Savage Awakening

by Anne Mather

  ‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Much as she wanted to remain silent, Fliss didn’t like being patronised in this way. ‘As your son said, there’s nothing between him and me.’

  ‘But you’d like there to be?’

  Fliss pressed her lips together. ‘I must get on,’ she said, refusing to satisfy the woman’s mordant curiosity. Then, with a coolness she was quite proud of, ‘Will you be staying for a few days? If so, I’ll make sure there are plenty of towels in your bathroom.’

  Matt’s mother stayed for four days and during that time Fliss made sure that she and the other woman were never alone again. It wasn’t difficult, the weekend making up two of the days. She knew that what Mrs Quinn had told her was true, but that didn’t mean she had to listen to her. Besides, despite what Matt had said about Diane having an affair with her boss, Fliss suspected his mother still hoped he would forgive her. And why not? Diane was blonde and beautiful, and successful. Exactly the sort of wife a man like him should have.

  Deciding whether or not she should stay on at the Old Coaching House as Matt’s housekeeper was another matter, however. Mrs Quinn’s visit had made certain things clear to her, and one of them was the total futility of her attraction to her employer.

  So, the question was, could she go on working here knowing that any feelings she had for him were not reciprocated? Oh, she suspected he would not be averse to having an affair with her, but did she really want to risk the pain that an abortive relationship with him would bring? The decision was far harder to make than it should have been.

  In consequence, she was still in a state of uneasy confusion when she arrived at the house the morning after Matt’s mother had returned to London. Mrs Quinn had been packing when Fliss left the previous day, and although she’d suspected the older woman would have liked to have another warning word with her, Fliss had deliberately left stripping the bed in the spare room until today. She’d wanted no more advice, no more homilies on the uselessness of falling in love with Matt. Indeed, it would give her a great deal of pleasure to clean the room Mrs Quinn had used, knowing as she did so that her enemy had departed.

  No, not her enemy, she corrected herself impatiently as she opened the door that led into the kitchen. Matt’s mother meant well. She just couldn’t see how a common housekeeper, a single mother, moreover, could have anything to offer her son.

  There was no sign of Matt this morning, but that wasn’t unusual. He generally unlocked the back door for her and then either went to take his shower or, if he was already dressed, he might work in the library all morning. Since her father had told her about the series of articles he was planning to write, she’d assumed he was working on them, although his schedule had obviously been interrupted while his mother was here.

  Occasionally he was still in bed when she arrived, but those occasions were rare and usually coincided with the after-effects of work he’d done in the garden. Despite her offer to help him find a gardener, he’d insisted on doing everything himself, and she could only speculate that he expunged his lingering frustrations in physical effort.

  Though not frustrations about her, she assured herself grimly. Whatever he felt for her, it was obviously easily mastered and since the scene with his mother he’d given her no reason to believe that he regretted anything he’d said.

  Which should have made her decision as to whether to keep this job easier, but somehow it didn’t. She was a fool, she thought irritably. She was letting him treat her any way he chose and she was too weak—or too stupid—to do anything about it.

  Surprisingly, there was no dirty coffee mug on the drainer this morning. No sign that he’d had any breakfast either, and she decided he must still be in bed. Not that it mattered to her, she determined firmly. She had plenty to occupy her. Not least, his mother’s bed to strip, the sheets to put in the washer, and the adjoining bathroom to clean. That would take her over an hour and by then he would probably be up.

  But he wasn’t.

  Even though she’d stripped and remade the spare bed, removed all the odds and ends of cotton wool and used tissues from the vanity in the bathroom, scoured the bath and basin, and finally vacuumed the carpet, there was no movement from Matt’s room.

  Which was unusual—and worrying, she conceded, not knowing if she ought to check to see if he was all right. She had thought she’d heard something from time to time, but, remembering the other occasion when she’d gone to his bedroom, she was chary about appearing too forward. She knew him better now, of course—some might say too well, she acknowledged unhappily. Yet well enough to feel some responsibility if there was a chance he might be ill.

  To give herself time to decide what she ought to do—or maybe to give him more time to wake up—she decided to go downstairs again and make herself a cup of coffee. The caffeine would be welcome and it would be ready if he needed it, too.

  She was at the top of the stairs when she heard an unusual noise. She thought it sounded as if someone was in pain, and as Matt was the only other person in the house, it had to be him.

  But what was he doing? It was a strange sound, as if—as if he was moaning, she decided uneasily. Or snoring, she amended, trying to be positive. He could be sound asleep and she was imagining the worst.

  She hesitated. As usual, his bedroom door was ajar. She’d determined he kept it that way because of his months in captivity. She’d guessed he liked the idea that the door was open, that he could walk out of the room whenever he chose. But he wasn’t walking out now, and despite her misgivings she had to find out why.

  The sound was louder when she opened the door, and she couldn’t help feeling as if she had no right to be there. But someone had to help him, and as she stepped towards the bed a shiver of apprehension slithered down her spine.

  He wasn’t snoring, she saw at once. If anything, he was groaning, and the way he was threshing about on his pillows made her sure he was in pain. Yet his eyes were closed, and even when she said his name they didn’t open. Instead, behind his lids his pupils were moving agitatedly, causing a flickering motion that was a little scary in itself.

  ‘Matt,’ she said tentatively. And then when that elicited no response, ‘Are you all right?’

  He was nude beneath the thin sheet, and she was half-afraid he’d throw off even that covering. ‘Matt,’ she said again, wishing he would wake up. But he didn’t. He seemed deeply unconscious and she guessed it was the dream he was having that was causing him so much grief.

  She didn’t need to think very hard to know what he was dreaming about, however. After the experiences he had had, who could wonder? This probably happened all the time, only she wasn’t usually around to witness it. He’d told her he often had trouble sleeping and she wasn’t surprised if all his dreams were as frightening as the one he was having at present.

  Then he spoke, and for a moment she thought her wish had been granted. But his eyes were still closed and the words that spilled disjointedly from his lips were not the kind of thing he would ever say to her. A stream of curses and profanities, some in English, some in a language she suspected might be Arabic, but all equally offensive, or so it seemed, filled the room.

  Fliss didn’t know what to do. She wanted to wake him up. That seemed the most sensible course of action. But how would he feel when he discovered she had been a witness to his distress?

  Yet did that matter, when she was already considering handing in her notice? It didn’t really figure what he thought of her so long as he was all right.

  Swallowing, she put out a hand to touch the arm nearest to her, but before she could do so he reared up off his pillows. ‘Don’t touch me, you filthy bastard!’ he snarled, and she saw to her dismay that his eyes were open now. He was looking straight at her, his stare dark and glassy and filled with hate, and she gazed back, aghast. He was speaking to her, she realised sickly. Oh, God, did he really despise her that much?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  HORROR gripped her. This was so much worse
than she’d anticipated. What did he think she’d been about to do to him? Take advantage of him? Seduce him? She had never felt so devastated in her life.

  ‘I—Matt—’

  It was all she could do to say his name, but it seemed to have an instant effect. Amazingly, his eyes changed. The glassy, hate-filled stare disappeared, replaced by a look of almost horrified comprehension. ‘Fliss,’ he croaked weakly. ‘Oh, hell, Fliss, what are you doing here?’

  Fliss could hardly get her explanation out. ‘I—I was worried about you,’ she stammered, praying he would believe her. ‘You—you were making a weird noise. I—I thought you must be having a bad dream.’

  ‘Oh, was I ever.’ Matt collapsed back against his pillows again, and, although he closed his eyes for a moment, she knew there was no danger of him falling back to sleep. ‘God, I’m sorry.’ He opened his eyes again and now there was no trace of the stranger who had sworn at her. ‘I frightened you, didn’t I? I can see I did.’ He held out his hand towards her. ‘Forgive me.’

  Fliss’s legs were trembling so much, she was amazed they continued to support her, and she was more than willing to let him take her hand and draw her to the bed. ‘Sit,’ he said huskily, pulling her down beside him. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘Not a ghost. A monster, maybe,’ she admitted weakly, and he expelled a rueful breath.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again. He paused, and then went on bleakly, ‘It’s some time since I’ve had that particular dream. I guess I’m not going to escape it quite yet.’

  Fliss nodded. ‘You—what you said—you weren’t speaking to me, were you?’

  ‘As I don’t remember saying anything, I doubt it.’ His brows drew together and she wondered if he was aware his thumb was making circles on her palm. She didn’t think so, but when he lifted her hand to his lips, she couldn’t be sure of anything anymore. His tongue brushed over her knuckles. ‘What did I say?’ And when she didn’t answer, he turned her hand and bestowed a moist kiss to her palm. ‘Tell me.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’d rather not.’

  ‘That bad, was it?’

  ‘Pretty bad,’ she agreed, quivering a little as he continued to play with her fingers. ‘I guess you don’t want to talk about it?’

  ‘No.’

  Matt was very definite about that and she was suddenly aware of the intimacy of the situation. She couldn’t forget he was naked beneath the sheet and the warm pressure of his thigh against her hip was a tantalising reminder.

  He looked at her then, and she dipped her head in embarrassment. She suspected what she was thinking was there in her face for all to see and this was definitely not the time to be having such thoughts.

  But averting her eyes had its dangers, too. The sheet didn’t quite cover his navel and she was treated to a disturbing glimpse of the arrowing dark hair that grew thicker around his manhood. The sheet stirred, and her heart almost stopped beating. He was becoming aroused, she thought uneasily, and they were alone in the house. Did she really want this to happen?

  She ought to leave, she told herself. She should get out of there before something irrevocable occurred. She didn’t want to, she admitted. What she really wanted to do was crawl into bed with him. To hold him in her arms and comfort him. But that wasn’t going to happen and with her history it was obviously the last thing she should do.

  But he was still holding her hand and she didn’t want to make a complete fool of herself by getting into a tugging match with him. ‘Well, if you’re all right,’ she murmured, hoping he would get the message and let her go. But he didn’t.

  ‘Hey,’ he said instead, and she was obliged to meet his probing gaze. ‘What’s wrong? I’m not embarrassing you, am I?’

  ‘Embarrassing me?’ Fliss managed to sound as if what he’d said was totally off the wall. ‘No, of course you’re not embarrassing me.’ She wet her dry lips with the tip of her tongue and looked pointedly at his brown fingers caressing her pale flesh. ‘Um—can I have my hand back, please?’

  Matt’s lips twisted. ‘What if I don’t want to let you go?’

  Fliss’s laugh was nervous. ‘Then I’d have to use force,’ she said, struggling to keep her tone light. ‘Come on, Matt. I’ve got to get on.’

  She felt his eyes on her face then and, although she didn’t want to meet his gaze, she couldn’t seem to stop herself. He might be disturbing, he might be dangerous, but she wouldn’t have been human if she wasn’t excited by his unpredictability.

  ‘You don’t have to be afraid of me, you know,’ he murmured, lifting his other hand and trailing it deliberately down her cheek. ‘I might want to touch you, but I can’t hurt you.’

  Don’t you believe it, thought Fliss, remembering the last time he’d touched her in intimate detail. Already her heart was beating faster than it should and a trickle of perspiration was making its way between her breasts. Any minute now, she was going to say or do something equally stupid and she couldn’t have that.

  ‘I’d still like my hand back,’ she said, unable to think of a more original response. And then, because she had to make him understand, ‘We—we both know this isn’t going anywhere, Matt. So why spoil a good working relationship with—well, with sex?’ She forced a smile. ‘Just let me go.’

  Matt laughed then. But it wasn’t a nervous laugh as hers had been. Nor was it a particularly humorous one either, and she wondered what she’d said to provoke it. There was a bleak expression in his eyes, too, that spoke of memories best forgotten, and she felt a latent sense of contrition for inadvertently reminding him of the past again.

  ‘Matt,’ she murmured pleadingly, wanting to placate him and comfort him and not really knowing how. ‘I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.’

  ‘Didn’t you?’ She doubted he believed her. ‘Well, it was a reasonable enough supposition. We’re alone here, and you have every right to assume that I might want to take advantage of you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t assume that.’ Fliss wanted to groan at her own inadequacy. ‘Look…’ She paused. ‘If I’m afraid, it’s of what I might do if—if you did try to seduce me.’

  Matt’s mouth took on a mocking curve. ‘Try being the operative word,’ he said, in a strange dry voice. ‘Oh, Fliss!’ This time when he spoke his voice was thick with emotion. ‘You are such a contradiction.’ And putting a hand behind her head, he pulled her down to him.

  Fliss tried to remember that just moments before she’d been determined this wouldn’t happen, but she was lost from the start. When he kissed her, his mouth hot and demanding on hers, his tongue forcing its way into her mouth, she could do nothing less than respond. His hand at her nape slanted her mouth across his, deepened and hardened the kiss until she was breathless and gasping for air.

  She tried to keep her feet on the ground, both metaphorically and physically, but when he rolled over on the bed, imprisoning her beneath him, the possibilities of either went out the window. Somehow the sheet had been sacrificed in the hungry tangle of their bodies and all she could feel was the warm, muscular weight of his body pinning her to the bed.

  And it was such a delicious feeling. One muscled thigh was lying between her legs, which meant that her skirt must be caught up somewhere around her hips, but she couldn’t seem to care. Even the knowledge that her plain cotton underwear must be vastly different from what he was used to didn’t arouse more than a fleeting regret. This was where she wanted to be, and if that meant she was wicked she would deal with it later. Right now, it was enough that Matt was kissing her with an urgency that matched her own, and she was wasted.

  ‘You know this is crazy, don’t you?’ he breathed a little unsteadily into the hollow of her neck, but Fliss didn’t want to listen. Instead, she gripped his head and brought his mouth back to hers. Recriminations could come later, she thought fiercely, when this feverish madness was a thing of the past, too.

  And despite what he’d said, Matt couldn’t seem to control what was happening either.
His overnight stubble was a welcome abrasion when he trailed searing kisses down her throat, and she felt the calluses that gardening had made on his hands when he pushed his fingers beneath the cropped hem of her T-shirt.

  His hands stroked her midriff, as they’d done before, but then they moved upward to cup the swelling mounds of her breasts. Within her bra, her nipples felt rock-hard and painfully engorged, and she shifted restlessly when all he did was press his palms against them through the bra.

  ‘Fliss…’ he groaned, but she couldn’t let him voice his doubts now. Scrabbling behind her back, she managed to release the clasp of the bra, and allowed a little moan to escape her when his hard fingers touched her sensitive flesh.

  ‘God, Fliss,’ he muttered now, but this time there was no reluctance in his words. She moaned again when he pushed her T-shirt up above her breasts and took one swollen peak into his mouth.

  His tongue circled her nipple almost greedily before sucking strongly on the tip. Then he moved purposefully to her other breast, and she felt a pleasurable pain envelop her. The rush of heat it engendered flooded down into her belly, and she trembled with emotions she knew she’d never experienced before.

  A pulse was beating between her legs, a throbbing ache that she sensed only he could satisfy. In a fleeting moment of coherence she wondered if this was what romance authors meant when they said the heroine was consumed by her own body’s desires. That was how she felt: consumed, and reckless, and blind to the dangers he now—and always had—represented.

  He pushed her T-shirt over her head and Fliss felt her hair come loose from the pony-tail in which she’d confined it that morning. He said something unintelligible as he dropped her bra over the side of the bed and buried his face in her hair. Then she heard him whisper hoarsely, ‘You smell incredible.’

  So do you, she acknowledged silently, the clean male scent of his skin made all the more sensual by his body’s heat. There was the faintest trace of musk, too, and this potent evidence of his maleness made her feel weak and dizzy with need.