by Marie Laval
Through a veil of tears she saw him shake his head and smile. How dare he smile when he was destroying everything she loved? All the emotional upheaval of the past week suddenly caught up with her, swept her up in a tidal wave of grief and anger.
‘I have to go.’ She turned away and made for the door.
She didn’t get very far. Two strong arms snatched her back.
‘Calm down and listen.’ He spun her round until his arms encircled her waist and she was trapped against his chest.
‘Let go of me.’ She struggled to break free but he was too strong.
‘Not before you listen to me. I’m trying to explain that although I must shut down Love Taxis because it’s not viable as a business, I have come to agree with you about the need for more public transport around here. I want to start a new venture – a minibus company – and ask you to help run it.’
His words took a few seconds to penetrate her brain. Her body stilled, she lifted her face towards him and met his cool, grey stare.
‘A bus company?’
‘A social enterprise, a non-profit venture if you like. I don’t believe any private hire firm would be profitable around here.’ He was still holding her tight, and his warmth was seeping through her nightclothes, and making her dizzy all over again.
‘I do, however, believe I can find enough capital and public grants to start something.’ He gazed down at her. ‘Will you stop crying now?’
She smiled. He wasn’t selfish and cold-hearted, after all. He had listened. He cared about the people of Irlwick. On an impulse, she rose on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek.
‘Thank you.’ There was so much more she wanted to say. That she loved him, for a start. She loved him so much. She’d known it, fought it, for long enough. Now she had to accept it.
He held her more tightly. Something shifted in his eyes, his face became tense. ‘Rosalie … I want to kiss you.’
‘Oh.’ Her heart stopped then started again with a bump. Mesmerised by the heat in his eyes, the closeness of his mouth, she felt quite unable to speak. He slipped his hand onto the back of her neck and drew her to him. For the briefest of moments their breath mingled, then his lips touched hers.
With a groan he wrapped his arm around her waist and moulded her to him as if she was made of hot, soft and yielding clay. His mouth caressed and teased, light as a feather, until she parted her lips, and then he kissed her hard and deep.
Her heart drummed hard as his hands glided along the curve of her back in a slow, fiery caress. Her satin dressing gown rustled as he drew her closer, and her breasts felt full and heavy as they rubbed against his hard body in an arousing caress that caused her to whimper and arch against him. Her fingers gripped his shoulders, laced at the back of his neck. Closer, she wanted to be closer. It was like being thrown at the centre of a whirlwind. Never before had her body felt so alive. Never before had she been filled with this burning need to be touched, kissed, and taken.
The silk and velvet of female skin. Its sweet, warm, intoxicating scent. A man could lose himself in so much softness. His fingers pushed Rosalie’s dressing gown over her shoulders and he bent down to kiss her jaw line, the side of her throat and the hollow at its base where her pulse beat, fast, erratic.
She threw her head back and her breasts pushed upwards, straining against the nightdress’s bodice. He wanted to touch, taste and savour, get drunk on the taste of her. There was only one force driving him – primal and overwhelming. Strip her down and expose her body to his gaze, his hands, his mouth. Then lay her under him and thrust deep inside her. The heat of feeling and need swelling, pulsing inside him threatened to annihilate any conscious thought he might have.
He heard her moan softly and looked down. Her eyes were unfocused – dark pools of warm, liquid chocolate. Her lips were red and swollen, the skin of her cheeks and throat flushed a delicious pink. Her fingers stroked the back of his neck in a light, insistent caress that made his body harder. Could it be that, despite everything that stood between them, she wanted him as much as he wanted her?
Hope soared inside him, only to be immediately crushed. She might want him right now, but it still didn’t mean he had the right to take her. He didn’t do relationships. He had nothing to give a woman, especially one as special, kind and genuine as Rosalie – nothing but a few moments of heat and pleasure. Rosalie deserved better.
He tore his mouth away with a ragged breath, took a step back.
‘Wait,’ he said in a rough whisper. ‘I can’t make any promises. I can’t stay with you. My life, my work are a long way away from here …’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t want your promises, I only want your kisses.’
He smiled. ‘That sounds suspiciously like one of your Happy Baby Radio tunes.’ He bent lower, closing the space between them. ‘All I can give you is the here and now.’
She put her index finger on his lips. ‘That too sounds like a song.’
‘I’m serious, Rosalie.’
‘So am I.’
‘Are you sure?’
For an answer she stood on her tiptoes, brushed her lips to his, traced the outline of his mouth with the tip of her tongue.
He kissed her again, revelling in the taste of her mouth, aroused by her soft, lush, female body. He felt like he was burning with a fever, and it had nothing to do with the flames dancing in the fireplace behind him.
‘I want to take you to my room and make love to you.’
He waited the space of a few pounding heartbeats, felt her shiver in his arms.
She let out a low chuckle. ‘Then what are you waiting for?’
He took her hand and led her up the stairs to the first floor and the Crimson Room, pausing every few steps to kiss her lips, her eyelids or the tender skin of her throat. When they finally reached the first floor, he pushed the door to his room open with his shoulder and strode across the wooden floorboards. The bedside lamp was on and cast a dim, warm glow onto the bed, leaving the rest of the room shrouded in thick shadows.
He slid one hand against her cheek, the other around her waist and drew her close. He could have taken her anywhere in Raventhorn – on the drawing room sofa or the rug in front of the fire, on the stairs or standing against the wall in the corridor, but for some inexplicable reason it was in the massive four-poster bed he wanted to make love to her.
As he kissed her mouth again, and again, there was no clear thought in his mind, only a chaos of sensations and needs, of colours and scents. He wanted more. He wanted everything. And he wanted it now. He tumbled her onto the bed, covered her with his body, and started nuzzling the side of her neck, trailing kisses down to her shoulder and back to her earlobe until she writhed and sighed and whimpered under him. The sounds of satin and skin rustling against the ruby red counterpane inflamed his senses further.
His fingers felt thick and clumsy as he untied her belt and pushed the dressing gown off her shoulders. With a sharp tug, he pulled the bodice of her nightdress down and his hard, eager mouth closed onto her breast. She tangled her fingers in his hair to draw him closer while he kissed and teased and suckled one tender pink tip, then the other, into hard buds.
He pulled up the hem of her nightdress until it bunched up around her waist and then he stroked the silky skin inside her thigh, and when he touched her at last he caught her moan in his mouth. Drunk on the smell and the feel of her, he deepened his kiss. His fingers caressed, applied pressure, took. Nothing mattered but her and the feel of her body trembling under him. Her hands clutched at the bedcover, her breathing was short and shallow, and her heart thudded against his chest. And when she arched against his hand and cried out, he felt like the strongest, the wealthiest, the most powerful man on earth.
Suddenly touching her wasn’t enough. He wanted to be inside her. He lifted himself off the bed, stood up to peel his jumper off and take his jeans off. He couldn’t take his eyes off her as she lay on the bed, eyes closed, a half smile on her lips, and her body almost nake
d, soft, flushed, open. An offering. For him alone.
Naked at last, he lay next to her on the bed and his hands found the lush curves of her breasts, her hips and stomach. Bending down, he kissed her lips softly, teasing and nipping, until she moaned and her fingers tickled once again the back of his neck, slid down his spine then up again to knot into his hair. Every one of her caresses was a sweet torment; every one of her kisses drove him wild.
In the small corner of his subconscious that was still dimly aware of reality, of her, himself and their surroundings, he felt her body tremble and was experienced enough to recognise it was probably because she was shy, or a little scared.
In another lifetime he would have forced himself to slow down, gentle his touch, wait until he was sure she was ready. Tonight, in that great massive bed which looked like an island in a sea of shadows, something wild and hot and primitive drove him.
He thrust away the last glimmer of awareness and rolled on top of her, bent down and kissed her mouth again whilst his hands roamed, hard and impatient now over her body. He pushed a knee between her legs to spread them wider apart, grabbed hold of her wrists and pinned her arms above her head.
‘I want you.’
She opened her eyes. Her lips were red, her cheeks flushed a deep pink. Her brown curls tangled on the red counterpane, since in his haste he hadn’t even pulled the covers down. At that moment his heart knew exactly who she was.
She was the mysterious woman he’d dreamt of every night since he’d arrived at Raventhorn. The woman who made him feel whole. The one who touched his soul.
He pushed deep inside her, slowly at first then harder and faster, and together they moved and soared inside that dark and delicious place where time and space ceased to exist.
She sobbed his name once, then once more. She tensed, threw her head back against the pillow. He took hold of her hands, pinned them on the bed and interlaced his fingers with hers and followed her.
Chapter Eighteen
She curled up against him and buried her face in the crook of his neck, as if she was suddenly too shy to look at him. He had no idea of the time. They had made love twice, and already his body stirred at the feel and intoxicating scent of her skin. Guilt suddenly stabbed at his chest and he cursed himself silently. In his brutal, all-consuming need to make her his, he hadn’t spared her injured shoulder a thought and had probably been too rough. If truth be told, he had been quite incapable of thinking at all.
‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’ he asked, anxious now.
She snuggled closer. Her breath tickled his chest. ‘Not at all.’
‘I think I might have got a little carried away.’
She looked up. ‘At least now you understand why this old bed is so popular.’
It took a second to understand what she meant. He rolled on top of her, lifted her hands and pinned them on the pillow by either side of her head.
‘You mean you don’t think I could make love to you anywhere else but here?’
She laughed. ‘Probably not as well. This is a magic bed after all.’
He smiled, lowered his face to hers until their lips almost touched. ‘This is a challenge I can’t ignore. I must prove you wrong, starting right now.’
‘You seem very sure of yourself.’
Rolling off her, he got up, picked her dressing gown from the floor and handed it to her. ‘Come with me.’
She sat up, stifled a yawn and shook her hair. It fell in a mass of tangles on her shoulders, tantalising close to her breasts, conjuring images of him playing with the silken strands to stroke her and awaken her desire once more.
‘Where to?’ she asked.
‘The drawing room.’ He retrieved his clothes from a corner of the room and slipped them on.
‘I was only joking, you know,’ she said.
‘I wasn’t. Anyway,’ he added. ‘We could both do with a drink, and I want to check on the fire.’
‘Don’t worry, neither Dughall McBride nor Old Finghall will let anything bad happen to Raventhorn.’
He frowned. ‘Who?’
Then he remembered the names. They were Raventhorn’s house ghosts. Dughall, Finghall, a howling woman he’d forgotten the name of. And Isobel, of course. A shiver of unease crept down his spine. He didn’t want to think about Isobel, or whoever pretended to be her. Only a few hours ago he’d known without a doubt it was all a scam and someone was out there posing as the Raven Lady. Now he wasn’t so sure, and it annoyed the hell out of him.
He could easily dismiss the silhouettes he’d seen at the side of the road in Corby Woods or at the top of the ruined castle for trick of shadows and light, but he’d been sure he’d seen a woman in the loch – so sure he hadn’t hesitated to walk into freezing water. It was only a dream – some hallucination brought about by stress, not enough sleep, and Angus’s strong ale. Not to mention moon shadows on the water.
Rosalie was looking at him. ‘Don’t look so cross.’ She sounded worried.
He stroked her cheek with his index finger. ‘I’m not cross.’ At least not with her, never with her, he finished silently. ‘Come on, let’s go down and check on that fire.’
‘I need my nightdress,’ she said, looking around the bed.
‘Your dressing gown will do just fine.’ His hands tingled with the urge to touch her again. The way he was feeling right now, she would probably end up naked in his arms the moment they reached the drawing room – if they made it down there at all. This was ludicrous. He hadn’t lusted after a woman this much since he was a teenager.
She covered up and pointed to the post. ‘Aren’t you going to carve your mark? It’s tradition, you know.’
‘Not just yet … I’ll wait until I have a few.’
Once downstairs, Rosalie insisted on making hot drinks whilst he tended to the fire. He put several logs in the grate and poked at the embers until sparks flew and flames rose once more in the chimney.
She came back carrying a tray with a teapot, two mugs and a plate of chocolate biscuits she put down on the side table near the sofa.
‘We’re having tea. It’s too late for coffee, and I don’t think you need another of Angus’s special ales.’ She chuckled and poured them both a drink, then grabbed hold of a biscuit and bit into it.
‘I see you’ve been busy reading some of Geoff’s research papers,’ she said, pushing some of McBride’s books off the sofa to make space to sit down.
Marc lowered himself and sat at her feet. He reached out for his mug of tea, stretched his leg in front of him – the one he had hurt in the accident – and winced. It had been healing nicely but his swim in the freezing loch hadn’t done his wound any good. He drank a sip of tea, looked around the drawing room and let out a contented sigh.
Tonight, Raventhorn was a warm, welcoming cocoon. It felt like home, he thought, surprised. Leaving in the morning would be hard, and not only because he dreaded the emotional turmoil he would find Maguire in. He had no inclination to deal with office business or Kirsty’s imperious demands for his time and commitment to a New York project he did not support – to a company he no longer wanted to be part of. With a pang he realised he would gladly give up the life he was accustomed to and stay here, to drive the cab, listen to Rosalie talk and sing to her Happy Baby Radio, and make love to her all night …
Rosalie cast a quick glance at his profile as he stared at the fire. His hair stuck up at the front, and his hands curled around his steaming cup of tea – the very same hands that had earlier roamed over her body, and possessed her so thoroughly the very memory made her pulse beat harder and heat burn her cheeks. How wanton of her to give herself so completely to a man she’d only known for a few weeks, a man so different from her in every respect. A man she knew would leave in a few hours.
Her throat tightened. He had done the decent thing and warned her that there could be no relationship between them, that his life was far away from Raventhorn, and she had accepted his terms. Thinking about what might happen in
one day, or one week, was pointless. She only wanted the here, and the now – or at least that’s what she’d claimed. The problem was that she had lied.
Her throat tightened. She discarded her half-eaten biscuit on the plate, swallowed some hot tea, and put her mug down before pulling one of the manuscripts onto her knees.
Her finger ran along the lines of fine, spidery writing that covered it. The paper was yellow and brittle, the ink had faded to a pale blue. This was probably a very old, very precious manuscript, yet Geoff now kept them in careless piles in the library. After her mother’s death, he had refused to hire anybody to catalogue his books. She had tried to help for a few weeks, but when she set up Love Taxis the library had descended into chaos.
She pointed to the rune-covered pages. ‘So you can’t really translate any of this?’
He shook his head. ‘I can only decipher a few lines, I’m afraid.’
‘Yet you told Rupert you were close to finding the location of Harald’s treasure.’
‘I lied. I don’t trust him. He seemed far more interested in McBride’s bank statements than in those personal papers and diary he claims to have lost.’
‘He looked through Geoff’s bank statements? Oh, I hate that man! I wish he’d stayed in London with his girlfriend, whoever she is.’ Unease and dread wrapped around her heart as she remembered the young woman at the holiday lodge and the man who’d shouted from the back room. The man whose cold, angry voice she couldn’t forget. In fact, she’d heard it in a nightmare so vivid a few nights ago she’d woken up in tears, her heart pounding with fear and calling for her mother like a little girl.
She shrugged to dispel the unpleasant feeling and looked down at the runes again. The ancient writing looked beautiful, mysterious, magical … and completely incomprehensible!
‘How did you learn? Geoff tried to teach me but he was never the most patient of men, and I wasn’t a good student.’
