Fantasy Lover

by Sally Heywood

  Confident she had got his measure, and satisfied that she had managed to push the previous night back into perspective, she gave a start when a shadow fell across her pad.

  'I hope that's not meant to be me?' Head on one side, Torrin gazed down at the series of concentric circles she had drawn.

  'I couldn't do you justice,' she murmured suggestively, eyeing his near-naked body. Before she could move he flung a towel over his shoulders and went to the door.

  'Have a work-out yourself while I'm in the shower,' he suggested over his shoulder. 'This part of the programme is censored --' Then he stopped, eyes roving wickedly over her face. 'Unless you insist, of course?'

  'I—er—no, I don't think I'd be able to get it past my editor,' she answered coquettishly. When he went out she found her imagination focusing with disturbing insistence on what was taking place next door. It had been easier than she'd expected to let him think she was impressed.

  The weather took a turn for the worse later that morning. Torrin had been out for a cross-country run and Merril had gamely accompanied him, grudgingly, but silently admiring when they finished to find that he was still as fresh as when he'd started, whereas she... 'Mind if I have a shower?' she asked, as she followed him up the steps into the house. Her anger was still simmering, despite the opportunity to run it off.

  'Try the jacuzzi if you like. It'll stop your muscles aching tomorrow,' he suggested.

  Stung to think he could see she had difficulty keeping up with him, she nodded and went up.

  While she was splashing about in the swirling waters she heard the rain begin. The sound increased until it was pounding on the wooden roof of the millhouse with a deafening sound that cut out all else.

  Getting out of the jacuzzi, she stood at the window and looked out. Water was already beginning to rage through the sluice out of the millpond, the stream in its steep cutting below the garden frothing over the lichen-covered rocks, twigs and small branches tossed up on a sudden wild journey downstream. The wooden bridge was high above the level of the water, and beyond that Merril could just glimpse the dark waters of the millpool itself, pitted with the lash of rain as the clouds opened. A strong smell of wet vegetation and rich earth mingled with the perfume of flowers. Then the wind veered, gusting in through the open window, bringing a spray of rain over her face. She wiped her eyes and dropped the catch.

  She dressed and went back downstairs to find Torrin. He was waiting for her with a hot drink and smiled as she tasted it. 'It's a good pick-me-up. I use a lot of nervous energy when I'm in a show. Though I guess it looks effortless from the stalls—at least, I hope it does.'

  'Oh, it does,' she agreed ironically. 'Everyone tells you so, don't they?'

  'All the time. But then, as professional hangers-on that's their role, isn't it? In your view?'

  She took another sip of the drink. 'It is rather good,' she admitted with unexpected relish. Then She gave a sudden laugh, her eyes alight. 'But don't take that as flattery, will you?'

  'As if I would,' Torrin murmured drily, his amber eyes drifting over her face, suddenly stopping, lingering over her smiling mouth with such a look of desire that the breath was trapped in her throat and a deep stillness held them, both in its grip; it was as if everything in the universe had swung to a momentary halt.

  Merril tried to turn away but couldn't, and stood transfixed as he moved slowly towards her.

  'When you relax, when you stop sparring with me and forget all your preconceptions, you have a look of such openness—innocence ...' Cautiously he lifted one hand and reached forward towards her. 'Merril . . . you're so beautiful.'

  She took a shuddering breath. Outside the rain was still pounding on the roof, but here within they were locked in a half-lit world of their own. It was a moment out of time as Torrin's hand, slowly reaching out, touched her hair, her face, hovering, sliding with feather lightness down the side of her cheek to her lips, and his voice honeyed over her, saying, 'Let's stop fighting and start loving. I want you so much, darling, so very much . . .'

  CHAPTER SIX

  the room had darkened now as the storm passed right overhead. They were rain-locked in an island of their own. Merril felt anything could happen. Hypnotised by the indescribable softness of Torrin's touch, she struggled to regain her detachment, desperately striving like someone in a dream to return to a state of wakefulness.

  Moving her head slightly in an attempt to free herself from the whisper of his touch on her pulsing skin, she heard her own voice utter a single cry of protest.

  'Don't fight me, Merril,' he replied.

  'Yes --' she croaked, her mind a turmoil of emotion. 'I must. You're not—you're not the sort of man I could ever—please, Torrin, don't touch me like that!'

  'I don't fit the image of your ideal lover?' he mocked, letting his fingers slide into her hair as if she hadn't objected.

  'Lover, perhaps,' she came back, surprised to find it was true. 'But when I give myself it'll be for ever ... to a man I can respect as well as desire. Nothing less will do!' Her eyes skidded helplessly over his handsome features and down the tanned column of his neck to the powerful shoulders, to the broad chest, aware of the perfect physique beneath the designer denims, then back, helplessly, to lock once more with those knowing amber eyes, fighting what they were telling her with such engulfing power.

  His voice was soft but full of conviction. 'You're stuck with some fantasy figure and it won't let you see the real man in front of you. Wake up to reality, Merril. Let me show you the difference between a flesh-and-blood lover and this impossible ideal you've invented. You'll forget your dream lover when you have the real thing.'

  'Real thing?' she exclaimed, her voice rising as she struggled to resist what he was telling her. 'Is anything real for you? Even now I don't know whether you're acting or not!' She broke off with a harsh laugh. 'But I do know, don't I? That's one thing I can be sure of!'

  His eyes were dark hollows. She felt menaced by the look in them, as if she could read there a threat to take away all her resistance.

  Torrin held out a hand. 'Believe in me, Merril,' he said simply. 'This is real.' Panic sent her stepping back, dashing his hand away, terrified to find herself on the verge of betraying the past.

  'Don't touch me!' she repeated, gaining strength from the deep well of fear on whose brink she stood. 'I hate everything you stand for! Nothing you say is true. You're a sham! Your whole life is a masquerade! You want to see me surrender because I resist. Vanity won't let you leave me in peace. You can't see I don't want anything to do with you. I'm only here because my editor forced me to take this stupid assignment. I didn't want to interview you. I hate you! I hate everything you stand for!'

  A flash of lightning lit up the room, giving his face an unearthly look, making it haggard, hollow-eyed, like a mask. Her words sounded thin against the roar of the storm, but she tried to inject conviction into the words she flung at him by raising her voice. 'There's only one kind of man I want—and it's not your kind! Call it a dream—I don't care!' As she spoke she almost believed she was as indifferent as she claimed.

  Her face was a white oval in the half-light.

  'You little fool!' Torrin ground out, all gentleness wiped out in a sudden surge of violence. Can't you see the truth even now?' He lunged towards her and she gave a small scream, stumbling back out of range, felt his arms come round her, crushing her against his hard body, fury sparking from him like a powerful current, paralysing her for a moment until she rallied, flinging back her head with a harsh laugh of scorn at this perfectly enacted image of a man in torment.

  'Still acting, Torrin? But this is real life. You're not on stage now! Can't you tell the difference?'

  She felt his grasp slacken. In the darkness his face looked ashen, drained of colour by the weird storm-light filtering through the windows. She twisted, glimpsing the thrashing branches of the trees outside as the deluge flattened them, expecting him to release her. But instead his hands tightened roun
d her waist, his desire blazingly real as he ground her body against his own.

  Suddenly the helplessness she felt in his arms arrowed through her again with sickening speed. He could, he would take her, despite her protests, her struggles, her cries for help. She would be unable to stop him. His desire was real, animal, overwhelming. His face, a perfect mask of desire, made her tremble, with fear.

  Then the real danger scored her mind. It wasn't Torrin's desire she was afraid of—it was her own, her own wild, savage yearning to be taken, to be loved, to give herself completely to the fire consuming her soul.

  With a shuddering breath she forced herself to slacken her struggles, feeling his own hold loosen as he thought she was about to yield, then with a panic-stricken twist she was out of his arms and half-way across the room before he could follow. She pushed a chair into his path as he lunged after her, seeing with satisfaction how he stumbled for a moment, giving her sufficient time to wrench open the door.

  Then she was running, mindlessly, heedlessly, through the torrential downpour, across the garden, towards the wooden bridge.

  She reached it just as Torrin ran down the steps, her name on his lips, the sound ringing out eerily in the persistent crashing of the water along the bottom of the cut.

  With one last flinging look over her shoulder she reached out for the bridge rail, then to her immense horror she grasped air, her feet skidding under her on the wet stones at the brink of the stream, and then she was falling, twisting, hitting the bank half-way down, then rolling over, scrabbling helplessly at the mud bank, fingers grasping uselessly at trailing stems as they broke beneath her grasp, gasping as the shock of cola water ran rapidly up inside her blouse, closing with the finality of a door above her head.

  The next few seconds were a blank, until she was thrown to the surface further downstream, an image beneath the surface of her panic of Torrin standing at the top of the bank. Then fear took over as the current sucked her down, drawing the waters over her like a suffocating veil.

  It was a familiar voice, not her own, intimately near, a whirl of white and a tangle of restraining threads pulling at her, that made her start fighting, lashing out, feeling only empty space, then something heavy, dragging at her limbs, filling her mouth so that her breath felt stopped. Then her eyes opened fully. Torrin was leaning over her.

  For a moment she wondered if he had carried out his earlier intention, and she sat up in panic, surprised to find herself lying in thick wet grass and not in the bed she had immediately imagined. Confused, she looked about her.

  'Keep still, you're a little concussed.' His arm was round her for support. It felt right like that. Merril lay back for a moment, her eyes struggling to close against her determination to keep them open.

  Familiar lines flitted into her mind and she gave a weak laugh. 'At the risk of sounding corny, where . . .' Her words trailed away with the effort.

  'Where are you?' Torrin finished, holding her close. 'You slipped into the millrace. Not the best time to go swimming when it's as swollen as it is now,' he reproved gently as he smoothed back her wet hair and pulled a few leaves out of it. 'You look like a mermaid, a siren. Can you sing?'

  'Not at the moment.' Forcing her eyes open, Merril blinked up at him through small slits. The light hurt. But it was surprisingly pleasant lying here with him in the grass. She nestled against him. All she could remember was their argument in the house, his rugged body overwhelmingly close, her own feeling of wanting to yield to its power ...

  'Was that why I ran away?' she murmured, trying to sit up a little.

  'What's that, darling?'

  It seemed natural for him to address her with such intimate tenderness. 'I ran away because I thought—I thought --'

  'I know what you thought.' His face was so close to her own that she could see the faint hardening in his eyes, the compression of his long, mobile lips, and she reached out to touch them.

  'Your lips are so heavenly,' she murmured.

  'Heavenly, are they now?' He looked down at her. 'That's not what you've been trying to tell me for the last day or so. It takes a knock on the head, does it?'

  She moved her face closer, tilting her lips so that they nearly brushed his, waiting expectantly for the ravishing warmth of their touch on her own. But he simply shifted his arm so that she was moved a little out of range.

  'Your clothes are all wet, even your hair . . .' She brushed her fingers over the wet stubble.

  'I haven't yet devised a way of moving through water without getting wet,' Torrin told her, catching her fingers as they hovered near his lips.

  She gave him a wondering look. 'You mean you dived into the millrace and dragged me to safety?'

  'Of course I did, you little idiot. You didn't expect me to stand helplessly on the bank and let you drown, did you?'

  The brief lowering of her lashes was eloquent enough.

  'Thanks.' He tucked her hand by her side and let it go.

  'Do you feel you can get up now?' he asked curtly. 'I don't want to get a streaming cold from sitting in wet grass when I've got a show to do.'

  Ignoring this, Merril leaned against him, letting him haul her to her feel after a moment or two, pressing herself close against him as they stood. Their faces were only a few inches apart. She felt her chin tilt again, hungry for the touch that before she had fiercely resisted.

  'Can you walk? Come on, try,' he urged, ignoring her undulations as she leaned against him.

  They were on the edge of a meadow bordering the stream beneath the level of the garden, and he helped her walk slowly back through lush grass spotted with celandines, as yellow bright as Chinese lacquer, and made misty beneath a distant hawthorn hedge by a haze of cow parsley. The place had a tremulous beauty to match Merril's feelings.

  Weakly she leaned against him, giving up any pretence that the touch of his body didn't arouse her own to a fever of desire. But he forced her to keep walking even when, as they climbed the slope to the house, her feet slipped and he had to hold her tightly in his arms.

  She almost convinced herself it was the prelude to a scene like the one in the house. This time, she knew, things would be different. She felt vulnerable, quivering with tenderness, sorry from the bottom of her heart for the hateful things she had said to him. Her antagonism had been overrun by all the mixed-up emotions her discovery of her true feelings and the accident and Torrin's rescue had aroused.

  He was leading her with painful slowness across the garden, so slowly she was becoming impatient.

  'Go in,' he said when they reached the steps. 'Have a hot shower. Can you manage by yourself?' He looked up at her from the bottom of the steps.

  She must have registered puzzlement, for he gave a faint smile. 'I'll be with you in a moment. Go on, do as I say.'

  Puzzled, Merril went in alone, squelching over the parquet to the stairs, dropping her sodden clothes down on the Spanish tiles in the bathroom as soon as she could discard them, thankful that Torrin's austerity didn't exclude the very latest in bathroom equipment. Before her accident this indulgence would have been one more mark against him. Now she was ready to revise her opinion in one sweep. How she had misjudged him! her thoughts ran on as she stood under the shower. She had been convinced he would be the type to lose his head at the slightest hint of physical danger, but he had proved her wrong, risking his own life to save hers.

  'You're still in shock. I wonder if that bump on your head needs attention?'

  A voice from the doorway lifted her head. She had emerged from the shower, dragging one of the red towels round herself, and remembered sitting on the edge of the bath for a moment. She must have been there longer than she realised. Now Torrin was staring at her from the doorway, not with the brightness of desire in his eyes, but with a look of deep concern. She allowed the towel to slip a little, revealing one breast, longing to see the look of desire in his eyes once more. She was chilled when he merely reached out, pulling down a bathrobe from behind the door and flinging it
over her with a out, 'Put that on, then go to your room. I'll bring you a drink.'

  A few minutes later Merril was propped up against a mound of lacy pillows, a glass of brandy in her hand, Torrin lying across the foot of the bed in a black towelling bathrobe, his tanned face turned away from her as he spoke.

  'I can't leave you here by yourself. When you feel rested you'd better get dressed and come into town with me this evening. You can sit in my dressing-room during the performance, and if you need anything my dresser will be on hand to help you.'

  It was exactly what she had wanted earlier, an excuse to get back to London, to make her escape. But now she had no intention of running away. She would stay with Torrin—she had to, because he had revealed a side of his character she hadn't suspected. She wanted to see more of it. She had made a mistake about him, as well as about the depth of her own feelings. When he had dragged her out of the millrace there was no way he could have been acting. For the first time she was convinced he was genuine. The courage to risk one's own neck in order to rescue someone in danger was not something that could ever be faked.

  The car arrived just after five to pick Torrin up for the theatre, and Merril, ready to go, was first out of the house.

  She was half-way towards the bridge before she slowed, turning impatiently as Torrin seemed to take an age to walk down the steps and follow her across the garden towards it.

  'Frightened?' he gibed when he eventually came up beside her.

  'Not with you here,' she replied, adding, 'You're the one who looks frightened. Are you all right? You're as white as a sheet!'

  'I'm always frightened. I thought that's what you had against me?' he responded with a cutting glance.

  'Stage fright?' she questioned, astonished, but able to think of no other explanation.

  'That as well,' he-replied cryptically. 'A lot of actors suffer stage fright.' He pushed her ahead. 'Don't hang about. I have to have plenty of time to endure the agony before the half-hour call.'