by Emma Darcy
‘Yes...’ He expelled the word with a violence of feeling that expressed a turbulent inner world of pent-up emotion. She saw his control disintegrate, torn asunder by a raw blaze of male possessiveness.
He drove himself deep inside her and she wrapped her legs around his hips, rocking with him in a rhythm that beat into her mind and heart and soul, a pounding crescendo of ecstatic fulfilment as they claimed each other in a mating ritual as old as time. She loved the solid strength of him plunging to her womb, tried to hold him clasped there, to restrain the passage of his withdrawal, exulted as he thrust forward to fill the waiting void again. Her whole being centred on the sensation, and the excitement of it multiplied, peaked, and burst into a molten mass of exquisite pleasure.
She heard Damien cry out, felt the wild strain of his body still pulsing inside her, then his climactic release spilling another flood of warmth, mingling with hers, forging the ultimate completion. His arms burrowed under her, hugging her close, carrying her with him as he rolled on to his side, enveloping her in a cradle of intimacy that held them joined together.
His hands moved caressingly over her in a blind fervour of touching. He kissed her hair, his lips skimming sensually over its soft silkiness, savouring the freedom to taste and feel in the blissful knowledge that she belonged to him as wholly and solely as he belonged to her.
Natalie lay contentedly in his embrace, her head upon his shoulder, basking in the vibrant warmth of their intimacy, feeling an incredibly sweet sense of security. We were meant to come together, she thought in languid pleasure. She had been right to abandon the past and take the future Damien offered her. Everything felt right with him.
She had no inclination to speak. The silence was beautiful, peaceful, imbued with a harmony that words couldn’t express. Eventually she had to move to ease her leg. Damien was quickly solicitous of her comfort, piling pillows for her head, dragging the quilt over her to ensure she didn’t become cold.
His eyes were soft, telling her how special she was to him. She smiled and trailed her fingers down his cheek, wondering if he was as sensitive to her touch as she was to his. There was still so much to learn about him.
‘Tell me what you feel,’ she said impulsively.
‘Joy.’ He grinned. ‘I am literally tingling with a wild effervescent pleasure I can barely contain.’
She laughed from sheer elation that he felt the same fulfilment she did. ‘You don’t have to contain it, Damien. We can do whatever we like.’
‘What would you like?’
It was typical of him to consider her feelings first. Natalie thought for a moment, wanting to please him. ‘Let’s have some champagne. I think we should celebrate.’
‘That certainly suits my mood.’
‘Stay here.’ She stopped him from moving. ‘I’ll get it. We’ll drink it in bed.’ Her eyes danced wickedly at him. ‘I love this bed. Especially with you in it with me.’
He laughed, his exhilaration bubbling over.
Natalie flung the quilt aside and sashayed down the room to the sitting area, deliciously aware that Damien’s eyes were glued to every feminine curve of her body. It was highly stimulating to know he found her so desirable and Natalie was proud of the fact she had kept her figure in good shape. She took immense pleasure in his watching her. It was a measure of her sense of security with him that she could feel so uninhibited about her nakedness. Not only uninhibited, she found herself revelling in it.
She carried the ice-bucket back first, nestling it in the quilt beside Damien. He was propped up on one arm, a delighted grin fixed on his face, his eyes sparkling with happiness.
‘You could busy yourself with the cork,’ she admonished.
‘I can’t take my eyes off you.’
Natalie had no argument with that. She made a return trip for the glasses. The way Damien’s eyes feasted over her breasts and hips and thighs was very tantalising. She decided they would forget about lunch altogether. Champagne and grapes and strawberries were fine. And seductive. And exciting. And fun.
She set the glasses on the closest night-stand and started back for the bowl of fruit. ‘We might as well be totally decadent,’ she declared. ‘You can feed me strawberries while I’ll arrange little morsels for you.’
‘I feel my appetite stirring,’ Damien said, the tone in his voice clearly intimating food was not on his mind.
Tucked into the side of the bowl of fruit was a grey card embossed in gold. ‘MERLINMIST’ was printed on it in Roman calligraphy. It was so beautifully done, Natalie automatically picked the card up and opened it to look at what was inside. ‘Compliments of the house’ was printed in the same script. Her eye, however, was drawn to the hand-written message underneath.
‘Thank you for staying with us again.’
It was signed by the manager.
Natalie frowned over it.
‘What’s the matter?’ Damien asked.
She looked quizzically at him. ‘You did say you hadn’t stayed here before.’
It arrested Damien’s full attention. ‘That’s true.’
‘But I have?’ It was more a statement than a question. Memories were starting to come back.
Damien looked like a man who had discovered a treasure at the end of the rainbow, only to see it summarily snatched away.
‘Tell me the truth, Damien,’ she demanded, but she already knew the truth. As he did, too. ‘When did I stay here before?’ she asked accusingly.
His face tightened into grim resignation. His eyes dulled with weariness. ‘On your honeymoon,’ he replied, each word a heavy drip of despair. ‘On your wretched honeymoon with Brett.’
Natalie shuddered as the apt description struck home, stirring all the memories of painful confusion and disillusionment that summed up her honeymoon with Brett. The revelations rebounded on the intimacy she had just shared with Damien. She suddenly felt dirty and shamed and hurt and wounded. The compulsion to cover her nakedness was compelling, overwhelming.
She whirled and almost ran to the bathroom, remembering the robes hanging behind the door. She couldn’t bear to hunt the floor for her clothes. Such a reminder of her utter abandonment to Damien Chandler was humiliating. In this place...of all places! How could she have chosen it?
‘Natalie...’
She ignored the imploring call, plucking a bathrobe from its hook, frantically pulling the belt apart, thrusting her arms into the long floppy sleeves, wrapping the heavy towelling fabric tightly around her in a fierce need to be properly covered.
But there was no hiding from the man who had brought her here, the man she had shared a honeymoon bed with, the man whose influence was so pervading and inescapable. She stepped out of the bathroom, her head tilted high, her hands thrust into the deep pockets of the bathrobe.
‘Yes,’ she said bitterly. ‘It was a miserable honeymoon with Brett. As miserable as any woman could have. And apart from Brett himself, you had more to do with it, Damien, than any person alive.’
She glared at him, her mind flooded with black resentment of the perfection he had promised. ‘How can you ever be forgiven?’
CHAPTER NINE
DAMIEN’S expression underwent a profound change. His eyes kindled with fiery determination. He rose from the bed with all the bristling pride of a man whose honour had been challenged. He was totally unconcerned by his nakedness as he strode down the room. He scooped his jeans from the floor and drew them on as though girding his loins for battle. Steely grey eyes pinned Natalie to where she stood by the bathroom doorway.
Not that Natalie wanted to move any closer to him. Damien Chandler had a lot to answer for. Outrage burned through her stomach, turning the desire she had felt for him to blistering bitterness. He had known what memories Merlinmist held for her, and he had let her make the decision without saying a word to stop or discourage her. Had there been some lurking subconscious thought that she would regain her memories in such a horrible fashion? What kind of man did that make him?
&n
bsp; ‘Now, tell me, Natalie...’ he stood with his arms hanging free, his torso bare, aggressive in its raw muscular power ‘...what possible blame can you lay at my door for what happened on your honeymoon with Brett? I wasn’t here. I am not responsible for...’
‘You were here,’ she cut in fiercely. ‘Every minute of every day you were here. It was because of you Brett chose this place for a honeymoon. Not to please me, but to best you, Damien. He beat you so he could boast about it to you.’
‘That is not...my...fault,’ Damien bit out, his eyes as sharp as scalpels, intent on slicing to the heart of her retreat from him.
She gave a bitter laugh. ‘I hated you before I came to know you.’
‘What did I do to deserve such prejudice?’ he demanded.
She stared at him, her mind tunnelling back to her wedding-day... Brett’s best man...his best friend and business partner...Damien Chandler...charming, courteous, faultlessly correct in his behaviour towards her, yet holding an aloofness that denied her entry into his personal world. That hadn’t worried her at the time. She had had Brett. At least, she’d thought she had Brett. She didn’t know then that Damien was the centrifugal force around which Brett’s life spun, that she was a pawn in a competition, giving Brett a leading edge over Damien.
‘You knew all about it, Damien,’ she stated with unequivocal conviction. ‘You knew Brett a lot better than I did.’
‘What a man knows of another man is not what a woman knows of him, Natalie,’ he argued. ‘From what Brett told me, you were the perfect woman for him, and from what I observed on your wedding-day you were very much in love with him.’
‘But that wasn’t all you observed, was it?’
There was a flicker of evasion in his eyes. ‘What are you referring to?’
‘You knew what a womaniser Brett was. He didn’t even have the discretion to keep by my side at the wedding reception. The only time you engaged me in conversation, at length, was when Brett went missing with one of your married friends. You should remember her, Damien,’ she said with biting sarcasm. ‘I asked you her name. It was Rhoda Jennings.’
‘She was...the wife of a friend,’ he replied stiffly. ‘A gushing flirt...particularly after a few drinks. She meant nothing to Brett.’
‘You covered up for him. You deliberately moved in and covered up for him while he...bonked is the word, isn’t it?...another woman on our wedding-day.’
His head jerked in a pained negative. ‘I couldn’t believe he’d do it. I still don’t know if he actually did. Why would he do such a thing when he had you?’
‘You stopped me from looking for him.’
‘I wanted to protect you from any needless upset. Brett had finished with Rhoda months before. Slipping off with her could have been a stupid impulse he’d quickly think better of. I hoped...it worried me...but I didn’t know for certain, Natalie.’
‘You protected him. Or tried to. You were two of a kind...’
‘I disagreed violently with some of the things Brett did.’ Damien was clearly disturbed by the course the conversation was taking. ‘But I don’t feel I have to disown someone because I violently disagree with them.’
‘When Brett undressed that night, the musky smell was unmistakable and pervasive. He explained it away, saying it was desire for me. I wanted to believe it...’
‘For God’s sake! Why not believe him? Why on earth would he want anyone else?’
‘No doubt it gave him a kick, a perverse pleasure, leaving you on Best Man duty while he lived dangerously. Thanks for looking after my bride, Damien. I’ll be having her for seconds. Is that what he said to you when he came back?’ Natalie couldn’t keep the scorn from her voice. ‘I married a creep who didn’t have one faithful bone in his body.’
‘You married a man with a serious problem. The way he was brought up by his father after his mother deserted them...it was an ingrained attitude, Natalie. He never learnt how to relate to women except in the most basic biological fashion. I thought once he had a wife...’
‘You saw him go with that woman. You helped him all the way.’
A flush of anger speared across Damien’s cheekbones. ‘I knew you meant more to him than any other woman who’d crossed his life. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t ask what he’d been doing, and he didn’t tell me. He was very attentive to you when he returned. I thought everything was all right.’
He sounded sincere. Passionately sincere. Natalie hesitated, wondering if she was doing him an injustice. Perhaps he hadn’t realised Brett had been using her in a game of one-upmanship with his best and oldest friend. Yet how couldn’t he know? The cruel game must have been going on for years...women, places, sporting activities, business...nothing was excluded.
Natalie wondered if Brett had deliberately kept her away from any contact with Damien while he courted her, always flying up to Noosa, never asking her to visit him in Sydney. Was getting himself a wife some kind of coup over Damien, who had lost his through divorce? Or had Brett been ensuring there was no competition over the woman he had chosen to marry?
The first time she and Damien had laid eyes on each other was in the church, moments before the marriage ceremony had begun. She remembered thinking what a contrast they were, Brett with his golden good looks and sky-blue eyes, his best friend darkly handsome, thick black lashes shadowing deeply set eyes. They had looked so striking, standing together. Then Brett had smiled at her, a bright dazzling smile, and Natalie had forgotten the man at his side.
She didn’t know then she would be endlessly reminded of Damien throughout her honeymoon, that he was ever-present in Brett’s psyche, dominating what should have been an exclusive sharing with her.
‘I wasn’t enough for Brett,’ Natalie stated bluntly. ‘Apart from whatever he did with Rhoda Jennings, we were no sooner here than he started eyeing the wife of another guest, playing up to her, openly flirting. He had to be the king-pin, organising outings, making each night a party. And your name was a constant accompaniment to everything that pleased him. Damien will be green with envy when I tell him about this. Damien, Damien, Damien...’
Her eyes flashed intense bitterness. ‘You were more important to him than I was. Everything was more important to him than I was. It was as though he had won a cast-iron possession so he didn’t have to work at giving me his undivided attention any more.’
‘I’m not clairvoyant, Natalie. When I saw you walking up the aisle to Brett, I thought him a very lucky man. I thought he’d appreciate his luck.’
‘So you helped his luck along,’ she mocked. ‘Was it a score to you when you told him you’d saved his marriage from being over before it started?’
‘I’ve explained why I did what I did,’ he snapped.
‘But you called my honeymoon with Brett wretched, Damien. How would you know it was wretched if you truly believed everything was all right between me and Brett? Brett would never have told you it was wretched, and I would never have admitted it. Especially not to you.’
‘No, your loyalty to Brett was absolute,’ Damien retorted savagely. ‘You never admitted anything. You shut me out as though I were a leper.’
‘So how did you know?’ she challenged.
‘Your honeymoon...your honeymoon with Brett...was wretched for me, Natalie.’
The pain in his eyes stabbed her into silence. She had been so focused on what had happened between her and Brett that she hadn’t considered Damien’s feelings about their marriage.
‘Because Brett had beaten you?’ she asked.
His mouth twisted in disagreement. ‘There was no contest in my mind. You had chosen him. You were my best friend’s wife. I had to accept that. But I couldn’t help wishing I’d found you first. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking of you...with him...wondering if it was good...and wishing it were me.’
The passion in his voice shattered the defences she had raised, yet still she felt the need to clear the tangle of doubts in her mind.
‘Did you t
hink you might get what you wanted without my remembering? Was that it, Damien? You decided to risk staying at Merlinmist to fulfil what you couldn’t have before?’
‘It was your choice, Natalie. I acquiesced. I didn’t like what was happening.’
He turned aside, scooped up his shirt, and pulled it on. He picked up his shoes and socks, sat down in the closest armchair and proceeded to finish dressing himself, doggedly ignoring her presence although the tension between them was palpable.
‘I asked you what Merlinmist meant to you. You should have told me,’ she fired at him, angered by his dismissal, and the truth contained in it.
‘I didn’t want to remind you.’ He stood up, his eyes glittering resentment. ‘Why the hell should I remind you of what Brett did to you? What he did. Not me. I never did one damned thing to hurt you. Ever!’
‘You went along with my choice of staying here, knowing it might hurt me,’ she returned hotly.
‘What did I know, Natalie? You directed us here. You insisted every instinct told you it was right. I believed in your instinct. This was where you wanted to be with me. To start afresh.’ He made a derisive sound. ‘What choice did that leave me?’
She had to acknowledge he hadn’t liked it, but did that excuse his acquiescence?
‘For all I knew,’ he continued bitterly, ‘you had a need to wipe out unhappy memories, overlaying them with good ones. I was the one who had to stop myself from being haunted by the ghost of Brett. And now you throw him in my face. Well, if this is some twisted revenge for your twisted perception of me, I can do without it.’
She was abruptly presented with his back as he strode towards the door. ‘Where are you going?’ she cried, suddenly torn by the fear of him leaving her.
‘To get some fresh air.’ He wrenched the door open, then halted his exit, his gaze sweeping back to her, piercing in its intensity. ‘Why you would want to pollute what we just shared together is beyond my understanding.’
