by Flora Dain
Freda in here?
I meant to challenge her but she got in first. ‘So you’re off. Can’t say I’m surprised. You’re not his type, you know. It’ll never work.’
The first time I saw her she terrified me. But that was when I was being kidnapped and threatened. Now I’m in the heart of her family but there’s something about her that puzzles me. Her cold look, the hard lines of her face, the stern, uncompromising mouth are so unlike mine it’s hard to feel any warmth for her. But her steely dislike seems unnecessary.
‘I’m not sure anyone’s Ryan’s type at the moment. He’s very ambitious, as I’m sure you’ve guessed. But I wish you well, Freda, truly. I’ve got no claim on him any more.’
My words were meant to be a peace offering but her eyes narrowed.
‘I’m not talking about Ryan.’
Instantly my temper flared. ‘What, you mean Darnley?’
She frowned. ‘Take a piece of advice, sister. He’s complicated. He needs very careful treatment.’ She smiled suddenly. The effect was faintly unpleasant, like seeing a snake have fun. ‘You and Darnley, who’d have thought? We’ve never seen him lose it like he loses it with you. Fascinating.’ She put her head on one side. ‘I guess you’ve noticed you’re not exactly Miss Popularity round here. You scare the living crap out of everybody.’
I caught my breath. ‘I do?’
She grinned, more snake-like than ever. ‘Not you as such – you’re about as scary as marshmallow. They’re scared of what you know.’
I stared. ‘Why?’
Her smile faded. ‘You haven’t noticed, sister? This is a family with secrets. They’ve all got something to hide, even lover-boy Darnley, whatever he’s told you. And families with secrets dislike strangers.’
I turned away abruptly. ‘Thanks for the tip. But I’m not your sister and it’s none of your damn business.’
And now I was angry, really angry. What was she doing in Darnley’s rooms?
* * *
Aaron’s jet lands safely at Charlotte. Here the winds are already dying down as the car he’s ordered for me whisks me onto the campus where I book into the accommodation set aside for the visiting poets.
Meeting and greeting take a while as I catch up with old friends from student days. My nerves disappear. In all the fuss I even remember to call Billy.
‘How’s the weather?’ She’s still anxious. Patiently I explain the pilot was right and the worst of the storm is expected tonight. ‘Anyone would think it was out to get me,’ I grumble. ‘What do you think about Freda?’
I hear her snort on the other end of the line. ‘Why? Still angling for Ryan?’
‘Pur-lease. But she’s so – cold. Is she like that with everybody?’
‘Oh, for crying out loud, Ella. You’re so innocent.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
I hear a scuffle at the other end and a man’s voice and I guess Eldon’s just walked in.
I hear her give a breathy giggle. ‘Sorry, Ella, gotta go. Eldon sends his love.’
The line goes dead. Just then a man with twinkly eyes and a beard pushes forward to meet me and I recognise my old professor. I’m so pleased to see him Freda slips my mind.
* * *
Our rooms are spare but clean, free of freshmen for the vacation. The corridor echoes with student-like chatter, the voices older than when we were students, but the familiar atmosphere brings it all back. As soon as I decently can I close my door and try to call Darnley, hoping for a long sexy-talk session but to my frustration he’s not answering.
All at once I stare at the ceiling in horror.
He said nothing about meeting up again. I’ve been so happy in my own private bubble I haven’t noticed.
Technically speaking I’ve been under his protection all this time. He made all the decisions.
Now I’m on my own.
Will he want to date? Meet for coffee? Will he even call?
It occurs to me with a sickening chill that he never once mentioned seeing me again. And now I’m no longer in danger. He has no reason to see me, none whatever.
And just as I process this awful thought another rushes in. Freda. She was in his en-suite the minute my back was turned.
They go back a way. And now she’s back in my place and with me safely out of the way she’s got a clear field …
I spend a restless night and the wind stays blustery despite all the forecasts.
* * *
In the morning I feel like lead. The sky is still gloomy, the trees here still bending. The hurricane’s long gone now. It’s spun off into the Atlantic but it’s left a gale blowing through my heart. Freda, yet again. I hardly know the woman and she seems to upset my life at every turn.
I reach the Poetry Centre early. I’m delighted when my professor sidles up and mutters darkly that the weather’s keeping people away. ‘There seem to be plenty of people here,’ I mutter, as the crowd around us keeps on swelling and more and more people arrive.
‘We were expecting around a couple of thousand or so,’ he says blithely. ‘But it looks like there’s only a thousand today. Maybe more will come along later in the week.’
I gape, fighting down panic. A thousand? I thought there would be a couple of dozen at most. Just then my phone sounds again. It’s Billy.
‘Hi. Just wanted to wish you luck. You’re on soon, I guess. Having fun?’
‘Yeah,’ I say brightly. ‘It’s all happening. There’s a thousand people coming.’ My words are meant to sound sardonic but she chuckles in glee.
‘That’s terrific. And did you like your surprise? No need to answer that, I know you did. Look, would you put him on the line? Eldon wants to talk to him.’
I stare at the phone. Is she drunk? Not at this hour, surely. It’s barely noon. ‘What? Put who on?’
‘Darnley, of course. He left right after you did. We planned it all beforehand. He wanted to surprise you. That’s why Aaron lent you his own plane. Isn’t he with you?’
I feel ice steal over me. ‘No. I’ve been trying to call him, but he’s not answering. He’s been flying for twenty hours?’
My brain answers my own question. No, of course not, stupid. He must have … I can’t finish the thought. My mind goes blank.
Billy’s talking rapidly now, her voice shrill. I’ve no idea what she’s been saying. ‘… so don’t worry. Go out there and knock’em dead. He’ll turn up. Gotta go.’
I stare into space as people mill around me. Darnley set off soon after me? Where is he? More important, how is he?
The rest of the time goes by in a blur. I feel hollow inside. I’m offered the use of a rehearsal room for a read-through, a small glass of sherry to calm my nerves, a prompt microphone for my ear.
I refuse them all, feeling sick, my mind a blank. I’m just reading a poem from a piece of paper. It’s no big deal. But somewhere out there my lover is flying through a hurricane and he’s gone missing …
All at once I know this is impossible. I can’t go on.
I fight through the crowd to my professor and open my mouth to speak, to tell him I’ve had bad news, to plead with him to change my slot to the next day or the day after. He smiles at me and all at once I feel it, the terrible constriction that paralyses my voice and stops me talking.
Oh, no. Please God, not now … I open my mouth once or twice but no sound comes out.
He pats my arm. ‘Nervous? Of course you are. Perfectly natural. It’ll pass as soon as you get out there. It’s a lovely piece.’
He turns away to talk to someone else and now it’s too late. I’m being ushered up to the stage where the lectern is waiting with its little brass light and spotlights trained on it. From the main part of the hall just out of sight I hear a loud noise like the roar of wind but as someone bounds up onto the stage it lowers to a murmur and I realise it’s the audience.
They’re waiting for me.
The Dean of the Institute says a few words that include my name and the
announcement that I’m the first to speak. She turns to me, smiles and starts clapping. Slowly I walk up the steps, join her on stage where she kisses my cheek and then she walks away. I look up into a sea of people. I glance down at my poem, laid out before me on the lectern, take a deep breath and open my mouth.
Nothing happens.
I try again. Still nothing. I hear whispering now. It grows slowly louder and I look down steadfastly at my poem. The text of it looks impassively back at me, black and white and arranged in orderly rows as the verses march away down the page, singing their rhythms, speaking my soul …
They offer no help.
At that moment there’s a commotion at the back of the hall and someone pushes through into the light. He’s tall and has a small group of bodyguards with him. As they clear a path he comes forward alone and they hang back.
Darnley. In seconds he’s reached the stage, bounds up to join me and holds me with his eyes.
‘I thought you might like a surprise.’ He whispers too low for the microphone.
‘I thought you were dead.’ I want to throw my arms around him, jump and shout, tell everyone he’s wonderfully, gloriously alive, but I can do none of these things.
People are watching.
Now I see he looks gaunt. He has sticking plaster on one temple. There are scratches on his face and he’s unnaturally pale.
‘No dice.’ He grins, touches my arm for a brief moment and then moves in front of the lectern. He looks up, smiles round at the sea of people and clears his throat. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, forgive me for springing this on you. I promised Miss Dean I’d get here earlier and discuss it with the Faculty staff but I was delayed by the storm.’
I look on in astonishment as he outlines a plan for Wolfe Security to sponsor an annual poetry competition. He talks easily. I suppose he often talks at corporate events or in boardrooms. His voice is glorious, rich and deep, his manner easy. The audience is spellbound, women lean forward. The hall falls utterly silent.
At the same time I sense it’s all off-the-cuff. He’s making this up.
‘… and now to Miss Dean’s poem. With her permission I’ll read it.’ He turns to me with a question in his eyes. I nod, too overcome to speak. He wouldn’t dare …
He does dare. He’s good at this. His voice is low, conversational. He shows no trace of nerves. As he talks he glances through the text before him, idly turning the pages like he’s checking notes before a meeting and not under the glare of a thousand people.
As he reads he continues to talk. ‘I’m a businessman so it may surprise you that I take any interest in poetry. But at certain times, often without warning, any one of us can find ourselves in a dark place and in need of help. I was in just such a dark place very recently and poetry helped me. For that I shall be eternally grateful. This poem played a big part in that and I’d like to read it to you now.’
He pauses, smiles round at the ocean of faces and begins. ‘“If you should think this darkening sky …”’
His voice is gorgeous, rich and deep. He could have been an actor. The opera he plays so often when he’s alone takes on a new meaning. I wonder fleetingly if he sings.
He certainly reads my piece beautifully, like he knows it well.
When I wrote it I thought I was being honest and I was digging deep into my soul. But hearing Darnley of all people read it like this moves me to tears.
When I wrote it I thought I knew everything. Now I know different. Miss Normal knows nothing about life, nothing at all. How confidently she scrawled her timid emotions onto the page. This man knows all about pain and fear and terrible choices. He’s lived with them all his life.
Darnley should have written this, not me.
Many people in the audience are moved to tears but I know it’s the power of his personality that moves them, not my words. For me this should be a moment of triumph. Instead I feel hot shame that I ever dared to write it. I’m ashamed to call myself a poet.
When he’s finished he looks up with a broad grin into a stunned silence, and then the hall erupts. Whatever my own feelings about what’s just happened, he’s had a spectacular effect.
I stare up at him, dazed. ‘Thank you,’ I whisper. I don’t know what else to say. How can I thank him? His reading was astonishing but his arrival was a miracle.
All of a sudden I want very much to cry. I steel myself not to.
He touches my hand for a moment, his face troubled. ‘Is that all you have to do?’
I nod.
He smiles casually round at the audience, on their feet now and still clapping wildly, and then turns back to me. ‘Good. Let’s get out of here.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Happiness washes over me in waves. I’m floating on a sea of it, barely able to take my eyes off him. Darnley’s alive. He’s here.
I want to know what happened and why he’s come and how he knew how to read my poem so well. But I’ll have to wait to find out.
His spectacular entrance – not to mention his massive donation to the Institute – requires official recognition and thanks. The organisers and their guests, senior faculty members of the neighbouring university, are hosting a gala lunch and we’re the guests of honour. As we circle the room he repeatedly catches my eye, amused. I catch his and yearn.
At last he glances pointedly at his watch and I dart across the room. Our hands discreetly interweave as his eyes fill with heat.
‘I’ve had enough. You?’
Mindful of the crowd, I fight down the urge to throw my arms around him. We leave with an air of decorum but in the cushioned privacy of his car I let rip. He finds my mouth, and our tongues mingle in an eager, intricate greeting. When he pulls away, still lustful, I pepper him with questions and he trades answers for kisses.
I learn his plane was diverted to avoid the worst of the storm. He and his team came on by road and narrowly missed a falling tree. The scratches came from a branch that splintered a window.
He shrugs off the rest. ‘The phone signals were patchy too. We found it hard to get through. But enough about me. Your poem was a sensation.’
I kiss his cheek. ‘Thanks to you. I can’t thank you enough.’
His brief grin sends sparks through me. ‘We’ll see. You might surprise yourself.’
* * *
His hotel is central and luxurious. In his suite all pretence of civilised behaviour is ripped away as he fastens his mouth on mine and we tear at each other’s clothes. We’ve been apart barely twenty-four hours but it feels like weeks.
It might have been for ever. That thought hits me now with full force and I devour him, tears very close. In minutes I’m pinned across the bed, hands high over my head, breasts spilling out of my wrenched-down bra, my lacy pants kicked halfway across the room and hanging off the corner of a picture frame. He covers me with hot, hungry kisses, sucking me hard, leaving deep, purplish imprints in places mouths rarely go.
I can tell from his frenzied feast he wants as much of me as I do of him. I lean over him to salute his eager, twitching erection with my lips, swirling my tongue over its flat, glossy head, sucking eagerly as tiny pearls of moisture appear at the tip. In seconds he’s ripped some foil and sheathed for action and now he hauls me up into a sitting position across his hips, his hands warm and firm as he grips me by the waist. He smiles cruelly up at me, his glimmer of triumph making me pulse as he lowers me bodily onto his hot, jutting shaft. I sink onto a column of bliss that fills me with heat and stretches me impossibly wide.
‘Ride me.’ His terse command sends flames through my stretched, splayed folds that are straining to accommodate him, taut and slick with need.
I take my weight on my knees and elbows and fasten on his mouth, letting his tongue invade me too, searching and questing deep while his hands explore me, easing deep into my backside, his fingers impaling my rear and pulling me closer, setting up a constant, urgent pressure in my stretched passages that makes me writhe. His other hand kneads and pulls at m
y breasts, punishing my swollen, stiffened nipples with tweaking, rolling pinches that send me into a frenzy.
I giggle a little, heady under his kiss. ‘This is fun. I like being in control.’
‘You? In control? We’ll see about that.’ He’s almost laughing but I see a new gleam in his eyes and feel his muscles flex as his abdomen ripples against my thighs. He spins me over onto my back and pins me down, his face stern. ‘Now I’m in control. And you’ll come when I say so. Agreed?’
‘Again? What is this? You’re taking control of all my orgasms now?’
‘Don’t tempt me. I might. You’re playing with fire if you think you can control me. I mean it. Hold off till I say so. Let’s see how disciplined you can be.’
What’s happening here? One second we’re having a hot, sensational and much-needed reunion, the next we’re playing out some weird ritual, a sex game where I don’t know the rules.
But as he starts to thrust, his regular, deliberate strokes grinding his pelvis into mine and sending urgent signals right into my pulsing centre, I realise I do know the rules. His slow, wolfish smile warns me I’ve always known the rules but he’s the one who makes them.
Control. He always needs control. And in that second I know I enjoy it. I like him being in control.
Take me somewhere … and this is where he takes me, where he’ll always take me, to a place where he’s in control and I must submit. And it’s a place I love …
* * *
Later we sample room service for a picnic meal, lying on our rumpled satin sheets. The food takes a while to eat because I’m allowed only small tastes from the tempting array of cold cuts, sauces, savouries, dips and dessert goodies like mousse, cream and chocolate and butterscotch drizzles. I must eat some things with my hands behind my back, reaching up to nibble from chicken legs suspended from his fingers high above my head. I must lick others off his body, searching deep in his navel with my tongue to secure an olive, a strawberry, a sliver of mango, licking the length of his erection, pulsing and reawakened as I wipe it clear of honeyed butterscotch with sticky dabs of my lips.
