The Hidden Years

by Penny Jordan

  He wanted to shape the firm roundness of her breasts with his hands, to feel her breathing quicken so that her body lifted urgently against him and with it the taut hardness of her nipples pulse as he lapped them softly with his tongue, delicately laving them with its moistness until she cried out and held his head to her, urgently begging him to suckle at them and rake them with his teeth as her passion caught fire from his.

  He ignored the message from his brain that something was wrong, that she was too still, too tense, too unaroused, that she was not sharing his need. It was too sudden, too unexpected; she was not motivated by desire. Nor even by lust; the coldness of her skin reflected the coldness of her desire, and it was this inner and outer chill that was responsible for the erect stiffness of her nipples, just as it was responsible for the rash of goose-bumps he could feel beneath her skin.

  He didn't want to listen to such cerebral arguments; he wanted…

  He groaned out loud as he threw off the last of his clothes. In the darkness he saw her eyes flicker and felt a fierce elemental stab of male pride. His body was so different from hers, his skin tanned from his last stint on one of his father's building sites, hard and calloused still in places, his torso covered in thick, fine dark hair, his belly hard and flat where hers was soft and gently rounded, his arms roped with sinewy muscles, rough with dark hair where hers were soft and white…and too thin. His heart gave a painful jolt. Despite the voluptuousness of her breasts, the femininity of her curves, he was suddenly conscious of her fragility—his hands could easily, too easily span her waist. On an impulse he didn't try to decipher he bent his head and dropped a light kiss on the soft flesh just above her navel, and while she quivered wildly in reaction to it he picked her up and turned towards the door.

  'No…' Her voice was surprisingly strong, almost harshly so, stopping him.

  'It's all right,' he told her softly. 'I'm not going to hurt you. I only want to carry you upstairs. We'll be more comfortable in my bed.'

  'No.' This time the denial was almost guttural. 'No, not upstairs. Here… now…'

  'Now.'

  He stared at her and then slowly released her as he looked round the shadowed room. Funny child—she deserved to be humoured, though… and then later, when she was less on edge, more relaxed with him, then he would take her upstairs…

  He smiled to himself, anticipating the pleasure they would share, slowly leaning towards her, pushing the half dry and tangled cloud of hair back off her face and dragging his open mouth against her skin, savouring its texture and its taste. When he reached her ear he nibbled at its lobe, while his fingers stroked the delicate skin behind it.

  She reacted as though she had been stung…as though no one had ever touched her like that before, tensing and wrenching back from him, crying rawly, 'No… no more of that… Now… I want you to do it now…'

  Daniel stared at her, frowning. He hadn't realised she was already so aroused… In fact…

  Storm signals flashed from her eyes, as he watched her.

  'You do want me, don't you?' she demanded, watching him. 'Because if you don't…'

  He grinned to himself. He could hardly deny wanting her, since the evidence of that wanting was throbbing achingly and very visibly for her to see.

  And that was when he made his biggest mistake. Instead of listening to the small inner voice urging caution, warning him that all was not as it seemed to be—as he wished it to seem to be—he took her words at face value and caught hold of her, making it explicitly obvious to her that he did want her, and how much, by giving rein to the need which had ridden him virtually from the moment he had first set eyes on her.

  He tried to tell himself that he wasn't disappointed that she didn't want the long, slow lovemaking he had been aching to give her, that she simply seemed to want… to demand the raw immediate heat of his physical presence within her body without any of the preliminaries to that possession. He even tried to tell himself that he wasn't even disappointed by her refusal to kiss him or to look at him, to touch him, that her attitude towards him did not reduce him in his own eyes to the status of a hired stud. He even tried to tell himself, as he laid her on the floor and covered her body with his own, that she wanted their coming together as much as he did himself.

  It was true that he was puzzled by the tension of her body, by the way she refused to do anything to help or accommodate him, by the way he had physically to manoeuvre her legs before he could actually try to enter her, but again he was so blinded by his own need, so convinced that secretly she must perhaps always have shared it, must have done surely to have come to him like this now, begging… demanding that he make love to her, that the obviousness of the truth didn't hit him until he thrust powerfully into her, felt the tensing of her muscles, recognised the tightness of her body and the immediacy of its recoil, and recognised what he ought to have recognised the moment she told him, 'No more…'

  She hadn't said those words because she was so eagerly ready for him, he knew in angry shock; she had said them like a child preparing herself for a nasty-tasting medicine…like an adult preparing herself to go through a necessary but unwanted ordeal. And the reason she hadn't done anything to help him hadn't been because she was playing games with him, teasing him into a greater frenzy of desire, but simply because she hadn't known what to do.

  'You're a virgin…'

  He hadn't realised he had said the words out loud, until she rolled back from him, drawing her knees up under her chin, hugging her arms protectively around her as she glared back at him, demanding aggressively, 'So…?'

  He stared at her in shock, torn between rage and disbelief. She was a virgin. A bloody virgin…the woman he had been fantasising about for months, the woman he had stupidly imagined had all the sexual knowledge of every woman who had ever been born at her fingertips, was so totally inexperienced…

  Anger boiled up inside him. Anger against himself, anger against Scott and most of all anger against her. What the hell was she playing at? Why…?

  'Don't you make love to virgins? Is that it?'

  Her taunt scalded him, and he reacted immediately to it, saying acidly, 'No, I bloody well do not. For one thing, if I'm going to make love to a woman it's a woman I want, not a frightened little girl. A woman who can give me as much pleasure as I can give her, not a little girl who tightens up her muscles and says "don't". For another…' He paused, knowing that he was being unnecessarily brutal, wanting to call back the words, but driven by something he couldn't control, something he didn't want to call sexual frustration because to do so lowered him in his own estimation as a civilised human being.

  'For another, I don't suppose you're on the Pill and I certainly wasn't about to take any precautions. Have you no sense?' He got hold of her, dragging her to her knees, practically shaking her as reaction set in and his anger overwhelmed him.

  'Or was that it?' he demanded unforgivably. 'Did you hope that I might make you pregnant? What is it you want from me, Sage? A child, a substitute for Scott? Because you damn sure don't want me as a man. My God, you wouldn't even know what to do with a real man. All that noise about loving Scott…all that fuss… Why didn't he make love to you, you—?'

  'Well, it wasn't because I was a virgin…'

  The words were laced with acid, belying the tremble in her voice and the tears he was nearly sure he could see shining in her eyes.

  Now, when it was too late, he understood what he had done and ached to call back his cruel words.

  As she scrambled to her feet, he reached for her, but she evaded him, snatching up his robe and pulling it protectively around her.

  'Scott did love me. He respected me. He wanted… he wanted us to wait… until our families… He did love me…' She practically screamed the words at him, and Daniel, noting the past tense, hearing her terror and the panic in her voice and recognising the doubts now tormenting her, felt his heart turn over with pain and compassion.

  Dear God, if only he had been able to see be
yond his own need—if only he had not allowed his physical desire for her to rule him. If only he had listened, waited, questioned.

  'Why did you come to me?' he asked her soberly, knowing she would know what he meant.

  'Why?' The face she turned to him was contorted into a mask-like grimace of hatred and bitterness. 'Why? Do you really need to ask? I've lost Scott. He's the only one I'll ever love, and you're right about one thing—the accident was my fault. I could have killed him… Afterwards I prayed for him to be safe. I promised I'd do anything, pay a price if only he might live… I never guessed what that price might be, that that price would be Scott himself. Don't you understand?' she cried out desperately. 'I wanted to punish myself, I wanted to suffer the way I deserve to suffer. That's why I came to you, because I knew there could be no greater self-betrayal, no worse physical degradation, no more emotional humiliation and pain than giving you what I wanted to give Scott. That's why I came to you…' She started to laugh, the sound too high-pitched, grating painfully on his ears as he tried to assimilate what she was saying to him… as, through his outrage, through the blow to his pride and his maleness, he heard the hatred and the scorn she was pouring out over him. In that moment he knew that if he touched her he would probably destroy her, and because of that he stepped back from her, turning his back on her so that he wouldn't have to look into the wildness of her face and see in that wildness all the false promise of the passion he had thought they would share.

  'Daniel!'

  He heard her call his name and felt his lungs contract; there was so much uncertainty in her voice, so much pain, so much need, like a child confused by the violence of her own emotions crying out for comfort and reassurance, but he hardened his heart against her, keeping his back to her as he said coldly, 'Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it. I pity you, Sage. I suppose you think I should be grateful for being made a gift—no, a sacrifice of your body. But I don't wish to accept it. You can stay for the rest of the night, but first thing tomorrow I want you to leave.'

  'Daniel, please—'

  'No, Sage… whatever it is you want I can't give it to you, sexually, emotionally or any other way. You're trouble with a capital T, and if you want my opinion Scott has had a lucky escape. You'll destroy every man who ever comes anywhere near you. You're that type.'

  'You wanted me…'

  'No. I wanted the use of your body,' he told her brutally and untruthfully. 'I didn't want you, Sage. Now go back to bed.'

  Unbelievably she did, but in the morning predictably she had gone. Not just from his house, but from the campus as well. It took him several days to discover that she had just simply locked herself away in her room, without telling anyone why, although most of those who knew her seemed to assume that it was because of Scott.

  After a week of indecision he had telephoned her home. Her mother, he had learned, was on a prolonged business tour and not due back until the end of the month, but they would pass his message on as soon as Mrs Danvers returned.

  He tried to alleviate his guilt by submerging himself in his work, but it lingered, and festered, and it still festered today, Daniel acknowledged, staring frowning at his empty glass. It still festered today.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Daniel had time and plenty to spare in order to prepare for his meeting with Sage and to drive down to Cottingdean, and yet he discovered that he was deliberately delaying himself, deliberately, almost, trying to make himself late… So late that Sage might grow tired of waiting for him and cancel their meeting?

  The trouble was that if he'd known, if he'd had the remotest idea that she was going to be involved in this thing in any way at all, he'd have found someone else to stand in for the company; Dale Hughes for instance, the head of their PR department, or Matthew Petrie, his deputy. There had been no real reason for him to get personally involved… not really, and yet when he had seen the first outline plans for the proposed routes, when he had read the name Cottingdean, he had told himself that he was simply following sound business practice, that his reasons for driving down to Cottingdean, long before the proposed route had become public, had simply been business curiosity, nothing more.

  He had been surprised to discover it so much a village still and yet at the same time so obviously thriving, a small rural backwater, and yet not so much of a backwater really since the wool produced by its mill found markets virtually all over the world, or at least in those parts of it where people were rich enough and discerning enough to appreciate the quality of cloth spun from the wool from the best of English flocks, in a combination of methods which comprised the best of both the old and the new.

  For the woman who had masterminded and breathed life into this profitable industry he heard nothing but praise; for her daughter… He had been surprised how few local people knew anything about Sage, far less in most cases than he knew himself, but then in many ways London was a series of small villages whose permanent occupants soon became familiar to one another, especially when they lived as high profile a life as Sage.

  It was true that the tales of her wildness, her lovers, her unpredictability had grown less over the years, just as her reputation as a gifted muralist had grown.

  He had seen one of her murals last summer in the home of a friend of a friend who had a villa on a still remote part of Ibiza. He had been startled by it, stunned by its creativity, its depth and intensity—without knowing her, just from looking at her work, he would have known that here was a person who had intuition, compassion, intensity and vulnerability; and he hadn't been able to stop himself from thinking how much he would have liked to commission her to do some work for himself and how impossible it was that he should.

  The most recent news in the Press was of how Sage was being pursued by some Australian Greek who had followed her as far as London. Whoever he was, he . didn't seem to be part of her life now.

  He often wondered how different the course of both their lives might have been if he had given in to his need that night… if he had gone ahead and made love to her, been her first lover…perhaps even impregnated her with his child.

  His mouth twisted in self-mockery as he picked up his papers and walked out of his flat.

  Then the last thing he had wanted to do was to have a child by any woman, so why should he now suddenly be able to picture so comprehensively and so disturbingly the child they might have had?

  As he climbed into his car and started the engine he knew he would have to drive fast if he wasn't going to be late. If he'd known before he'd taken on this thing that he was going to have to confront Sage over it on a one-to-one basis, he'd have moved heaven and earth to ensure that he didn't have to do so. The trouble was… the trouble was that he still wanted her…

  He swore suddenly, putting his foot sharply on the brake pedal, half inclined to turn back and pick up the phone and tell her the meeting was off, and yet knowing that he wasn't going to do so; that something stronger than logic and common sense was driving him.

  He cursed under his breath. He was thirty-seven years old, and the thought of her still made him feel like a raw boy of seventeen. He, who was so fastidious, so aware not merely of the health dangers of sharing his life with any woman who had had a variety of sexual partners, but also of the potential emotional paucity of such a relationship, the lack of any real intimacy; he who found nothing to appeal to him in any relationship which was based merely on mutual sexual excitement and need. It was perhaps a weakness in him that when he shared his body with a woman, he wanted to share his mind… his thoughts… the small intimacies of his life as well as the large ones—and yet there had never been a woman he had ever come close to wanting to have permanently in his life. He had never even invited one of his lovers to move in with him.

  One of his lovers… He grimaced wryly to himself. During recent years there had been no one; oh, he had dated a variety of women, enjoyed their company, known that if he had wished to do so he could have taken these relationships further, but sex for
sex's sake had never really appealed to him.

  At present there was no one in his life; Helen Ordman had made it discreetly plain that she would like to take their business relationship a stage further, but while he admired her business acumen he felt no real desire for her. Was it true that the price of success in today's high-powered and stressful world was an automatic loss of libido? He had only to think of Sage to know that it wasn't, and annoyingly he was finding that he was spending more and more time doing just that. He had been surprised to discover just how much she was prepared to involve herself in their business… Sage was essentially a loner—an individualist, someone who guarded her privacy almost ferociously. Her mother was the philanthropist of the family, and nothing he knew about Sage had ever given him to believe that she would step so willingly or so competently into her mother's shoes. The fact that she had done so disturbed him and yet why shouldn't she have changed? People did. Why shouldn't she have matured? He had himself. Why should his awareness that Sage had done so rub at him like a piece of grit against his skin? No more than irritating at first, but gradually becoming more and more acutely painful.

  He had never really shed his guilt over the way he had treated her that night—never really forgiven himself for not handling the situation with more finesse, never really stopped wishing that things might have been different, never really stopped himself from feeling that he, with his greater maturity, should have been able to find a way through the thicket of emotional thorns she had thrown up around herself, and been able to lead her out of it, to set her free from the trauma of loving Scott and losing him, to establish with her enough rapport, enough trust for her to treat him at least as a friend, for her to come to him in her need. That night, when she had so clearly betrayed her hatred and loathing of him, he had been too completely thrown to react rationally, to question why she should feel such violent and intense emotions towards him, to wonder if perhaps he had been right all along and she had felt desire for him—a reluctant desire, an unwanted desire, a desire that terrified and infuriated her maybe, but a desire none the less.