Passionate Retribution

by Kim Lawrence

  Lazily he stretched. The muscles in her jaw felt tight enough to snap as she watched his muscles bunch and relax as he sat up in one fluid motion. His air of relaxation only deepened her horror at the feelings which writhed hungrily in the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Seychelles, remember?’

  ‘What were you doing there?’ Her interest could be described as marginal, but she was making a supreme effort to disguise the fact that her eyes kept straying to the expanse of evenly tanned flesh.

  ‘I was interviewing Bernie Cavanaugh for a Sunday supplement spread,’ he announced, rubbing the stubble that shadowed his jaw.

  Even at that moment, barely able to string two words together, she was impressed. ’the sculptor?’

  Luke nodded. ‘You know the work?’

  ‘I’ve only seen it second-hand. How did you manage that, Luke? I thought he was a recluse. No one has set eyes on him for years.’

  ‘It’s a coup, as they say; and he’s a she…Bernice.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘What exactly is that supposed to indicate?’ The blue gaze was alarmingly speculative.

  The amount of petulance and innuendo she had unwittingly slipped into the monosyllable was depressing. Jealousy, she admitted, wondering what aberrant behaviour she would exhibit next. ‘How did you persuade her to allow you to interview her?’ she asked hurriedly. ‘I suppose she must be quite old by now,’ she added. The thought was somehow cheering.

  His expression grew sardonic and his lips twisted into a crooked smile. ‘Age, infant, is relative; and Bernice is one of the warmest, most open people I’ve come across. Serene is too placid a word to describe her, but she is comfortable with her own femininity without feeling the need to exploit it,’ he reflected. ‘As for persuading her, she saw a spread I did in Time last year and approached me.’

  Emily’s expression had grown sour as he’d described this talented paragon. ‘I’m amazed you dragged yourself away.’

  A strange expression flitted into Luke’s eyes. ‘I’m still not sure I should have,’ he said grimly.

  In the time it took her to register the sudden husky intonation and the restless flicker of unrefined hunger flare and subside in his expression, she realised he wasn’t as relaxed as she had imagined. Intellectually he’d been able to support a pretence of normality, but the brief window had made her aware of the sinews pulled tightly in his neck, the air of restraint about him as if he was angrily confining some strong emotion which she was too afraid to analyse.

  In a tangle of limbs she jumped off the bed. In the circumstances, conducting a conversation in this setting had not been one of her best moves. ‘I need…’ she began, her heart pounding furiously. As she met the angry smoulder of his eyes, her voice faded momentarily.

  ‘Go on, Emily, this should prove interesting,’ he encouraged. ‘What do you need?’

  His scornful drawl broke her free of the catatonic state. ‘A cup of tea,’ she told him stoically.

  He pinned her with his slitted raw gaze. ‘An original euphemism, Emily.’ One brow rose, coolly sardonic, and she flushed madly. His sensuous mouth remained immobile as he watched the warm carnation flood her face. ‘If you are prepared to marry me to save your father from the pain of knowing I knew his little girl in the biblical sense.’

  ‘You didn’t.’

  ‘He wouldn’t know that,’ he pointed out heartlessly. ‘If you are prepared to make the supreme sacrifice.’

  ‘My father has a bad heart.’ It was true, even if it wasn’t as critical as she had been led to believe.

  ‘The fact Charlie has a heart at all is news to me.’

  ‘You’re the heartless one,’ she accused, her voice filled with loathing. ’marriage isn’t meant to be a means of retribution.’

  ‘It’s so sacred that you were going to marry Gavin with no deeper motivation than choosing a new duvet cover, he co-ordinated so well,’ he said, the caressing sneer in his voice breaking new ground in insults. ‘As I was saying,’ he continued softly, ‘I find your attitude difficult to fathom. You’re prepared to be the dutiful daughter, but when it comes to accepting the benefits of our relationship you lie through your teeth. The fact is you can’t think about anything much except touching me, being touched…You respond physically to me so dramatically—’

  ‘Stop it!’ she interrupted, holding up her hands in a defensive gesture as if to fend off his low, intimate purr that made her breasts ache and the muscles in her belly coil. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you’re the lowest form of humanity, a blackmailer…you make my skin crawl with revulsion. Anything else is conjured up by your imagination.’ She met the incandescent flare of blue as their eyes collided, and the ambivalent expression of disgust and craving in his face so precisely mirrored what she was experiencing that she gave a small cry of instinctive fear and took to her heels, regardless of the fact that she was wearing only a short nightdress.

  He caught up with her on the foreshore where her impetuous withdrawal had led her. ‘Leave me alone!’ she yelled as he approached.

  Luke stopped several feet away, and his eyes swept disparagingly over her, making her aware of the ridiculous picture she must present—barefooted and clutching the light, knee-length nightdress that the wind had plastered to her body like a second skin. He, she saw, had paused to pull on a pair of trainers and jeans; his torso was still bare and his presence evoked the now almost familiar suffocating sensations.

  His voice was hard with derisive contempt. ’that might prove difficult, if I wake up to find you dining on me with those, big, beautiful eyes.’

  ‘A girl can look without necessarily being inspired to do anything else.’ There was little point in denying the incident so fresh in her mind. She felt mortification stiffen her spine and make her face grow blank.

  ‘That’s true, no doubt…in some instances.’

  She threw back her head at a haughty angle and pursued a bored expression with variable success. The face was easy to arrange but she couldn’t wipe the fearful shadow from the cloudy golden depths. ‘If it means so much to you, I’ll go along with the pretence that I’m a slave to your masculine charms. I admit you’re beautiful.’ Some of the sarcasm evaporated from her voice at the wrong moment and she sounded so fervent that she hurried on, almost falling over her words to cover the emotions that had slipped through her guard. ‘But, between ourselves, life would be a lot simpler if you stopped belabouring the point. I mean, the only reason you want me is to torture Dad—and he already believes this fantasy, or he will do once you’ve had a few minutes to enlighten him. So why bother? I mean, why contaminate yourself with my bloodline, not to mention all my neurotic inadequacies?’

  ‘You could have a point there,’ he said unsmilingly.

  The reply deflated her, but she knew when to take advantage of a situation. She muttered a defiant, ‘Fine,’ and turned to go. She had barely taken two steps before a hand grabbed her arm and spun her around, almost jerking her off her feet as he catapulted her into his body.

  ‘I’ll tell you when to go,’ he said thickly, and the tension in him communicated itself to her immediately. She stopped struggling and froze, sensing danger, excited by it despite the heart-thudding fear that flooded through her. He caught her chin in one hand and she couldn’t prevent him forcing her face up to his.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she asked shakily. His eyes scanning her face were incandescent, alight with a blatant hunger that was intensely shocking.

  ‘Perhaps I’m prepared to risk contamination; it might just vindicate all the bloody aggravation of putting up with your continual whining, constant dissimulation!’

  Had she ever thought him bland, urbane? He looked capable of just about anything right now. He was in the grip of some violent emotion which obviously was temporarily overriding his habitual control. She’d seen Luke maintain his legendary cool under severe provocation from her father, even under bullet fire. Yet she had pushed him right to the edge. ‘I’ve to
ld you before, I won’t be a pawn to be sacrificed,’ she said tremulously. ‘I thought I had to beg the great Luke Hunt,’ she reminded him.

  His teeth grated audibly and the pallor around his lips deepened. ‘You persist in acting as though you’re just an interested observer. It would take me seconds to make you beg, less to make you admit you want me as badly as I want you.’ Her stomach lurched at his violent admission, and she swayed as though struck by a strong wind. ‘If it weren’t for the fact of who I am, you’d still be in bed now…with me. Next you’ll be telling me you’ve taken some vow of chastity,’ he sneered, and his eyes darkened at the small bubble of hysterical laughter that overflowed from her constricted throat. ‘Gavin can hardly have been the first to sample your sweet temptations—’ His voice slurred slightly, and he broke off, sweat beading his forehead.

  The image his words conjured up made her skin grow hot. She pressed damp palms flat against his chest and tried to push free. Her head snapped from side to side until the grip of his fingers tightened, holding her immobile. His thumb pushed back a strand of hair from her cheek. ‘I don’t meet the social criteria for a Stapely, do I, Emily? That’s the problem. That’s why you’ll always choose some guy like Gavin who won’t mess your hair in public or ruin Daddy’s efforts to work his way to the top of the honours list. You’re a hypocrite, born and bred,’ he continued. ‘Have you given many men the hungry, come-get-me look and then run away? The odds were that someone, sometime, would call your bluff, infant, and give you what you’re drooling for. I should have known better. Away from the bloody tribe I thought you might…’ If she’d looked up at that moment she might have glimpsed a bleak emptiness, an anguish that went deep.

  She did raise her tear-filled eyes when his grip relaxed as he shook his head, regarding her with an expression that seemed to border on loathing. She took advantage of the moment and turned to flee once more, his scathing comments echoing in her ears. She ignored the sound of her name as he yelled after her, and ran. Actually, floundered would have been more accurate; the ground was pebbly and uneven, shelving sharply where it fell to the waterline, and her bare feet objected to such rough treatment. It was by luck rather than good management that her impetuous flight took her a hundred metres or so before the ground shifted beneath her feet and she slithered and fell.

  The cold water took her breath away and she found herself sliding beneath the waist-deep, softly lapping waves. She surfaced and sank once more before she was able to get her footing.

  He was standing there on the shore, watching her attempts to brush sea-water-sodden strands of hair from her eyes. His face was impassive.

  ‘Go away!’ she yelled, banging the water with her hand and sending a showering his direction. It was futile, childish, but she was past caring about minor details.

  ‘Get out, Emily.’

  ‘No!’ she yelled defiantly. There were no alternatives but she felt it important not to capitulate. She began to shiver convulsively as the chill seemed to enter her bones.

  Luke cursed, then she watched, horrified, as he waded into the water. She emitted a strangled squeak as he scooped her up in his arms and carried her out of the loch. After one startled, scared glance into his blue eyes, she shut her own tightly. His were too observant and she was incapable of disguising the impact the damp contact was having upon her. She was held captive, not just by his arms but by the erotic sensations that were scalding her. Sweat mingled with the salt water, making her skin slick beneath her waterlogged nightdress. She felt intoxicated, defenceless under the weight of desire the touch of him evoked.

  He remained silent when she linked her hands around his neck, although she heard his sharp inhalation and felt his chest rise and fall rapidly. She allowed her head to fall against the breadth of his chest, knowing she would probably regret this weakness later. The security was an illusion, but it was blissful. She drank in the musky male scent of him, took note of every minute detail of him, knowing she’d replay the sensations later on…

  He placed her on the kitchen floor and she felt something inside her protest as the intimate contact was broken. A small pool of water was developing around her feet, and she contemplated the sight with deep interest.

  ‘Fairly stupid even by your standards.’ The deep timbre of his voice was strained. She raised her eyes reluctantly. He looked like some dark, austere angel, her fallen Lucifer, emanating disapproval. He raked his dark hair with his fingers. He was wet up to midthigh, the material of his jeans clinging to the outline of his legs. A deep carnation stained the rounded contour of her smooth cheeks and she looked away. ’the water is several metres deeper a little further along.’

  ‘I can swim,’ she said in an offhand manner which through her eyelashes she could see irritated him enormously. The fact satisfied a perverse desire to aggravate him.

  ‘You’re freezing,’ he observed, watching the faint tremors she couldn’t suppress. ‘You need to get out of that thing.’ His eyes were burning ferociously in the tense stillness of his face. The nightdress, wet, made her appear almost more naked than no clothes at all. It clung to the upthrust of her full breasts and followed the dip and flare of her waist and hips, as did his eyes.

  Emily didn’t move; she couldn’t. She waited, breath suspended, her whole body in tune with the wild fire that sang through her veins. She didn’t want to run, escape; she wanted…He took a step towards her, his eyes never leaving her face.

  Emily almost spoke the words—a plea fighting to escape was on her tongue. He bent forward, picked up a blanket that lay on the sofa and flung it at her. Automatically she caught it.

  ‘Get dry.’ He slung a rucksack across his shoulder and with a terse, ‘I’ll be back before dark,’ was gone.

  Her, ‘I hate you!’ was shouted at a half-open door. Clutching the blanket, she sank down cross-legged on to the floor and let the sobs emerge.

  She had to stop eventually, but when she did she found there had been nothing cathartic about the outburst; she still felt as wretched as ever. He had walked out just like that—after building up her desire to fever pitch, he could walk away. She’d been about to forget all her pride. It was like a form of insanity, this yearning; it was so powerful, so deaf and blind to the mundane precepts of self-preservation.

  She stripped off her wet clothes slowly, lethargically, and tried to rub some life back into her limbs along with some circulation. Luke had gone out half saturated and half dressed himself. She quashed a brief, sharp spasm of concern, a concern that would have afforded him considerable amusement, she was sure. She felt wilted with a deep sense of anticlimax. She should be grateful for his sudden exit. Had he known she was on the brink of surrender? Is that all he wants? she wondered. To break me down? Was that the aim of his verbal assault, this refined torture? He’s not actually interested in the end result; he just needs to make me admit my fatal weakness, all the lies. Then she recalled a lick of the compelling hunger in his eyes she’d been immobilised by, and the theory crumbled.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  IT HAD been the most miserable day in her memory. She had had to cope with another telephone conversation with her father, who had managed to get the telephone number, which was, she was sure, unlisted. Like Luke, he too could be persistent to the point of obsession, which was one reason why the hostilities between them would go on indefinitely, she realised.

  She had fielded his questions carefully, coped with his alternate pleading and abuse. When he’d demanded whether she was aware that Luke was just using her, she’d almost wept; but it hadn’t been that which had thrown her, it had been the one question, ‘Do you love him?’ It had hit her like a bolt of lightning. She’d heard her father’s indrawn breath as she’d replied, unable at that point to dissimulate. ’tell him I’ll flay him if he hurts you,’ had been the only response he had made before he’d hung up.

  She hadn’t mentioned the phone call to Luke, but then even when he had finally returned they had communicated mainly with cold glan
ces. He had treated her as though she were part of the furniture, and finally she had retreated to her small bedroom before it was even dark. The paperback she’d taken from a bookshelf would normally have made her oblivious to her surroundings for hours; but tonight she hadn’t been able to concentrate, though she had memorised the first page word for word—well, she had read it countless times.

  She saw the light under the door indicate that Luke had retired too and saw it extinguished. Sleep was elusive even in the small hours, and the hand she’d scalded the previous night was still throbbing. It was a superficial burn, red and raw but none the less painful. She recalled seeing a medicine box in the dresser and in desperation decided to try and find some pain-killers to dull the throb.

  Creeping through Luke’s room was traumatic, but she tried to ignore the large bulk outlined in the bed. Downstairs, she went directly to the dresser and discovered to her relief that there was a bottle of painkillers.

  ‘What exactly are you doing?’

  She leapt and the bottle clattered to the floor, spilling the contents over the stone flags. ‘Now see what you’ve made me do,’ she accused, close to tears.

  Luke retrieved the bottle and looked thoughtfully at her. ‘What do you need these for?’ His eyes caught the furtive movement as she tucked her injured hand behind her back. ’the coffee last night?’ He caught the wrist she tried to conceal, an expression of fury on his face. ‘Hiding it won’t make it go away. You’ve been in pain all this time?’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘Superficial,’ he agreed, eyes raised to brush her face, taking in the signs of strain and blue bruised discolouration beneath her wide-spaced eyes. ‘Hurts like hell, though.’ He continued to examine the inflamed area.

  Emily swallowed. She’d been ready to scream at his initial cool diagnosis, but the sympathetic addition made her throat ache with a sudden rush of tears. Tenderness from Luke, even as impersonal as this, delivered a mortal blow to her new vulnerability.