by Miranda Lee
His sigh carried frustration. 'You really are paranoid, aren't you? Perhaps I just assumed it, my sweet. You told me nine years ago you were doing a veterinary science degree, don't you remember?'
Oh, yes... She remembered. She remembered all the things she had told him, all the intimate, loving, soul-destroying things!
A resurgence of bitterness had her glaring up at him, but he didn't appear to notice. Or maybe he couldn't see her properly in the shadows. Either way he ignored her angry look and stretched one hand towards her. 'Come. You're beginning to irritate me, standing down there like a reluctant virgin on her wedding night.'
Cassie clamped her teeth together, biting back a sharp retort. It was going to be hard to keep control of her temper, she realised with some dismay. She had to remember to be very pleasant.
Nevertheless, she ignored Dan's outstretched hand, negotiating the steps as carefully as possible in the ridiculously high heels. 'You'll have to do something about that dog of yours,' she said thoughtfully as she reached the veranda, 'if you expect me to let Jason come to visit.'
Dan's laughter chilled her soul. Cassie stared at him, unable to hide her alarm. 'Why are you laughing? I haven't said anything funny.'
His mouth snapped shut, then creased back in a humourless smile. 'It was the choice of the word "let" that I found amusing. Come...I'm tired of this stupid banter. We'll go into the library and get down to real business.'
With that he took her elbow, propelling her as he had the previous afternoon through the doorway, along the hall then into the library, his touch no less disturbing than on that occasion.
The door closed ominously behind them. Then, before Cassie could stop him, Dan slipped the black cardigan from her shoulders. 'You'll be too hot in this,' he pronounced.
She spun round, her cheeks reddening. But he hadn't noticed her dress yet. He was walking away from her to hang the garment over a chair near the door. Cassie glanced around the room, wondering where she could stand to make her choice of clothing less...obvious.
But there was nowhere.
She couldn't very well hide behind the heavy green curtains or the large walnut desk. Otherwise, the only furniture consisted of four deeply cushioned armchairs, whose backs were hard against the bookshelves. Even the drinks cabinet was built-in.
Stricken, she stared down at the pale gold carpet, which was thick and plush underfoot, trying desperately to find the courage to meet Dan's eyes. Once again she had underestimated something. This time her own pride. She knew— no matter what the motivation—that she could not belittle herself by trying to even mildly seduce this man. Yet he would be bound to suspect something, once he looked at her dress!
When she did finally glance up it was to find Dan staring at her, as she had expected. But not with a knowing leer. More a black, brooding anger.
'Going somewhere, Cassie?' he grated out. 'Or have you already been.'
Relief overwhelmed her. Here was the perfect excuse for her appearance, supplied by Dan himself.
'I have a late date' she returned, adopting a nonchalant manner. 'I didn't think I'd be here all that long.'
The black eyes blazed. Surely he couldn't be jealous? she thought dazedly. The thought brought a swift, mad pang of pleasure.
'I suppose it's your boss again. What was his name? Roger? I do hope he's a patient man,' Dan added caustically. 'This might take some time.'
'He'll wait!' she snapped, perversely not telling him the truth. For some deep, dark reason that even Cassie didn't want to explore, she liked Dan sounding jealous.
'I dare say.' His eyes travelled over her body with insolent slowness, lingering first on her thighs, then drifting up to her full, taut breasts. 'A body like yours would be worth waiting for. From what I can see—which is ample—it's even better than I remembered.'
Cassie felt totally mortified. He might as well have touched her, so intense was her response to his scrutiny, his words. Heat suffused her skin. An unnerving excitement ran through her veins. 'I am more than a body, Dan McKay,' she protested, but far, far too shakily. 'I have a mind. And feelings!'
His laughter was mocking. 'I must apologise. It's hard to remember such esoteric matters when confronted by such a striking...dress.' His eyes slid down her legs to her feet. 'Not to mention the shoes.'
She assumed a stony mask, brilliantly covering up her fluster. 'I am not here to discuss my appearance. Or my love-life. I think we should get to the point.'
'Very well.' Dan turned abruptly and strode around behind the desk. He sat down in the leather swivel-chair, leaning back, elbows on the arms, fingers linked in front of his chest. His black gaze studied her mercilessly for several elongated seconds, making her feel lost and vulnerable.
'Do sit down, Cassie,' he said at last. 'If you can manage it.'
The prospect of sinking into one of the deep armchairs, her skin-tight skirt riding up dangerously, rattled her. 'I'd rather not, thank you.'
'Suit yourself.'
She walked over to stand next to the long windows, staring blankly out on to the moonlit island. When her gaze landed on the outline of the river studio she closed her eyes. Tight.
'Remembering, Cassie?' Dan asked, in an oddly tender voice.
Her eyes flew open. 'Remembering what?' she snapped, whirling round to face him.
Undeterred by her sharp tone, he went on. 'What we once shared... Remember the time you came to me at the studio in the middle of the night, unable to sleep. How you slipped into my bed, naked and ready. How ‑'
'Stop it!' she lashed out, alarmed at the way his words were arousing her. 'I didn't come down here tonight to be tormented by you, Dan McKay.
I came here to discuss my...to discuss Jason. Nothing else. The last thing in the world I want is to be reminded of my stupid adolescent behaviour with you!'
She glared at him, her face coldly angry. But her hands were trembling, her pulse was pounding, her mind a chaotic mass of erotic memories. Memories of hot summer nights and moonlit swims, of hungry kisses and bodies blending, of passionate possession...and blissful surrender.
He stood up, and began walking around the desk, coming her way. Cassie froze. Dear God, don't let him touch me...
He didn't. Instead, he walked over to the cocktail cabinet and poured himself a drink. Straight Scotch, by the look of it. He didn't even bother to add any ice from the bucket resting at his elbow. Lifting the glass, he downed the amber-coloured liquid in one swallow, then turned to face her, eyes sardonic.
'Forgive my rudeness. I should have asked you what you were drinking these days.'
'I don't drink. You know that.'
One eyebrow lifted. 'All I know, my dear, is that you didn't drink once. But things have changed, haven't they? You've changed. The girl I remember would never have made a date with one man, intending to slink off afterwards to meet another.'
Cassie flinched inwardly, but refused to take the bait. 'You call this...meeting...a date? Do I have to remind you that you blackmailed me into coming here tonight?'
Dan smiled coldly as he refilled the glass. 'All's fair in love and war,' he pronounced, then drained that drink as well.
He even poured a third. But this time he added ice and carried it back to the desk. His sigh was heavy as he slumped back in the chair. Cassie felt an unexpected and annoying wave of sympathy for him. He looked so bleak as he stared at her over the rim of the glass.
'Tell me, Cassie,' he said at last, 'what mischance caused you to fall pregnant with Jason in the first place? Did you forget to take the Pill one night? Was that it?'
Cassie sighed. She should have known that he would ask that. He was far too intelligent to forget. 'I wasn't on the Pill,' came the reluctant admission.
The glass of whisky hovered at his lips and he slowly lowered it to the desk. His eyes hardened. 'But you said you were?'
'No...I didn't.'
He leant forward. 'I remember—clearly—that first time. I asked if it was safe. You reassured me that i
t was perfectly safe. I assumed that meant that you were on the Pill as a general precaution.'
Cassie sighed. 'I realise that's what you thought...'
Silence descended.
Finally Dan spoke again, in a careful, almost wary tone. 'Were you deliberately trying to get pregnant, Cassie?'
Her eyes rounded. 'No!'
'Then why...why take such a risk?'
She shrugged despairingly. It would be useless to tell him how obsessive her feelings had become. How the first few times it had been relatively safe, but as the days had worn on and the risk had increased, she hadn't been thinking straight any more. She hadn't been able to help herself. All she'd been able to think of was Dan loving her, Dan possessing her, Dan... Dan... Dan...
'I was stupid,' she admitted grimly, and closed her eyes again, trying not to remember, but failing miserably.
A light touch on her cheek jerked her eyes open to find Dan standing in front of her. How had he moved so silently, so swiftly? She stared up into his face, taken aback that his expression mirrored an unexpected tenderness. 'No,' he said gently. 'Not stupid...just a woman in love.'
He was too close, Cassie thought breathlessly. Much too close. 'In love, Dan?' she scoffed, and took a step back. 'Hardly that, I think. Infatuated, perhaps. But not love. No...not love.'
Her cold denial affected him. She could see that. His nostrils flared wide. An angry muscle twitched along his jaw. 'And are you infatuated with this boss of yours?'
Cassie tossed off a careless laugh. 'For heaven's sake, Dan. I'm twenty-nine years old. Past the age of infatuation, surely?'
'It's just sex, then.' A statement. Not a question.
'Maybe I'm in love,' she tossed at him. Any thought of Jason had vanished. All Cassie wanted to do was lash out, to assuage some of her own personal pain and agony.
He grabbed her so quickly and so roughly that she gasped in pain. "Hurt's not true!' he ground out, his rasping breath only inches from her own. 'I know that for a fact. And do you know why? You're incapable of it! Your soul is so twisted and warped with bitterness, you've forgotten what love is. You're too full of hate!'
Suddenly his hands fell away from her arms, but a dangerous smouldering still remained in his gaze. It held Cassie, leaving her breathless and weak. When his right hand came up to cup her chin she did not pull away. She stared back at him, stunned into a dazed submission.
'Do let's be honest, my darling,' he drawled in a low, sensual voice. 'It's lust, not love, that drives you into that man's bed. You're a very sexy woman, Cassie Palmer—incredibly easy to turn on. Do you think I didn't notice the way you responded to me yesterday? Me...a man you despise. I dare say that if you hadn't remembered who was kissing you I could have taken you here, in this room, either on the desk or on the floor.'
His smile was cruelly knowing. 'That's lust, my lovely. And lust is a very transferable emotion. Very transferable!'
His hand slid down her throat, down over a single swollen breast, down over her ribs till it stopped on her quivering stomach.
Cassie sucked in a ragged breath through dry, parted lips. Why don't I do something? she asked herself dazedly. Why don't I stop him?
The hand moved again, this time sliding across then up over the curve of her hip to rest at her waist. 'You're trembling, Cassie,' he whispered harshly. 'Do you tremble for Roger so easily? Or is it only for me...?'
She almost said it, almost made her ghastly confession. Her lips actually opened, the words already forming. Only for you... Only for you...
His kiss smothered them totally, utterly, and, while Cassie's first instinct was to shut her mouth, to struggle, it was short-lived. From the moment his arms moved to enfold her close against him, the battle was lost. She groaned under his passionate onslaught, and slowly, inexorably, her lips parted, allowing his tongue the entry it so clearly desired. A sound growled deep in his throat, arousing her with its primitive, animal quality.
Her own tongue moved forward, quite instinctively, but when it slid into Dan's mouth she was not prepared for the explosion of passion she had so unwittingly unleashed.
His arms tightened around her till she could barely breathe, his tongue thrusting deep into her mouth in a savage, primitive rhythm. On and on went the kiss till Cassie's head was whirling, till her limbs were like jelly, till her body was a lifeless, malleable object moulded to Dan's in blatant sensuality. Chest was fused to chest, stomach to stomach, thigh to thigh.
Finally, he did take his mouth away, sliding swollen lips across her cheek till he found her ear. The tip of his tongue traced a wet path around the shell before dipping inside again and again, making Cassie shiver with sheer electric pleasure.
Her head fell backwards, offering up her throat to his ministrations, and when he took it, sucking the throbbing flesh at the base with hot, hungry lips, she groaned.
The sound brought his mouth back to hers in yet another kiss, this one even more feverish than the first. Blood began roaring in Cassie's ears. Liquid fire gushed along her veins. She was in another world, a crazy, ecstatic world where the senses swam, where time was suspended, where her only desire was to remain in Dan's arms.
She was dimly aware of his hands relaxing their hold to run up and down her back, but when he began rubbing her softness against the hard muscle of his manhood Cassie's pleasure gradually changed to an aching, escalating tension. It wasn't enough to have his mouth fused to hers. It wasn't enough to have his hands on her. It wasn't nearly enough.
She wanted to feel him moving deep inside her. She wanted the release that only his total possession could give. And even as she wished it her own body started to move, writhing against him in an invitation as old as time.
Dan pulled back for a second, his eyes wide with passion and wonder, and then he was drawing her down on to the carpet, stretching out beside her. He kissed her again, one of his hands sliding down her taut, eager body, down to her knee then slowly up, up her softly trembling thigh.
She arched against him, tense, expectant, her whole being concentrating on his hand, which was moving inexorably closer to the hot, molten core of her desire.
The door of the library opened.
'Mr McKay, I knocked, but you didn't...'
Cassie almost died. She wrenched her mouth away and gaped over Dan's shoulder. The intruder was a complete stranger to her. He was no more than twenty-five and might have been good-looking under the red face. 'Hell! I...I'm terrible sorry, Mr McKay, I ‑'
'Get out of here!' Dan growled, his stiffened body held rigidly above her. 'And close the bloody door on your way out!'
CHAPTER SEVEN
The door shut with the force of an earth tremor.
Cassie's stricken gaze swung to Dan. But his eyes were squeezed tight, his face twisted in a type of anguish. He shuddered and expelled a long-held breath. 'God,' he muttered.
Cassie groaned as she thought of the picture they must have presented to their unexpected visitor. Another couple of seconds and Dan would have been...
Embarrassment brought a blast of heat into her cheeks. Upset and flustered, she tried to move.
Dan's hands whipped up to her shoulders and pinned her to the carpet. 'No!' he ground out, wild black eyes flying open.
She shook her head frantically and kept trying to escape, but her wriggling movements were futile. And their effect disastrous. Her swollen breasts accidentally rubbed against Dan's chest, rekindling the smouldering fire in his eyes. Seeing his reaction, she stupidly struggled harder, trying to slide away from under his hands, this tactic only serving to make her tight skirt ride dangerously high. He swore under his breath, hot eyes fixed on the tips of her breasts jutting provocatively against the thin woollen material. His breathing grew disconcertingly rapid, his chest rising and falling in a ragged rhythm.
'Dan...please...let me up,' she gasped.
His eyes snapped up to her face. 'Damn it all, Cassie, ignore that! He won't come back. He wouldn't dare! You can't want me to stop now.
..'
Cassie tried to speak, to object, but when his lips descended to devour the soft flesh of her throat her voice died. And when they moved down to a single swollen breast she could no longer even breathe.
His mouth opened and closed around its prey, the moist heat within quickly saturating the layers of material covering the nipple. She could feel his teeth against the sensitised peak, nipping it into even further arousal. More and more it responded to him, growing harder and larger, till the sensations became unbearable.
'No...' she objected. But feebly, without conviction.
'Yes,' he grated back.
Her wide blue eyes were drawn to the library door. She imagined that man, standing outside, listening, smiling, sniggering. 'No!' she screamed, and slapped Dan hard on the side of the head.
Glazed black eyes jerked up to stare at her.
'I said no!' she repeated, with gritted teeth this time.
Gradually, the almost incoherent quality in Dan's gaze faded, to be replaced by a brooding, barely controlled fury. He was still breathing hard and his hands were brutal in their hold around her hips.
For one terrifying moment Cassie feared that he would continue. And the horrible thing was, she knew that it would not be rape. Her body still wanted him, quite desperately. He only had to push the issue and she was his.
'Let me up,' she demanded. And held her breath.
After an excruciating couple of seconds, Dan shrugged and rolled away, a scornful smile curling his lips. 'It's a lady's privilege to change her mind,' he drawled as he got up. 'But you do realise, Cassie, that you're only delaying the inevitable.'
Cassie struggled to her feet. She was fiercely aware of the clammy material pressed against her breast, still wet where his mouth had been. Shame curled in her stomach. She had been so easy...
And while Dan's words had a ghastly ring of truth about them, they evoked a proud and defiant anger in her.
Her chin tilted upwards. 'Don't count your chickens, Dan. You're not dealing with the same silly naive girl you seduced nine years ago.'