Confrontation

by Sarah Holland

  She was kissing him, lingeringly, her pulses throbbing out of control. 'Yes... I provoked it... out of fury...'

  'And desire!' he said against her mouth. 'Say it...'

  Her green eyes opened, blazing and she whispered fiercely, 'Yes! Desire, too!'

  He gave a hoarse groan, and then his mouth was on hers, kissing her into oblivion, and she kissed him back, her hands running over his strong neck, the powerful shoulders, and heard him whisper her name fiercely, his hands moving to the zip of her dress, tugging it down, pulling it roughly from her shoulders to expose her full, firm breasts in the black lacy bra.

  He stared down at them for a second, eyes silver with desire and anger, then he made a rough sound of excitement under his breath, his fingers tugging down the lacy bra cups to expose her.

  They stared into each other's eyes, both breathing hoarsely as his fingers stroked her bare breasts.

  'If I made love to you now,' he said thickly, 'nobody would know. Just you and I. It would be ecstasy, Caroline. We both know it. Lie back and let it happen.' His fingers moved back and forth over her erect nipple. 'Oh, God... let it happen…'

  Hot colour flooded her excited face. 'No!'

  'Why not?' he asked under his breath. 'It's what we both want!'

  She pushed at his broad shoulders, angry. 'Just sexual attraction, Mark? Is that all it is? I've felt it a hundred times before! I can walk away from it without batting an eyelid!'

  He met her angry eyes. There was a long fraught silence.

  'All right!' he said tightly. 'There's more to it than that and we both know it!'

  'Then put a name on it!' she said, her voice shaking. 'Or wave goodbye to it!'

  'A name...' He stared, then his face darkened with rage. 'What the hell are you talking about? I want to go to bed with you! It's as simple as that!'

  'Still just sex, then?' she said in a hoarse voice, hating him.

  'What else is it?' he bit out, eyes blazing. 'I've been going slowly mad in that damned office for months! Sitting there dreaming about you, undressing you, wondering what you'd look like naked...'

  'Well, dreams don't always come true,' she said hoarsely, her mouth tight with determination.

  His eyes glinted, a smile on his hard mouth. 'They do if you fight for them.'

  'But you're not prepared to fight for me—are you, Mark?'

  'Want to bet?' he drawled smokily, and bent his dark head to kiss her throat.

  Shivers of desire ran through her as that hot mouth burnt a trail to her pulse, throbbing beneath his hard lips, and her hands curled with helpless desire in his hair.

  'Don't...' she whispered, closing her eyes, loving every second of this torturous pleasure.

  He gave a rough, harsh groan and his hands suddenly tugged the skirt of her dress up over her thighs. He was whispering, 'I want you like hell... let me love you!'

  Desperate to submit, Caroline had to summon every last vestige of courage, forcing herself to retreat, moving inside herself to a calm sanctuary fuelled by love.

  Mark sensed her withdrawal and became more passionate, his mouth moving urgently to hers, forcing her lips apart though she lay calm and still beneath him, her eyes open and staring unseeingly at the ceiling.

  He paused, staring at her, breathing harshly. 'Don't do this, Caroline!' he said unsteadily. 'Not again!'

  'I'm not going to let you make love to me, Mark,' she said, eyes tightly shut, determination written on her face.

  'God!' he bit out hoarsely. 'You provoked this! I wanted to keep my hands off you! I'm not getting trapped into a bloody proposal of marriage by being driven out of my mind with lust while we're here! If you didn't intend to go through with it—why did you provoke this kiss?'

  Shame coloured her face. 'I couldn't help it...' she whispered, staring at his hard mouth. 'I won't give in to my baser instincts, but they provoke me, Mark. They provoke me into things I...' She broke off, her eyes blazing with passion. 'Mark, this is an impossible situation for us both. I want you so much but I can't let myself become your mistress!'

  He gave a rough sound of excitement, kissing her. 'Let yourself do what your body wants...' he said thickly. 'Oh God, Caroline, let me love you...' His hands were shaking on her breasts, his mouth burning down over hers. 'Yes, yes...!'

  'No!' she said fiercely, tears pricking her eyes as she pushed him hard away from her.

  He swore savagely, raised himself on his elbows, face dark red. 'I won't marry you!'

  'That's OK,' she said hoarsely, hating him. 'I'm already engaged to be married.' She raised her hand, diamond flashing at him. 'See?'

  Violence leapt in his eyes. 'Don't ever show me that bloody thing again!' he snarled, then pushed her violently from him and got to his feet, breathing harshly as he stared down at her with glittering eyes. 'And don't provoke another confrontation like that one, Caroline, or I swear to God I'll take you!' His voice grew ragged, his teeth were bared. 'I'll take you.'

  She looked away, her lower lip trembling as hot tears stung the back of her eyes and she found herself unable to reply.

  Mark swore under his breath, then strode across the room and slammed the door behind him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Shakily, Caroline got to her feet, pulling her dress back up and zipping it. Mark was right. She had provoked that deliberately, and she couldn't understand what had pushed her to do it.

  Desire, she thought bitterly, closing her eyes. An intolerable desire that I've been fighting since the day I met him. God, she wanted him to make love to her. The temptation had been keeping her on a knife edge of sexual tension since she first saw his face and hard body. Living here with him in these circumstances was going to drive her right over the edge if she didn't keep a powerful control over her feelings.

  She had always known what kind of man he was: a bastard, not the marrying kind. It had never occurred to her to ask why, but now she knew exactly why, and the information was strangely precious to her. He had a deep undercurrent of violence running through him, and it was triggered by the mention of marriage. Whatever his mother had been like, Caroline guessed she had cut a dark vein of hostility in her son during his childhood, and below that vein she was certain she would find the real Mark: the man capable of love, tenderness, fidelity.

  She walked to the fire, stared down. Who are you kidding? she asked herself with a bitter laugh. Mark isn't going to change. He'll always be this man. How many times had he said it since they left London? 'I won't marry you...' Not that I want him to marry me, she thought angrily, because I don't. I do want him to make love to me, though, she thought, drawing a shaky breath. Oh, God, he turns me to liquid fire every time he looks at me, kisses me, touches me... it would be the darkest kind of ecstasy to give in and let him take me. It would be fantastic. Her legs shook beneath her just at the thought. Their naked bodies fusing and slamming together. She wanted him so much... so much...

  But she would never let him do it. Mark would take her, enjoy her, then leave her. She refused to let that happen—however exciting his touch. She wanted marriage—Mark wanted a mistress. Her eyes blazed with passionate pride. He could just find a mistress elsewhere and forget about making love to her. Surely he had enough women to choose from! Every woman he met seemed to swoon at his feet.

  He didn't want her—he just wanted her body. And it wasn't as though he'd tried to hide his true desires, because he had laid them on the line in no uncertain terms when he'd asked her to become his mistress. She could remember every word he'd said, and not one of them had shown any indication that he cared for her at all.

  But how could a man want her so much without feeling anything other than lust? It just didn't make sense. Suddenly she thought of her own rampant and uncontrollable desire for him, and her face flooded with heat. I don't feel anything other than attraction for him! she told herself fiercely. Nothing more. Nothing...

  She drew in her breath sharply, ran a hand through her gold-brown hair. I certainly don't feel even af
fection for him. No, not even that, she told herself. She told herself a lot of other things she didn't feel for him, too, reminding herself she loved Stephen, was going to marry Stephen, wanted Stephen to kiss her, make love to her.

  But at the end of all the things she told herself lay one thing and one thing only: Mark's hard mouth against hers and his hands on her body, and she was forced to acknowledge how much she wanted to feel it.

  She stood deep in thought for a long time. She added more logs to the fire as and when it needed them. Time moved on. She couldn't stop thinking of him, of his complex personality, and her dangerous excitement whenever he was near...

  Much later, the door opened.

  Turning, she felt her stomach clench with excitement.

  Mark stood in the doorway, broodingly attractive, his black hair and silver eyes and powerful body making frissons of awareness caress the hair on the back of her neck.

  'It's half-past eight,' Mark said, his gaze moving slowly over her body, lingering on her full breasts. 'We ought to eat.' She moved towards him, and he watched her. As she passed him in the doorway she felt a tremor run between them.

  They sat in the kitchen by candlelight, and ate a light supper of chicken and mushroom with sweetcorn, half a tin each, with glasses of red wine left over from lunch.

  'Do you enjoy cooking?' Mark asked aggressively as he sat at the table and watched her wash up.

  'Not particularly,' she admitted with a smile. 'Unless it's for a dinner party. Boeuf en croute for ten served in an elegant dining-room.'

  'I thought you lived in a flat,' he said, frowning.

  She laughed wryly. 'You can still have dinner parties in a flat.'

  'It would have to be a penthouse to get ten in an elegant dining-room,' he drawled, arching a black brow.

  'True,' Caroline conceded, hands in hot soapy water. 'But my parents had a beautiful house in Hampshire. They had a lot of dinner parties, I frequently played hostess for them.'

  'I have a house in Hampshire,' Mark said with a faint smile. 'Where exactly do your parents live?'

  'Lived,' she said quietly. 'They're dead now.'

  There was a brief silence. The candle flame flickered in the kitchen, the windows faintly steamed, the snow a barely perceptible white blanket outside.

  'I'm sorry,' Mark said coolly.

  'Don't be.' She shrugged slender shoulders. 'Fate. It plays these little tricks on us all.'

  There was another little silence.

  Mark drawled sardonically, 'I suppose that's how you see your meeting with the plastics man. An act of fate?'

  'Stop calling him the plastics man,' she said coolly, finishing the washing up and flicking her hands before reaching for a tea-towel. 'His name is Stephen.'

  'Stephen the plastics man,' he mocked, grey eyes glinting at her.

  She turned, mouth tight. 'Just Stephen will do.'

  'Rather a pallid-looking guy, isn't he?' Mark commented arrogantly, leaning back in his chair, hands behind his dark, handsome head. 'Tall, thin and tedious. I bet he never pins you to the bed and kisses the life out of you. He doesn't look as though he could pin a carnation in his lapel without making a bloody mess of it.'

  'Stephen is a very nice man!' she said coolly, smiling.

  'Nice!' He gave a shout of laughter and stood up, strolling arrogantly across the dim-lit kitchen towards her. 'That's another word for boring, isn't it? In woman-speak? And man-speak, too, come to think of it.'

  'Rubbish!' she said harshly, staring at his mouth.

  'Is it, Caroline?' he asked softly. Deliberately, he towered over her, placed one hard-muscled arm on either side of her, hands flat on the sink, his whole attitude one of sexual threat. 'If I describe a woman as nice, it generally means I don't fancy her.'

  'Define fancying someone,' she said unsteadily, and struggled to fight her awareness of him, lifting her head.

  His face was very close to hers. 'If I fancy a woman it means I want to take her to bed and make love to her.'

  'Love?' she queried, lifting haughty brows.

  'Well,' he murmured, smiling sardonically, 'one or two rather more hard-hitting phrases spring to mind, but I prefer to use them in the bedroom.'

  'You know exactly what I meant, Mark!'

  'You wanted to know what love had to do with it,' he drawled. 'Well, that's my point exactly. I meet women, I want them, I take them to bed. That's the way I live, Caroline. I'm not for sale on the marriage market and I've never been in love in my life.'

  'In other words,' she said haughtily, 'they might just as well all be the same woman for all the notice you take of them. Of their thoughts and feelings and personalities.'

  'Not at all. I always have relationships with women,' he said with a hard frown. 'It's not just a return trip to the bedroom with me.'

  'You have mistresses!' she said coolly. 'Call that a relationship? It's just an extended one-night stand!'

  He laughed softly. 'What would you know about one-night stands?'

  Hot colour flooded her face and she looked away, her lashes lowering, sweeping the vulnerable curve of her cheek.

  Mark watched her bent head. 'Caroline—love is an illusion. So is marriage. They're lies people tell themselves so they can cope with reality.'

  'I can't wait to hear your definition of reality!'

  'Sexual attraction,' he said flatly. 'That's all there is between men and women.'

  'You're only saying that because of the way your parents --'

  'No,' he cut in, his voice cool and very deep as his eyes remained fastened on her face. 'I'm saying it because it's the way it is. Why do you think men have so many affairs? Notice women on the street, flirt with them, admire them—even when they're with their wives. Because they're basically sexual.'

  She lifted her head, eyes angry. 'Then why do they bother to get married in the first place?'

  'Because they get badgered into it,' he drawled cynically.

  'No,' she said flatly. 'Because they fall in love, Mark.'

  'You're kidding yourself, Caroline,' he said gently, smiling. 'If anything, marriage is just a way to keep a mistress without the privilege of freedom!'

  'Freedom!' she laughed angrily. 'Freedom for the man, you mean! But what about the mistress, Mark? What kind of freedom has she got?'

  'The same as the man,' he said with a broad shrug. 'Sexual freedom.'

  'We get that in marriage, Mark!' she said sweetly, smiling and looking at him provocatively through her lashes.

  His eyes narrowed. 'Some do, but you won't. Not with the plastics man.'

  Fury shot through her. 'Oh, yes, I will! Stephen and I --'

  'Never kiss,' he drawled mockingly. 'And when you do it doesn't exactly set the world on fire.'

  Her face went scarlet. 'That's not true! We kiss all the time!'

  'Then why did you go up in flames when I got you on the couch that first night?' he asked under his breath.

  'I didn't!' she denied hotly, staring at his hard mouth.

  His eyes hardened. 'Don't lie to me—or to yourself.'

  Caroline lowered her lashes, the silence suddenly electrifying, and her heart was beating very fast as she realised there was nowhere for her to run to. Not only was he blocking her path with his very powerful body, but they were stuck here together with no way out.

  'You want me,' Mark said deeply, watching her bent head. 'You've wanted me from the word go. You've been holding me off for months and playing mummies and daddies with that boy. Your heart's not in it. Your body certainly isn't. You're violently attracted to me—why the hell won't you admit it?'

  'I have admitted it,' she said uncertainly. 'I've just refused to act on it. That's all.'

  His mouth tightened. 'Because you're going to marry Daly?'

  She said nothing, staring through her lashes at his chest, her mouth dry with longing. He was so damned exciting. How was she supposed to resist such intolerable temptation? If only they could get out of this cottage.

  Mark thrus
t a hand under her chin, forced her head up. 'Is that why you keep refusing me, Caroline?' he asked softly.

  'I love Stephen. He'll make a perfect husband,' she replied through dry lips, her heart hammering.

  The grey eyes flared. 'Without making love to you? Come off it! What do you think marriage is? You'll be living with the man, sharing a bed with him. If he doesn't turn you on—what hope have you got of making it last?'

  'I didn't say he didn't turn me on!'

  'You didn't need to! It's blatantly obvious that he doesn't raise a glimmer of excitement in you!'

  'Because I responded to you?' she snapped heatedly.

  'Yes!' he said softly. 'If you'd been passionately involved with Daly, you wouldn't have done it. You certainly wouldn't have spent the last eight months looking at me the way you have done.'

  Hot colour flooded her face. 'I don't look at you in any --'

  'You look at me continually,' he said under his breath, 'as though you want me to kiss you, touch you, undress you and make love to you.'

  'No...' she whispered, closing her eyes.

  'And that's exactly what you do want,' he said under his breath, his hand jerking her chin, making her open her eyes and look at his formidable face. 'Isn't it, Caroline? Isn't it?'

  Her mouth shook and she said bitterly, 'There's more to life than just sex, Mark!'

  'And there's more to life than marriage!'

  There was a silence fraught with unbearable tension. The wind howled outside and the candle flames flickered, casting eerie shadows around the room as she stared into his hard, handsome face and felt her legs go weak with the longing to give in...let him take her...oh, God, how much more of this could she stand?

  Intolerably confused, she pushed at his broad shoulders, but he wouldn't budge, and she was no match for his strength, feeling quite tiny in front of him, darting quick, uncertain looks up at his tough face.

  'You're making me feel claustrophobic!' she said in a shaking voice, her hands curling helplessly on his shoulders. 'Please stop this, Mark. I can't...'

  'And you're making me feel seven shades of hellish frustration,' he said thickly, his body pressing against hers suddenly to keep her in place. 'I've made my advance on you, set out my proposition, and accepted your refusal. All well and good. But now I find myself stuck here in this bloody cottage with you for God knows how long and I don't see how I'm going to keep my hands off you.'