Passionate Retribution

by Kim Lawrence

  ‘A bit,’ she admitted in a breathy whisper.

  ‘It could have been avoided.’

  The blue eyes were intent, the spurt of irritated anger having given way to unfamiliar concern. Emily felt her body clench as she fought to tear her eyes away from his dark face. ‘You’re still dressed.’ She had only just realised he was still wearing a pale denim shirt and darker blue jeans.

  ‘I wasn’t anticipating sleep.’ The curve of his mouth was sensual, the rasp in his voice ironic. His voice was filled with a puzzling self-mockery. Emily realised just how close to exhaustion he looked.

  Her uninjured hand went out as if to touch his chest, the impulse too strong to counter. She looked at her own hand as if surprised to see it there, a hair’s breadth from his solid, warm reality. With a sharp inhalation she snatched it back as though it too were burnt.

  Luke’s stillness was almost frightening; there was a tension emanating from him that for a split-second she was positive would explode into action. He was breathing slowly, the inhalations laboured, as if he was consciously controlling the process.

  ‘Sit there.’ The curt command was so ridiculously rational compared to what her imagination had been anticipating that she felt sure all the unspoken sexual tension had been born of her rampant frustration. Hot with a sudden painful humiliation, she subsided into a chair. Her arm throbbed and her head ached with a bleak, penetrating misery.

  ‘Keep your arm in that. I’ve got some bandages in the car.’

  She shuddered as the cold water came into contact with her hot flesh, but it did dull the throb of insistent pain. Luke left the door open as he disappeared and the intense night fragrance drifted into the room almost like a physical presence. She inhaled and relaxed slightly, letting a warm, diffuse drowsiness temporarily snuff her anxieties.

  She raised her head sleepily from the crook of her arm on the table-top when he entered carrying a box. Silently she watched him competently extract several items.

  ‘Have you taken any pain-killers yet?’

  ‘I don’t need…’ His presence somehow made other more painful sensations take supremacy over the superficial injury…Some wounds went deeper.

  ‘Preserve me from martyrs and swallow these,’ he said in a tone that indicated he felt inclined to push them down her throat if she offered further resistance. ‘Now, let’s have a look at the damage.’ He bent close, intent on examining the extent of the scald which, although she knew it was minor, was extremely painful. ‘It’s blistered.’ His touch was gentle, if clinical, but his voice held a raw anger. ‘If you’d had the sense to immerse it under cold water at the time none of this would be necessary,’ he chastised, taking a dry dressing from its bag. ‘I’ll put a dressing on; it’ll be more comfortable that way. What the hell were you thinking of?’

  ‘I did,’ she protested, but he ignored her. She watched the deft way he wound a crêpe bandage around her arm. What would he say, she wondered, if she told him exactly what she had been thinking of? White bandage and brown fingers transposed until her vision became a blur; the silence grew shrill and insistent in her ears.

  ‘Luke…’

  The sensation of being carried by a pair of male arms close against a hard torso had an addictive quality. Hazily she knew she ought to open her eyes, but it seemed a shame to break into this delightful interlude.

  ‘Emily, are you awake?’

  The irate tone dispelled the nice fantasy of being cradled in a lover-like embrace. ‘I think so,’ she admitted guiltily.

  ‘It speaks! Then for God’s sake open the bloody door.’

  She snapped her eyes open. ’there is no need to swear,’ she croaked.

  ‘If I drop you on the floor I can open it myself.’

  ‘I find that scenario preferable.’

  And he did; he actually did! She sat in stunned disbelief on the bare polished boards of the hallway. ‘How dare you?’ She picked herself up and strode into the room. ‘You’re a barbarian!’ she yelled after him. Then she froze. ‘What are you doing?’ Her voice came after a breathless interval. She couldn’t tear her eyes away; he seemed to her the essence of sensuality. She turned her head away as he unbuckled the leather belt around his waist, but she could still hear the rustle as he removed his jeans.

  She felt frantic to escape the room—just looking at him made the nerve-endings pulse with painful life beneath her skin. The dragging sensation was truly magnetic; it made her feel as if she was being pulled in disparate directions.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it, then.’

  ‘To what, exactly? Another sleepless night?’ he enquired with heavy irony. ’to wonder what stunt you’ll come up with next? Maybe drive into the nearest loch?’ he suggested. ‘I wouldn’t put any stupidity past you. I mean, if I hadn’t been here, what exactly would you have done about the scald, and who would have stopped you smashing your skull on the stone flags? You literally jumped into the loch. I’ve seen kittens with more sense of self-preservation,’ he stormed.

  ‘I don’t faint!’ she insisted, ignoring the evidence to the contrary. ‘Besides, if it weren’t for you I wouldn’t be here to scald myself or faint. And I fell, I didn’t jump,’ she reminded him ‘I have no suicidal tendencies.’ She gave a gasp of instant regret and took an impetuous step towards him. ‘Luke, that was…’ His expression didn’t encourage her to go further. ‘I’m catching this bloody disease,’ she said, furious and ashamed of the malicious retort that had sprung to her lips. ‘I won’t waste all my energies on spite,’ she told him soberly. ‘You’re dominated by it, it motivates everything you do, even taking me to bed. It’s twisting you. Tell me, what’s your incentive for getting up each morning if it’s not to plan the next move in your grand scheme?’

  ‘Tomorrow is already planned,’ he said, his voice cold and passionless. ‘We go to London, at which point we can announce to our families—or should I say family—the news of our impending nuptials.’

  She shuddered, feeling despair—not that she’d expected anything she said to alter the course of events; she was a minor player…cannon fodder. ‘I don’t think Dad will be exactly surprised. He rang today.’

  ‘You told him?’ His incredulity was obvious.

  She gave a small, grim smile. ‘I wouldn’t deprive you of that pleasure,’ she said bitterly. ‘Let’s just say I implied…things.’ She gave a helpless shrug; she could hardly tell him what she had said. ‘Would you really tell him the lies about me—us?’ she asked tremulously.

  ‘It would be the ultimate humiliation, wouldn’t it?’ he mused. ’to imagine I had seduced his baby girl and discarded her…while he was in the house. I think that would be a nice touch. I could have, Emily, couldn’t I?’ he tormented her coldly. ‘It’s a tough decision but on the whole I think an entrée to the charmed inner circle and smiling acceptance through clenched teeth might be even more amusing. “My son-in-law”…I can hardly wait.’

  Seething, burning hatred was easier to contemplate than this calculating war of attrition she was forced to participate in. ’the marriage will be a mockery,’ she protested huskily. It was all so sordid, so ugly; but she still loved him despite all logic and she suspected she always would.

  ‘And what would your marriage to Gavin have been?’ he demanded tautly. ’this marriage will give us both things we need.’

  She gave a scornful laugh. ’sex, you mean,’ she said disparagingly.

  ‘You certainly respond to me on that level, and it does seem to be preying on your mind, infant,’ he said softly. ‘As a rule women do respond to me on other levels.’

  ‘I hate you and I wish you’d stayed away!’ she spat at him. ‘Four years—I thought you’d never come back.’

  ‘Is that why you were marrying Gavin?’

  ‘Dream on,’ she sneered. It was a part of the truth, she realised with horror. How long had she been subconsciously holding herself back from involvement, waiting?

  ‘You say sex as though it’s sordid, unclean; I thi
nk, with us, sex could be quite beautiful,’ he said throatily, his eyes fixed hungrily on her frozen countenance. ‘What are you afraid of, Emmy?’

  ‘I’m a Stapely,’ she reminded him hoarsely. His voice, his delicious rough velvet drawl, was teasing the aching hunger into full flowering life.

  ‘I don’t need reminding,’ he said jerkily as she licked her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. The atmosphere in the room was electric.

  ‘Why are you crying? Is it your arm hurting?’ he asked. The concern was masked by a rough, impatient tone, but she could hear it lapping the edges of his voice. He took a step towards her and his thumb stroked the downward path of a tear.

  ‘No, the pain-killers are working,’ she said swiftly, silently cursing her inability to lie conveniently. The next obvious question could have been avoided. She awaited the inevitable, her mind already searching for a reasonable reply.

  ‘Why the tears?’ A finger this time traced the downward course of a single salty droplet. She let out a cry of protest, which he ignored. She instinctively lifted her arms to cover her face, afraid of the emotion spilling out of her.

  ‘Turn it out,’ she pleaded huskily, indicating the lamp. She was still quivering from the simple impersonal contact of one finger tip. God only knew what he’d see in her face, her eyes.

  ‘I don’t want you to hide in the darkness, Emmy, not from me, not tonight.’

  Something in his voice, the sensuous yearning, the raw unrefined quality, made her tightly shut eyes flicker open. His face, the taut, rigid lines, the burning, almost feverish glow in his azure gaze toppled her off the precarious emotional tightrope she’d been walking these past two days. She didn’t have the mental reserves or the desire to fight the prowling hunger that stalked her waking and sleeping moments. Right now, Luke wanted her; and she had to accept that that was all he had to offer.

  Perhaps the pain is part of it, she thought, reaching out with a trembling hand to touch his jaw, rough with a dark shadow that grated across her fingertips. ‘Luke?’ She felt the violent shudder that ran through his body.

  ‘Do you know what you’re doing to me, woman?’ he asked, none of the skilled negotiator of obstacles in his voice now; it was raw, needy.

  It was the need that pushed her past her limit of endurance. She made a soft sound in her throat and walked into his open arms. They closed around her like steel bands, and together they fell on to the tumbled bedclothes.

  ‘Please, Luke, I want you,’ she gasped, feeling transformed by her sudden surrender to the torrent of emotional and physical cravings. He was supporting his upper body weight over her, close but not touching. She felt that she should say something more articulate about her need, her surrender to that need, but her throat closed over raw emotion. She felt a sudden surge of panic at his lack of response; she’d mistaken the moment. Mortification made her grow cold. Only the sudden weight of Luke’s body stopped her turning sinuously away. She began to struggle regardless.

  ‘Stop it, you little fool.’ His voice was close to her ear, she could feel the warmth of his breath on her neck, hear the harsh tone of his breath. His hands bunched in her hair, immobilising her head, forcing her to look into his face. ‘What the hell do you think I’m going to do?’ he demanded savagely.

  ‘I made a mistake ’ She couldn’t. He was using her. Being held so close, so intimately that she couldn’t begin to…

  His mouth on her face, neck, the upper slope of her breasts was a breathless, compelling seduction of her senses. She felt week, compliant, aching with the need for fulfilment.

  ‘Luke…?’ His eyes never left her face as he removed the single garment she wore. The blaze of raw, unvarnished passion in his eyes was a revelation.

  ‘I want to watch you while I make love to you,’ he murmured huskily, one hand running the length of her from the delicate curve of her collarbone to the quivering smoothness of her thigh, where it came to rest possessively. The sight of his hand against her own flesh was indescribably erotic. She wondered how every slight movement could be so arousing, so exciting. A slow-burning fuse had exploded in her brain into incandescence.

  He caressed her body with an agonising patience, precision, as if memorising each feminine dip and curve. He contemplated the full mounds of pink-tipped flesh, feasting himself on the feel and taste of her, following the blue-veined tracery and the swollen ruched peaks until she cried hoarsely in protest.

  In the thick, voluptuous silence their eyes met. He was panting as hard as she was as she slowly and deliberately allowed her fingers to glide provocatively over sweat-slicked skin. Tentatively almost, she slid lower across his flat belly, letting her lips and tongue revel in the taste and scent of him. The raw, elemental sound that was ripped from his throat touched something primitive within her, and her nails bit into his flesh as her teeth grazed the flatness of his nipple.

  ‘I want to watch you too,’ she said suddenly.

  Luke’s laugh was a fierce, heady mixture of male satisfaction, triumph and tenderness. He rolled over and she welcomed the enveloping weight of his hard body. ’shall I tell you what I intend to do to you, Emmy?’ he murmured throatily, his teeth against her ear sending a series of sharp shivers through her. She looked at him with smoky golden eyes, which felt weighted by her eyelashes, and he took this as an affirmative.

  The words should have shocked her virginal ears but she felt a wild, uncontrolled excitement as she listened to his warm, deep voice. The mutual caresses and kisses grew less measured, more frantic, as passions escalated like a violent, unstoppable chain reaction.

  ‘Emmy, I can’t take much more of this,’ he rasped, his breath searingly hot against her neck. Gently but possessively the heel of his palm ground rhythmically into the soft mound of her pubic bone wherein centred the core of her agony.

  ‘Just take me, then,’ she pleaded. Did he hesitate? She almost screamed in frustration, then she saw the expression burning in his eyes and her body instinctively opened itself for him.

  The instrusion of him was swift and fierce, but tempered. For a split-second her muscles tensed in protest at the sharp pain. ‘Don’t,’ she cried out, wrapping her legs around him to prevent the swift withdrawal she sensed was imminent. ‘I want this,’ she said with a primitive ferocity, for an instant reversing the aggressive role. Then, as she gave herself up to the rhythm and let it flow through her, there were no roles—just a harmony of giving and taking. She wanted to sob with the enormity of the emotion that filled her, just as he filled her physically.

  Just as she thought she’d die from the sheer pleasure of reaching for something tantalisingly out of reach, the demands of Luke’s body altered subtly. She welcomed the new elemental, awesome power of him.

  He was repeating her name, a hoarse mantra, in her ear. She sobbed out loud as the first deep contraction of pleasure shook her with a shocking ferocity. The cry ripped from Luke’s throat mingled with her own voice until they lay inextricably linked in the afterglow of their lovemaking.

  When Emily awoke the room was filled with a dusty sunlight that filtered through the curtains, illuminating the room. Memory returned in a sudden rush, not gently, gradually, and she turned to find a pair of blue eyes watching her as recall suspended the present. What was she supposed to say? How casual was she supposed to be? Deep inside, her instincts made her want to express the totality of the love that filled her, spilled out of her. It was there for a split-second before she carefully extinguished all outward expressions of incautious emotion.

  For her, last night had been unique, a physical outlet of the love she felt for this man; but he didn’t want what she had to offer. For him, it had been a casual if tempestuous encounter; there had been no twin in him of the well in her own breast that had been tapped in the dark hours, opening her mind and body to the ecstasy of fulfilling the destiny of her womanhood. She couldn’t bear the humiliation of him knowing—seeing his scorn, watching the calculation as he assimilated this fresh ammunition in his qu
est to punish her father.

  She had made the biggest mistake in her life, and yet she knew that if she found herself in the same place with the same man she’d not alter a thing. She didn’t want to look at him, see triumph on his chiselled, sternly beautiful features. Would he lose any time in taking advantage of the situation he had created? She was a Stapely, the breed responsible for the death of his mother, the same family who had tried to subjugate his anarchic self-sufficiency. He had turned the tables on one of them.

  There had to have been more to it than that. Rebellion spilled from some deep inner core. But she ruthlessly quelled the small voice of optimism. She couldn’t allow herself to be bewitched by his skill as a lover, to endow it with anything deeper than it had been. To her, it had been an incredible revelation; she’d discovered depths within herself that she’d never dreamt were there to be awoken. She’d lost the arrogance that had made her assume she could ignore the basic female instincts, but she also knew that only one man would ever awake them—sublimation with some pale imitation would never now be possible.

  ‘What time is it?’ You couldn’t get much more pragmatic than that, she thought wryly. Disobedient to her control, a portion of her mind was sketching the way her body could fit so perfectly with Luke’s longlimbed, hardly muscled frame. The image was intensely satisfying, warm and complacent.

  ‘Emily, throw off the shackles of civilisation just for a few moments. Does it actually matter what time it is?’ he asked her, his voice dry. As he raised himself on one elbow the blanket slid down to his waist, and she felt her face colour.

  The cool, sophisticated image didn’t go with adolescent blushes. ‘We can’t stay in bed all day,’ she muttered, sheltering behind her lowered eyelashes.

  ‘Why not?’

  She shot him a startled glance. ‘People don’t.’ The blue eyes looked as guileless as a summer sky, and she felt deeply uneasy. ‘I only asked the time,’ she grumbled, plucking at the sheet. ‘A perfectly normal enquiry. Why you have to dissect every syllable I utter is beyond me.’