbs around the beach- bar.

  'Beautiful, isn't it?' Sean said from a few feet away, standing still, too, to gaze at the view. 'Look at that moon.'

  Quietly Nadine said, 'Sean, you're ruining my holiday—haven't you any decent instincts? Why don't you go away and leave me alone?'

  'My instincts tell me to stay,' he said, a step nearer.

  'Then your instincts are wrong. Our marriage is over, finished, dead!'

  'We've been through all that before,' he said impatiently. 'But I'll say it a hundred times, if I have to. Our marriage is legally over, but we're not finished. You know that as well as I do.'

  She couldn't deny it, and, anyway, they were past that game of flight and pretence. There was just the truth now.

  'Sex was never the problem, though, was it?' She moved and the water swirling around her feet fell away in little silvery fragments. She watched as intently as if it mattered, trying to fight down her awareness of the man standing behind her, his breathing warm on her bare shoulders. It was going to be hard enough to talk to him without her own senses nagging at her. 'We were always good in bed together,' she said without hiding her anger. 'The fighting started when we got out of bed.'

  'We can always try staying in bed all the time!' Sean said, and her temper hit the roof.

  'Even now you're refusing to take me seriously, you have to make stupid jokes!' She turned on him and stopped dead. His face was a shock to her. It could be a trick of the moonlight, but it seemed bone-white, strained, drawn.

  'God knows I don't find this funny,' he muttered. 'I just don't know any other way of handling how I feel. Have you any idea how hard it is for me to admit my own feelings? Men aren't allowed to cry. We learn that at our mother's knee. We're taught to be brave little boys, little soldiers. Big boys don't cry when they fall over or get knocked down. They never show pain or fear. But we feel it, for God's sake! We get scared, and lonely, and if we always have to hide those feelings they hurt far more because we can never let them out, never ask for comfort, never cry out loud.'

  She watched him, startled, taken aback. 'I never heard you talk like that before.'

  'Maybe that's our trouble,' he said wryly. 'We've never really talked before, just made love.'

  'Maybe,' she said, then sighed. 'No, that wasn't our trouble, Sean,' she contradicted. 'Our real trouble was that we were two people each trying to have everything our own way. And from all I can see, you haven't changed, or learnt anything. You still react with stupid, pointless jealousy every time another man comes near me. Poor harmless Johnny Crewe, just now; even Luc Haines, who anyone can see is happily married!'

  His eyes darkened. 'I can't help being jealous. It's that damned job of yours. You're a sort of public icon—your face, your body, on show for everyone to stare at, and I hate knowing men stare at you. I know how they feel, because I feel like that, too. They want you as much as I do—no man could look at you and not want you.'

  Colour crept up her face. The huskiness in his voice made her feel dizzy.

  'If you'd ever really loved me, you would have trusted me!'

  'I trust you; I just don't trust other men!'

  'But it's me you're angry with!'

  That stopped him in his tracks. He stared at her, frowning.

  She nodded insistently. 'Yes, you were always angry with me; you wanted me to give up my job.'

  'Yes,' he admitted then, and laughed shortly. 'And the irony of it is that now, I suppose, you'll be giving up modelling to concentrate on your TV work.'

  'I'll have to, and my modelling would have stopped soon, anyway, because I'm getting too old for close photo work.'

  'Too old at twenty-six!' he mocked, and she made a face.

  'Well, that's the rules of the game in my business. You only have a few good years at the top, if you even get to the top! That's why I jumped at this offer to work on TV. I wasn't sure I could do it, but I was excited by the chance to try.'

  'You'll probably be a huge success, and earn even more money!' he said wryly, and she gave him a quick, searching look.

  'Talking about money, what have you managed to do about the money you need for your company?'

  'I'm probably selling out,' he said in a flat,
offhand tone.

  'Sean!' Nadine turned pale, staring at him in shock. He stared over the moonlit water, his face blank, as if he was talking about someone entirely different.

  'I had a very good offer from a guy I saw in Los Angeles while I was there the other day. I had hoped he would invest in us and leave the management intact but if he puts money in he wants control and I can't blame him.'

  'But...your company...' she breathed, shattered by this news. 'You built it up, you and Larry and the others, and you had such high hopes, and everything seemed to go so well at first. I know how much it means to you, you can't sell it!'

  'I don't really have much choice. We're in debt, we have to find a very large sum of money almost at once, and the banks won't lend us any more. I've been running around all our usual sources, but money is tight everywhere. Frankly, I either let the company crash, and have the vultures move in to pick the bones bare—or I sell out to someone now while I can. At least this way I get the choice of which vulture gets the company!' His voice was dry, his grimace sardonic.

  'No, you mustn't sell,' Nadine burst out. She could see the depression in his blue eyes now, the pain and frustration, the sense of despair. She could see it—and she couldn't bear it. 'Larry was right, then. You must have the money back, the money you paid for my shares in the company.'

  His face set hard; she saw the veins in his neck stand out as his jaw clenched. 'No!' he said harshly.

  'Don't be stupid!' She was angry with him for keeping this to himself all this time. 'You've already wasted several days—I could have arranged to pay you back the money a week ago, if I'd known how desperate matters were! When Larry told me, I didn't really believe him, I thought he was exag- gerating. If you'd told me all this long ago you could have saved yourself a lot of anxiety and hassle.'

  'I don't want your money!' His face was pale and obstinate and she eyed him wanting to smack him.

  'It isn't mine, anyway. It's yours! I never believed I had a right to that money in the first place. My solicitor kept insisting it was fair, but I didn't want it, Sean. You must have it back. It's invested safely; I'll start proceedings tomorrow to sell the shares.'

  'I'm not taking money from you!' he snarled. 'I have some self-respect!'

  'You're being pigheaded, Sean! Look at it as an investment, if you like—I'll lend you the money, how about that?'

  He turned on his heel, walked along the beach, just as the moon slid out of sight behind a far-off little cloud, plunging the night sky into darkness, extinguishing the glitter of the waves, the silvery patina on the palms.

  Nadine watched him, frowning. In this sudden darkness he looked taller, rather menacing, disturbingly male.

  He spun round and came back, halted in front of her, looked down into her uplifted, watchful eyes.

  'I'll take the money on one condition—you come with it.'

  She stiffened. 'If you mean will I try again... ?' She stopped, shook her head. 'It wouldn't work, there's no point in trying.'

  'It would work,' he said softly, and his fingertips slid down her bare arm and sent a shudder rippling through her whole body. Sean smiled as he saw the look on her face. He knew she wanted him; they had no secrets from each other in that sensual world they shared.

  In a sudden, desperate panic she began to run, her bare feet splashing through the cool, lapping water, along the empty, whispering beach, just as the moon came out from behind the cloud and washed the coastline in silver again, sending her elongated black shadow running ahead of her.

  It was a minute before she realised that she was running the wrong way. In her hurry to get away she hadn't thought about where she was going. She had just begun to run. She should have run back towards the beach party, towards the hotel grounds, and she was going in entirely the wrong direction. But by then it was too late to turn and run back. Sean was right behind her, and a few seconds later he sprang forward and caught hold of her, their bodies colliding in a sort of rugby tackle which knocked her off her feet.

  She gave a choked cry, struggling. Sean fell with her, holding her, his body going into a complicated twist just before they hit the sand so that she landed on top of him, the fall softened for her by his body.

  She lay there winded for an instant; then before she was over the shock Sean took her shoulders and slid her off him sideways. She found herself on her back, staring up at the milky moonlit sky.

  Sean arched over her, blotting out the moon with the dark circle of his head, and she looked wildly up at him as the weight of his muscled body fell on her, splaying her against the sand.

  'Don't!' she cried out.

  His eyes glittered; she heard his thick breathing and felt the panic quicken in her throat.

  'No, Sean! Stop it, I don't want to...'

  'But that's not true, is it, Nadine?' he said gently. 'You do want me to...you're just scared of admitting it!'

  She wished she could deny it but she couldn't, and it was getting worse, this aching need, because the pressure of his warm body over her, the intimacy of that urgent contact, was feeding her desire like petrol flung over a smouldering fire which would start it into flame.

  'You've no right to decide what I want and what I don't,' she said, though. 'I am the only one who can say that.'

  'You are saying it,' he whispered. 'Your eyes say it...' He brushed a fingertip over her lids and lashes and her eyes closed on a reflex. 'Your mouth says it,' Sean said, and lingeringly stroked her lips. 'Your whole body is saying it...'

  Nadine trembled as his hand moved down over her throat, her shoulders, her breasts. 'Don't.' The brush of his flesh against her own made her blood run hotter, made her nerves leap and shiver.

  'I've missed you so much,' he suddenly said, and the roughness of his voice made her pulses skip. 'I love you.'

  She lay still, tears pricking at her eyes. 'Oh, Sean...'

  His head came down, his mouth closing over hers in a hot compulsion that by then she was beyond resisting. Love overwhelmed her. She moaned under that mouth, under the tantalising frustration of his moving hands; her breasts ached where he touched them; her bones grew pliant, as soft as wax, and she knew that if she had tried to stand now she would have fallen down.

  She had her eyes shut and was locked in a deep, devouring darkness; filled with the wind of a desire which was carrying her away like straw, like paper, in spite of herself. She loved him.

  If it was going to hurt she accepted it; she couldn't deny him or herself any more just at that moment, she was past caring about anything but the satisfaction of their passion.

  The fragile chiffon of her dress tore as Sean unzipped the back of it; she heard him groan impatiently. Then he was pulling it off her shoulders, dragging it downwards, and a tiny part of her mind thought ruefully of the state it would be in tomorrow, that very expensive dress which had looked so immaculate an hour ago. Now it would be covered in sand, torn, crumpled.

  But that didn't matter. Sean's head was at her breast; he was kissing her pale body and breathing as if he was drowning. 'Oh, darling, darling... I need you...'

  She stroked his tousled black head, caressed the nape of his neck, ran her hands down his lean back. Her eyes were shut; she didn't need to see, just felt; and once given up to her emotion she only knew she loved him and he needed her; she felt his need in every touch, every movement, every sound he made, and happiness blazed through her.

  Out here on the sands with the whisper of the sea in their ears they were more alone than they had ever been before. His fame, his success, couldn't come between them, and neither could hers. They were just a man and a woman on the beach making love; the moon slid sensuously over his tanned flesh, the muscled power of his bare back, and over her white breasts with their darker aureoles around the nipples, her golden-skinned arms clasping the man to her, her loose hair.

  His hands stroked along her bare thighs and she groaned, arching to meet him as he took her.

  'It's been so long,' he said hoarsely. 'So long,
darling, I need this badly.'

  She needed it, too; she was gasping with unbelievable pleasure as the heated driving of his body moved in her; she held him, her arms tight around him, her body riding under him, her knees gripping in shudders of mounting passion.

  'Sean... oh, yes... yes...' she moaned, her face taut and clenched in the rictus of desire.

  She was so hot by then that she felt as though a white-hot flame was consuming her, consuming them both, and then the frenzy broke and she cried out wildly, shuddering underneath him.

  Sean came too, his body convulsive, groaning harshly, as if in agony, his face hard against hers, the tension of his darkly flushed skin burning into her.

  Nadine held him, cradled on her, as he almost sobbed that last descending fall of passion, and then they both lay still, dragging air into their tortured lungs, trembling as if they had run a mile.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  SOMETHING whispered softly behind Nadine's head; she felt her long hair drifting away, felt something splash on her foot, and suddenly realised that the tide was coming in around them, the water cool on their overheated bodies.

  A smile curved her hps. How romantic, she thought. They could lie there in the rising tide, at total peace, while the waves gently lapped over their naked bodies. How high would the tide come? She slid a look down sideways to check on the height it had reached, and saw something out of the corner of her eye. For a second she didn't realise what it was. Then, 'Oh, no!' she gasped, shocked out of her romantic haze by more down-to-earth considerations. 'My dress!'

  She turned her head hurriedly, grimacing as her wet hair came up out of the water and dripped down her back. A second look told her she hadn't imagined it. She was just in time to see her chiffon dress floating away.

  'Oh, no, it is...' she moaned.

  'What's the matter?' Sean lazily asked, reluctant to move.

  'Oh, get up,' she said, giving an angry push to the bare, broad shoulders above her.

  Sean fell off with a splash. 'What did you do that for?' he asked, aggrieved.

  Nadine had already scrambled to her feet and didn't bother to answer. She had more important things on her mind.