The Friendship Barrier

by Penny Jordan

  ‘Haven’t I?’ He came towards her, cupping her jaw in the hard warmth of his palm, his touch surprising her into turning shocked eyes towards his face. ‘I should have thought I was making it very easy for you, Stephanie.’

  For a moment, Stephanie was held in thrall to the dark mystery of his eyes, absorbing the proximity of him with all her senses. Instinctively, she closed her eyes the better to absorb the male scent of him. With her eyes closed, her other senses became more alert. The touch of his palm and fingers against her skin aroused tiny pulses along her jaw, and she wanted badly to turn her head so that she could taste the male texture of his palm. It was only the sharp, jarring ring of the phone that saved her from making a complete fool of herself, she decided later, when Jake was safely back behind his desk and she was able to conceal her confusion from him by bending her head over her typewriter.

  Jake was playing some sort of game with her; she knew that now. There could be no other explanation for his constant reminders of her sexuality. Perhaps his intentions were well-meant and perhaps they weren’t. She had no way of knowing with this new Jake whom she didn’t recognise and who raised tiny feathers of alarm all along her spine whenever he came within touching distance.

  ‘Okay, that’s it for tonight,’ Jake announced when he had finished his phone call. He came out from behind his desk and touched Stephanie lightly on the arm; her senses leapt nervously, her immediate reaction to pull away. Almost instantly, his fingers curled round her wrist, his eyes hardening.

  ‘What the devil was that for?’ he demanded angrily.

  ‘What?’ Nervously, Stephanie touched her dry lips with her tongue, tension coiling through the pit of her stomach.

  ‘Don’t play games with me, Stephanie,’ Jake demanded savagely. ‘You know exactly what I mean. Why the shudder of distaste when I touched you just then?’

  ‘I don’t like being touched—you know that,’ she said disdainfully.

  She forced herself to meet his eyes. ‘I don’t even believe I know you any more, Jake. You’ve changed…’

  ‘No… but I’m tired of waiting for you to,’ Stephanie thought she heard him mutter under his breath before he flung out of the room, his face drawn into a bitter expression of contempt. It was half an hour before she could make her shaky way to her room. Mrs Kettering stopped her on the stairs.

  There you are, Miss,’ she exclaimed. ‘Jake said to tell you that he won’t be in for dinner, and that he’s arranged for you both to ride first thing in the morning. Eight o’clock downstairs he said to tell you. Would you like to have your dinner in your room, or…?’

  ‘In my room will be fine, Mrs Kettering,’ Stephanie assured her. Jake had said nothing to her about dining out and she couldn’t help feeling that his disappearance had something to do with their conversation in the study.

  He had laid the blame for his change of personality at the door of sexual frustration, but Stephanie couldn’t believe that. For one thing, there was Susy. Sharply and unexpectedly she had a mental picture of the two of them together, Jake’s body lean and dark, his hands spanning the actress’s tiny waist. Sharp shafts of pain lanced through her as she fought to blot out the image, her cheeks flushed with shamed embarrassment. She had never once in the two years she had known him even dreamed of visualising Jake as she just had, and yet now, suddenly, she found it all too easy to imagine him in the nude. Shivering she hurried to her room, dropping down into a chair, too numb even to switch on the television. Jake wasn’t the only one to change; she was changing herself and in ways that she could hardly bear to admit.

  Not even when she lay sleepless in the extremely comfortable bed Mrs Kettering had prepared for her, waiting for the sound of Jake’s car, was she prepared to admit the truth. Stubbornly, she clung to the past, telling herself that it was because Jake kept insisting on introducing sexual overtones to their conversations that she had so illuminatingly imagined him as her lover—because it had been her body she had imagined him touching, her body, and not Susy’s.

  When she eventually heard the car, she roused sufficiently to glance at her watch. It was gone two o’clock. Where had Jake been? He had few friends in the neighbourhood that Stephanie knew of. She would ask him in the morning.

  But she overslept slightly, waking to find that it was seven-thirty and that she was going to have to hurry if she was going to go riding with him.

  She raced downstairs at ten-past eight, just as he was on the point of leaving. The sound of her booted feet on the stairs stopped him, and he turned in the doorway. Stephanie caught her breath, unwillingly affected by the way his jeans clung to the hard muscles of his thighs, his pose, as he stood in the door, unconsciously arrogant, his black hair ruffled by the breeze through the open door.

  ‘I… I overslept,’ she apologised, blushing furiously when she realised she was stuttering.

  ‘Umm. I thought you’d decided not to come.’

  ‘You know how much I love riding,’ Stephanie showed her surprise.

  ‘I also know what a coward you are.’ He swung through the door before she could challenge him, and was jumping into the Range Rover parked outside when Stephanie walked out. He opened the passenger door for her and helped her in. Stephanie fastened her seat belt with suddenly clumsy fingers. The late autumn morning was crisp, a faint frost rimed the grass, and in the hollows lay a soft mist.

  Above them, the sky was a pale, soft blue with the promise of sunshine later, and she knew a moment’s exhilaration such as she had not experienced for a long, long time.

  ‘Ready?’ Aware that Jake was looking at her, she nodded her head, bracing herself for the ruts in the road that led down to the farm where the riding stable was.

  The owner greeted them cheerfully.

  ‘We’ve tacked up Emperor for you, Jake,’ he said with a smile, ‘and Mellisande for you, Stephanie.’

  Mellisande was a dainty Arab mare that Stephanie had ridden before, and she mounted her easily, turning to wait for Jake to mount the huge black stallion prancing skittishly over the cobbles.

  As they rode down the lane, birds pecked at the last remnants of the blackberry crop and the mist started to disperse as the sun finally came out. Breathing in lungs full of crisp, sharp air, Stephanie felt a sudden exhilaration, and, as though the sudden tension that ran through her body communicated itself to her mount, Mellisande pranced excitedly.

  ‘Problems?’ Jake seemed to tower over her on his mount.

  ‘I think Mellisande’s trying to tell me she’s tired of simply walking,’ Stephanie responded.

  ‘You can let her gallop once we’re clear of the lane. We’ll go this way.’ Jake went first to unlatch the gate, waiting until Stephanie had passed through before closing it. The field in front of them was empty of crops and cattle, and the well-defined path that meandered across it led to a copse and then to the parkland of Mile End.

  Feeling the mare prance skittishly beneath her, Stephanie gave her her head. As they raced forward, she heard Jake call out something behind her, but his words were caught by the breeze and so distorted that she couldn’t hear exactly what he had said.

  Her first intimation that she was no longer in control of Mellisande came when she tried to slow the mare down. Mellisande refused to respond. Up ahead of them, Stephanie could see the tall hedge looming, denuded of leaves now, but fiercely dangerous with its wicked thorns and untidy branches. Helplessly, she sawed on the reins, trying to halt Mellisande’s pace, but it was no good. She felt an abrupt jolt as the mare left the ground. The hedge seemed to come racing up to meet her. Behind her, she heard Jake swear and then call out, ‘Kick your feet free, Stephanie, and hold on!’

  She tried to do as he instructed, and managed to get her feet free, but even so she couldn’t keep her balance. As Mellisande cleared the hedge, she felt herself falling, the contact with the frost-hardened ground knocking all the breath from her lungs.

  Too shocked and numb to move, she was conscious of Jake dismounting be
side her. She tried to roll over and groaned as knives of pain tore through her tender muscles.

  ‘Lie still.’ The command was snapped out, and Jake knelt beside her, his hand moving swiftly and clinically over her body. As he touched her, Stephanie felt a curious heat invade her bones. It seemed to radiate out from where he touched her, burning every nerve ending. She groaned a protest as Jake turned her over to lie on her back, shivering with a shock that had more to do with the effect his touch had on her than her actual fall.

  Once again, he ran his hands over her, touching her lightly and impersonally, hesitating only when he reached her ribs and his fingers accidentally brushed against the curve of her breast.

  ‘Stephanie?’ His voice sounded rough and unfamiliar, and Stephanie opened the eyes she had closed when the heat of his touch jolted through her body.

  ‘How do you feel?’

  ‘Bruised,’ she managed semi-humorously. She struggled to sit up, but he wouldn’t let her.

  ‘Lie still for a few minutes; you don’t seem to have broken anything.’

  ‘What about Mellisande?’

  ‘She’s probably half way back to her stable by now. Do you feel well enough to ride back to Mile End in front of me on Emperor or would you prefer to stay here until I can bring the Range Rover?’

  ‘I’ll stay here,’ Stephanie told him, shuddering about the thought of the ride back to the house. Now that the initial shock was over, every bone in her body was protesting.

  ‘It serves you right,’ Jake told her unsympathetically, ‘I warned you not to go dashing off like that, but you ignored me.’

  ‘I didn’t hear you,’ Stephanie confessed, struggling to sit up again. The movement brought a wince of pain to her lips, and she was staggered to see the white line of anger etched round Jake’s mouth. Nothing in his light, almost laconic voice had prepared her for it.

  ‘Jake?’

  ‘Lie still,’ he told her curtly. ‘I’ll be back just as soon as I can.’

  With one hand he pushed away the fingers she hadn’t realised she had clasped round his arm, and a dull flush of colour spread over her skin. For some reason, her heart was thudding unevenly, and the warm male scent of Jake’s skin made her want to reach out and touch him. She wanted to be held close to the warmth of his body, her head cradled against his shoulder, his hands touching her, but not with the clinical detachment she had experienced earlier.

  ‘Stephanie, is something wrong?’

  ‘Nothing that a hot bath and a rub down with liniment won’t cure,’ she joked as he stood up. She couldn’t let him guess how much she had craved his tenderness, or how much she had wanted him to touch her as a friend…

  A friend? Her mind taunted her as he mounted Emperor and rode away. Didn’t she mean as a lover? Wasn’t that how she had wanted Jake to touch her; not as a friend, but as a lover?

  She was still groggy from her fall, she reasoned with herself; it was only natural that she should crave the comfort of another human being’s proximity. Anyone would have done, and yet, when Jake drove up in the Range Rover fifteen minutes later, even though she knew she could have hobbled to him, she let him come to her and lift her in his arms, automatically turning her face into his shoulder and closing her eyes as she savoured the warm heat of it.

  ‘Stephanie, don’t faint on me now,’ he warned, as he opened the Range Rover door.

  ‘I’m not fainting,’ her voice sounded huskily unfamiliar and equally unfamiliar was the sensation of wanting to stay close to him, even to the extent of wanting to cling physically to him as he placed her on the back seat of the vehicle.

  ‘Umm… I think I’d better get Dr Jenson to look at you,’ was Jake’s dry response as he closed the door. ‘I’m not sure that you’re not suffering from concussion.’

  He turned round to look at her and Stephanie opened her eyes. He was so close that she could see the tiny lines that fanned out from his eyes and she let her glance drift across his face until, unaccountably, it rested on his mouth. Why had she never noticed before how enticingly masculine his mouth was with that firm, almost hard, upper lip and the full, decidedly sensual lower one? Her own lips parted as she stared dazedly up at him. What would it be like to be kissed by Jake with real passion; to know the fierce intensity of his desire? A tiny sound caught in her throat, and, from a distance, she heard Jake mutter fiercely, ‘For God’s sake, don’t look at me that way.’

  ‘What way, Jake?’ she wanted to ask, but a great wave of tiredness washed over her and she gave herself up to it. Later, she could delve more deeply into the unexpectedness of the sensations coursing through her; the sudden tingling awareness that reached out to every part of her body.

  When they got to the house, he lifted her out of the Range Rover and carried her inside and up to her room.

  ‘Call Dr Jenson,’ he instructed Mrs Kettering over his shoulder. ‘I think she might be suffering from concussion.’

  Stephanie wanted to protest that she wasn’t, but everything was far too muzzy and the next thing she knew was that the doctor was there, examining her with a thorough gentleness before pronouncing that Jake’s assessment had probably been quite correct.

  ‘Nothing to worry about,’ he told Stephanie calmly. ‘I’ll leave Mrs Kettering something that will help you to sleep and then, in the morning, Jake, if she’s no better, we’ll think again.’

  ‘I’m perfectly all right,’ Stephanie wanted to protest, but the doctor was already leaving. Jake threw her a frowning glance over his shoulder, and she stared mutinously back. Once the doctor had gone, she would tell Jake that there was nothing wrong with her and that she was getting up. Concussion…

  The next thing she knew was that Mrs Kettering was standing beside her bed, proffering a glass of water and some tablets. ‘They’ll help you to sleep,’ she told Stephanie when she looked doubtfully at them. ‘Dr Jenson thinks you’re suffering more from shock than concussion, but he wants you to rest.’

  Stephanie wanted to refuse them, but weakly she took them and drank the water. Where was Jake? Was he furious with her? He had brought her here to work, not to loll about in bed.

  The next time she woke up it was dark. She had been deeply asleep, and she tensed as she saw someone move in the shadows of the room.

  ‘Hungry?’

  She blinked, as she recognised Jake’s voice. How long had he been sitting there in that chair watching her?

  ‘How long have I been asleep?’ she asked him croakily. ‘It’s gone dark.’

  ‘It’s nearly eleven o’clock,’ Jake responded wryly, ‘Would you like something to eat?’

  Stephanie shook her head.

  ‘Not feeling sick, are you?’ Jake queried sharply, coming closer to the bed and leaning towards her. The sharp, musky male scent of his body was disturbingly arousing. Sensations Stephanie hadn’t known existed stormed through her body leaving her disorientated. Her eyes widened as her glance slid towards his mouth. Only this morning, she had noticed how sensual it was and had wondered what it would feel like against hers, kissing her with passion and not anger.

  ‘Stephanie, don’t look at me like that,’ Jake muttered in a tortured voice that jolted her into brief awareness of what she was doing, but that awareness retreated beneath the wave of sexual response his voice conjured up and without moving her gaze ftom his mouth, Stephanie whispered huskily, ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like you want to feel my mouth on yours, like this,’ Jake responded in a thick, almost drugged tone, lowering his head until his breath brushed the tendrils of hair curling round her temples.

  Stephanie closed her eyes instinctively, her whole body trembling in anticipation. She did want Jake to kiss her, she acknowledged; she wanted it with a fierce intensity that at any other time would have terrified her, but now, all she was aware of was that her body was already melting in satisfied anticipation and that when Jake lifted her arms, it seemed the most natural thing in the world to lock them behind his head as she arched up in response
to the heat of his hands against her back, lifting her off the bed and against his body, teasing brief kisses against her mouth as he did so.

  ‘Jake.’ His name was a moaned sound that he captured with his mouth, his tongue forcing her to yield to the powerful surge of emotion she felt consuming them both. She had no will, no thought, no purpose in life, save for the satisfaction of this aching hunger that Jake seemed to feed inside her. When his hand slipped the strap of her nightdress off her shoulder, her skin seemed to burn beneath his touch. She yielded herself to him in a tide of bone-melting urgency, no thought in her mind other than her compelling need to lose herself in the sensations he was arousing. When his hand cupped her breast, she shuddered in response, opening dazed eyes to meet the darkly grey glitter of his.

  ‘Stephanie, kiss me… touch me.’ The thick, aching mutter was so unlike the voice he normally used that she was too bemused to protest when he tore impatiently at the buttons on his shirt, sliding her hand inside it. Beneath her fingers, she could feel the crispness of his body hair. His skin felt hot and moist, his heart thudding irregularly into her palm. Touching him generated an excitement that increased her pulse rate until it matched the heavy thud of his heart, and she was the one who unfastened the remaining buttons on his shirt, pressing both hands against his skin, savouring the sensation of feeling it beneath her own.

  Distantly, she was aware of Jake muttering something, as his body shuddered against hers, just as she was aware of the cool night air against her skin as he slid the other strap down her shoulder until he had exposed both breasts.

  ‘Stephanie.’ Her hands were lifted from their resting place against his chest and so great was her feeling of loss that she was hardly aware of Jake sliding her straps over her arms.

  ‘Jake, I want to touch you,’ she protested, surprised to hear herself saying words which part of her brain told her she should never have uttered, but why not? She did want to touch him, so badly that it was almost a fever in her blood. She bent her head and touched her tongue to the hollow of his throat, tasting the salty male texture of his skin. Beneath his breath, Jake groaned, his throat arching as it invited her hesitant touch. Under her tentative exploration, his body tensed, his muscles rigid and then, suddenly, with an explosion of sound, he pulled her down on to the bed beside him, his thumb strokingly caressing over her nipple, making it grow hard and taut as his mouth captured her startled cry of protest and his tongue explored deeply into hers.