A Solitary Heart

by Amanda Carpenter

  “For God’s sake!” he growled, lowering his head as if in deep labour. His knuckles were white. “Why don’t I just point out my jugular so you can lunge for that?”

  She took a step closer, hackles raised to the intoxicating sense of danger. How far was his limit? “OK by me,” she said insolently, watching with immense satisfaction his ivory jaw, his goaded eyes. “Since you feel so obliging.”

  Just the tiny neat inclination of his head gave the impression that he rounded on her like a snarling animal at bay. Nearly there now. “Watch what you say, lady,” he growled softly. “You were a willing participant in that little scene.”

  Her eyebrows raised. “You mean you were in a state to actually notice?”

  He hung his head, bared his strong clenched teeth. He looked drugged. “Just what the hell do you want from me?”

  Ah, there was the edge. Time to push him over. She shot forward, slapped a hand on the counter beside his and snapped, “I wondered when you’d get around to asking me that!”

  “Back off,” he whispered, hazel eyes wide.

  “I want to fight,” she told him throatily, and pushed her face into his; ah, but she’d learned from an expert. He couldn’t help but read the evidence in front of him: the ruthless glitter of her eyes, the dark colour along her cheekbones, the angle of her wand-slim neck that was both taunt and offering. She smiled sexily, and enunciated in intimate provocation, “And then I want a good—hard—rousing—”

  He gasped, and whirled, and suddenly they were together, holding each other in a tight, bruising hug. Her head fell back as she smirked at him. He shook her, his eyes ablaze, and she reached up to cover those hazel orbs with one hand that slipped, and stroked his darkened cheek, and his mouth fell ravening on to hers. He thrust his tongue, and she suckled it, and he crushed her aching breasts with shaking hands, and she writhed against him in fierce ecstasy.

  Then they heard doors open and close, the distant sound of the shower starting in the hall bathroom.

  They leaped apart as if scalded, and ended up at opposite ends of the kitchen. She stared at his back as he presented it to her. He gripped his head with both hands and hissed, “Did I ever say I liked your friends? I hate them, so passionately—”

  The sound of Jane’s sleepy voice came down the hall. “—don’t know what time it is. Somebody’s awake, though. I can smell the coffee.”

  By the time Jane emerged on the scene, Matt was back at the cutting board, while she was busy pulling margarine, bacon and a carton of eggs from the refrigerator. Such a bland and domestic scene, but the margarine fell on the floor from her nerveless fingers, and Matt, she noticed, did not cut any more grapefruit, but spun one half in repeated circles.

  “Good morning, sleepyhead,” he said to Jane without looking at her. He almost sounded normal.

  Jane blinked like an owl and yawned noisily. “God, you both look disgustingly alert. How long have you been up?”

  “Forever,” muttered Matthew in despair.

  Sian walked drunkenly to the stove, her arms full. “Not long,” she said to her friend. “I just took a shower. Want an egg?”

  “Mmm, please. I’m going to jump in Matt’s shower first, if his water-heater will hold up with both going.”

  He growled, “It’ll stay hot.” Sian was laughing like a crazy woman, and he shot her a speaking glare.

  “I’ll bring you in a cup of coffee, then I’ll cook your breakfast,” she offered, wiping damp hands on a towel and reaching for the cups in the cupboard.

  “Isn’t she wonderful?” murmured Jane affectionately to Matt. “I just love her to bits.”

  His knife clattered as he threw it into the sink. “Oh, she’s peachy, all right.”

  She slammed the cupboard shut with a resounding bang, and this time he laughed. With a pained wince Jane left the noisy pair.

  Soon Steven and Joshua were lured into the kitchen by the aromatic smell of bacon sizzling under the grill, and buttery eggs frying, and Sian was kept busy cooking for everyone for the next half-hour or so, until Jane claimed the skillet and made her sit down to eat.

  Jane and Sian decided to go shopping that morning, which none of the men seemed too keen to go along with, so they arranged to meet for lunch. The group parted in the street; Sian watched as Matt strolled away with Joshua and Steven.

  In the strong sunlight, he looked casual and relaxed. Joshua turned to say something to him, at which he shrugged. Then before they disappeared from sight around the nearby corner, he stared back at the girls, shading his gaze with one hand.

  She turned quickly back to Jane, who had asked her a question. “That’s fine with me,” she said, having no idea what it was she had agreed to.

  “Then Marshall Fields it is,” said the blonde with satisfaction. “After all, they’re such a big department store, they’ll have everything under one roof, and we only have a couple of hours before we meet the others.”

  They saw an empty taxi and hailed it. It promptly slewed across the lanes, to the annoyance of the other drivers, and whisked them away. Then, at the store, they browsed through sportswear, lingerie, and the perfume and accessories counters.

  Sian trailed along behind Jane like a ghost, stopping when the other girl stopped. After she had stood, staring fixedly at a rack of garments for several minutes, Jane noticed her preoccupation and came up to her.

  “You don’t really want to buy that, do you?” At the doubtful question said softly into her ear, Sian started and looked about. She was at the edge of the maternity section of clothing, and the dresses she’d been gazing at were huge tent-like things designed more for comfort than high fashion.

  “God, no!” she exclaimed violently and swung away. “I was just thinking, that’s all.”

  “Oh, thinking, were you?” replied Jane wisely. “I’m relieved. For a moment there, I thought you might be in love.”

  “With those?” She looked comically horrified. Jane merely raised her eyebrows, and she hunched one defensive shoulder and sidled over to a display of scarves, running the shimmering, patterned material through her fingers. The silence was eloquent, and too prolonged. To break it, she said belligerently, “Well, what if I am in love?”

  “With the maternity dresses?” Jane assumed astonishment. Sian’s breath whistled inwards, a high, beleaguered whine, and the blonde relented. “Honey, I’m sorry. I won’t tease any more.”

  She lifted her chin. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not, anyway. In love, I mean.”

  “Of course you’re not,” Jane soothed.

  Her fingers rubbed on the scarf, back and forth, back and forth. “After all, I’ve only known him a week.”

  “Not at all a reasonable time schedule for falling in love,” her friend agreed. “And he did save your life.”

  She was outraged and befuddled. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

  “Oh…” the blonde girl waved vaguely “…saviour infatuation, or something.”

  “I happen to think that what Matt did that day said a lot about the man!” Sian bristled, glaring at her friend. “He acted in a selfless and courageous manner, putting the boy’s and my safety before his own! He was gentle, and considerate, and competent, and attentive and—and—oh, God.”

  “Yes, love?”

  Sian dragged the scarf to her face and hid in it. The rack on which the scarf was hooked clattered to the counter, and attracted the attention of a sales clerk, who hurried over. “I am in love with him, aren’t I?” she whispered.

  Jane said gently, “Yes, love.”

  “That makes it sound so simple,” she said to the scarf.

  “It sounds simple enough, but even simple things aren’t always the easy ones.” She lifted her head, and Jane pried her fingers from the scarf to hand it back to the disapproving clerk. The clerk scowled at Sian, who smiled back at her bewildere
dly.

  Jane guided her through the department store and out to the street. It was nearly one o’clock, so they went to meet the others in a fashionable brasserie that had high French windows along the front which opened to a wide expanse of pavement where tables and chairs were set in a continental style. The men were already relaxing outside with cold drinks.

  Sian could feel Matt’s thoughtful, brooding gaze on her but, in an agony of uncertainty, she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. She chose a seat well away from his indolently outstretched length.

  Throughout the rest of the sunny afternoon, she avoided any direct contact with him, gravitating instead towards the uncomplicated companionship of the others as the group went to the zoo and walked along the various enclosures. She knew she was behaving in a manner inconsistent with that morning, but she couldn’t help herself; she felt suspended in a single moment of time, a nocturnal animal frozen in the glaring headlights of a car, not knowing which way to escape, just waiting, fatalistically, for the impending collision.

  He didn’t chase her. Indeed, he strolled along with every appearance of ease, the strong sunshine lightening his windswept tawny hair with strands of light gold, his eyes vivid against the tanned darkness of his handsome features. He carried on a light, effortless flirtation with Jane, who laughed and gave as good as she got, while Sian, for the first and only time in her life, burned with miserable jealousy for the attention he gave her friend.

  They went back to his condominium at six in the evening, to get ready for the party. People were due to start arriving at eight, so everyone pitched in to prepare the food before changing clothes. There was a plentiful supply of food: cheese, crackers, cold chicken, beef and pâté, potato chips, a ham and broccoli quiche ready for the oven, pickles and olives. All that needed to be done was to arrange everything on the dining-table at the end of the large living-room area, and to shift the couch and chairs so that there was a large open space for dancing.

  Sian changed into a pale lemon sleeveless top with a matching ankle-length, gauzy skirt that flowed gracefully with the movements of her long legs. With a wide red belt, and chunky red jewellery that was in striking contrast to her pale skin, her shining black hair flowing unconfined, she looked slim and colourful, and very feminine.

  Her face showed no hint of her turmoil, nor the inner wince she felt when Joshua put some bouncy music on the excellent stereo and it jangled a loud intrusion on her sensitised nerves. To anyone watching she appeared to be enjoying herself in a quiet, good-natured fashion, and, when the guests began to arrive and the condominium filled to overflowing, she found to her surprise that somewhere she had stopped acting the part and actually was having a good time.

  She did like Matt’s wide, gregarious circle of friends. Their careers, ages and lifestyles differed hugely; about the only thing they seemed to have in common was a universal high opinion of their host, who was immensely popular with both sexes.

  Of course the advantage in having a host to such an occasion was that he was sure to invite all his male friends. Sian noticed in amusement that Jane had bright shining eyes like a child set loose in a candy shop, and that Steven hovered very close to her with his jaw set. She found herself in great demand as a dancing partner, and had just consented with a laugh to yet another dance with a very funny, attractive colleague of Matt’s when he appeared at her shoulder and told the other man bluntly, “Buzz off, Rick. Sian’s dancing this one with me.”

  She cocked an ironical eyebrow as his friend took the interjection philosophically. “I might have known you’d have your eye on the most beautiful woman in the room.”

  He put his arm around her shoulders. “That’s right, but if you’re quick, the little blonde in the corner is good company. She’s also Sian’s best friend, so mind your manners, hear?”

  “Yes, Papa Matt,” said Rick with a grin as he turned to locate Jane, who was talking to Steven. His eyes lit up appreciatively. “Don’t I always?”

  “I’m not sure I approve of you setting Jane up like that,” remarked Sian, as she watched Rick thread his way through the people to her friend.

  “Rick’s OK,” said Matt with a sidelong glance and a smile. “He’s a bit of a Casanova, but great fun as light relief, and he’s not intimidated by an intelligent woman. Besides, it won’t do Steven any harm to feel the burn of a little competition.”

  They bore witness to the first encounter. Rick reached the couple and said something, and Steven scowled but Jane turned her melting gaze up to the other man and said something in reply that creased Rick’s face with surprise and delight.

  Matt’s arm tightened around Sian’s shoulders as he said quietly, “Now, what about that dance?”

  “I haven’t heard you ask me yet,” she replied coolly, still disgruntled at how he had arrogantly assumed that she was his for the taking.

  But wasn’t she? Oh, wasn’t she?

  He turned around to face her, and cupped the soft upper flesh of her arms with a warmth of grip that sent a reactive shiver down her spine, and, with a sombre look in his keen, intent eyes, he said grimly, “That’s because, after avoiding me all day, I was afraid you’d say no.”

  She scowled and said to his chest, “Don’t be silly, I haven’t been avoiding you.”

  “Then you won’t object to a dance, will you?” He opened his fingers and slid the flat of his hands with slow, infinitely patient sensuality around to the small of her back and pulled her to him.

  The entire day might never have happened. In a blinding flash, she was back in the molten, mind-destroying build-up of eroticism from that morning, and her slender body bowed to his hard length like a vulnerable reed before a storm. She had to put her arms around his waist; he was the only port of stability in the increasingly violent tremors that racked through her, breaking down her fragile poise.

  He made some kind of sound, a taut, incoherent exclamation, and his head lowered to rest against the top of hers as he tightened his hold so that she thought he would break her spine. Then in a quick, snaking movement that whirled her into breathless shock, he pulled them both out of the crowded room and down the hall.

  Sian was distressingly close to tears. She could no more comprehend the reason for it than she could take into her numb mind the direction in which they were going. Her legs functioned automatically to the demand of his long, swift stride while his arm was an unbreakable band of steel around her waist, and the profile of his face, when she glanced up, was fixed and rigid.

  The study was empty and dark. He did not bother with shutting the half-closed door or turning on the light, but instead went straight to the end of the settee where he turned to sit and grip the edges of it, regarding her with a terrible, helpless hunger.

  He had let her go upon entering the room. She stood, half in shadow with the hall light crowning the black sleek fall of her hair with a dusky aureole of coppery gold. Frightened obscurely, she folded her arms across her chest and regarded him in equal measures of apprehension and belligerence.

  “Sian,” he said. He made her name into a soft caress of sound and air, and then again, with a siren’s lure of simplicity, “Sian.”

  She took a faltering step towards him, and his hands tightened on the settee until even she could see in the shadows how the cords in his wrists stood out in silvery relief.

  “Tell me,” she whispered, needing it so badly she shook. “For God’s sake, just tell me.”

  The words came out of him, dragged into existence with hard effort at control. “I am trying, good God, I’m trying to be patient, but it’s a little difficult when I want you so badly I can hardly see straight.”

  His naked bluntness sizzled down her body with as much galvanising power as if he had physically touched her, and she bit into the heel of her hand with an audible catch of her breath.

  “I want you,” he said slowly, watching her. “I want to be inside y
ou. You drive me insane, and I want to make you as crazy, I want to hear you cry out with it. Just a smile from you can make me weak at the knees with pleasure. The touch of your skin is finer than any silk, the scent of your hair goes to my head like wine, and the new-washed colour of your eyes when you wake up in the morning is a sea wide enough to drown my senses.”

  Somehow he had lost the febrile tension from a moment ago, and lounged back with lazy grace. Her eyes peering over her hand were massive, and she groaned, half in terror, “Oh, you could talk the sun out of the sky, you could.”

  “I want to watch your face when you climax,” purred gentle temptation. “Reach out, Sian. Kiss me, please, with your soft and sweet lips. Touch me, stroke me, do what you like with me. I do bite, but only if you want me to. Come to me, and pleasure yourself. It’s been forever since this morning, and I’m dying for it.”

  “And if I do, where does that leave us?” she challenged, his seductive invitation playing havoc with her feverish imagination.

  “Darling, how should I know? I’m no prophet. The future will be whatever it will be.” He cocked his head and suggested throatily, “Would one more kiss from you make us enemies or lovers?”

  She could no more resist him than she could resist herself. She took another step forward, and another. He shifted to part his long outstretched legs further, allowing her to come up between them, and his head fell back as he watched her, and the open eager desire in his eyes was the last thing she saw as she started to lower her head to his, and the pervasive sweetness of the surrender was far greater than anything he had promised her before, burnished as new as the first time, yet leavened with voluptuous memory.

  “What about—just good friends?” she whispered, leaning the heated flow of her body against his inner thighs.

  “Oh, yes,” he murmured, tilting his face, “whatever happened to them?”

  Her lips came down and touched his in a light, flower-petal caress, and the blissful agony of his self-restraint transmitted itself in the heightened stress of his breathing. She could feel his wide chest labour deliciously as she brought her hands to rest on the front of his shirt, running them up the covered muscle to the column of his neck, which beat a rapid tattoo against the tips of her fingers.