by Susan Napier
'Let me go.'
'Why—so you can seek out another couple to spy on?'
'I wasn’t spying.'
'No? You followed us from the main beach...'
Elizabeth stopped tugging at her wrist and tried not to show her dismay. 'Whatever makes you say that?'
'You're not exactly inconspicuous.'
'Why should I want to be?' she countered flatly. 'I was just going for a walk. Why on earth should I want to follow you and your... little friend?'
In spite of her best efforts at indifference some of her scathing contempt leaked out in the last two words.
'Exactly my question. And not only follow us. Take photographs.'
Elizabeth couldn’t help her eyes darting sideways towards her fallen camera. Unfortunately it lay well out of reach.
'I happened to be taking photographs of the scenery-'
'And Bunny and I just happened to get in the way, hmm?'
Elizabeth was momentarily distracted from her distressing situation. 'Bunny?' she repeated incredulously.
He shrugged impatiently. 'A nickname.'
'And a very appropriate one, too, I would guess,' muttered Elizabeth cuttingly.
'If you mean that she's cute and soft and cuddly, I'd agree with you,' he replied smoothly. 'But I doubt whether your jealous remark was supposed to be complimentary.'
'Jealous? Why should I be jealous?' Elizabeth's eyes were violet with contempt.
He shrugged again, a fluid movement of his shoulders that sent echoing ripples through the muscles of his arms and chest. 'Maybe you envy her her lack of inhibitions about her body-'
'I'm not inhibited,' she lied. 'Just because I don’t choose to flaunt my body at every passing male-'
'Oh, nobody could accuse you of doing that, chérie. Your skin is still as pale and delicate as it was when you arrived. You only shed that cover-up when you go in to swim and you don’t do that very often in spite of the fact you seem to be something of a water-baby.'
A frisson of unease passed through her. Had she been so busy pretending not to watch him that she hadn’t noticed him watching her?
'I don’t see any point in going home from a holiday burnt to a crisp, and I'm here to relax, not exhaust myself by swimming marathons.'
'So why aren’t you relaxed?' His thumb wandered over her pounding pulse, his eyes wandering over her tense face.
'People relax in different ways,' she said feebly.
'Your way is certainly very different. You're always on the move, aren’t you, flitting here and there, taking endless photographs, early to rise and in the casino until the wee hours-?'
'I like being busy!' The irony was that her busyness only reflected his.
'Especially in my vicinity.'
'Look, Mr Hawkwood-'
'It's a bit late for that, Beth-'
'Jack, then. If you'll let me go I'll explain-'
'You'll explain anyway,' he said pleasantly. Without taking his eyes off hers he leaned back and picked up her camera, weighing it in his hand. 'Had any of your film developed yet? I can arrange to have it done for you at a generous discount...'
Elizabeth swallowed. 'No. I'd rather wait until I get home—it's more fun to get the prints done after a holiday is over...'
His eyelids concealed the change of expression in his eyes. 'Of course it is. I just thought that if the photo of Bunny and me was good she might like to have a print...'
'I'm not sure whether I got her in the shot at all, since I was actually framing it much higher, around the two yachts out by the point where the bougainvillaeas are growing,' Elizabeth improvised wildly.
'Mmm.' That enigmatic sound was beginning to get on her nerves.
'May I get up now?' she asked meekly.
In answer he lifted her captured wrist and brushed his lips against the pale marks left by his fingers. 'If you would, I'd appreciate the help.'
'Help?' Unconsciously she rubbed away the kiss as she got slowly to her feet, feeling the threat of pins and needles in her calves, which had been cramped under her for so long.
His mouth pulled sardonically at one corner.
'I'm not as nimble as I used to be in my reckless youth.'
'Forty isn’t old,' Elizabeth told him unsympathetically, ignoring the hand he held out, adding an extra two years as a jab at his male vanity.
He tilted his head, and gave her a very dry look. 'Considering I'm only thirty-five, that could be taken as an insult.'
Elizabeth felt ridiculously shocked by the insecurity revealed by the blatant lie.
'It must be your suntan that makes you look older,' she said spitefully.
'Are you going to help me up or not?'
'Maybe at thirty-five you're getting too old to chase women,' she jeered.
'A man is never too old.' He dropped his hand, using it instead to support himself as he shifted himself on to his right hip, wincing slightly as he drew up his straightened left leg—the one with the long scar.
Elizabeth gasped as she realised that she had misjudged him.
'Are—are you hurt?' she faltered, crouching back down beside him.
'No more than usual.' She could see a fine mist of perspiration forming on his dark brow as he moved the leg again. He was in real pain.
'But your leg-' She broke off, her soft palm hovering above the raised scar tissue that seamed the hard thigh, the toughened ridge of skin a smooth pink highway snaking through the dark hair that coated the rest of his leg. An old scar, fully healed, but obviously with some permanent effects. 'What happened? Did you have an operation?'
He stiffened, causing her to recoil both physically and mentally. 'Don’t go soft on me now, chérie,' he warned savagely. 'I might be tempted to take advantage of it. You don’t want to ruin a perfect record for infuriating me.'
'Did you hurt it when you fell just now? Perhaps you shouldn’t try to get up yet.'
Her sympathy was as unwelcome as her former reticence. 'Don’t perhaps me, Beth,' he growled, reminding her of his distaste for the word.
'I'm not your mother!' she reproved him sharply.
His eyes drifted from the anxious tuck of her mouth to the modest scoop-neck of her maillot, exposed by the rolled collar of her shirt, and the generous swell beneath. His smile was a painful parody of a leer. 'Pity. You have such an abundance of maternal potential. My mother was rather more under-endowed and chose to bottle-feed. If I'd been suckled by you I'm sure I'd have been the fattest, happiest, not to mention horniest baby in the neighbourhood.'
For a moment she felt like smacking his head off, but her instincts told her that his obscene remark was a deliberate insult, aimed at alienating her sympathy and stifling any further curiosity.
'Don’t take your deprived childhood out on me,' she said calmly, standing back up. 'Now do you still want my help or do you just want to lie there and sulk with your injured pride?'
He was slowly working his way around to his knees, his face a rigid mask, his eyes chilled into icy slits. 'Bitch.'
'Ask nicely, Jack, or I'll just stand here and watch you floundering around at my feet. Now that really would be entertaining.' At least a dose of his own medicine seemed to be giving him something other than the pain to focus on. 'Perhaps I could go and find Bunny for you. I'm sure she'd love to see macho man gritting his teeth and sweating and swearing and weak as a rabbit himself-'
'Damn it, Beth, I've never begged a woman for anything and I'm not starting now. All I wanted was a hand up, but I'll do it my bloody self-'
'You really should stop swearing, Jack, it's the sign of a limited mind.' She bent and slid an arm across his back, lacing her hand under his arm and taking his full weight as he pushed himself to his feet with his uninjured leg. The only sign that it caused him any pain was a swiftly indrawn breath that reissued on a soft snarl.
'Thank you.'
Elizabeth wasn’t offended by the offensive manner of his gratitude. She let him shake off her touch, noticing he was s
till in possession of her camera as she said self-righteously, 'If you hadn’t been so paranoid it wouldn’t have happened. You could just have called out to me, you know, instead of scaring me by running at me like a maniac'
'Oh, is that why you took off like a scalded cat? And there I thought it was a guilty conscience.' His sarcasm was as pronounced as his disbelief. 'As it happened it wasn’t the run that did me in, it was the hefty kick you gave me.'
Elizabeth clenched her hands in an effort not to let him see how awful that made her feel. 'I was only defending myself. I thought you were attacking me-'
'What did you think I intended to do? Ravish you?'
His incredulity was well founded, but it only made Elizabeth feel more defensive. 'I don’t know. I...I suppose I didn’t stop to think.'
'No? It seems to me that you're the one suffering from paranoia. The life of a university research assistant must be more thrilling than I imagined.'
Elizabeth's stomach tightened. 'How do you know what I do?'
'The hotel holds your passport.'
'And you looked at it?' Elizabeth paled. The knowledge that his curiosity had extended that far was infinitely threatening.
'It's a perk of the job,' he said sardonically, 'pawing through each batch of passports to see if there's any women worth ravishing.'
'I didn’t think you were going to ravish me,' Elizabeth muttered through clenched teeth.
'Oh, good, we're making progress.' While they were talking he had been slowly flexing his injured leg and now he began to massage it.
'Is it feeling better? Will you be able to walk back to the hotel?'
'I won’t need a wheelchair if that's what you mean.' He took a few paces back and forth, limping noticeably.
'You must have needed one once,' blurted Elizabeth involuntarily.
'Once.' The acknowledgement was tight with loathing. 'Never again.'
'I...I haven’t caused any permanent damage, have I?' she asked anxiously.
'I have a high pain threshold,' he said with a grimly reminiscent smile that cut her to the bone. For him to have been in pain she must have hurt him quite badly.
'I'm sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you-'
He shrugged off her apology. 'You just happened to make a lucky strike on an injured nerve, that's all.'
That's all? His casual dismissal only made her feel more culpable.
'Is there anything I can do?'
He stopped his pacing and looked at her, eyes narrowed on her pale face and the expression of unwilling compassion that kept her hovering when she longed to flee.
'Well, you could kiss it better, but I'll excuse you on the grounds that physical deformity at close quarters is something of a turn-off.' The cynical resignation of his black humour was like a shining challenge.
Elizabeth was rarely given to impulse. Instinctive emotional reactions were dangerous. They were unreasoning and usually embarrassing. The one and only real love-affair of her life had been doomed by her over-impulsive passion. As a grown woman she knew the value of thinking before she acted or reacted, which made her spontaneous action now all the more inexplicable.
She sank to a crouch, placing her hands lightly on either side of his thigh for balance as she bent forward and pressed her mouth gently against the site of his injury. Her hair, caught by the breeze, blew in a soft dark froth across his hard abdomen. His skin was hot and faintly salty and her lips parted in inadvertent curiosity over the jagged scar that bisected his outer thigh.
For a stunned second he didn’t react. Then, beneath her fingertips, the muscles in his thigh bunched violently and his hand fisted in her hair, wrenching her head back.
'What in the hell do you think you're doing?' he demanded hoarsely, the shock flaring in his silver eyes as he looked down at her.
She was as shocked as he. A wave of colour swept over her pale face, her eyes widening to meet the shattering impact of his.
'I...' She sought desperately for a reason to explain away her foolishly impulsive gesture. Had a woman he cared deeply about rejected him because of his scars? Was that the source of his cynicism? His wife, perhaps? Would that explain their estrangement and his subsequent restless womanising?
His hand tightened in her hair, dragging her upright with an ease that belied any remaining physical weakness, holding her still for his perusal.
'I was only joking,' he murmured, staring at the small mouth that had shocked him out of his world-weary indifference.
'So was I,' she lied shakily, trying not to tremble under that probing gaze, desperately wishing she hadn’t given in to the fleeting weakness that had assailed her at the thought of his suffering.
'Really?' His shock receded as swiftly as it had come. 'Then here's something else to laugh at...'
His mouth was hot and spicy, aggressive and not at all amusing. He kissed her as though he already knew her mouth intimately, every moist corner and secret crevice, and was merely reacquainting himself with its store of infinite pleasures. His hand threaded deeper into the tangled weave of her hair, tilting her head against his shoulder so that he could brace her against the aggressive plunge of his tongue, filling her so completely with each thrust that she was dizzied by the taste and smell of him. There was a vague thud as he let her camera fall, then his other hand laced with hers, pulling it around his waist, placing it, pressing it there, splaying her fingers over the rippling satin of his back, daring her to explore the bold, restless movement of muscle under skin as his body shifted and rubbed against hers.
Taken off guard by the swiftness of his sensual assault, Elizabeth was ravished by her unexpectedly intense response. It happened so fast that no thought of resistance entered her pleasure-clouded brain; all she could do was flow with the incredible feeling. With a thoroughly uncharacteristic and totally unfounded trust in his masculinity she was sure that she could rely on him to stop before his challenge turned into a full-blooded seduction. After all, they didn’t even like each other...
The sheer expanse of sun-warmed, faintly gritty naked skin clinging and sliding in delicious friction against hers was intoxicating, a slow, erotic massage of her senses. Then there were the frank sounds of enjoyment that he made, both inarticulate and bluntly explicit, with which he encouraged her to abandon her inhibitions.
When he relinquished her fingers they dug helplessly into his back, afraid to let go of the only stable force in her universe. Her other hand fluttered nervously against the thick bulge of his upper arm until he caught that, too, and drew it into the thick, downy nest of his upper chest, stroking it against himself. Her palm felt the scrape of a stiffened nipple surrounded by the luxurious softness of his body hair and lingered there, exploring the contrast in textures. She leaned further into his kiss, instinctively teasing the tips of her breasts against his silky-hot skin, the astonishing pleasure of it all going straight to her head and making her mouth as aggressive as his.
A deep groan vibrated in his chest, making her tingle all over. His teeth softly savaged her swollen lips. The hips that had been crowding lightly against the juncture of her thighs suddenly ground harder, deeper and
Elizabeth became devastatingly aware of the extent of his arousal. Her sense of security vanished like smoke in a mist. Perhaps he wasn’t quite as much in control as she had assumed. Her wanton response was probably way out of proportion to what he had expected from a simple kiss. She had reacted as if she were nineteen again, and unable to control her embarrassing sexual impulses.
She must have made a small, distressed sound because he lifted his mouth reluctantly from hers and muttered something in French that made her blush, his hands sliding down over the jut of her buttocks, cupping them tightly, lifting her on to her toes and adjusting her to the hardness between his thighs, holding her there for a long, agonising moment.
'I didn’t mean this to happen...'
His gravelly words merely confirmed her humiliation. Like Ryan, Jack probably expected a sophis
ticated rather than clumsily eager response to his lovemaking.
Come to think of it, Ryan had been very similar to Jack—handsome, intelligent, experienced. He, too, had found the voluptuousness of Elizabeth's passion initially arousing but ultimately painfully embarrassing ... painful to Elizabeth, at least. He had been her first lover and, as a visiting professor of art history, had seemed the epitome of the Renaissance Man to Elizabeth. Only, as it turned out, it wasn’t romance but sex that had been the driving force of their relationship.
When she had begun to embarrass him with the frankness of her behaviour Ryan had explained crisply that she was confusing intense physical infatuation with genuine love, that they weren’t suited to a long-term relationship because Elizabeth was obviously one of those people who was ruled by her passions whereas Ryan preferred to be in control at all times. She was too... excessive... in her physical and emotional demands on him. She had made him feel stifled. He had even described her as sexually intimidating!
Already secretly a little worried by the instinctive ease with which she had accepted sex as a vital part of her everyday life, Elizabeth had been devastated by what she interpreted as a hint that she was a budding nymphomaniac. It was true that her appetite for lovemaking with Ryan had seemed to be insatiable, but she had thought that the enthusiasm was mutual. She had been so greedily self-absorbed in achieving her own selfish satisfaction that she had failed to notice that she was increasingly the one taking the initiative in their physical relationship.
From this fresh perspective Elizabeth had suddenly seen how appallingly lop-sided her life had become since she had discovered the sexual side of her nature. Her friends had been ignored, her studies taking second place to constant daydreams and fantasies about sex with Ryan. She imagined herself wildly in love with him but she didn’t dream about marriage and babies—no, she dreamt about their thrilling encounters in bed!
Thank goodness Ryan had opened her eyes to the dangers inherent in her character while she had still been young enough to consciously change. Without his warning she might have drifted from bed to bed for the rest of her life, wondering why she could never find the satisfaction she restlessly sought, wondering why her lovers always left. As it was she had circumvented the problem by ignoring it. Men as friends were far more enduring when you didn’t clutter the relationship with diverse sexual tensions.
