She was so involved in her thoughts that she did not hear the movements behind her until Alex was a few feet away. Then she spun, eyes wide. Like herself, he had showered. His dark hair was damp. He wore a short white towelling dressing gown, and beneath it his legs were bare.
The silvery eyes moved probingly over her. She had not even thought to put on a negligee, since she had intended to go to bed until drawn out by the wine-sweet air of the night. The thin lace of her nightgown fluttered in the wind, revealing the thin side slits which ran from the hem to the hip. Shivering, more from his inspection than from the wind, she said, 'It… it's getting cold. I think I'll go in…'
He moved into her path silently as she moved to go inside. The brooding darkness of his eyes transfixed her like a moth fascinated by fire. She fought in her mind to escape him, but her body was swept by sensations against which she had fought for too long. With the rush of a bursting dam, the flood of desire drowned her mind.
Past concealment, evasion, rejection, she waited helplessly as he lowered his face towards her. 'I've been waiting all evening for this,' he said harshly, his mouth closing over her lips.
They kissed desperately, her arms closing around the back of his head to pull him nearer, her slender, half-naked body shuddering in his arms. He broke off the kiss to ask roughly, 'You've been waiting too, haven't you, Deb?'
'Yes,' she admitted in bitter weakness. She had talked, smiled, performed her part in the social minuet of the evening with one thought at the back of her mind, the memory of the moments out on the raft. Her light flirtation with Ricky had been a deliberate attempt to force down more dangerous thoughts. She had told herself again and again she would not allow Alex to touch her again — yet now she could no more resist him than she could fight against herself. The sensuality against which she had fought for years had the upper hand. She had no power or desire to halt or control the hunger which was driving her.
He picked her up in his arms as if she were a child, the frail lace blown upwards to expose her naked thighs. Walking through the open french windows into her bedroom, he laid her down on to the bed. She was hot, yet shivering, as if she had a fever, looking up at him as he lay down beside her with passion-glazed blue eyes.
Staring at her with brooding savagery, he said, 'All evening I've wanted to touch you, to be alone with you, and I had to watch while you smiled at that boy and leg him flatter you and flirt with you. The little swine even put his hand on your leg, and you let him. Do you think I didn't know what was going on?'
'You brought me here to be nice to him,' she said, looking at him through her lashes, her senses stirring at the obvious jealousy in his face and voice.
'You've handled boys like him a dozen times before,' he said irritably. 'And you've kept them at a distance while you played them along. Tonight you were deliberately encouraging that boy.' His eyes blazed. 'I was the real target, wasn't I? You knew damned well what it was doing to me to watch you with him.'
'I was pleasant to him,' she retorted, angered by the accusation. 'That was what you wanted, wasn't it? In the past you've focused me of being too unbending with clients. You hinted that you wanted me to be as accommodating with our male artists as you've always been with the female ones…'
He tensed and stared down into her eyes. 'Jealous, Deb?' The question was uttered on a new note which sent shivers own her spine. She read the eagerness in his voice, the pulsating triumph, and she sat up angrily.
'No,' she denied. 'Just contemptuous of your methods in business, Alex. Why should I be jealous? There's little value in something which so many others have been offered.'
The insult made him rigid for a few seconds, and an ugly smile lifted his mouth.
Deborah felt a tremor of fear as the menace in his eyes deepened, but before she could move away he had pushed her backwards on to the bed, his hands encompassing the warmth of her half-exposed breasts. An she grew strongly inside her. His fingers tightened, hurting her ruthlessly. She moaned, her head moving from side to side in bitter protest. Alex pulled down the thin straps and caressed her slowly. Beneath the skin of his palms her nipples hardened. She twisted restlessly, her eyes shut. No man had ever touched her like this before. The poignant, terrifying sweetness was new to her, and she struggled to reach the lost ability to deny him.
Gasping for breath, she pushed away the hard intrusive hands, surprised when he did not stop her. Opening her eyes, she tensed in terror as she realised he was untying the belt of his dressing-gown.
'No!' she said fiercely.
'You want me,' he said between his teeth. 'You've admitted it. We're not playing games, Deb — this is real. Grow up, for God's sake. Ever since this afternoon I've been waiting for this moment. I won't let you stop me.'
'I must have been mad,' she said bitterly. 'It was just an impulse, a momentary weakness. I don't want to go to bed with you, Alex. I drank too much wine. It was the wine…'
'It wasn't the wine,' he said tersely. 'It was this.' She struggled as his body arched over her, but she was incapable of fighting against the strength with which he subdued her, and his mouth took her lips with savage ferocity, his body crushing her back against the bed. Imprisoned by the hard, muscled thighs, she twisted and turned in of attempts to escape, tasting the salt tang her own blood on her tongue as his mouth bruised her lips against her teeth in an effort to part them. She could fight against that savage mouth, but she was helpless to fight against her own body as slowly quivered under his exploring hands. Dizzy waves of desire mounted to her head. Gradually her resistance ceased. As Alex felt the change, his kiss altered to become gently seductive. With a groan her lips parted at last, and his tongue softly touched the torn inner softness. 'I'm sorry I hurt you,' he whispered softly against her mouth. 'I don't want to hurt you, Deb. But don't fight me. Stop pretending. You want it as much as I do…'
'Oh, Alex,' she groaned, her voice tarrying its own message of total surrender. Her hands moved against him, caressing the rough skin of his chest, the dark hair prickling the palms, sending the erotic signals down her spine.
His chest rose and fell rapidly under her touch. He watched her, breathing hard. Pushing back the loose blonde hair from her face, his fingers searched the hollows beneath her ears, her neck, her heated nape. His hand curved round the back of her head in a sudden movement of possession, pushing her face into his chest. Under her hot cheek the coolness of his skin was agony and delight. Breathing fiercely, she kissed him, her mouth tasting the rough maleness of his skin for the first time. Muffled against his chest, burning and inescapable, she groaned, 'Oh, Alex, I want you…'
She felt as well as heard the hoarse sound he made. He pulled her head back and lowered his own, their mouths clinging, filled with a driving physical need which beat through her veins like fire, turning her body into helpless fluidity. She was only conscious of a need to please and satisfy him. He held her body between his roving hands and she made no effort to stop him, shuddering with pleasure under the kiss which seemed to last endlessly, as though in itself it were an act of possession.
I'm in love, she thought, in the distant recess of her mind. I love him. His presence in a room had always made her more aware than she had dared admit. He had gradually filled every corner of her heart without her either being able to stop it or admit it. Her driving need to give herself to him, to throw away years of firm principle, was the ultimate expression of a love which, like an unwanted weed, had thrived on stony soil, in spite of her constant attempts to unroot it, deny it, drive it away. Now in the miracle of desire it flowered, and she stood speechless before that splendour, recognising at last that the powerful unwanted plant was love itself.
Reluctantly Alex lifted his mouth, looking at her with eyes which moved over her hungrily. 'I swear I won't hurt you, Deb,' he said thickly. 'Oh, God, you drive me mad. For years you've been under my skin, tormenting me. I've wanted to make love to you for so long…'
'Tell me you love me, Alex,' she whispered eager
ly, her blue eyes glazed with passion.
He was still for a moment. A frown twisted his face. 'Oh, Deb, don't use words like that. They just confuse the issue. Love is a word people use to describe their sexual needs. It's the pretty wrapping women prefer… I want us to be honest. I'm a man and I want you. It's as simple as that.'
A chill sensation feathered over her skin. She stared at him, her eyes cooling. 'Then any woman would do.'
'No,' he said harshly, his silvery eyes flickering over the slender body he had just caressed with such passion. 'It has to be you. Celibacy has never interested me, you know that. I've never hidden my affairs from you. But for a long time now I haven't been able to want anyone else. I haven't slept with anyone for months.'
She felt a sharp stab of triumph and joy at the admission. 'Not even Sammy Starr?' she asked, half teasingly, half gladly.
He shook his head. 'Sammy? I've told you, there's been no one. Oh, I've taken girls out, danced with them, even taken them to my flat. But I couldn't raise a flicker of desire. You came between me and every damned one of them.' Jaggedly he said, 'At times I almost hated you for what you were doing to me. You don't know how many times in the office I had to fight down a need to touch you. Every lime you came near me I could think of nothing else.'
She had known. She had fought the same battle, and despite her desire to pretend she did not know how he felt she had been conscious of his sexual awareness of her every minute of the day. She was aware of it now, burning within both of them, a need so urgent it was painful.
Alex's face filled with harshness. 'I want you, but I won't lie to you, and say foolish, easy nonsense like 'I love you.' A man is an animal. My need for you is a sexual drive so strong it's kept me awake at night, especially since you started going out with Robin. That finished me. I've never been jealous before in my life, but I was then …' His eyes burned down at her resent-fully. 'Enjoy your little triumph, Deb. I began to detest poor inoffensive Robin, and I was half demented at the thought that he was doing to you what I wanted to do.'
'Oh, Alex,' she sighed, pain and anguish filling her. 'You'd better go. You're honest, I have to admit that, but your view of life is so alien to me that we might be from different planets. You see sex as an appetite to be relieved. I can't see it like that.'
'But you want me,' he said, unanswerably, and his eyes demanded her submission. 'What do you expect me to say? Can't you see we both need it?' His hands possessively moved over her, his fingers trembling. 'Feel it, Deb. Feel the way I want you, and admit you want me, too.'
'I admit it,' she said quietly. His face flooded with triumph. 'How many other women have you wanted, Alex?' His expression changed, a brooding look came into his features. 'I doubt if you even know how many there've been. I'm not going to become one of your trophies, a toy you play with for a while, then throw away.'
'This time it's different,' he said huskily. 'I've never wanted anyone as much as I want you.'
'You've never had to wait before, have you, Alex?' she asked drily. 'I suspect that the fact that I was out of your reach has made you frantic to get me. Well, I'm still . out of your reach, Alex. I suppose you could always rape me, but you wouldn't enjoy that much, would you? And I'll never say yes to you again.'
He ran his hands through his hair roughly, staring at her. His eyes were leaping with tormented feeling, his jaw tense as though he was suffering acute pain. She looked back at him calmly.
'You've said no often enough before,' he said, as though thinking to himself. 'But just now I know damned well I almost had you.'
'Almost,' she admitted wryly. 'But you'll never get so close again, Alex.'
Believing the certainty in her voice, he breathed harshly. 'All right, you win. I'll marry you. I've been in business for too long not to know that there are some things which you have to have, even when you know damned well the price is too high.'
Just for a few seconds joy pierced her, but she knew his offer was not what she wanted. Quietly she said, 'Alex, you can't marry me just to get me into bed with you.'
'No man marries for any other reason,' he said cynically. 'Women marry to get security for life. Men marry only because they're trapped.'
'As you are?' she asked softly.
He looked at her angrily, eyes hardening, then a groan came from him. 'Yes,' he admitted. 'It's taken you four years, Deb, but I'm caught in your silken little web and eager to be devoured.'
'I'm not a female spider, Alex,' she said, shaking her head. 'You're free to go, I assure you.'
He smiled mirthlessly. 'Like hell I'm free! You've had me in a corner for months waiting for me to admit I was beaten. I'm past caring what price I have to pay to get you.'
'You like things straightforward and simple,' she said calmly. 'I'll lay it on the line for you. I refuse to go to bed with you and I refuse to marry you. Is that clear enough for you?'
She watched the dark colour flush up under his skin. His nostrils flared in rage. She met his incredulous, angry gaze without flinching. It was easier to face his anger than his pain. She was aching with love for him even as she refused him, but she knew she could not marry him on such terms.
He swore so savagely she flinched at last. 'My god, you little bitch, I could strangle you!' His mouth snarled savagely in her. 'Is this your idea of a joke? You deliberately got me to admit I wanted you enough to marry you so that you could have the triumph of turning me down!' His face contorted with bitterness. 'Are you looking forward to spreading the story around? God, beaten by a girl who wouldn't even go to bed… it would be the joke of the year in the business, wouldn't it? You'll make me the laughing-stock of London…' Flame invaded his eyes. Deborah suddenly saw a new look on his features, a bitter menace and hostility mingling with tormented desire. 'Let's see if you still want to tell the joke with a different ending,' he said thickly.
She understood what he intended to do even before he began to kiss her again, uncaring now if he hurt her, wanting to hurt her, his hands savagely insulting as he handled her body. The few frail strips of lace between the nakedness of their bodies were torn away, and Alex's mouth burned on her skin with violent insistence. She forced herself to lie limply and unresponsively beneath him, although she was driven almost to madness by uncontrollable response to the hunger of his lovemaking. She could hear his heart pounding, the raggedness of his breathing as he moved against her. He was shaking with bitterness and desire, an explosive mixture, wanting to crush her into submission, bruising her white body as though his threat to kill her were not idle.
Gradually he stiffened and drew away, staring at her with naked hatred in his eyes.
'I can't even take you by force, can I?' he asked harshly. 'You're right — I can't make love to a cold bitch like you. I could take you if you fought me, but it's like making love to a statue.'
'I think you'd better go, Alex,' she said quietly, drawing on years of pretending indifference to him, although it was agony to see that look on his face.
His mouth curved in an ugly sneer, 'I suppose you're going to marry Robin, after ah'. Has it occurred to you that I could give you more material comfort than he can? I'm not a dependable, virtuous little robot like him, of course. You'd have to put up with my disgusting desires once in a while… but I'm a damned sight richer.'
I'm not interested in your money,' she said, stung. 'I just want to be happy. Happiness is a basic human need, as strong us the need for sex, Alex. You may never have needed it, but the rest of us do. Robin may not be as rich or as sexy as you are, hut marriage to him would be infinitely preferable to marriage to you.' To you when I know you don't love me, she thought in anguish. Hell would be sweeter than that.
Alex stared down at her and his face slowly drained of colour. Cruel lines of hatred carved themselves in the white stone of his face. She was shocked and alarmed by the expression in the grey eyes. 'You little bitch,' he said hoarsely. Standing up, he tied his dressing-gown with a jerk of hands that shook, sent a comprehensive glance of sa
vage dismissal over her body, and walked unsteadily out of the room.
Deborah lay, long-dammed tears spilling down her pale face. The love she had recognised and admitted after so painful a struggle had proved full of anguish. It would have been so easy to marry Alex. At least she would have had something. Perhaps she should have accepted the desire he offered her, given him what he wanted, but she knew the after-taste of the honey of passion would have been bitter in her mouth. She loved him and she wanted him desperately, but marriage between them would have been hell on earth for her, knowing he would never love her.
5
It was strange to sleep so deeply when her mind was so disturbed, but her mental and physical exhaustion was such that she fell soon afterwards into bottomless sleep, her body curled on its side, one hand beneath her cheek, in the attitude of a weary child. She awoke with a start, hearing a movement, and her lids reluctantly raised themselves in the face of strong sunlight. Against the open french windows, his body taut, Alex was standing staring at her. For a moment they looked at each other in silence. From complete relaxation Deborah felt herself plunge into breathless awareness. His face was an expressionless mask. All traces of the savagery he had shown lust night were gone.
'I was beginning to wonder if you would ever wake up,' he said flatly.
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