A Lesson in Desire: Season of Desire Part 3 (Seasons Quartet)

by Sadie Matthews

  My palm feels clammy as I reach out and take hold of the doorknob. Very carefully, I twist it but I only manage half a turn before it stops. The door must be locked. I daren’t force the handle or rattle the door in case there is someone inside. I let it go, and release a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Then I turn and walk on further down the corridor, passing 18, 19 and 20, coming to a halt in front of 21. I’m even more nervous this time. What if it’s open, but the person inside is not Miles? How on earth will I explain myself? I can’t even begin to think of the questions that will be asked if I’m discovered here.

  I steel myself, take hold of the handle and twist it. The same thing happens. A quarter turn and then a dead halt. It’s locked. I try again but with the same result. That leaves only one room left that isn’t occupied by someone else, at least as far as I can guess. I walk on towards the last four doors. I’m already giving up on this foolhardy mission but I’ve come so far, I may as well go on. The security guard is probably still watching his television show or no doubt he’d have come to investigate by now.

  I’m standing in front of room number 24. The door looks identical to the others, with its chrome number, peephole and doorknob. Could this be the one with Miles behind it? There’s only one way to find out. I’m about to reach out and take hold of the handle when I’m grabbed swiftly from behind, my head is jerked back and a hand is clamped hard over my mouth. There’s no time to make a sound and before I can work out what is happening, I’m being pulled along the corridor the way I came, and then through an open door and into a dark room. The door is kicked shut and I’m enveloped in complete blackness, my eyes wide with panic but seeing nothing.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ says a voice in my ear. ‘Don’t scream, do you understand?’ Then the hand over my mouth relaxes its grip and I’m let go.

  I’m panting hard with shock, adrenalin racing through me and making my hands shake and fingertips prickle as I turn to look at my assailant, but I’ve already recognised the deep voice and the Scottish accent. ‘Miles?’ I gasp.

  A switch is flicked and a cool white light shines down upon us. There he is, standing right in front of me in a narrow hallway, his eyes hard with suspicion.

  ‘You heard me,’ he says roughly. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  Chapter Eleven

  ‘I came looking for you!’ I say, joy bubbling up in me at the sight of him. He looks so gorgeous in a pair of loose cotton pyjama pants and a white T-shirt that shows every bulge of muscle beneath. I throw my arms round his neck. ‘I’m so glad I found you! I thought we were going to be kept apart and I couldn’t stand it. I had to see you.’

  Miles is standing still and unresponsive. Then he reaches up and takes my arms from around his neck.

  I gaze up into his face, worried. His expression is stony, his blue eyes almost black in the white light from the overhead bulb. Despite its hard set, his mouth is still unbearably sexy.

  ‘What is it? Aren’t you pleased to see me?’

  There’s a pause that seems far too long, making me jittery with nervousness, before he says, ‘I don’t know if I’m pleased to see any of the Hammonds right now, if I’m honest.’ He turns and walks away from me, down the short hall and into the main room. It’s like something in a basic hotel, with a small double bed and some functional furniture. Miles sits down in a bucket armchair, looking far too big for it, and throws his arms over its back. I follow him.

  ‘Why?’ I ask, dismayed. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Wrong?’ He glares at me. ‘How about being interrogated for hours about the circumstances of our crash? How about being treated like some kind of criminal? I haven’t heard so much as a “thank you for saving my precious daughter’s life”.’ Miles looks angry now, and all I can think of is how amazingly sexy it makes him. His blue eyes start to flash and his hands ball into fists. ‘Your father hasn’t said as much but he’s making out that I’m some kind of blackmailer or kidnapper – I can’t quite work out what crazy ideas are floating through his head. He seems to think I’m guilty of something, anyway. And now they’re holding me as though I’m under some kind of house arrest.’

  ‘Arrest?’ I echo. ‘But you can leave if you want to, can’t you? I mean – you came out into the corridor to find me. They haven’t locked the door.’

  ‘It wouldn’t matter if they had. If I wanted to go, a locked door isn’t going to keep me in.’ He laughs mirthlessly. ‘But that arsehole Pierre has made it very clear that I’m not to go anywhere. I was just in the middle of deciding whether I’ll oblige him or not.’ He looks over at me. ‘I’m sitting here thinking about heading off when I see the handle of my door turning. Nice and quiet and sneaky. So I wonder if there might be some dirty tricks going on and slip out to have a look. And there you are, down the hall. You’re lucky I recognised you or it might have been rather nasty.’

  I stare at him, horrified by his implication. ‘You mean – you might have killed me?’

  He glares back and then suddenly a huge smile breaks up his angry expression and he laughs, properly this time. I’m filled with relief as he says, ‘Ah, ignore me. I’ve been sitting here, working myself into a fit of paranoia as bad as your father’s. I’m not angry with you. I’m fucked off, it’s true, but it’s not that bad. I just resent being treated like a suspect for some unknown crime when I thought I’d done pretty well at bringing the boss’s daughter home with nothing more than a bruise.’

  Miles stares over at me and our gazes lock. The atmosphere changes and I feel the charge of sexual tension fill the room. We’re both remembering that the boss’s daughter came back with a whole new education.

  ‘So,’ he says softly, still staring at me. ‘You decided to come and find me, did you?’

  I nod, my mouth going dry. I’ve been enjoying my fantasies of Miles but the reality is both infinitely more complex and much more exciting. He hasn’t fallen on me, telling me I’m the woman of his dreams and he has to have me now. In fact, when he thought I was a danger to him, he was more likely to strangle me than kiss me. But I can’t help preferring this flesh-and-blood man to my imaginings, whether he refuses to act like my romantic hero or not. My gaze travels over him, taking in the way he looks so heart-poundingly sexy in his cotton pyjama pants and T-shirt.

  He says, ‘I guess you’re not exactly used to this part of the building, are you?’

  I shake my head, not able to speak. His gaze is raking over me, taking me in. I wish now that I’d inspected myself in the mirror before I set out to find him, but the whole thing was so impulsive, I didn’t think of it. I’m wearing the clothes that Jane-Elizabeth brought me earlier: ballet flats, black skinny jeans and a loose silk top printed with a pattern of birds.

  Miles says softly, ‘I’m honoured. You came to the staff quarters. It must be a first to see a Hammond on this floor.’

  I manage to find my voice at last. ‘I had to see you.’

  ‘Did you now?’ He smiles, a lop-sided half smile of amusement. ‘We only saw each other this morning. You’re not going to tell me you can’t live a day without me, are you?’

  I can hardly believe that it was only this morning that we woke up together in that hut. Could he have forgotten what he did to me in the night? I can almost still feel the swollen sensation that lingered for hours after he pounded me with his huge prick. The thought makes me pull in a sharp breath. ‘I don’t know how we left things,’ I say at last. ‘I wanted to know what you think.’

  ‘What I think?’ He stands up, and I’m almost overwhelmed by his physical presence. He’s tall and broad, making me feel small and fragile by comparison. He takes a few steps closer to me and I start to tremble. How on earth does he have this effect on me? I’m eaten up with longing for him. I have the most tremendous urge to leap on him, kiss him, hold him – but I know instinctively that this would be the wrong approach. I say nothing but look up at him. He reaches out a finger and strokes it along my jaw, leaving a trail of ting
ling nerve ends where he touches me. ‘I think,’ he continues, ‘that we had an agreement. What happened in the hut stays in the hut. Right?’

  ‘That was what you said,’ I say, my voice loose and shaky with the effect he’s having on me. I can’t seem to breathe properly and my whole body is alive with excitement.

  ‘So…’ His blue eyes search my face. ‘Is there anything more to say?’

  You know there is! There must be! We can’t just leave it like that!

  The words shriek inside my head but still I say nothing. I can’t, not while I’m working so hard at controlling my breath and the racing of my pulse. I long for him to touch me again so badly, it’s all I can do not to grab his hand and press it to my face.

  I close my eyes, concentrate hard and take in a deep breath. When I’ve released it I say quietly, ‘I don’t think my education is complete.’

  His eyes flicker with something I can’t identify. ‘Oh, really? But the terms of my tuition were very clear. Do you mean you want to change them?’

  I drop my gaze. ‘Yes. Yes, I do. I want to finish what we’ve started.’

  He says nothing and when I look up, his eyes are burning into me. ‘It’s not that easy,’ he says. ‘Things are different outside the place.’

  ‘They don’t have to be,’ I say quickly.

  ‘But they are. You’re Freya Hammond here. I’m your bodyguard. That’s not a situation I find conducive to… instruction.’

  ‘Please,’ I say weakly. ‘I… I must… I want…’

  His expression changes at once and he says roughly, ‘I don’t obey orders like that, you ought to know that by now.’

  ‘I’m sorry!’ I look up at him beseechingly. ‘I didn’t mean to express it like that! I’m not ordering you, I promise. I would never do that now.’

  He turns and walks away from me, going over to the bedside and switching on a lamp. The light from it is warmer than from overhead; it touches his skin with a golden glow. ‘Good,’ he replies. ‘Because it will get you precisely nowhere.’

  ‘Please, Miles. I…’ I lick my lips, looking for the right way to express myself. ‘If you would be kind enough to consider it, I’d like to continue what we started. I would like to carry on learning what you can teach me.’

  He comes back towards me, his expression softening. ‘You know what? You surprise me. I thought when we got back here, it would be like it was before. You’d go back to being haughty Miss Hammond and you’d look right through me. When your dad started questioning me, I even wondered if it was at your instigation, so you could get me fired and not have to remember the humiliating episode where you made the mistake of fucking the staff.’

  I gasp. ‘No,’ I say quickly. ‘It’s not like that. I’ve done everything I can to persuade him that the crash was my fault.’

  That eyebrow goes up. Oh God, it slays me. A rush of pure desire courses through me so fast it almost knocks me off my feet.

  ‘Really?’ he says in a low voice. He looks sceptical.

  ‘Yes. I promise. I don’t know what my father is thinking but I told him I owe you my life. I’ve made it clear that you’ve been nothing but honourable.’

  Miles walks towards me again, sending my senses soaring. ‘I don’t know about that,’ he says in that sexy deep voice, the Scottish accent rolling off his tongue. ‘Maybe “honourable” isn’t quite the right word…’

  I turn my face up to his, desperate for him to kiss me.

  ‘You really want this, don’t you?’ He’s scrutinising my face as if trying to read my mind.

  I nod.

  He seems to let his guard down just a fraction more. ‘You are a very hot girl, Freya Hammond, in more ways than one. A man has to be careful before taking you on. You have a protective cordon around you like a concrete fence.’

  ‘They know nothing,’ I say vehemently. ‘They can’t stop me getting hurt, no matter how much they try. Besides, they have no right! I don’t need them. I want to make my own choices, live my own life. I’m damned if I’ll let them control me.’

  He seems amused by my outburst. His face is close to mine now. I can see the gorgeous angles of his cheekbones, the long straight line of his nose, the dark stubble bristling on his chin. And those beautiful lips are so near, it’s driving me mad with need. Then, suddenly, he takes my head in his hands and pulls me to him, landing his mouth on mine with an unexpected ferocity. My nerves sing out with the delirium of his touch, and everything responds to the pressure of his mouth, the taste of his tongue as I open to it and he pushes deep into me. My eyes close as I surrender to the wonder of his kiss and the feel of his hand on my skull, his fingers twisting in my hair while the other hand clasps my waist. I put my own hands up to his jaw, caressing the roughness of his stubbled skin as I pull his mouth as deep into mine as I can.

  We kiss for a long time and when at last his lips slowly leave mine, I can read his desire in the way his eyes have turned a darker blue. I’m panting for more, wanting only to return to the exquisiteness of his mouth, but he shakes his head and smiles.

  ‘Oh no, Winter. No more. Not here. This is not the right place for us.’ He turns, goes to the desk by the wall, picks up a scrap of paper and a pen. ‘Do you have a new phone yet? Give me the number.’

  I pant out my phone number, dazed by the sensations coursing through my body and still coming to terms with the fact that he’s just told me that there won’t be any more.

  But he called me Winter… Excitement stabs me in the core. I know what that means.

  ‘Can you get away from here?’ he asks as he scribbles down the number.

  ‘Yes…yes.’

  ‘Good. Because I don’t intend to stay much longer myself. I’m sorting out a new phone. When I have it, I’ll be in touch. Okay?’

  I nod, torn between desperate disappointment that we won’t be taking advantage of the bed and a delicious anticipation of what will happen next.

  He comes over and takes my hands. ‘I’m happy to continue your education,’ he says, ‘on my terms. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ I whisper.

  ‘This place drains me. We’ll continue somewhere else.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Good. Now let’s get you back to where you belong.’

  My private helicopter flight lands in the early afternoon and a car waits for me on the edge of the landing site. It’s a sunny day, with the jagged, snowy peaks of the mountains clearly defined against the clear blue sky. The pretty village of Klosters nestles among the pine-covered slopes, a collection of traditional chalet-style and more modern hotels and houses, all covered in a thick layer of pure white snow. We drive through the village. Through the tinted windows of the car, I see the winter tourists milling about, heading for the ski slopes or wandering out to the shops and restaurants. This place attracts a wealthy crowd and I wonder if I’ll see anyone I recognise. A group of girls in chic ski clothes, fur hats and sunglasses make me tense but as we pass them, I realise I don’t know any of their faces.

  I don’t want anyone to know I’m here.

  I told my father and sisters that I was going to stay with my friend Lola for a few nights at her place in St Moritz but my flight actually brought me here. No one, not even Jane-Elizabeth, knows where I really am. It was hard to persuade my father to let me go without a bodyguard but I needed to travel alone so I lied and told him that Lola was supplying both the helicopter flight and the security. He knows that she comes from a family almost as paranoid about security as ours, so that allayed his fears a little. I can only hope now that he doesn’t decide to check up on me. The truth is that I booked a company that I use all the time in the skiing season, when I flit from one resort to another for parties. The owners know me and no one seemed to think it odd that I didn't have anyone with me.

  ‘I know I suggested a change of scene,’ Dad said when I told him I was leaving. ‘But I was thinking of somewhere hot and very private, where we know you’ll be completely secure. An island
. A private resort.’

  ‘Just a few days,’ I wheedled. ‘Lola and I are going to have a very quiet time, with massages and spa treatments. I need to relax after what happened.’

  He considered it, and seemed happy with the idea that we’d be lying on massage tables being treated with face masks and oxygen therapies. ‘Okay, honey. You’re right, you need a good rest and Lola will look after you. But stay in touch, all right? And just a few days.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, too happy to have won my freedom to show my irritation at the way my father was being more controlling than ever.

  Of course he had no idea that I wasn’t going to be with Lola at all.

  The driver has the address that I’m going to. I hope he knows the way because I have no idea where it is. He takes us on the road out of the main part of the village. The chalets we pass are picture perfect, like something from a story book with their carved shutters and balconies. Thick pine forests slope away from the road and as we climb higher, I get a strange frisson of sick fear remembering the last time I was in a car on a mountainside, even though today is nothing like that stormy, snowy morning. A short way out of the village, the driver takes a turning and then another and we are suddenly on level ground, following a curving driveway round until we see before us a beautiful chalet. It’s very traditional, the bottom storey in light stone, the top storeys in dark wood with bright red shutters at the windows and a wooden balcony that faces out towards the village that lies prettily below. The sloping roof is laden with at least a foot of pristine snow, and the place is ringed with pine trees at the sides and back.

  The driver gets out and opens the car door for me. I climb out, blinking in the afternoon sun. This is a beautiful place, close to the village and yet completely isolated too. The driver takes out my suitcase.

  ‘Shall I carry it inside, madam?’ he asks.

  ‘No. Don’t worry. I’ll take it myself.’ I press a tip into his hand. He murmurs his thanks and gets back into the car. A moment later, he’s driving away and I’m left here alone in front of the chalet.