by Natalie Fox
‘Are you pleased with it?’ he asked, standing just behind her.
‘Yes,’ she answered not offering more. ‘What time will he be here?’
‘For dinner at nine. You will dress, of course. So tonight will be our last night together. You will undress, of course.’
Gemma swung round furiously. ‘I don’t even find that remotely amusing!’ she blazed.
‘I don’t suppose you do.’ His mouth twisted into a mockery of a smile. ‘Fact is, it wasn’t meant to be funny. I take my sex seriously.’
‘Well, you can take your serious sex somewhere else. If you must know, and no doubt this will give you enormous pleasure, you have won, Felipe. You have hurt me, tortured me, humiliated me and there is nothing more to be done.’ Her eyes were cold as ice as she gazed up at him.
‘Nothing more to be done, eh? You might not think so but I beg to differ. I want complete satisfaction, sweet one, sexually and mentally. I want you sobbing in my arms, too exhausted to speak. I want you leaving here a broken woman.’
‘And I want you dead!’
He smiled and tilted her chin with the tip of his finger. ‘A dead lover is no good to you at all.’
‘A live one isn’t exactly doing my health a lot of good either!’
‘Si, querida, I see that in your eyes. Could it be that you are not sleeping well? Could it be that you long for my touch?’
‘Could it be that you make me sick—physically?’ His mouth closed over hers and as always she was badly prepared. Would she ever get her timing right? She had imagined this, reacted violently to his imagined touch. In dreamland she could cope but in life it was all so hopeless.
His hand stroked the pale column of her throat and she tried to arch away from him but he stilled her with one powerful hand at the small of her back.
The kiss deepened, passionately, and real fear gripped at Gemma’s stomach. He wanted her and this was no tease. But no, not now, not ever.
She tore her mouth from his and pushed at his shirtfront with her clenched fists. His hands clasped her wrists tightly to him and then he forced her hands down.
‘You bastard!’ she breathed, squeezing her eyes tightly shut.
‘Touch me,’ he husked, stilling her balled fists with the caress of his thumbs.
‘Never!’
‘Do it, Gemma.’ His tone had changed dramatically. It had softened and husked and instantly it aroused her.
Appalled at herself, she tried to prevent her fists uncoiling, but it was impossible. They had a will of their own, were as detached from her body as her reasoning was. His denim jeans were rough to the touch and her fingers trembled. Slowly she opened her eyes to look at him as her fingers stroked and smoothed over him. His eyes darkened till they were black and his lids were heavy and hooded with desire.
She knew she should pull away, ease up the pressure and show him she was capable of inflicting pain too. But he moved against her hand and she was mesmerised and knew she couldn’t torture him. It wasn’t in her and yet she had suffered and he would make her suffer more but still she was incapable of hurting him.
He released her hands when he was sure she wouldn’t lash out at him and he cupped her face and kissed her lips, still keeping up a gentle rhythmic pulse against her groin.
When he kissed her like this she was filled with hope that he wouldn’t go through this punishing agony any longer, that suddenly he would whisper to her that he loved her and wanted her and that revenge was anything but sweet.
His hands came behind her to grip her hips and he stilled himself against her. ‘Later, querida, later,’ he murmured throatily.
‘Again!’ she sobbed in a hushed whisper, her eyes wide with horror. ‘Is there no end to your damned cruelty? Stop it, Felipe, I beg you to stop it!’
He held her twisting body still but now she was strong with fury and she twisted viciously from him. She said nothing but on a sob tore from the studio.
She flung herself on the bed in her room and gazed up at the fan whirring overhead. The throb of the rattan blades matched the throb of anxiety in her head and the dull throbbing ache of her need.
He had done it again, tempted her, seduced her till she couldn’t recognise right from wrong. But what, in God’s name, was he doing to himself? She couldn’t begin to understand the depth of his thinking. They were different of course, not just by gender, but by their birth. She was European, he a fiery Latin American. South America wasn’t another planet, she had told her mother, but it was. An entirely different constellation.
Later she stood by the window, gazing out at the heavenly bodies, and a thought, so strange, suddenly hit her. She was Agustªn de Navas’s daughter. She was partly South American herself! She was rolling this thought around in her mind when she heard a movement at the door.
‘You refuse to eat with me.’
He was standing in the doorway in his evening suit and her heart tugged furiously. She had fallen in love with him in his evening suit. His elegance and his power in black never ceased to impress her. She turned back to gaze at the stars, determined to fight the weakness within her. ‘What did you expect?’ she said baldly.
‘I expected you to dine with me…’
‘And then you expected to come up here and make love to me?’
‘Why not? It’s what we both want, isn’t it?’
She heard his step coming closer behind her and her hands tightened on the stone windowsill. She wished she were dressed. After telling Maria she didn’t want dinner that night she had bathed and got ready for bed. She wore nothing under her satin robe, nothing but regret for her stupidity and shortsightedness. He would make something of it, she felt sure.
‘You’re even prepared for me,’ he murmured, and turned her to face him.
‘I should know you by now, shouldn’t I? You see my robe as your come-on. I had an early night in mind, Felipe; not with you, though.’
‘And you didn’t have anyone else in mind, did you?’ he said knowingly.
‘How conceited you are,’ she breathed. ‘Do you really believe I’ve had no one since you?’ Perhaps this was the answer; it was self-deprecating, but it was worth making herself cheap to be free of his demands.
‘For all I know you could have bedded your way through the entire mounted Household Cavalry, but one thing I believe—none of them can give you what I can.’
‘Satisfaction?’ she sneered up at him. ‘Your life appears to revolve around sex, Felipe. You talk of torment and revenge and it is all sexually orientated. What about feelings, caring, sharing, having fun together? And I don’t mean the romping-around-inbed sort of fun!’
‘Love and sex are equal partners in my life, Gemma. I can’t do one without the other any more. It’s why, since you, I can’t make it with another woman——’
‘You’ve tried, have you?’ she bit out. What a stupid question! He had Bianca, hadn’t he?
He didn’t answer that childish retort but went on, ‘It’s why you will pay for your enslavement. You have ruined my life…’
She pushed past him and went to the door and held it open for him.
‘You ruined your own life by walking out on me and going away with your cousin. You can walk out of this room now, Felipe, because I’m not taking any more blame for your mental state.’
‘But you’ll take full responsibility for my physical state,’ he told her brutally.
She didn’t know how he had done that, manifested himself across the room with the speed of light. His hand came up over her head and she flinched, thinking he was going to strike her. His force went to the door, slamming it shut behind her. She was pressed against it, his hands each side of her on the panelling, imprisoning her, before she had time to draw another breath.
‘What…what are you going to do?’ she husked nervously.
‘What are we going to do, querida? Do you want us to talk through it all first? I remember you used to like that. Our love talk. What I was going to do to you and what you were g
oing to——’
She ducked and tried to get out from him but again he was quicker. He caught her and spun her into his arms.
‘Where the hell do you think you are running to? The bed maybe? Can’t you wait for the preliminaries, sweet one? You always were so damned tantalisingly eager.’
Her hand came up then. Her small, artistic palm with the sudden strength of ten men, meant to strike him hard across the side of his face, but it never made contact. He grasped it, his reactions astonishingly quick. His eyes locked with hers and there was no war in their lustrousness but something she hadn’t seen for a long time. Slowly he raised her palm to his mouth.
Her breath caught in her throat at the tenderness of his kiss and the silkiness of his tongue as he ran it over the soft flesh, which seared and stung as if it had actually made contact with his face. Her head went back against the door and she closed her eyes tightly, desperately trying to hold back the tears. She had seen love in his eyes and had felt it in the tenderness of his lips, and this couldn’t be more torment, surely?
Oh, God. It was going to happen and she had no control. The fight was gone, her longing filling every part of her, leaving no room for fear.
‘Felipe, please don’t,’ she murmured weakly, and then there were no more words. Tenderly his lips moved to her wrists, gauging her pulse with the tip of his tongue, and as if her racing pulse-rate was what he was seeking to give him reason to go on he swept her into his arms and carried her to the bed.
The soft candle-lights on the walls cast golden light over him as he started the disrobing ritual that had been the prelude to their love-affair. Gemma lay on the bed watching him, her heart crying within her breast. He was going to make love to her and whatever followed didn’t matter. She loved him, wanted him, and, if this was the last time, so be it.
He stood naked by the bed looking down at her. There was no cruelty in his eyes to torment her with, no knowing smirk of bitterness on his face, just the need that echoed hers.
Slowly she sat up, her silken robe parting to reveal the eager swell of her breasts. Felipe let out a moan of anticipation as she edged towards him. Her lips smoothed over his silken arousal and he let out another moan, one of complete surrender this time. His hands tenderly gripped the side of her head and he splayed his fingers in her hair. Gemma closed her mouth around him, rejoicing in the tremor that ran through him as her tongue and the sweet inner warmth of her lips encompassed his arousal.
‘Dear God, how I’ve missed you,’ he grated, a throaty admission that filled Gemma’s heart with joy.
She drew back from him then and looked up, her eyes wide and misty with the love he must be able to read. He bent to kiss her mouth, to taste himself on her lips, and then he came down to lie with her, his kisses taking on the power she had so longed for, the power of his love and his sexuality. Love and sex, he’d said—for him they were equal so this could not be a punishment, it just couldn’t.
His hands moved over every inch of her heated flesh, rediscovering her flawless skin, arousing what she had longed for every barren night of her life since he had left her. He kissed every part of her from the scented hollow of her throat to the silken plains of her stomach, from the swollen peaks of her breasts to the soft triangle of dark hair between her long graceful thighs.
Felipe drew back from her and watched her face as his fingers moved languidly over her inner thighs, tracing sensitive trails of expectation on her skin till she burned with need. She couldn’t stop herself moving against his hand and then she tensed, so severely that he instantly eased off the pressure.
His voice came gravelled with remorse. ‘No, this is no punishment…’
She twisted away from him, her eyes wide with fear and despair, her bottom lip trembling…
‘No, querida,’ he breathed urgently, ‘it’s not what you think.’
‘How do I know that?’ she sobbed, grasping at her robe. ‘I told you you’ve won, isn’t that enough for you?’
‘No, it isn’t enough!’ he roared, his anger aroused so swiftly that a cry of fear caught in Gemma’s throat. He grasped at her as she tried to slide from the bed, took her by the arms and threw her back on the lace cover. ‘There is no going back, sweet one. And forget any ideas of holding back to torment me!’ he panted. ‘I’m going to have you——’
‘You’re going to have to force me!’ she screamed, her heart racing so furiously that she thought it would burst.
He thrust his knee between her legs and her next cry was twisted and anguished and then something else that shocked her. She heard her own deep moan of submission and she could do nothing about it. To fight was useless; to admit that this was what she wanted was inevitable. Her fingers bit into the muscular flesh of his back and her hips arched forward wantonly.
He was inside her. With one swift persistent thrust he was inside her and she was holding him there, almost a reflex action as if that was her destiny in life.
‘So this is force, is it, querida?’ His voice was soft and mocking with leaden overtones of his sexual need. ‘You were ready for me, welcoming me, and now you encompass me with your liquid love. I don’t call that force, sweet one.’
He moved slowly, deliberate deep thrusts that had her husking his name and him breathing hers raggedly. Involuntarily her hands came up and raked frantically through his hair. She tried desperately not to think, to block off her emotions as she had vowed to him she would. But vows like that were null and void in actuality. She should have known, she should have prepared herself for the overpowering depth of his lovemaking and her rapacious need for it.
His muscular power inside her was no assurance of his love and yet…how could it not be when hers screamed out from every nerve-ending of her body?
Locked in a fury of urgent movement, they hurled out of control, their bodies thrusting and burning for release from the urgency and the heat, both desperate for the final triumph that would somehow ease both their agony.
She felt the give-away swell inside her and she went with him, not holding back but riding the crest of the life force that pumped urgently within her. He knew her well; knowing the depth and the extent of her orgasm, he stayed with her, beyond his own, kissing her feverishly to prolong the release, to enhance her joy.
When finally he collapsed beside her, reaching out to fold her into his arms, she knew his love for her was still there—buried under the deadly avalanche of his hurt pride, but nevertheless there. Hers pulsed within her as it always had, but there was no satisfaction in those thoughts.
She lay next to him, listening to his breathing, more even and regular now as he slid unerringly into sleep. What would happen now? Would he use her submission as a weapon to hurt her again and again? She buried her face in her pillow and didn’t know. She loved a man she didn’t know.
* * *
She awoke the next morning to find she was alone. She rolled on to her stomach and clawed his pillow towards her and clutched it fiercely. She could smell him, his hair, his musky love scent. He had woken her with sensual kisses in the darkness of the night, sensual kisses that had quickly become a white-hot fever as she had turned to him and given him every part of her body and soul, and then later, much later, they had slipped into an exhausted, love-sated sleep-and now he was gone.
Gemma got up, flinging the pillow away from her. She brutally showered away their love. She dressed and went down to breakfast, took it alone in the airy kitchen with Maria and Christina quietly discussing the menu they were putting on for Agustªn’s return that night.
Gemma swallowed her coffee hot and black. Her father; she would come face to face with him tonight. Where was the curiosity, the eagerness to meet him? It was fluttering unwillingly in her breast like some poor trapped butterfly. What beat fiercely inside her, overbearing all else, was the thought of Felipe, who had crept away from her bed, and her life, for all she knew. She wasn’t going to ask Maria where he was. She didn’t want to know, she really didn’t.
Th
at night as Gemma dressed for dinner she wondered where Felipe had been all day. She had swum and sunbathed to pass the time but he hadn’t made an appearance. In one way the thought cheered her; if he had meant revenge last night surely he would have wanted to hammer it home—what better time than the morning after the night before? But on the other hand he might be feeling somewhat repentant…and pigs might fly.
She took a great deal of time over her appearance, not because it was necessary but she found it therapeutic. She dressed in a cool blue silk designer affair which added a satiny lustre to her golden skin, and as she flicked at her hair she heard the jet overhead and the butterfly trapped inside her found new life.
Nervously she waited in her room, waited to hear the car approaching from the airstrip. This was the moment she needed Felipe, but why, she wasn’t sure. Moral support, perhaps. She had never felt more desperately lonely in her life.
She stood by the window to compose herself. It was like being poised on the end of a diving-board, plucking up the nerve to go in head first. It was then she heard laughter from the gardens below, recognised it though she had only heard it once before. In London, in a restaurant, the three of them.
Bianca was here at the Villa Verde! Her father and Bianca at one time? She couldn’t take it! She couldn’t!
Through her confusion she heard a door slam, Felipe’s door. She launched herself out into the corridor.
‘How could you!’ she cried furiously. Now she knew the depth of his revenge. ‘This is the ultimate torment, is it? Throw Bianca in my face after last night——’
He caught hold of her as she lunged for him, wanting to hurt him so badly that her strength was equal to a rogue elephant’s. Felipe pinned her flaying arms to her side.
‘Stop it, Gemma! For God’s sake, stop it! I didn’t know she was coming tonight. Agustªn must have picked her up in Caracas and brought her here ahead of schedule.’
