It was clear she was swimming way out of her depth.
Out of the corner of her eye she thought she saw something move past the window. She had left the sliding doors of her bedroom open.
Luna slipped out of bed and went out on to the terrace. Moving to the railing she looked out into the still night. Shrouded in moon-shadowed darkness, the beach and the bay formed an awesome and infinite picture of mysterious beauty, with the sea smacking long and slow and hissing up the shore.
‘Is anybody there?’
Only the gentle swish of the sea answered her.
It must be my imagination. Her body was on fire, so she lingered a few moments longer outside, letting the breeze cool her burning skin.
She was tired and sleepy. Her head still ached. She wondered whether or not to take a painkiller, but decided against it. She’d had quite a bit to drink and analgesics did not mix well with alcohol. She smiled wryly at herself: always so sensible, but look what a mess she’d got herself in.
Luna went back inside and locked the doors. She must be cautious; an intruder could be lurking in the dark. After climbing into bed she closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, she was staring straight into his pale blue gaze. A dizziness engulfed her.
In the moonlight, his face seemed to swim in front of her. Luna dragged her arms up, branching them out towards him, slowly raising her fingers to touch his lips, those strongly etched, beautiful lips she’d craved ever since she had set eyes on them; but he was out of reach. She breathed his name and, trembling, lifted herself up to bridge the gulf between them. The silky material of her nightdress was hugging her hips in a sweet caress and clinging to the smooth swell of her breasts and the taut peaks of her nipples.
‘Ruy,’ she whispered again as the need for him blossomed inside her.
Then suddenly he was gliding towards her: a magnificent prowler moving stealthily towards his prey. Heart thundering, head thrown back, arms outstretched, eyes pleading, she watched as he came forward, his long limbs moving in slow motion. In the phosphorescent light of the room he was all in shadow, but she was aware of his broad shoulders and muscled chest, and she could see he was naked. Her eyes were drawn to his narrow hips, to his lean thighs and … to that part of him which proudly flaunted his virility. She felt her loins contract as her ache for him deepened and she arched her back, inviting him to explore the secret place between her thighs, where desire pooled with a liquid heat.
It felt as though he was taking an aeon to get to her, fanning the flames of her desire, so that when his mouth finally touched her burning lips, her body seemed to turn molten, every sense raw and quivering with anticipation.
A sob died in her throat as he took her into the sanctuary of his arms and, peeling off her nightdress, set out on a heated exploration of her sensitized flesh. Tongue, lips and palms travelled down her silken skin, subtly discovering hidden places, fondling and stroking, conquering it inch by inch, leaving behind a fiery trail; and she cried out her pleasure, luxuriating, without inhibitions or guilt, in his masterly lovemaking.
Now she was begging him to stop teasing, pushing her hips upwards, parting her legs, seeking relief from the unrelenting need that had been torturing her for so long. Though she had never made love before, she didn’t care. She yearned for his touch and wanted him to take her now … to feel him moving and vital inside her … To be one with him.
Silently and lovingly his body inched closer to hers and, opening her thighs still further, he slid down between them and guided himself to the place where she ached for him. Whispering tender words in her ear, he parted the soft petals covering the heart of her desire and gently began to rub and caress the moist centre of her.
Luna purred sensually and moved in rhythm with every stroke, delicious heat spreading through her. Urgency was building and she rocked from side to side in a frantic quest for fulfilment, her lips parted in gasping breaths. Release when it came was fierce. One convulsion after another shook her body, drawing moans from her more like cries of pain than of pleasure, until she was catapulted into delirious bliss. She remained languid a while, a delicious lethargy sweeping over her.
‘Ruy,’ she murmured, her voice thick with sleep. She stretched out an arm to feel for him in the space next to her, searching for the man who had brought her body to life and shown her what paradise could be. ‘Ruy, where are you?’ she called out again.
Luna opened her eyes heavily. Dawn had gilded the room with a special but fleeting light. The shadows were dying out as the first blush of a new day took over and the brightest star waltzed out of the night into a fulgent, coloured sky. Flaming swords, purple and orange, marked the east. There was no one in the room except her – she must have dozed off.
Hot and sticky, she sat up. Her nightdress clung to her body, her hair to her scalp. She distinctly remembered Ruy sliding the garment off her but she did not recall herself putting it back on again.
Ruy! Her body still throbbed with wonderment at his lovemaking. The shock of her own wantonness made her blush inwardly, though there was no other witness to judge her for it. With careless disregard for consequence she had abandoned herself. What must he have thought? She shrugged, still groggy with sleep and confusion. Yet she felt liberated … free. She slipped out of bed – she needed a shower.
As the cold water slid down her body, awakening it from its numbness, so it aroused her brain from its stupor. Sensibility supplanted numbness, and consciousness succeeded stupor. Gradually reality dawned.
Luna stepped out of the shower and staggered back to the bedroom. She gazed about her vaguely, looking for the familiar to restore her sanity. Though the sheets were tangled, it was obvious that she had slept in the bed alone. She sat down on the untidy heap and stared incredulously ahead of her. It had all been a fantasy … a beautiful dream. She shook her head. It had felt so real. Within minutes, her morale had sunk from the dizzy heights of ecstasy to a bottomless pit of despair.
For a long time she sat there, hot tears of disappointment and frustration running uncontrollably down her cheeks.
Chapter 9
Luna walked aimlessly in a straight line along the beach. After her shower, she had spent a bleak hour ruminating on the vivid dream that had so graphically invaded her night and had decided she needed some early-morning fresh sea air to clear her head.
At this hour the beach was peaceful and still. The only sounds were the gentle ripples of water frilling in small waves along the shore and the rumble of trapped surf out on the rocks. A fivestorey liner floated in the distance like a swan on the sea’s glassy surface. The sun had risen in dazzling radiance, the sky and the Atlantic Ocean were touched with turquoise, and the white line of foam along the coast gleamed cream.
Comic little crabs drifted in and out of their holes in the sand. Gulls and storm petrels flew and dipped in the wide blue yonder. Wild shrubs and sparse green tufts of grass appeared like emeralds in the dazzling platinum dunes and among the rocks, and the drooping fronds of the palm trees rustled faintly with every puff of air.
Luna felt lost and lonely; but there was no one to whom she could go, no one she could trust. She sat on top of a dune, tears blurring her sight. In this peaceful place, she should be able to think calmly and rationally about the dangerous turn her life was taking. She was going mad!
Pictures of people and places passed rapidly through her mind like the pattern of a tapestry: Ruy at the tavern in Barcelona; Ruy challenging her at the lecture and appearing on the plane; the Institute, Vaina and Charo, and discovering Ruy was her boss; going with Ruy to the masked ball and him kissing her in the summerhouse. Ruy bandaging her hand after the frisson of sexual tension in the lab; his jealousy when Diego Montez appeared at the exhibition and the flames rekindling, passionately and out of control, before the shock of meeting Aunt Isabel; Ruy bending his dark head intimately towards Vaina. Ruy with Vaina at Cadencia Tzigane, the Croatian singer serenading her, then Ruy again, this time with anger
in his eyes.
Ruy, always Ruy. Ruy’s arms … Ruy’s kisses … Ruy’s burning touch that she could not erase from her mind.
The dream haunted her; the passion she had felt was so potent that the fantasy had seemed real. Certainly the climax she’d experienced had been no figment of her imagination; it had actually happened.
Where had such ferocious yearning emanated? She wanted to turn away from it, so that she could hide this terrible, naked fear that crouched in its shadow. Shame and desire warred in her like dark adversaries on the shifting plateau of her tormented mind. Luna repressed a shudder.
Over the years, she had met handsome, intelligent and powerful men, none of whom had ignited anything in her. They had all left her cold. She had not given it much thought, taking for granted that she was one of those people who had never really been interested in sex.
Yet the instant Luna laid eyes on Ruy, the rush of desire that had surged through her like the swift beat of wings had been all-consuming. It consumed her still; an almost barbaric impulse neither mind nor will could control, it was like nothing she had ever known before. Whether she liked it or not, Ruy had a powerful hold on her, physically and emotionally. The self-possession, which she had so carefully pieced together as a shield against hurt, was cracking under the strain of these unfamiliar sensations and those needs that he provoked in her.
Time stood still as Luna wept once more, arms clasped about her shins, head on her knee, feeling empty, hollow; powerless.
A pat on her arm broke into her sorrow.
‘Por qué llora, señorita? Why are you crying? Madre de Dios! What is the matter?’
Luna raised her head, her face bathed in tears, and looked up into the concerned eyes of Señora Sanchez, the woman with the black spaniel she had spoken to on the beach when she first arrived. Their paths had crossed a few times after that, invariably during her evening walks on the seashore, although since that afternoon they had only exchanged polite greetings and smiles.
Luna pressed her fists into her eyes, struggling to master the flood of tears that coursed down her cheeks and regain some selfcontrol. ‘I’ll be all right in a moment. I’m so very sorry to make a spectacle of myself like this, but … it’s such a relief to let it out for a change,’ she whispered as her face flamed with embarrassment.
There was a short silence while Señora Sanchez watched her with dark, steady eyes. ‘Is someone ill? Is it your poor cousin that you’re still grieving for?’ She paused and looked alarmed. ‘Please tell me no one else has died,’ she exclaimed, wide-eyed, as she crossed herself.
Despite her distress, Luna couldn’t help but smile inwardly at this Spanish sense of drama. ‘I miss Angelina, it’s true, but no, no, nothing so tragic.’
‘Gracias a Dios! Ah! It must be an affair of the heart, yes?’
Luna nodded dejectedly.
‘You can talk to me. It is often better to talk about these things to a stranger, who can look at the problem objectively,’ Señora Sanchez said with maternal solicitude as she settled down on the sand next to Luna, the black spaniel at her feet. ‘We have a proverb in Spain. El ciego se entera major de las cosas del mundo, los ojas son unos ilusionados embusteros, a blind man actually knows more about the ways of the world because the eyes are only hopeful deceivers.’ Her steady gaze was eager but kind. There was no morbid curiosity there, only genuine concern.
Luna gave a little broken laugh as her tears flowed uncontrollably again. ‘I’m so confused, I wouldn’t know where to start,’ she admitted miserably. ‘It’s all happened so suddenly. One day I was in control of my feelings, the next it was as if I were enslaved to them. I’ve always thought of myself as an intelligent woman, but this man makes me positively stupid whenever I’m around him. It doesn’t make any reasonable sense.’
The Spanish woman gave her a knowing smile. ‘You cannot reason love away, my child. Nor can you ever know when it will claim you. El amor coge al corazón desprevenido, nunca llega a la hora de la cita, love catches the heart unaware, it never arrives at the appointed time.’ She looked across to the sea wistfully. ‘That is what creates passion and makes love such a wonderful thing.’ Head tilted now on one side, she peered at Luna, who was gazing dejectedly at the sand. ‘Este principe azul, this Prince Charming, he loves you?’
Luna forced a laugh. ‘This Prince Charming, as you call him, unfortunately has a very big heart. He loves all women.’
‘Ah, but there is only one woman for each man! When the time is right, it is for the woman to reel in her catch slowly and carefully like a skilful fisherman. It’s she who must be the clever one.’
‘Love? I’ve barely known him a couple of weeks and all he wants is to get me into bed.’
‘Ah, men!’ Señora Sanchez sighed and shook her head sadly. ‘Ay! Alas, some men only think with that part of their anatomy. The times have passed when a man waited patiently for the day he could proudly deflower the woman he loved. You do not desire this man then?’
That was her problem. She wanted him more than any man she’d ever known, but a fear of so many things stopped her in her tracks. Something she could not possibly admit, even to this warm and straightforward woman.
It was Luna’s turn to sigh heavily. ‘Yes, I do, but I’m not the type of woman to leap into bed with the first stranger that tries to woo me. Anyhow …’ she waved her hand vaguely.
‘Anyhow?’ Señora Sanchez probed.
Luna shrugged. ‘Oh, it’s all too complicated.’
The Spanish woman looked at Luna uncertainly, knitting her brows. ‘You are a virgin, yes?’
Luna blinked at her and nodded.
‘A rare pearl! Girls today don’t care about their virginity. You must be proud of it. This man, does he know you are still pure?’
Luna gave a self-deprecating laugh. ‘But you see, I’m not that pure, señora, and he knows it.’
She began talking in a flat monotone, unburdening herself of all the confusion that had weighed her down since meeting Ruy in the tavern in Barcelona. Without revealing more details she explained that she was now working for him. She told the older woman how much she longed for Ruy – still withholding his name – and how, when he touched her, she lost her self-control and had great difficulty resisting him. Naturally she did not mention her dreams and fantasies – or the nightmares that left her paralyzed. How could she, when all she wanted was to forget them? To forget, too, the shame that dogged her heels.
‘It’s not clear to me that this man is not in love with you. So far, nothing you have told me proves that his only intention is to get you into his bed.’
‘He took me to a party, then deserted me to run after some girl, and spends hours locked away in his office with a woman to whom he was almost engaged. Isn’t that enough proof?’ Spoken aloud, it sounded pretty damning to Luna.
‘Ah, señorita, you must believe the wisdom of my years when I tell you that appearances are often deceptive. La verdad es hija del tiempo, truth is time’s daughter. Things today may be confused because you do not have all the information, but time will tell.’
‘I can’t afford to get hurt.’
‘But can you afford to lose your chance of happiness?’
‘How do I know that he’s my one chance of happiness?’
‘If you don’t try, you’ll never know.’
Luna looked at her and shook her head. There was still the matter of how she had lied to Ruy about her work at the Institute. ‘I may never get the chance for that.’
Señora Sanchez mistook her answer for despondency of another variety. ‘Niña, pacienca, pacienca. En una hora no se ganó Zamora, Patience, child, patience. Zamora wasn’t taken in an hour.’
Part of Luna couldn’t help but grasp at the fringes of hope. ‘After everything I’ve told you, you still think I should give him a chance?’
‘Sí, unless you are prepared to live your whole life without knowing.’
‘Without knowing?’
‘Whether you le
t real happiness pass under your nose.’
Luna gazed off into the distance, watching a seagull glide down on to the beach and begin pecking at the soft, wet sand. The dog stirred from its place at their feet and took after it.
‘I’ll think about it. Probably best to wait and see.’
‘Just so long as you know the difference between patience, which can be a good thing, and procrastination. In Spain we say while the grass grows, the horse starves.’ Señora Sanchez tapped Luna’s knee gently. ‘Sometimes it is better to act than think. When we are born, we do not choose our country and we do not choose our family, but once we are here, we do have the power to mould our life.’
A familiar sadness pricked at Luna. She agreed with Señora Sanchez on this at least. Her own family would certainly never have been hers by choice, and it was exactly for this reason that she had striven to forge her own life and never sought out her Spanish relatives. She’d had to make her way with minimal guidance from her father, who’d never been around much. Luna had always been her own guide; she had found her own strength – strength now challenged for the first time.
‘What about pride? Isn’t that important too?’ she said in a low voice.
Señora Sanchez regarded Luna with just a hint of amusement. ‘Yours or his? The way things stand, I think he’s the one whose pride has been bruised.’
‘But if I give myself to him, he’ll have won.’
The Spanish woman’s eyes twinkled mischievously, making her look years younger. ‘Sex is not the only way to entice a man, señorita. My mother used to say the torch of love was lit by the kitchen stove; she was right. I am neither a great beauty, nor am I a genius, but I’m an excellent cook. My dear Pedro, God rest his soul, always said I was the best. He could never resist my magdalenas straight from the oven.’ She chuckled. ‘Pche! But I’m getting carried away again. There are so many other ways to a man’s heart, you just need to apply a little ingenuity.’
Legacy Page 27
