by Sara Craven
She waited as Sam unlocked a door on the second floor and stood aside for her to precede him. ‘Welcome,’ he said with faint mockery.
‘If you say so.’ One swift appraisal told her plenty. It was a large flat, clean and comfortable, but totally masculine in ambience.
Apart from a couple of photographs, the interior was workmanlike—almost Spartan. There weren’t many personal touches at all, but maybe that was deliberate.
In fact, it was more like an office than home. Or a staging post for someone always on the move. It had a strangely transient air, she thought, recalling the travel books at the other house. As if the occupier were simply—passing through.
If any women had stayed there they’d left no traces of their tastes or personalities. Or perhaps they just hadn’t been around for long enough…
‘Well?’ There was still that underlying note of amusement in his voice.
She paused. ‘You’re very—tidy.’
‘Not always,’ he said. ‘My mother would say I haven’t been back here long enough to create any serious mess. Besides, I always make an effort when I’m expecting visitors.’
‘You were expecting—me?’
‘I was counting on it.’
She lifted her chin. ‘So, you were following me after all.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I told you. I was visiting a friend in the Albermarle Clinic. He’s recovering from a mild heart attack and is due to be discharged quite soon, when his wife is going to whisk him off to a quiet village in Yorkshire to recuperate. Now you know it all.’
He paused. ‘Anyway, I didn’t have to follow. Because I knew I’d find you And I wouldn’t even have to go looking.’
Ros shrugged. ‘You make it sound important.’ Her voice was dismissive.
‘And so it is—to me.’ He walked into the kitchen, filled the kettle and plugged it in while she watched from the doorway. He sounded almost reflective. ‘You see, I’ve got tired of being dumped outside your door like a bag of trash each time you have second thoughts.’
He smiled at her. ‘So I decided, for a change, that you could come here, and we could be together and talk, until we had the inevitable big row, when I could kick you out instead.’
It was not funny, Ros told the silence that followed in outrage. It simply was not. This was the man who’d destroyed her peace of mind and turned her life to turmoil.
So why did she feel laughter welling up inside her, eventually emerging in a small, uncontrollable wail?
She found herself clinging to the doorpost, overwhelmed by a tidal wave of giggles, unable to speak, barely able to breathe, tears running down her face.
Only to realise, suddenly, that she was no longer laughing, but weeping, her giggles replaced by sobs that tore at her throat.
Sam was across the kitchen at her side, his arms enfolding, his voice suddenly, magically soothing. She let her shaking body sink into his embrace, pressing her face convulsively into his shoulder, and felt his hand gently stroking her hair.
At last, her sobs still shuddering through her, she lifted her head and tried to speak. To apologise? To make some plea? She would never be sure.
He shook his head, and touched a finger lightly to her lips, forbidding speech. Then he began to kiss her, swiftly, lightly, his mouth brushing the tears from her lashes and drenched cheeks.
Only it wasn’t enough, some drowning part of her recognised. She wanted more. She wanted everything.
Her hands reached up, gripping his shoulders with fierce intent. She stared up at him, her lips parting—trembling…
She heard Sam give a soft, muffled groan, then his mouth covered hers in a demand as deep and unashamed as her own.
She answered it with something that bordered on delirium, savouring the taste of his mouth, the thrust of his tongue, scalding hot and honey-sweet. The kiss clung, broke for the beat of a breath, then raged again, enflaming and engulfing them both.
Ros tipped her head back, letting his lips slide down the line of her throat, feeling the subtle flick of his tongue around the hollow of her ear.
His hands cupped her breasts, moulding them through the ribbed silk of her sweater, and she gasped, arching her body so that the delicate peaks thrust in mute offering against his caressing fingers.
He pushed roughly at her sweater, his fingers freeing the clasp of her bra so that his lips could feed on the untrammelled, scented roundness that he had released.
She encircled his head with her arms, holding him to her, glorying in the bittersweet tug of his mouth on her flesh.
His hands grasped her hips, pulling her body forward so that it ground against his, male and female in the eternal heated conjunction.
Her legs were shaking, her body melting as he lifted her into his arms and carried her away.
As he lowered her she felt the softness of a mattress under her back, and the scent of fresh linen.
Then Sam knelt over her, hands clumsy with haste as he began to rid her of her clothes, and she was aware of nothing else but him. There was no sound in the room now except the rasp of fastenings and the rustle of discarded fabric, combined with the harsh urgency of their breathing.
Naked at last, they came together, his fingers stroking her exquisitely to flame, to prepare her for the first stark thrust of possession. He entered her without hesitation, and her hips lifted eagerly to meet him, her legs locking round him, her hands clinging to his sweat-damp shoulders.
Staring down at her, eyes half closed, the muscles knotted in his throat, Sam drove into her, deeply, rhythmically, and her body rose in response, drawing him further and further into some molten infinity of need.
At the very edge of consciousness, Ros was aware of the first dark stirrings of pleasure unfurling slowly and inexorably within her.
Even as she cried out silently, It’s too soon. Not yet…she was overtaken. Overwhelmed. Left spent and shaken, hearing her voice uttering its last moans of voluptuous delight.
Hearing Sam groan in turn, as he reached his own extremity of sensation.
And this time the tears he kissed from her face were tears of joy.
A long time later, she said, ‘So this is your bedroom.’
‘You don’t miss much.’ She heard the grin in his voice, and her own mouth curved.
‘I didn’t get much chance to admire the decor,’ she reminded him, dropping a kiss on his shoulder.
He rested his cheek on her hair. ‘Now you’ll tell me that the ceiling needs painting,’ he murmured, and yelped as she bit him softly. ‘So—do you approve?’
Without moving from his arms, Ros took a leisurely look round. A plain stone-coloured carpet, she noted, complemented by a classic wardrobe and tallboy in some dark polished wood, navy curtains at the window, and bedding in navy and white percale.
‘It looks good,’ she said. ‘Subdued.’
Sudden laughter shook him. ‘What were you expecting—mirrors on the ceiling—black satin sheets—hidden video cameras?’
‘I didn’t know what to expect,’ she said. ‘Maybe that’s what worries me. Here we are—and yet I know so little about you, Sam. So very little.’
There was a silence, and she felt the chest muscles beneath her cheek tense slightly.
He said, ‘That’s why I brought you here. So you could see that I have a place to live, and I’m not existing out of a cardboard box on the street. To prove to you that I live alone too.’
He paused. ‘And it’s not part of some lonely hearts ploy either—before you ask. I’ve brought no one else here. You’re the first.’
She said in a small voice, ‘Oh.’
‘Is that “Oh, I’m pleased” or “Oh, I’m sorry”?’
‘I—I’m not sure.’
He said quietly, ‘Do you feel it’s all moving too fast for you?’
‘I think that’s what I ought to feel.’
‘But?’
Her fingers strayed across his chest, stroking the flat nipples. She said slowly, ‘But it’s di
fficult to believe you haven’t always been part of my life.’
He nodded. ‘I have something to confess too.’ He put his hand under her chin, tipping up her face so that he could look into her eyes. ‘I said earlier that I wouldn’t have to go looking for you, but it was a lie. I was actually on my way over to your house when I saw you.
‘And it wasn’t to find out whether or not you’re pregnant, either,’ he added huskily. ‘It was because I couldn’t bear to keep away any longer.’
‘So it must have been fate,’ she said. ‘Do you believe in fate?’
‘I never did before.’
He kissed her, his mouth moving gently, languorously, on hers.
When her breathing steadied, she said, ‘I might not have opened my door to you.’
‘I was prepared to take that risk,’ he said. ‘And I’d have camped on your steps and sung you love songs until you had to let me in. Because I have this really terrible voice.’
A little quiver of laughter ran through her, followed by a deep shudder of anticipation because his hand was moving, slowly but very surely, caressing the tautening swell of her breast, then moving downward to stroke the silken skin of her thigh, before seeking once more the inner heated moisture it protected.
Reducing her in seconds to gasping, molten sensation. A state of exquisite, pulsating chaos where nothing mattered except his lips, his fingers, and the hard strength of his body invading hers—possessing her utterly.
Afterwards, she fell asleep in his arms. But at some point he must have eased himself away from her, because when she woke she was alone in the bed.
Ros propped herself up on an elbow and stared round the empty room. She was just beginning to feel uneasy when the door opened and Sam came in. He was dressed, she saw, casual in jeans and a white cotton shirt, and he was carrying two beakers of coffee.
‘I bet the first thing Sleeping Beauty asked for after the prince’s kiss was room service,’ he remarked, putting the coffee down on the night table.
‘Wrong.’ Ros pushed her hair back ruefully. ‘It was a mirror.’
‘We have those too.’ His lips touched the top of her head. ‘But you look quite beautiful enough, so drink your coffee first.’
Faint colour rose in her face as she sat up, pulling the sheet around her body.
‘You’re going shy on me again,’ Sam lounged on the end of the bed, his eyes disconcertingly intent as they studied her. ‘Don’t you think that’s locking the stable door after the horse has not simply bolted, but vanished over the horizon?’
‘I suppose so.’ Her colour deepened. ‘But this is the way I am. I—I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be,’ he said. ‘I like the way you are.’
She paused. ‘I thought you’d be sleeping too. Are you some kind of superman?’
‘Far from it,’ he said, and paused. ‘But I had some heavy-duty thinking to do,’ he went on levelly. ‘And I think better without a naked and very desirable girl in my arms.’
The coffee scalded her throat, making her gasp. ‘Experience has taught you that?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Some delayed but necessary common sense.’
‘Common sense?’ Ros echoed, keeping her voice light. ‘I don’t think I like the sound of that.’
‘I felt one of us should try it—however late in the day.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘I want you to know that when I brought you here I didn’t intend—any of this.’
His mouth tightened. ‘If I had done, I might have been—better prepared,’ he added with rueful emphasis.
She tried a smile. ‘What were you just saying about a bolting horse?’
‘That’s the whole point. We made one serious mistake already.’ His own expression was sober—almost grave. ‘We didn’t have to compound it today. And for that I blame myself totally. We’ve been playing a kind of sexual Russian Roulette—and it has to stop.’
In spite of the coffee’s heat, there was a sudden cold feeling in the pit of Ros’s stomach.
She found herself examining the pattern on the beaker rather too carefully. ‘There’s no question of blame,’ she said quietly. ‘We both wanted this—didn’t we?’
‘Yes,’ he said. But that still doesn’t make it right.’
‘No,’ she said. Fright stirred and shook inside her. ‘No, of course not.’
There was another silence, then he said bluntly, ‘All this has happened at a bad time for me, Janie. My life’s a mess. I have to get it sorted.’
And move on. He didn’t say it, but she heard the words in her head. He’d been abroad, he’d come back, and soon he would be gone again. All the clues to his life were there, just waiting to be recognised. And staying around—commitment—was not part of his agenda.
I noticed, she thought with anguish, but I didn’t build up the pattern. I didn’t realise this had ‘temporary’ written all over it. Not until this moment.
Hurt made her want to hit back. She said, ‘I happened at an inconvenient time for you. You happened at a convenient time for me. I guess we cancel each other out.’
‘Convenient?’ His brows drew together sharply. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘I was having problems with my boyfriend,’ she said. ‘I’m sure I told you. Well—since I haven’t been available—he’s been coming round again. Phoning me. Suggesting that we should give ourselves another chance.’
He was very still. ‘And shall you?’ he spoke evenly.
‘I don’t know yet.’
‘Of course you don’t.’ His tone bit. ‘A second chance with another man’s child thrown in might be a little much for him.’
‘I—don’t think that will happen.’
‘How can you be sure?’
Because I’d know if I had your baby inside me, beginning its life, she wanted to scream at him. Because I’d feel it there, in every fibre of my being. My body would be a haven—a secure place, warm, dark and hidden—instead of a scared, disintegrating shell…
She shrugged. ‘Instinct, I suppose.’
‘A very potent thing. And how are his antennae working, I wonder?’ He was smiling, but his eyes were blazing. ‘Will they pick up that you’re not the same person any more? Tell him that you’ve spent hours in bed with someone you hardly know?’
Ros put the beaker down on the night table. ‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation.’
‘I’m simply trying to make you understand that you don’t want him. That you don’t need to say these things, because I’m being punished enough already. But you can’t involve someone else in our private war. It isn’t fair…’
‘Don’t talk to me about fair.’ Her voice shook. ‘You haven’t been fair with me from the start. Well, have you?’
Deny it, she pleaded inwardly. Oh, please deny it. Say that I’m imagining things. Tell me you want me—that we have a future together some day—and I’ll believe you. I swear I will…
He bent his head. His voice seemed to come from the far side of the room. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, I haven’t.’
There was a silence, and pain poured into it. Filled it, so that she could not breath, or think, or speak.
‘Janie,’ he said. ‘Look at me. Accept that I won’t offer promises or guarantees that I might not be able to keep.’ He took a deep breath. ‘You don’t know how much I’d like to say “Live with me and be my love”, but I can’t. Not the way things are. And under the circumstances I had no right to bring you here—to make love to you again. Only don’t ask me to regret a minute of it. Because I can’t, and I never will.’
‘Is that supposed to make everything all right?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘That would be asking too much.’
She stared at the stitching on the coverlet. ‘Is it another woman? Is that the “mess” you have to sort out?’
‘No.’ The word exploded from him. ‘At least, not in the way that you mean. But don’t ask me to explain any more—at least not now.’
‘You don’
t have to explain—or apologise. Not now. Not ever. You didn’t force me. My God.’ She gave a small, brittle laugh. ‘You barely had to seduce me. We’re both consenting adults, and there are no broken bones. These things happen.’
‘Not,’ he said softly, ‘in the way that they happened to us.’
She said, ‘There is no “us”.’ And swallowed. ‘Could you leave me alone now, please? I’d like to get dressed.’
It was a ludicrous request, when they both knew there wasn’t an inch of her that he hadn’t explored with his hands and lips. He could probably have sketched her from memory.
She expected at the very least some jeering remark, even if he didn’t laugh in her face.
Instead, he nodded silently, and left the room.
Ros huddled into her clothes. She felt numb—empty now. But that wouldn’t last. The pain would return, and this time it could destroy her.
In the two years she’d spent with Colin she’d never glimpsed the depth of emotion she felt for Sam after only a matter of days.
How cruel that was, she thought desolately, and how unjust. Colin had deserved so much better. He’d always been loyal and decent. She’d been the one who’d held back, reluctant to commit herself.
And now, like a pathetic idiot, she’d mistaken a few hours of white-hot passion for love. Chosen a man who’d only wanted sex without complications, and was now backing away.
Humiliation clawed at her. She’d meant to be cool and careful, but she’d let him see too much of her hopes and needs. She’d opened the door and allowed him into her heart—into the centre of her being.
Now she had to get out of here with as much self-respect as she could salvage.
He was speaking on the phone in the living room. She longed to be able to creep past to the front door and make her escape while he was still engaged on his call, but she’d left her bag and briefcase by the sofa and she couldn’t leave without them.
So she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, and walked into the room.
Sam was replacing the receiver. He was frowning, lost in thought, then he looked up and saw her, and time seemed to stop as they looked at each other. His expression was set, the turquoise eyes unfathomable.
