by Rebecca Heap
“Yes, I bet no-one has ever ignored you quite so blatantly before!” he said, his face twisting into what looked like a grin, but may have been a grimace.
“Don't you see? That's exactly it. You ignited something in me...even if it was indignation to begin with!” she laughed and then sobered. “You brought me back to life,” she avowed.
“There's no future with me,” he warned her in a low, strangled voice, “I won't make promises I can't keep Katie.”
She trembled but didn't move away from him. “There's always a future in opening your heart and mind to your feelings. In sharing love freely and honestly with another person.”
“You’re right. There’s a future in it,” he affirmed. “A future of pain.” He stared at her, intending to move away but his hand moved to her shoulder of its own volition, his heart whispering that this would be his last chance to touch her. “You've suffered enough, Katie. I'm not going to be responsible for adding to that.”
Her heart swelled in response to his touch. She closed her eyes against the tears that threatened to ambush her again. “It's no good,” she said. “I think I’m in love with you, Michael,” she whispered with quiet fervency.
He recoiled violently. “Love me? You don't even know me! We’ve been apart for weeks, Kate.”
“I know, she conceded, “and all that time all I’ve done is think about you, what you’re doing, where you are.” Michael looked uncomfortable but she continued, closing the gap between them and smoothing with her finger the frown that had creased his brow. “I’m in love with you and I want to know everything about you, no matter how ugly it may be.”
“No,” he countered vehemently. “You don’t want to know me. I’m not the man you think I am, Kate. You’re in love with an illusion.” He rose to his feet. “I made a mistake,” he declared. “I shouldn’t have come.”
She grabbed his arm to counteract his obvious resolve to leave. “I know enough. Everything you say and do reveals a little of who you are. I’ve spent time with you. You’re a kind, considerate man. You made an effort to make our first date special and exciting. You care that I’ve been hurt and even want to protect me. You’re intelligent and ambitious - look at the business you’ve built! You’ve even won my father over. I know my father and that must have taken something extraordinary. You say I don’t know you, but I do.”
“If you really knew me, you wouldn’t love me Katie. You can bet on it.”
She sighed. She was baffled by his cryptic comments but simply put it down to his fear of being hurt. “Why are you so determined to drive me away?” she asked. “I understand you may have done things you regret. Even criminal things. Tell me, please, what is it in your past that troubles you?”
He grimaced and she was shocked by the pain in his face.
“It doesn’t matter,” she quickly acceded. “You don’t have to tell me. Just believe me when I say whoever you have been, whatever you have done before, none of it matters, Michael.”
“It does matter, Kate. It will matter. It matters to me and it will matter to you. I wasn’t being honest when I said I could look out for you. How can I protect you when I can’t even protect you from myself?” He turned away from her but she walked in front of him and forced him to look at her.
“Is there someone else?” she offered tentatively, because of the torture it caused her, even to voice the possibility. “Someone in America?”
“God, no! No. It’s nothing like that.”
She gazed at him then with such loving concern that he clenched his hands and sighed in frustration. “Trust me, trust what I’m telling you…I’m wrong for you. I’m dangerous and you are putting yourself in danger right now!”
She smiled then and put her hands on either side of his face, leaning up to kiss him, “I sure hope so….” she murmured.
He grabbed her wrists. “Stop it! Please!”
She stared up at him. “I'm getting such conflicting messages from you Michael. You tell me you don't want me but everything else you do, the way you react to me, the way you touch me...it says something completely different.”
She moved in towards him, desperate to allay the anguish in his eyes. She softly kissed his face, venturing down to his mouth and beginning to tease his lips with her tongue.
He had hardened himself to women, to any real feelings for such a long time. But Kate had a terrifying effect on him; it was like all the defences he’d built were just made of sand and she was the freak rain-shower that just washed it all away. He couldn’t help himself. He groaned, releasing her wrists and opening his mouth, his body responding to her immediately and instinctively.
She kissed him hungrily, taking his tongue deeply into her mouth, wanting to seduce him but also wanting to heal him with the fervency of her love for him. She felt him shudder and she gloried in the effect she had on him.
He broke off the kiss, breathing heavily. “Katie...look. We can’t do this again. I couldn’t live with myself if I took advantage of you when you’re so vulnerable.”
“But I want you to take advantage of me.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.”
“I'm not asking for promises,” she said, stubborn passion and determination in her eyes. “I can’t stop these feelings I have for you. I can’t stop wanting you. I’ve missed you so much” Her voice broke. “Please let me show you. Let me show you how much I’ve missed you, Michael.”
He sat there tensely, caught between burgeoning desire and vexation. She knew so little about him and yet she wanted him, wanted him with a blind trust that confounded him. He knew it wasn't fair to let her continue, not when he couldn't offer her the same openness and sincerity. But the voice of his conscience just faded into a smothered whimper as her mouth moved to his neck. He grabbed her shoulders, as though to push her away, but his hands began to knead her skin as her tongue flicked against his ear.
“You're killing me,” he whispered, heat igniting in his veins, turning his blood to fiery currents that threatened to incinerate him.
“I intend to kill you,” she whispered back. “Kill you slowly, till you're writhing in agony.”
He laughed helplessly but it descended into a guttural groan of defeat as she undid the buttons of his shirt and left a trail of burning kisses down his chest. He moaned desperately when she reached his navel and trailed a careless hand over his tumescent manhood.
“Deny it,” she challenged now. “Deny that you still want me, as much as I want you.”
“I want you,” he muttered, his face taut and terrible looking, his amber eyes dark and intense. She smiled up at him, her expression both tender and imperious. She sensed that he still doubted the wisdom of what they were about to do, but she refused to turn back now. She would prove to him how much they needed each other. She would inveigle her way into his hardened heart. She would become an inseparable part of him, as necessary to him as life itself.
She stood up and pulled her blouse over her head. She undid her trousers and let them drop to the floor. She watched him, as she did this. His eyes never left her and she heard him suck in a harsh breath as her clothes fell around her. Standing in just her underwear she said, “I'm yours, Michael. No promises. No regrets. Just here and now, be mine.”
His gaze swept over her body with such undisguised hunger that it felt like a wind of flame rushing over her skin. Her courage momentarily failed her. She felt like someone must feel if they prod at a sleeping wild animal and it unexpectedly wakes up.
She blushed and crossed her arms, gazing at him beseechingly with childlike eyes, full of utter love and trust. This was his final undoing. He made a noise deep in his throat and swept her into his arms.
He took her through to the bedroom and laid her reverently on the bed. He then stripped himself of his own clothes and stood over her.
She studied him then, as she had not had the chance before, absorbing the sleekly ridged planes of his powerful arms and chest. She let her gaze slowly drift downwar
d from his broad shoulders to his hard, flat stomach and his strong, muscular thighs. She was taken aback by his physical magnificence, by the sheer size of him. He registered the alarm in her eyes. He quickly bent and kissed her with such tenderness and skill that her nervousness departed and fierce tingles of sensation surged along her nerve endings.
She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him towards her, but he drew back and searched her face.
“You can still say no,” he ventured.
“You don't get off that easily,” she declared.
Reaching back, she undid the clasp from her hair, letting it spill down in gentle waves around her face. He uttered an almost soundless exclamation and drove his fingers into it, marvelling at the silky softness of it as it flowed between his fingers. She arched towards him reflexively and he responded by gripping her head and dropping his mouth to hers, grazing her lips tormentingly.
His mouth abandoned hers only to explore her face and neck, leaving tingling electric shocks of pleasure in its wake. As he moved down her body she was lulled by the gentleness of his touch, swept away on a slowly rising wave of sweetness, until he moved aside the lace of her negligee and suddenly took one areola fully into his mouth. She jerked up off the bed with a startled cry but he didn't release her and, as his skilful tongue laved and suckled her breast, the flames inside her burst into a raging furnace.
When he raised his head his hunger was reflected in her groggy, stupefied gaze. He roughly pulled the negligee over her head and gazed at her with tortured longing. “God Kate, do you know how beautiful you are? I want to make love to you slowly this time, slowly and deliberately.”
He ran his hands lingeringly up and down her slender body, trying to calm the urge to simply ravage her, his breathing ragged. She trembled and bucked as he touched her, the interminable yearning for his hands on her again finally appeased but inflamed by a deeper, fiercer ache for closer contact.
Grabbing one of his wrists she tried to draw his body down on hers, but he resisted, intent on pleasing her and exploring every inch of her silken flesh. Where his fingers caressed and aroused, his relentless, scorching mouth followed, stimulating her beyond reason. The quivering of her body and the disbelieving, involuntary mewls of pleasure she emitted made him realise how little used she was with such attention, which also brought his own arousal to a state of almost mindless intensity.
Her hands seemed to rove of their own accord over the smooth expanse of his shoulders and down his back. She silently marvelled over the hard masculinity and animal beauty of his body, even as a tremor rippled through her at the barely controlled tension she felt, like high voltage wires, vibrating beneath his heated skin.
He shifted back up her body and as he did so, overwhelmed by her spiralling emotions, she surged towards him, clawing at his back and pressing hot, needy kisses against the side of his mouth and neck. “Wasn’t I supposed to be killing you?” she breathed desperately into his ear. Rubbing her breasts against him, he groaned in torment, certain that he must explode with his desire for her.
Feeling the hot, pulsing length of him against her, a spasm of panic jolted through her but it was immediately replaced by a molten flood of exquisite sensation as he nudged against her swollen, aching softness.
He still held back, bracing himself over her, his face twisted with strain. “I've not got anything,” he hissed. Unbridled passion had led to carelessness the first time. To be so a second time would be more than careless, it would be inexcusable.
Kate almost wept with the ferocity of the sensations assaulting her mind and body. He had tried to deny his feelings for her but even now he was thinking only of her. “It’s OK. I was prepared,” she breathed.
It flashed through his mind that she’d known him better than he knew himself. It might have been a mercy if she hadn’t. He gathered her into his arms and plunged into her, both of them crying out with relief as they finally answered their bodies demand to mate. He drew out his strokes, wanting to pleasure her but also wanting to mould her to him and brand her as irrevocably his. The strain eventually became intolerable and the sensuous rhythm of their coupling became frantic with urgency. She cried out his name as she peaked, her climax cascading over her like the molten waves of a volcanic eruption, her body finally releasing her to ride the fall into trembling repletion. As her body pulsed its approval, his own dam was breached and he shuddered into her with a growl of gratification, hurled into his own sensory oblivion.
They lay entwined together, their bodies glistening with sweat, their breathing gradually slowing. Kate didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to even speak for fear of breaking the spell. She simply lay with her eyes closed, savouring this period of longed for intimacy.
She eventually opened her eyes and turned her head to look at him. At first she assumed he was just relaxing but then, after some fruitless verbal and physical prompting, she realised that he had fallen asleep. She snorted resignedly and fell back on the pillows, a smile on her face. How typically male! She could forgive him she supposed; after all he must be suffering from jet lag and on top of their recent exertions it was no surprise he had zonked out. She gently shifted his arm which had fallen across her and, draping the duvet on top of him, she left him in peace. At least whilst he was asleep, she thought, he was here, he was hers.
When she emerged from the shower, Michael was still asleep but he had thrown the covers off and they were knotted round his legs. He stirred restlessly and as she moved closer towards him she realised that he was dreaming. Sweat was trickling from him and the muscles in his face were twitching and jumping with the power of the dreams that troubled him.
She advanced towards him. “Michael?” she asked worriedly.
His fists began clenching and unclenching. His head twisted from side to side. She reached him and bent down, her face concerned. He was muttering softly and feverishly under his breath.
She touched his arm. “Wake up, Michael, wake up!” she entreated.
His eyes snapped open. He spoke in a strange but horribly familiar voice, his accent one that caused nipping spiders of fear to crawl up her spine: “Brenna.”
Kate pulled back, as if slapped. She watched him as if from afar. Her mind shot back to memories of events it had tried desperately to suppress. She was back in the room with her kidnapper, trembling as he relived some vivid nightmare.
Michael blinked and passed a shaking hand over his face. Then his eyes focused on her.
“Katie?” he asked, sitting up.
Kate was already moving her body on autopilot, responding to the stark visual and auditory stimulus it had just received, like an animal reacting to the sight and smell of its natural enemy. She ran for her dressing table and yanked open the drawer. She didn’t pause for thought until she had turned to face him, holding a gun pointed directly at his naked chest.
“Whoa!” Michael exclaimed, putting his hands in the air. “What’s the matter? What are you doing?”
She stood facing him, the gun quivering but still held tightly in both hands, her breath coming in convulsive gasps, eyes wide with terror and confusion.
Michael began to get out of the bed. “Stop it!” she commanded. “Don’t move!”
He paused, frowning. “Katie, sweetheart. Please put the gun down. Whatever has got into you?”
He slowly stepped onto the floor, his hands held out in a placatory gesture. He approached her, speaking softly and murmuring endearments in an attempt to calm her down.
She backed away, her body shaking, eyes roving his face. Was she going insane? Michael and her kidnapper couldn’t be one and the same person. It was just too incredible, too sick. Had the re-telling of her story served to unbalance her mind?
“Michael?” she queried hopefully, her voice breaking on a sob. “Please tell me you’re Michael!”
He stopped as if doused in icy water, his features frozen in consternation. However, he quickly recovered and warmth seeped back into his face, transforming his
mouth into a sympathetic smile. “Of course I’m Michael,” he assured her. “I’m the man you said you love?”
She gazed at him, tears slipping down her cheeks but hope burgeoning in her face. Neither her heart or mind could accept the revelation she had received. It was just too painful. She’d been shot by an arrow. It might be hard and cold and real, but she could not accept such an unpalatable truth. She must reject it. She must tear it out.
“Yes!” she agreed, her voice high with desperate vindication. “You can’t be him! You look nothing like him!” Surely she could trust her own eyes above all else?
He had reached her now and he placed his hands over hers and stared lovingly into her eyes. “You’ve been through so much, Kate. It’s not surprising that it has all suddenly overwhelmed you.”
He gently wrested the gun from her rigid fingers and then enfolded his arms around her in a comforting embrace.
She clung to him in relief, weeping and crying, “Oh Michael! I thought you were him! I thought you were him!”
He gripped her more tightly in response to this and sucked in a deep breath, releasing it on a sound that was more groan than sigh. He abruptly let go of her and turned away, planting his hands on her dressing table, still gripping the gun he had expropriated from her, the muscles in his arms and back rippling with tension. Fear began to creep back into her mind, like a disease that had never quite been cured.
She saw him lift the gun and then place it back down on the table. He reached up to his eyes. And then he turned back to her, the chilling grey eyes of her abductor staring out of the face she thought she loved.
She emitted an anguished cry and brought her hands up to cover her face. He recognised that she was still trying to reconcile his conflicting identities. He knew it was pointless to let the deception continue. It was almost a relief to drop the subterfuge.
He spoke quietly but clearly, his Irish accent strong and mocking, “You were right, a chuisle. I am your worst nightmare come true. I am the man you hate.”
