Oh, God, she thought desperately, doesn’t he know about the danger of cramp? She wet her lips nervously. ‘I don’t see any sign of him. Did you?’
George looked up and casually surveyed the empty bay. ‘I expect he’s behind those rocks.’ He poured her orange juice and pushed the coffee pot forward. ‘I have hot croissants, madam …’
‘I don’t want anything right now,’ she said abruptly, and ran back towards the shoreline.
There she paced, her eyes roaming frantically over the bay, the outcropping of rocks, even the edge of the water. There was no sign of him.
She tried to reassure herself that he was a good swimmer; he knew what he was doing; but she was growing more panicky by the second. Her ‘
heart was pounding and her mouth grew dry with terror.
Soon, she was crying, as she wrung her hands and paced the beach.
Dimly, she comprehended that her reaction was not normal—that she hadn’t been herself for days. She had been depressed and weepy and reacting jumpily for a week or more—long before her marriage. And she knew why. She was in love with Thorne Macallan. Perhaps she had always been in love with him. Certainly, her subconscious had recognised it as early as that first day at Maud’s. She had watched him avidly, eager for signs that her words were hurting him. And once they had kissed, she had recognised she was dangerously attracted although, and here she had been a stupid nitwit, she had told herself she was immune. All right to lie to Maud, but she had been a fool to lie to herself! A fool to imagine she was marrying for revenge.
Her eyes searched the water again and she had already advanced into the sea as far as her knees, when she saw his head bobbing on a wave. He lifted an arm and waved, and she saw that he was carrying snorkeling equipment. She felt foolish and limp with reaction. Turning, she ran back to the towel she had dropped on the sand, and scooped up her sunglasses. She was going to have to pull herself together before he got back.
By the time he strode out of the water, his suit and flashing smile the only white against the dark tanned skin, she was stretched out on her towel, her arms down beside her, her eyes hidden by the sunglasses. He stood over her, the water running down in glistening rivulets among the hair on his legs and chest.
‘Very nice,’ he said, his eyes gleaming with sensuous appreciation.
She took off her sunglasses and looked at him in simulated surprise.
‘Hello. Enjoy your swim?’
‘Very much. Had your breakfast yet?’
‘No, I thought I might swim first.’ • ‘I’ll take you snorkeling, if you like.’
‘Later. I’ve never done it before.’ Her hands trembled as she fumbled with her bottle of suntan lotion.
‘Roll over and I’ll do your back.’ He dropped to a crouch beside her.
‘No, you—that’s all right,’ she said hurriedly.
He didn’t bother to answer. Taking the bottle from her, he leaned forward and undipped the back of her bra with one quick movement. She gasped and caught the dangling scrap of cloth as it fell from her breasts.
‘Don’t!’ she cried jerkily, glancing at the terrace. It was empty.
‘Don’t worry. George and Edie won’t see us. You couldn’t get them out of the air conditioning unless it was an emergency. Anyway, didn’t you know people are going bra-less on the beaches round here?’
He grinned at the expression on her face as she lowered herself gingerly to her stomach. He began to smooth the oil over her shoulders and back with long, sweeping movements. As she had known it would, her flesh reacted with an involuntary shiver. He ignored the tell-tale giveaway, and continued to stroke her skin with slow, unhurried movements, His hands covered her ribs, spanning her slim waistline and finding the soft, flattened edges of her breasts. He fumbled with the ties of her bikini pants, ignoring her spasmodic movements of protest, and began a kneading action at the base of her spine. Just as she thought she couldn’t stand anymore of the delicious torment, his-hands dropped lower, to her legs and calves.
His hands were weaving an erotic pattern on her flesh. Wherever he touched, her body responded with a tingle of desire until her skin was sensitised to the point of torture. When he reached her inner thighs, she gave a low groan and he slid his hands beneath her waist and turned her over.
Her eyelids opened slowly, feeling as though they were weighted. She was staring into the face of a stranger, his cheekbones heated by a flush, his pale eyes darkened with hunger. They travelled slowly over the length of her body, seeing the signs of her desire in the restless movements; the taut nipples. Leaning forward, blotting out the sunlight, he lifted her into his arms and began to move, half-running towards the house.
‘The servants . ..’ she gasped.
‘To hell with the servants!’ he muttered thickly. ‘They’re paid to make themselves scarce at a time like this!’
Josey blushed at the thought of the staid elderly couple seeing her carried, naked, in the arms of a husband who obviously was intent on ravishment.
In the bedroom, Thorne put her down and began to strip off his swimming shorts. He was impatient, his arousal evident, and he was not allowing her time for maidenly modesty or objections.
She was staring at him fixedly when he looked up and noticed her.
‘What’s the matter?’ he asked impatiently. Apparently, he read something of her expression for his lip curled. ‘Don’t try to pretend you’re seeing anything you haven’t seen before! Get on the bed!’
‘Thorne, I—I think I’d better tell you something I—s-should have told you before …!’ she began helplessly.
‘Now?’ He looked incredulous.
‘You’ve got to know before we go any further -‘
‘Damn you to hell, you cheating little bitch, I already know all I need to about you! Don’t you go cold on me now!’
He gripped her shoulders with cruel, merciless hands and flung her brutally on the bed, sending her sprawling backwards among the sheets.
Her flame-tipped hair spilled across the pillow and she stared at him in helpless panic, trying to form words that would stop him long enough for him to listen to the rest. Her hands pushed weakly at his chest, as he half-fell across her body, and he thought she was trying to deny him. An ugly expression of cruel, ruthless passion darkened his eyes, and he stopped her mouth with his, his tongue forcing the unuttered words back in her throat.
Then, with a muttered oath, he thrust her thighs apart with brutal, rough hands, and drove harshly for his own satisfaction. The pain ripped her apart, and she gave a low, muffled cry. She felt his hesitation, his pause, but he did not stop. She lay beneath him unmoving and listened to his deep, hoarse breaths, as he gasped out his pleasure into the softness of her throat. Finally, he subsided with a long, racking shudder, and she listened as his heart gradually slowed its pounding and resumed a normal beat. He raised himself on his elbows and stared into her white face.
His eyes were smoky with disbelief and something that might have been pain. ‘My God, Josey, why didn’t you tell me?’
She threw him a look of bitter contempt, then roiled to the other side of the bed, where she curled in a tight ball. ‘Go away.’
He touched her tentatively, and she shook off his hand. ‘Leave me alone.’
He gripped her by the shoulder and dragged her around to face him, ‘No, you don’t,’ he said in a hard voice. ‘I’m not having a sulky bride. I could have made it easier on you if I’d known—it didn’t have to be that way.
You didn’t tell me you were a virgin. Why?’
‘Would you have believed me?’
He knew what she meant. ‘Not at first, no, but you could have tried.
And after we were married … Damn it, Josey, you were acting like a cold-blooded little tease! I thought you were playing that little game of yours.’
‘What game?’
There was a long pause. His face was withdrawn, remote. ‘You’re the one with secrets. How the hell would I know if you don’t
tell me?’ He waited a moment, then said mildly, ‘What about John? I thought…’
She whirled on him with flashing eyes. ‘I know, you thought I was his mistress because two horrid old miserly women told you so! You didn’t bother to ask John’s lawyer or old Maggie Anderson about the annuity I bought her! No! You thought I was guilty!’ she blazed.
‘I’m sorry, Josey,’ he said gently. ‘Why didn’t you set me straight?’
‘Because I was angry. You had prejudged me, just as you’ve done since the first day you ever saw me!’
His eyes narrowed alertly. ‘What do you mean?’
She faltered and stopped. Tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘I want a divorce. This marriage isn’t going to work. I mean it, Thorne. I want you to take me back to Atlanta and start a divorce right away.’
He laughed, a low, rollicking laugh that was filled with such tender amusement that her heart contracted with agony. ‘Ah, Josey, you’re just disillusioned. Your first experience with passion has proved a great disappointment, and you’ve decided to chuck it all and run, like the habitual little coward that you are! You’re not running away from this, my darling, and you’re certainly not backing out on our bargain. No, beauty, you’re staying and seeing this one through.’
She stared at him stonily, willing her face to remain unmoved. ‘I want’a divorce.’
His eyes darkened. ‘You’re not getting it,’ he said evenly. ‘At the risk of repeating myself. You’re merely scared and irrational.’
‘I was never more rational in my life.’
‘Perhaps you’re nursing another secret, locked away in that squirrely little brain of yours?’ he suggested blandly. ‘If so, get it out, Josey. You’ll feel better for having told it.’? She drew a sharp breath. He was getting close, too close. ‘The only secret I have,’ she said nastily, ‘is an all-consuming dislike for you! After what has just happened, I can’t go through with it.
You make my flesh crawl!’
His hands tightened spasmodically on her shoulders, his face hardening with a vicious look of anger that reminded her that he had a fierce temper and the strength to go with it. For a moment, she was frightened as he brought his anger under control. ‘You’re mine,’ he said deliberately. A sardonic amusement coloured his voice as he stared into her apprehensive eyes. ‘Yes, “you’re right to be scared. If I believed you, I might kill you, but I know you’re lying for some purpose of your own.
But that’s not important so long as you understand that you are my wife. I bought and paid for you, you double-crossing little cheat, and you’re keeping your side of the bargain if I have to tie you to my bed. You wanted the luxuries my money can buy, and you wanted sex, and that’s all you asked for out of this marriage. So far, I’ve lavished a good supply of the first on you, and I’m prepared to follow through with the latter, whether you fight me or not. Right now, incidentally, because I think you need another lesson in who you belong to.’
He leaned over her. In spite of the brutality of his words, his eyes were warm with a trace of compassion and a dry smile flitted around his mouth.
He placed a hand softly on her breast and deliberately, began to arouse her.
She knew she couldn’t fight him, but she lay with clenched fists, obstinately glaring at him.
He glanced up, his eyes smoky with amusement. ‘I think you do me less than justice, my sweet,’ he taunted silkily. ‘Do you really think this doesn’t tell its own story?’
He flicked the taut peaks of her breasts, then lowered his mouth to the soft mounds. He wooed her with soft, gentle movements, tormenting and teasing until she was gasping and twisting restlessly beneath his hands.
The dark tide of desire was running strong and Josey, loving him as she did, was helpless to control its flow.
At the peak of her pleasure, she sobbed his name and gripped his shoulder, her nails digging into the flesh.
‘Gently, darling, gently,’ he murmured against her throat.
Finally, she lay quietly in his arms, her breasts rising and falling with her breathing. He watched her with heavy lidded eyes and when she looked at him, he smiled.
‘I think we’ll try a shower now. I’m covered with salt water and you, my little sensualist, are covered with the dew of love.’
‘The dew of love?’
He ran a lazy hand across her face and upper lip. ‘See?’
Slipping off the bed, he lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bathroom. There, he turned on the shower and put her in it, then stepped in with her. His grin flashed at her startled look.
‘We have to share,’ he said wickedly. ‘There’s a water shortage.’
Palming a bar of soap in his hand, he lathered her luxuriously while her body answered with tingling shivers. Then, he shampooed her hair, bracing her against the flat planes of his stomach while he soaped and massaged her scalp. His hand moved through the strands, separating them for the flow of rinse water, and he kissed her frequently on her upturned face. When he finished, he quickly scrubbed himself, then towelled them both dry.
He tucked his towel around his lean hips and followed her into the bedroom, where he had her sit on the side of the bed while he towelled her hair dry. When he finished, he parted the long strands of burnished copper and sought her mouth with soft, sensuous lips.
‘What about it, Josey. Going to accept my apology?’
‘Apology?’
‘For prejudging you. I made a hell of a mistake, and I’ll regret it the rest of my life. I won’t do it again. But, Josey, from now on, trust me.’ He sounded stern but his eyes were kind. ‘You haven’t, you know, not once so far. You don’t even know how. How can we make a marriage without trust?’
‘How can we make a marriage without love?’
He re-arranged the coils of hair so they no longer covered her breasts.
‘We have something better than love,’ he replied, leaning forward to kiss the soft, tender flesh. ‘A lot of marriages don’t have as much.’
She understood what he meant. But her love had governed her strong, physical response to him-—she knew that, even if he didn’t. ‘Is it enough?’ she asked hesitantly.
‘It’s enough,’ he said positively. ‘Don’t trust love. Trust this.’ He caressed her wrist, picking up the increased heartbeat beneath his long, lean fingers.
Her mouth opened to receive his gentle kiss. She couldn’t have left him, anyway, not unless he sent her away. Not now. And she couldn’t tell him the truth, either, for the same reason. She was in love and she was afraid of losing him.
CHAPTER TEN
THEY stayed a week at the white house on the beach before returning to Atlanta. Thorne taught Josey to Snorkel and they spent many hours underwater in the little curving bay. Their days followed a pattern—the mornings were spent swimming, boating, fishing . .. Then, the long languorous siesta, spent behind drawn drapes and closed doors in their bedroom. After that, a lazy cocktail hour was followed by an excellent meal cooked and served by George and his wife, Edie. They had the house to themselves after dinner. The servants did not live in, but returned to their own home at night.
Occasionally, they went out to one of the hotels to dance, but mostly, they stayed at home, playing cards, dancing or merely listening to music before returning to the bed that was the scene of their greatest pleasure. It was an idyllic existence and Josey dreaded to see it come to an end. She knew things would inevitably change when it did.
She found it easy to talk to Thorne here, resting in the shelter of his arms on the sofa, while they listened to music—the haunting strains of Ravel’s Bolero or the Bach which Thorne’s methodical mind preferred.
He asked questions about her childhood, and she told him about her parents and Medlar’s Mill. He wanted to know every small detail, and for the first time, she found it easy to talk about them. The raw pain she was used to feeling was gone.
But when she came to the part about her decision to leave home and go to Atlanta, she proceed
ed more slowly, choosing her words with care.
She shrugged aside most of his questions.
‘It was too silly, to think I could sing professionally,’ she said off-handedly. ‘I soon found I couldn’t compete in that sort of world.’
He did not talk about his own childhood. A wall went up when she tried to talk about it, and she, knowing all too well that memories can be painful, didn’t try to probe.
It was only when they made love that she forgot herself. At night and every dawn when the cool morning breeze awakened them, they would turn to each other as though famished. She never got enough of him. Tentatively at first, then with more confidence as he welcomed it, she began to initiate some of the caresses. He called her a sensualist, but she could see that he was pleased by her responses. And so long as he was pleased, he wouldn’t look elsewhere, she reminded herself.
They returned to Atlanta to find the city in the middle of its worst winter storm in years. It was locked in ice, shivering under the impact of snow and sleet from the north. On the way from the airport, Josey’s body, accustomed to the tropical temperatures, shivered in the fur coat.
‘Poor darling. Are you cold?’ Thorne hugged her protectively, but he sounded absentminded. He was back home and already, his mind was on other things. Josey, watching him, shivered again and wondered if this could be the beginning of a change.
‘Do you like it?’ Thorne watched her closely as he showed her over his penthouse apartment. It was on the top floor of a highrise dwelling in a fashionable section of Atlanta, and Josey learned as they rode up the elevator that Thorne owned the building.
She did not answer. Thorne’s apartment was nothing like John’s shabby home or even the luxurious comfort of Maud’s. It was—Josey searched for the word—impersonal. It lacked warmth, although everywhere she looked she saw paintings and art objects.
‘If you don’t like it, you may change it.’
Josey started, and realised it was important to him for her to like his home. ‘Don’t be absurd! I wouldn’t dare—it’s too beautiful.’
Lady With A Past Page 9
