She rose to her feet, exhausted by the depth of emotion he had wished on her. They were like deep-sea divers and she was lost under the weight of the oceans, groping in the dark in a world she didn't understand.
'Marcos is as much Emilio's friend as mine. I trust him to work out some equitable arrangement should I want to break away from the Montrose name completely,' Marlow told her acidly.
'Hardly likely,' she muttered, thinking of the land he would lose.
He raised his eyes and for a moment she almost imagined she saw pain in their oceanic depths.
'Quite so,' he intoned through lips that scarcely moved.
She gave an impatient shake of her head. 'I think I'll go down to the beach. Samantha's down there with the children. She's probably expecting me.'
'I'll come with you. I'm feeling pretty bushed, actually.' His face was pale now she gave it a close look.
'Not enough sleep,' she clipped.
He gave a tired smile. 'I dare say you're right. It's going to be ten times worse when you move in.' His eyes glinted. 'Don't you want to come across to the casita and see your room?'
'I'll give it a miss right now,' she retorted. 'It'll no doubt still be there when I get back from the beach.'
Marlow rose and moved to the door when she did. 'You're not thinking of sunbathing dressed like that, are you? Where's the bikini?'
'If you're coming down --' Flame bit her lip. Her limbs trembled when he came close, but she strove to conceal the fact. He had played on her self-control enough this morning without forcing a repeat of last night's humiliating scene. Next time he touched her he would discover she had recovered from her weakness, as he called it. Strength would be her defence. But she wasn't going to give him any excuse for getting that close again.
She went out, saying over her shoulder, 'I'm probably as tanned as I'll get anyway. I don't tan much, as you may remember.' And then she was walking briskly across the terrace and through the garden, hoping he wouldn't attempt to keep up with her, and when he did so, ignoring him, jogging down the narrow cliff steps without giving him a chance to say anything more provoking than, 'Steady, you'll break your neck!'
She increased her pace, annoyed that he could keep up' with her so easily, but pleased when Samantha and Britt waved them over straight away.
The children were playing happily by the water's edge and the two women had made themselves comfortable on the permanent loungers kept at the beach hut. Flame joined them, trying to ignore the fact that Marlow had stripped down to a pair of brief black swimming-trunks and thrown himself down beside her.
At first conversation ebbed and flowed in the sticky heat. Flame felt uncomfortable in her shorts and T-shirt and would willingly have discarded them but for Marlow's being there. She wished fervently that he would leave.
An hour passed. It was becoming a subtle torture to lie so close, aware that his glistening body lay within arm's reach. Out of the corners of her eyes she could see the firm bulge of his muscles, his torso curving away to his narrow hips, the blatant brevity of his swimming-trunks leaving nothing to the imagination. She shifted her attention to the powerful thighs and long, perfectly shaped legs ending in strong, well-shaped feet. One toe twitched as he turned to look across at her.
'Feeling restless, Flame?' He must have been watching her unconscious scrutiny. Her startled glance met his. The suggestive undertone in the softly spoken words made heat search along the length of her body in a telltale wash of pink, to lodge somewhere in her groin. She turned her head irritably.
'Restless,' he judged as if it proved something. 'You could go for a swim to cool off.'
She didn't answer.
'What about it?'
'What?' Flame glanced across at Samantha and Britt, but Samantha was now wearing a Walkman and seemed oblivious to everything else, while Britt preserved a discreet lack of interest in the conversation of her employers.
'What about a swim?'
'Why aren't you working?' she demanded.
'Today's my day off.'
'I'm surprised they can do without you!'
'I'm only a phone call away.' Marlow indicated a receiver bulging out of the back pocket of the white trousers he had discarded. 'Besides,' he went on, 'Victoria's in charge.'
'I'm sure she is,' muttered Flame.
Marlow's glance was thoughtful. 'She seems to bother you more than she should. She knows her place, you know.' Then, as if bored at the prospect of what seemed to herald another round of petty wrangling, he swung his legs over the edge of the sun-bed and gripped her arm. 'Come on. In the water.'
'But I don't want --'
'Tough!' He yanked her to her feet.
'And I haven't got a swim-suit --'
'On a private beach? With your husband? Does it really matter?'
She stepped back. 'If you think I'm going to disrobe in front of you, Marlow Hudson --' she began.
'Hell's bells, I've seen you in the nude before!' he exclaimed. Then seeing the truculent expression on her face he gave a wicked laugh. 'So what? Preserve your modesty if you must.' And before she could move he picked her up in his arms and started to run with her to the edge of the water.
The drenching she received was complete. She sat up furiously in two feet of salt water, wriggling angrily as a wave washed over her as if to drive the point home. 'You horrible devil!' she shouted. A mixture of salt tears and sea-water stung her eyes. It reminded her so much of times of old.
Marlow was looking pleased with himself as he swam off, cleaving the water with smooth strong strokes that made her heart turn over with the beauty of just watching him. His gypsy-dark hair was slicked to his scalp, drawing attention to the stark symmetry of his face, and his oiled body appeared and disappeared in the rolling surf, as if inviting her to join him.
In the old days she would have done so, showering water in his face, tugging at his legs to up-end him, revelling in the teasing game of hide and seek as their bodies found and lost and found each other again. It had happened before. He had always teased and sported with her in a part childlike, part adult way, so that when they eventually made love it was a delicious mixture of innocence and sin. Now she was too full of bitter knowledge to pretend things could ever have an innocent aura.
She stood up and turned her back, wrenching her T-shirt over her head and then stepping out of her soaking shorts. She threw them down on the sand. It would be all the same to him whether she was nude or clothed. He had Victoria to contend with, and all his provocation just now was obviously nothing more than an attempt to betray her into yet another revelation of her primitive desire for him. Maybe it bolstered his ego to witness the continual evidence of her 'weakness'.
Gloriously naked, she cut through the crystal water like a mermaid, her long hair streaming out behind her. She swam in the opposite direction to Marlow, darts of pleasure at the caress of the water against her naked skin recalling the sensuality of his touch warning her, as if she needed warning, of the dangers that lay ahead.
She swam far out, keeping as far away from him as she could, revelling in the sensual pleasure of sun and sea and her own nakedness. Above her head the sky was a dreamy blue. She floated on her back, kicking out her legs, then letting them float to the surface. Rollers lifted her and rocked her till she felt she was one with the elements. Suddenly she saw a dark head break the water beside her.
It was Marlow. He dived powerfully below the surface and came up underneath her, his arms sliding round her waist, pulling her body sensually against his own until she felt the familiar hardness with a shock of recognition. Without being able to stop herself, she felt her own limbs undulate against his before being caught up so that they became entwined as one. Her chin tilted to take a gasp of air before the surf laced over the tops of their heads. It swept them powerfully in towards the beach.
'Marlow!' she gasped, twisting in his arms as the surf rolled them over and over. 'Marlow --!' But his lips came down over hers as line after line of surf engu
lfed them. When they were flung free for a moment they were both breathless, and she knew it was more than the sea controlling them.
Before she could fight from out of his embrace the surf pounded on to the beach again, sweeping them both high up on to the sand. When it receded, Marlow was looking down at her with a hand planted on either side of her face. She arched back in the warm sand, then closed her eyes as she felt his thighs come down, pinning her beneath him.
Her bare feet kicked out, but to no avail. He was too strong, too purposeful. Eyes snapping wide, they dilated as she saw the dark head lowering, blocking out the sun, then his lips were covering hers, his tongue probing saltily into her half-open mouth.
It was a kiss that began slowly, almost reluctantly, but some demon of desire seemed to come alive at the same moment for them both, and, though Flame tried to tell herself she was writhing to free herself, when he lifted slightly her hips raised to follow, driven by more than anger.
'They'll see us,' she blurted when her mouth was released for a moment as he moved lower down to kiss her naked breasts.
'Is that all that's stopping us?' he demanded huskily.
Her eyes shot emerald sparks. 'Of course not!'
'No? I rather hoped it was...' he gave a wicked smile '... seeing they all left about five minutes ago.'
'What?' Flame tried to curve her neck so she could look up the beach, but it only gave Marlow an opportunity to trail a fever line of kisses along it. She could feel his tongue, his teeth, and now his hands everywhere. Even as her own body arched in response to his increasing ardour she heard herself say over and over, 'No, Marlow, please don't, don't please...' Then he stopped the broken words with his lips again and she felt her limbs turn to a blaze of gold like the sand on which they were lying and the sun which was caressing them from above.
When she seemed to be approaching the point of no return she felt him pause and raise himself on his hands to look down at her. 'At this point,' he said, half humorously, 'you should be saved by the sound of a helicopter flying overhead.'
'Would a thing like that stop you?' she asked, trying to make her tone as biting as possible. To her own ears it merely sounded like a reproach, but he took it the way she intended.
'It's only you yourself who's stopping me,' he rasped. 'I don't intend to force you to submit to something you'll later claim you never wanted. That's not my plan...' He gave a twisted smile. 'It never was and never will be.'
He rolled to one side, pulling her against him so that she lay within the crook of his arm. His voice was resonant as he growled down, 'I told you I wanted you, body and soul. And that's what it comes down to. What I want I get. And nothing less will do.'
His free hand began to fondle one of her breasts, but his touch was different, showing he had decided that he had gone as far as he would allow himself to go just then.
Relief was mixed with the inevitable regret in Flame's heart, but she knew her recent anger was light years away at this moment. She allowed him to go on holding her, knowing she would let him do whatever he liked with her—and smarting at the thought that he didn't guess how much he was in control.
If only he realised the truth, she thought, as time swelled, seeming to hold them inside an everlasting golden bubble. He has held my soul captive since the first moment we met, she reminded herself. If only the magic could work both ways and he would be an equal in love.
She had to be content that he held her now as if he cared, like a lover, like a husband, and they stayed like that until eventually, from the top of the cliff, came the sound of the gong summoning them to lunch. It was a signal from outside, bursting their unexpected dream-bubble and casting them out into the real world again.
Marlow pulled her to her feet without looking at her. She thought he seemed angry about something now as he walked her back in silence up the beach. But then he was often abrupt these days, for reasons she couldn't even guess at, and she was scorchingly aware how she had never really got to know him properly.
His life before he came to Santa Margarita was a closed book to her. Somehow there had never been time, or need, to delve back into the past. She hadn't got one. And his had never been an issue. Besides, everything had happened too fast. The miraculous thing that was their suddenly flowering love had stolen all their attention. And now, she realised with a tinge of regret, she had just thrown away the perfect opportunity to get him to unlock some of his secrets for her.
She trailed back beside him, trying, with difficulty to realign her more ordinary everyday responses with the primitive urgings he had aroused but not satisfied.
CHAPTER SEVEN
After lunch, when Samantha and Emilio had retired to their room and Britt had settled the children down for their own siesta, Marlow made his way to Flame's side. Having carefully avoided him since their interlude on the beach, she had no intention of being left alone with him just yet, not with everybody else out of the way. So to his suggestion to come and give her room the once-over to see if anything needed doing to it before she moved in, she shook her head.
'I won't come now if you don't mind. I want to go and have a chat with Mother. I haven't seen much of her today.'
'That won't take long—talking tires her at the moment. I'll come with you, then we can go on from there.'
'What about your siesta?' she asked, still trying to get out of being closeted alone until her emotions had been schooled back into place. Even just standing next to him was making her imagination run riot.
'You should know me,' he told her with a sardonic lift of his head. 'Since when have I needed an afternoon sleep?'
'With your late night last night I should have thought you'd welcome it,' Flame replied at once, trying to ignore the betraying blush that plainly showed she remembered the siestas they themselves had shared.
He didn't answer, nor did he take any notice of her obvious desire to be left alone. He held the door of Sybilla's room to let her go in ahead of him. The invalid was sitting up now, still flushed, but obviously well rested.
'You're a tonic, Flame, you really are!' She lifted her fadedly pretty face to include Marlow. 'Don't you agree, darling? I am looking better, aren't I? And it's all due to Flame coming back to us.' She reached out for their hands. Flame made sure she was standing on the opposite side of the bed to Marlow before she took it, but even at that safe distance she could feel the pulsing attraction of his physical presence reaching out towards her.
She sat down on the edge and he did likewise on the other side. Then he reached over and took her other hand in his and trapped it there on top of the coverlet. Trying to behave like the perfect loving husband, she registered, trying to disguise the wild starts of pleasure his touch wrought. Their hands lay entwined on the bed—like a visible lie. Her mother seemed to be quite taken in.
'I knew you two would get back together,' she was saying in a weak though happy voice. 'The shame is that it took so long. But let's not dwell on the past. It's now that counts.'
Marlow played up to the image of the attentive husband for the next twenty minutes, and Sybilla unconsciously egged him on, smiling from her daughter to her son-in-law, with such obvious happiness that Flame began to seethe at the game Marlow was forcing her to play.
Eventually he remarked that he and Flame were going to discuss the furnishings at the casita, and Sybilla patted their hands with a little smile. 'I still-get rather worn out with too much talking... Go now—but don't forget to come back and tell me what you've decided. I expect you'll be thinking about a second bedroom?' She closed her eyes, so missing Flame's startled glance.
'Second bedroom? Does she guess how things are between us?' she demanded when they were outside.
Marlow's lips gave a sardonic twitch. 'Not in that sense. Knowing your mother, she's hoping the second bedroom is going to be done out in fluffy rabbits and bows.'
It took a second for his meaning to sink in. 'Not on your life!' she exclaimed. 'Us?'
'Don't you want a family
, Flame?' He walked on ahead without waiting for her answer.
She caught up with him. 'Ignoring all that,' she flounced her shoulders, 'surely you didn't have to go all out to make it look as if you're the --' she faltered '—as if you really care?' She turned when they were more safely out of earshot. 'No wonder she's got us planning nurseries, with you behaving like a doting husband!'
Marlow carried on walking without turning and she ran after him again. 'It seems so underhand,' she said. 'Poor Mother, I feel I'm cheating her by letting her believe everything's all right. Not that that would bother you!''
'Do you think she's fooled? Or is she merely hoping against hope? She's a shrewd woman, your mother, Flame. She's nobody's fool. I think perhaps you underestimate her.'
'Why else would she be so pleased with herself,' she demanded, 'if she didn't think we were both genuinely starry-eyed?'
'She ought to be pleased. She's beginning to recover from a serious illness. She's every right to be pleased.'
'And that's another thing, I should have been told she was so seriously ill. How dare you conceal something like that from me?'
Marlow frowned. 'In retrospect I agree with you. But as I've already told you, I didn't want to worry you unnecessarily, nor did I want her made even more upset by your sudden reappearance. Naturally I couldn't be sure you were going to behave yourself.'
'How dare you?' exclaimed Flame.
'Well, it's true.'
'I'm not a child!'
'You were when you left me.' He gave her a piercing glance. 'And sexual experience doesn't add up to maturity. You're still a child.'
'You can always be counted on to be patronising, Marlow Hudson!' she snapped, wanting to hit him.
He slid an arm around her waist. They had reached the pines that shielded the casita from the main house. She smelled the sharp scent of them. It had the tang of good bubble bath. Marlow let her go at once as soon as he'd made her stop. 'Tell me, Flame, am I too old for you?' His voice was quiet, with a gravity she was unused to.
She considered this unexpected question with her head on one side. Just to feel him near set her pulses racing. What had age to do with a thing like that? 'How? Too old?' she asked with a catch in her throat.
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