Stormspell

by Anne Mather

  He looked a little better after his rest, his pallor not so pronounced, and his expression was disturbing as he handed her the towel.

  'I've never seen a mermaid disporting herself before.' he commented, as she towelled the moisture from her arms, and she didn't know what to answer when he held her gaze with his.

  'You—you look better.' she ventured, biting her lower lip. and his expression underwent a change.

  'Can't you forget about my arm for once?' he demanded, impatience darkening his irises. "I offered you a compliment, not an excuse to discuss my health!'

  Ruth concentrated on drying her legs, self-consciously aware of his appraisal. But Dominic turned his attention from her, picking up handfuls of sand and letting it drain away between his fingers, and the silence between them stretched ominously.

  'I—I suppose we ought to be getting back.' she ventured at last, hoping for his compliance, and he looked up at her broodingly.

  'Why?' he demanded, his lids heavy. 'What's the rush? Being shut up in that room all day doesn't appeal to me. believe it or not. particularly when you refuse to come and talk to me.'

  Ruth bent her head. 'I—I have work to do—'

  'All day?'

  'I have to help Celeste.'

  'So why don't you help me?'

  'Help you?' Ruth looked down at him uneasily. 'I don't understand—'

  'No. you don't, do you?' he drawled, his expression softening slightly. 'Oh. hey. come here! Let me do that for you.' And pulling the towel out of her hands, he indicated that she should squat down in front of him.

  'I can manage.' she began, unwilling for him to touch her. but the hardening line of his mouth persuaded her. and half apprehensively she subsided on to the sand between his legs.

  She had been drying her hair, but now his hands took over, moving continuously over its thickness, massaging her scalp and bringing a tingling awareness of his strength and gentleness. His fingers eased her tension. they made her relax, and almost unthinkingly she yielded against him.

  As soon as she felt the muscles of his legs against her back, she straightened away from him. With colour blooming in her cheeks, she would have hurriedly got to her feet then, but his hand on her shoulder stopped her.

  'Don't get up.' he said, and his voice was curiously husky now. 'You're welcome to lean on me. Do it—it's very pleasant.'

  Ruth swallowed. She supposed he was right. What harm could she do just resting against his chest? Her hair was only damp now. two skeins over her shoulders, and his skin was firm and reassuring against her shoulderblades.

  Yet. in spite of her inexperience, she felt strangely guilty, sitting there, confined by the powerful curve of his thighs. Dominic seemed relaxed, but she sensed he wasn't, and the heat of his breathing was warm against her nape. She knew she ought to get up. in spite of what he said, but she was strangely reluctant to do so. It was an entirely new experience for her. and one that she could not deny excited her. though why this should be so was harder to understand.

  'This is a beautiful place.' Dominic said suddenly, disturbing her anxious introspection. 'I can understand your father's attachment to it. And his reasons for keeping you here.'

  Ruth bent her head, unknowingly exposing the tender curve of her nape to his gaze. 'We're happy.' she said, and her movements caused fine strands of black silk to brush his chest.

  'Are you?' Dominic's response was abstracted. 'Maybe that's because you know of nothing better.'

  Ruth half turned to look at him. 'And you do. of course. Know of somewhere better, I mean?'

  His mouth was oddly twisted, i didn't say that,' he demurred, his tones harsh and uneven, and his eyes on her parted lips were almost a palpable intrusion.

  It was a breath-constricting moment, and she could feel the air fighting to escape from her lungs. He was so close, closer than she had imagined, and her gaze lingered on the sun-bleached length of his lashes and the spasmodic jerking of a pulse in his temple. She knew the desire to touch him again, to stroke his lean cheek and run her palm along the beard-roughened skin of his jawline. She would have liked to slide her fingers through his hair and feel its heavy vitality between her fingers, but when his eyes lowered to the rounded swell of her breasts, thinly disguised by the damp swimsuit. she turned abruptly about so that he could no longer see them.

  She was breathing quickly now. shallowly and unsteadily. endeavouring without too much success to assimilate what was happening between them. She didn't understand it. She didn't comprehend why his just looking at her should arouse such strong feelings. She only knew that when he looked at her she had wanted him to admire her body, and it was this as much as anything which aroused her sense of shame.

  Struggling on to her knees, she reached for the towel that was lying beside him. and would have scrambled up if once again he hadn't prevented her.

  'What's the matter?" he demanded, his eyes dark and searching now as they explored her distracted expression. 'Don't be alarmed. I'm not going to touch you. At least.' he amended dryly, acknowledging his present possession, 'not in the way you're afraid of.'

  'I'm not afraid!' Ruth was stung by the underlying mockery in his words, and his brows arched interrogatively.

  'No?'

  'No.' she retorted, unaware that her breasts were rising and falling rapidly in her agitation. 'I just don't think you should look at—at me—at my body, as you were doing!'

  His mouth compressed. 'Oh. I see.'

  Ruth chin jutted. 'I'm not completely naive. I have seen the way men look at women,' she declared.

  'Oh. I believe it.' Dominic's expression was sober, but she suspected the bland way he was agreeing with her.

  'I know you think I'm silly—and childish—and amusing.' she blurted, 'but you have no right to—to make me feel a fool!'

  'Did I do that?' He raised his eyes heavenward. 'I'm sorry—'

  'Oh, you—'

  The humour lurking in the depths of his eyes infuriated her. and without thinking, she wrenched herself away from him. completely overlooking the fact that it was his left hand that was holding her. Her sudden action jerked his arm. and she gazed down at him. horror-struck, as he rolled back on to the sand, groaning, and holding his injured arm to his chest.

  'Dominic!'

  She used his name without thinking, dropping down on to her knees beside him. touching him with fluttering, nervous hands. His eyes were closed, and he seemed to be in a great deal of pain, and she stared all about her desperately, before returning her attention to his evident distress.

  'Oh. Dominic, what can I do?' she implored, leaning over him helplessly, at a loss for a way to relieve his agony. 'Please, say something, anything! Do you want me to go for Joseph?'

  He spoke then, but it was barely audible, just a muttering in his throat that brought her head down to him.

  'I can't hear you.' she protested, cradling his face between her hands, and then gasped in disbelief when he suddenly moved, rolling over quickly and imprisoning her beneath him.

  Looking up into his tormenting face, she was tempted to scratch his eyes out. but she was too relieved to feel anything but a sense of reprieve. He wasn't hurt, she hadn't injured him. and her limbs felt weak with the knowledge of his returning strength.

  'So you were going to walk away from me. were you?' he taunted, supporting himself above her. 'You see how dangerous it can be to think you have

  the upper hand.'

  'I didn't think that.' she protested, avoiding his mocking gaze. 'But you were only teasing me. like you're doing now. And I didn't like it.'

  'No, I gathered that.' he murmured, one hand stroking back her tumbled hair from her cheek. 'So what would you have me do with you? Take you seriously?'

  Ruth's tongue appeared in unknowing provocation. Suddenly, there was less humour in the situation. and she was overwhelmingly aware of the denim-clad legs imprisoning hers against the sand, and the heavy weight of his body crushing her lower limbs. Yet she didn't want him to move.
She found she liked the masculine angles of his body pressing down on hers, and she moved very slightly to accommodate his powerful frame.

  'Would—would that be so impossible?' she asked now. as his fingers moved from her cheek to find the shell-like crevasses of her ear, and he looked down at her again, his mouth suddenly sensual.

  'Oh. Ruth.' he muttered, and she wondered why his touching so commonplace a thing as her ear should cause such disruption inside her. 'Don't tempt me. there's a good girl. Right now you've caught me at a pretty low ebb, and I haven't got the strength to fight you.'

  'To fight me?' She looked up at him confusedly. 'You mean your arm—'

  'No. I don't mean my arm.' he retorted, and to her disappointment he rolled off her again. 'You're not old enough to understand.' he added, hauling himself up into a sitting position. 'And I'm not the one to teach you.'

  Ruth sighed, remaining where she was. lying on the sand, drawing up one leg in unknowing provocation. 'I think you like making fun of me.' she said, half sadly, lacing her fingers through the sand, and he turned to look at her with sudden emotion.

  'I'm not making fun of you. believe me.' he averred. and this time she believed him. 'You're a beautiful child, and I'm not unmindful of that fact. But you don't know what you're inviting.'

  Ruth sighed, raising an arm to shade her eyes. 'I'm not a child,' she exclaimed resentfully. 'I've told you—I'm seventeen!'

  Dominic shook his head. 'All right, strictly speaking. you're not a child. But you are an innocent, and I'm not—as your father would be the first to tell you.'

  Ruth lowered her arm. 'How does one become experienced, then?'

  He uttered a short, disbelieving laugh. 'My God!' He gave her an impatient look. 'Ruth, get up! This conversation has gone far enough. I think we should go back to the bungalow.'

  She didn't move, except to stretch out a daring hand and let her fingers brush his hip. It drew his attention back to her. as she had hoped it would, and she quivered beneath the deepening regard of that curiously angry gaze. He was looking at her differently now. all the humour had gone, and in its place was a smouldering impatience.

  'I said let's go. Ruth,' he muttered harshly, but still she did not obey him. For the first time in her life she knew what it was to control a situation, and she also sensed that he was using his anger to disguise something else.

  'I don't want to go.' she said, curling her toes into the sand. 'And you can't make me.'

  'Ruth!' His voice was hoarse now. and almost unwillingly, he rested on his elbow beside her. 'Ruth, this has got to stop.'

  'Has it?'

  Her breathing seemed suspended. He was right— she didn't know what she was inviting, or what she wanted him to do. She only knew there had to be more to his sudden withdrawal than he was admitting, and she ached for him to show her what it was.

  His fingers lightly brushed her shoulder, and she tensed as he lowered his head. The heat of his breath mingled with hers, filling her mouth, suffocating her. and her lips parted all unknowing, prepared, yet unprepared, for the touch of his.

  It didn't happen as she expected. Instead, shamefully. she felt his tongue circling her mouth, and instinctively she stiffened. But he didn't stop, interspersing his exploration with his lips, rubbing them softly and sensuously against hers, inducing the lowering of her defences. Gradually, almost against her will, she began to enjoy it. and tentatively she tried to respond, letting her tongue emerge to meet his.

  The intimacy this evoked left her weak, her bones dissolving into fluid. She felt something uncoiling inside her, something warm and sweet, that flooded her limbs and left them shaking. She was trembling so much, she knew he must be aware of it, and she put up her hand to draw him closer. 'God, no!'

  At this point Dominic extricated himself from her clinging fingers, getting to his feet without a backward glance. Ruth's tremulous look up at him essayed the suspicion that he was as shaken as she was by what had happened, and she saw that the fingers that raked his hair back from his forehead were as unsteady as her legs.

  Nevertheless she had to get up. and gathering the towel she scrambled to her feet. If he was aware of her doing so. he didn't acknowledge it. and feeling a sense of responsibility for what had happened, she lightly touched his sleeve.

  'Are—are you angry with me?' she ventured, circling round to face him. and flinched at the angry glare he turned upon her.

  'Yes.' he said grimly. 'I'm angry with you. Now will you please go back to the house and get some clothes on!'

  Ruth hesitated. 'It—it's all right, really. I mean—I made you do what you—'

  'Go home. Ruth!' he commanded, brushing her aside, and she stared after him unhappily as he walked away from her. down to the water's edge.

  Trudging back to the bungalow, she tried once again to assimilate what had happened. It was her first experience of kissing, but it wasn't Dominic's, and she couldn't understand why he should feel angry when she didn't. On the contrary, she would have liked him to go on kissing her. it was a very pleasurable experience, even if it had left her feeling curiously flat afterwards. Perhaps that was what was wrong with him. she considered thoughtfully. Perhaps because he was so much more experienced, he didn't enjoy it quite so much.

  She sighed. She could have sworn he was enjoying it. His breathing had been as laboured as hers. But she had felt his fists, clenched on the sand beside her. so perhaps he had been fighting her all along, as he had said.

  It was an enigma, and one she wished she could explore more fully. If only there was someone she could ask. someone who would tell her why Dominic had got so angry at the end. There was always Celeste, of course, but somehow Ruth was loath to share this particular problem with her. Which only left her father, and thinking of him. Ruth knew an intimation of why Dominic had behaved as he did. She also recognised her own culpability in ignoring her father's wishes and associating with a man he despised, and whose identity she had yet to reveal.

  She heard her bedroom door close while she was in the bathroom, and guessed Dominic had returned. She wondered if he intended to join her and her father for breakfast, and anxiously anticipated the situation that would create. He might even tell her father about meeting her on the beach, and while she doubted he would betray all that had happened, she could imagine her father's reaction to this news.

  She sighed again, dressing in her old skirt and tee-shirt, realising too late the construction her father might put on the new shirt and shorts she had bought the previous day. The last thing she wanted was to arouse his suspicions, particularly when any argument seemed to aggravate his condition.

  Celeste, as usual, was busy at the stove when she entered the kitchen a few minutes later. However, the black woman glanced round provokingly when she heard the girl, and made her own contribution to Ruth's ever-increasing trepidation.

  'You been with Mr Howard on the beach?' she queried, tilting her head on one side, and Ruth's features froze. 'I see him come back few minutes ago. and when I took in his breakfast he near snapped my head off!' Her lips twitched. 'What you been saving to the man? Seems like something ain't suiting him.'

  Ruth seated herself at the kitchen table , avoiding the black woman's eyes, tracing the grain in its scrubbed surface with her fingernail.

  'How do you know I've been on the beach?' she ventured at last, when Celeste had made it obvious she wasn't going to continue with what she was doing until she got a reply. 'I didn't see you when I came back. I might have been visiting Father Andreas.'

  'Pigs might fly.' declared Celeste sharply. 'And I suppose that damp hair is through dipping your head in the font!'

  'I took a shower.' said Ruth, playing for time. 'Where's Daddy?'

  'Your daddy still in bed.' retorted Celeste shortly. 'And that's as well for you. But don't you go thinking you can fool Celeste like you fooling your daddy, 'cos it ain't going to happen!'

  Ruth looked up then, her eyes wide and indignant. 'I'm not fooling him!' she protested.
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  'Ain't you?' Celeste stared piercingly at her. 'You mean to tell me your daddy knew about your date

  with Mr Howard?'

  'It wasn't a date.' Ruth looked away again. 'We— we met by accident. How was I to know he'd be up at that time of the morning?'

  Celeste studied her bent head. 'So what happened?' she probed. 'What he say to you? You can tell Celeste—you know it won't go no further.'

  Ruth sighed. 'What do you think he said? We— talked, that's all.' She paused before adding: 'Nothing that Daddy couldn't have heard.'

  'Is that right?' Celeste pulled out a chair with a clatter and seated herself opposite. 'So you tell me, why Mr Howard like a bear with a sore head?'

  It was harder to avoid the black woman's eyes when she was on a level with her. and Ruth stared at her mutinously. 'I've told you the truth. We talked! What did you expect us to do?'

  Celeste's eyes narrowed. 'He didn't lay his hands on you. did he?' she demanded, and it was the hardest moment of Ruth's life to date to sustain that inimical gaze.

  'No.' she said at last, the untruth torn from her. 'Why should he want to do that?' and saw from Celeste's expression that her suspicions were fading.

  'You sure?' she persisted, but it was an academic question, she had already accepted Ruth's explanation. 'Well, you take care he don't. Missy. Is one thing to make conversation with the man. and something else to let him think you cheap!'

  'Cheap?' Now Ruth detained her. 'What do you mean? I don't understand you.'

  Celeste hesitated. 'Ain't no reason for you to know.' she declared at last. 'Ain't going to happen.'

  'No. I want to know.' Ruth put her hand on the black woman's arm as she would have got up. 'Please. Celeste—tell me!'

  Celeste sighed, but she allowed herself to be persuaded. 'Well.' she said slowly, 'it a word we use when a girl let a man have his way with her too easy.'

  Have his way with her?' Ruth was bewildered.

  'You know what a man and woman does together, don't you?'

  Ruth's face was burning. 'I think so.'

  'You ain't let any man do that to you, have you?'

  'No.' Ruth shook her head.