The Friendship Barrier

by Penny Jordan

  She heard the hired car drive away as she undressed. Her bedroom had a small balcony, complete with a table and two chairs, and it overlooked both the garden and the pool area beyond. A castellated wall surrounded the pool area which had been planted with irregular islands of spreading plants, the walls already showing faint hints of green where the climbing roses and bougainvillaea would eventually spread. The pool itself was large and well-designed, with plenty of room for sitting out and a raised barbecue area at one end. Sighing, Stephanie wandered into her bathroom. As Jake had said, it was impressively luxurious. The water ran hot and smooth, filling the small sunken tub. She sank down into the milky water, letting her muscles relax. She was almost half asleep when she realised the water was getting cold. Too tired even to think of preparing a meal, she got out, wrapping herself in a towel, and went to lie down on her bed, letting her eyes close.

  ‘Stephanie?’

  She came to with a start. She had slept so deeply that she hadn’t even moved. Her skin felt quite cool beneath the damp towel she was still wearing, and she shrugged it off automatically.

  ‘Stephanie, are you all right?’ The bedroom door opened and Jake strode in, stopping abruptly when he saw her. She paused in the act of sitting up, her face flaming when she realised that Jake was there.

  ‘I fell asleep. You woke me.’ Clumsily she reached for the towel, forgetting that she was still half-lying on it, the cool wind from the open balcony window raising goosebumps of flesh on her skin. She hadn’t even unpacked, she remembered, and the clothes she had arrived in were still lying on the bathroom floor.

  ‘For God’s sake, get some clothes on.’ Jake’s harsh demand ignited her temper.

  ‘There’s nothing I’d like more,’ she told him acidly, ‘but my suitcase is over there,’ she pointed towards the opposite side of the room, ‘and the clothes I travelled in are in the bathroom.’

  ‘Do you make a habit of lying around naked?’ The insolent glance skimming her body that accompanied his taunting drawl inflamed her temper further.

  ‘Do you make a habit of walking into people’s bedrooms uninvited? I’m sorry if you find the sight of my… of my body offensive,’ her chin jutted out stubbornly, ‘but I didn’t invite you to walk in here.’

  ‘Offensive?’ For a moment, he almost sounded startled, and then a derisory gleam entered his eyes. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’ he asked softly, closing the door and coming towards her. Outside, night had fallen and the air was full of strange sounds. Tensing, Stephanie watched his approach with eyes unknowingly dark in the pale oval of her face.

  ‘Aggravating… enticing… arousing, yes, but offensive?’ He shook his head, his mouth curling faintly as he witnessed her tension. ‘Tell me, Stephanie, why is it that Brice Challoner can flirt with you with impunity, while I only have to look at you to have you scuttling behind that protective wall you’re so fond of?’

  ‘You… you’re different.’

  ‘Different?’ He was so close to her now that Stephanie could see his chest rising and falling as he breathed. Did he have the slightest idea of the effect he had on her? This close to him, it was almost impossible to think rationally.

  ‘How am I different? Different because I know the truth about you? Because…’

  As Stephanie turned away from him, wanting to hide from the harsh sound of his voice, her body was silhouetted for a brief instant by the moonlight pouring in through the uncurtained window. She heard Jake catch his breath, and realised that he had gone as tense as a predator about to pounce.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Stephanie, get some clothes on,’ he grated thickly, ‘otherwise, I…’

  ‘You’ll what?’ Stephanie taunted bitterly. ‘Forget that you said I’d have to beg to get into your bed, and that I’m not Susy… Does she know how frustration affects you? That you turn to any woman who happens to be handy when she’s not there…?’

  ‘Is that what you think?’ So suddenly that she didn’t have the opportunity to escape, his fingers clamped round her wrist, pulling her upright into a sitting position. Acutely conscious of her nudity, Stephanie cowered away.

  ‘You’re very fond of accusing me of using you as a substitute for Susy aren’t you?’ he muttered harshly. ‘Well, this should give you a laugh. I’ve never touched her in the way that you mean Stephanie. Oh, I wanted to…’ he gritted when he saw her disbelieving expression. ‘God, you can’t know how I’ve wanted to.’ Pain bit deeply into her at his admission. Was he saying that he loved Susy? ‘But I couldn’t,’ he continued, ‘I haven’t touched any other women in the two years I’ve known you. That’s the effect you’ve had on me. You’ve practically destroyed me as a man, turned me into a eunuch who can’t function properly.’ His ringers bit more deeply into her wrist. ‘I’ve wanted you… ached for you until I’ve nearly gone crazy with it, knowing that you didn’t want me. Whilst you didn’t want any other man either it was bearable—just about. I tried dating other women, but all I could see when I touched them was your face… your eyes, looking at me the way they looked the night you were attacked.’

  ‘Jake…’

  ‘Don’t start…’ he warned her. ‘I’m not in the mood for it Stephanie. The only thing that’s kept me going all this time is the gut feeling that, one day, you’d wake up from your nightmare and that we’d pick up where we left off before you were attacked. The only thing,’ he reiterated, ‘but you just don’t want to know, do you? You’re just too damn happy in that private little world you’ve built for yourself to even think of coming out.’

  ‘Jake… I never knew…’

  ‘Because I took damn good care not to let you. You’d have run a mile if you’d known that I wanted you physically. You’ve become an obsession with me, Stephanie; an obstacle I can’t get round, or under, and until I do I’m useless as a man. If you don’t believe me, ask Susy. I think she’s beginning to get suspicious about the number of headaches I get,’ he added sardonically, releasing her. ‘Now perhaps you understand why coming in here and finding you naked doesn’t exactly help.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to come in, or to… want me…’

  ‘Stephanie, you ask me every time you look at me,’ he told her harshly. ‘You may not know it, but you do. You want me all right, but you’re too damned scared to admit it… God, do you think I want to feel like this about you? Do you think I really wouldn’t prefer to be able to… Oh God, what’s the use?’ he said tiredly. ‘You don’t even begin to understand… I’m not sure I do myself. Do you want to eat?’

  When she shook her head, he turned back towards the door. ‘I’ve got some work to do. I’ll see you in the morning.’

  After he had gone, Stephanie curled up into a small ball on the bed, her mind trying to grasp what he had told her. An obsession, Jake had told her, and that admission had been dragged from the very depths of his soul. She had turned him into a eunuch he had said… She shivered, sitting up. Dear God… she had never known… never guessed that what had happened to her might have had an equally traumatic effect on him. He had wanted her before she was attacked he had said, intimating that, but for that, they would have been lovers. She got off the bed, and went to her suitcase, opening it and searching automatically for her robe. Jake! Her heart ached with love and pity for him. She had just seen him stripped of pride, admitting something to her no man ever wanted to admit. But what could she do?

  Slowly, pulling on her robe, she sat back and thought, and then she knew.

  CHAPTER NINE

  HER heart thumping, Stephanie glanced at her watch. Two o’clock. Surely Jake would be asleep now? She had heard him come to bed over an hour ago. She listened and, hearing no sounds from the adjacent room, slid stealthily out of bed. What she was about to do called for a degree of courage and nerve control she wasn’t sure she had, but…

  No second thoughts now, she told herself firmly, opening her bedroom door and letting her breath out in a faint exhalation of relief when she saw no light showing under Ja
ke’s door. She had been frightened that he might have taken some work to bed with him.

  The door wasn’t closed, and she pushed it open, praying it wouldn’t squeak. It didn’t. The room was an exact replica of her own. In the moonlight, she could make out Jake’s tousled dark head and lean form. He lay quite still, one arm flung out across the bedclothes. Nervous dread coiled in the pit of her stomach. Dear God, had she gone mad? She couldn’t go through with this… She could not walk over to that bed and calmly start making love to Jake, no matter how much she owed him.

  She could, and she would, even if it meant she was freeing him to go to Susy. Her mouth twisted drily. Did the other woman know why Jake hadn’t yet been her lover, or did she simply think he was playing hard to get? It was a novel thought and one that made her mouth twitch with appreciation. Hysteria, she warned herself firmly. There was nothing remotely amusing about what had happened to them. She was in love with a man who didn’t love her, but who did desire her—to the extent where his need to consummate that desire had created a physical block that prevented him from satiating it with anyone else.

  Jake moved in his sleep, his dark eyebrows drawn together in a frown. A wave of love coursed through her as Stephanie watched him, melting her doubts. In the end, her choice was a simple one. Was her love for him deep enough to make her overcome her own dread and anguish, or was it too selfish to make that sacrifice?

  He had told her that never again would he attempt to make love to her without invitation, but that didn’t preclude her from making love to him.

  Sliding off the robe she had been wearing, Stephanie approached the bed. If he woke up now, she thought, she might die of sheer embarrassment, because she was fairly certain that if he did he would send her back to her own room, rejecting her. His admission had not been made in any form of plea, but rather as a tortured, bitter gesture, meant to reinforce the gulf that now existed between them.

  The night was relatively warm, and the quilt slid easily from his shoulders as she moved it gently away, taking care not to wake him.

  The bed dipped as she kneeled down on it, and she held her breath as Jake muttered something in his sleep and moved restlessly. He was lying on his stomach, and her muscles tensed as his restless movements caused the quilt to slide away completely, revealing the long line of his spine.

  Her glance skidded and faltered over the angular tautness of his buttocks and then skimmed the length of his legs, tanned and darkened by a rough scattering of hair.

  Closing her eyes, Stephanie drew a deep breath. She had already gone a long way from the girl who had felt only acute nausea at the mere thought of a man’s body—the past few weeks had taught her that, but, even so, she had been wholly unprepared for her tangible physical response to Jake’s nudity. She wanted to touch him, and a mixture of pain and delight flared to life inside her as she touched her lips gently to the smooth skin at the nape of his neck. Her hair spilled on to his shoulder and she smoothed the warm skin, exploring the shape of the underlying muscles, a sensitive feminine radar she had not known she possessed registering the faint relaxation in Jake’s body and responding to it, letting her fingers drift down his spine on the beginning of a journey which, she hoped, for him, would lead to freedom, but which, she knew, for her, would only result in further enslavement.

  ‘Jake.’ She murmured his name as she traced the indentation of his waist, feathering her lips over the angle of his hip bone.

  ‘Umm…’ Although still asleep, he shifted slightly, turning on to his side and curling his arm round her waist, his eyes tightly closed.

  ‘Jake.’ Her fingertips stroked upward along the dark arrowing of hair, enjoying the silky feel of it, her nails gently caressing the flesh beneath. ‘Jake, I want you to make love to me.’ She bent her head, and delicately ran her tongue along the line already investigated by her fingers, biting gently at his skin, until she felt the sudden tensing of his muscles that told her he was awake.

  ‘Stephanie…?’ He said it disbelievingly, lifting his head, and grasping a handful of her hair to twist her face away from his body.

  ‘Stephanie, what the hell?’

  ‘I want you to make love to me.’ She said it with quiet dignity, holding his gaze.

  Slowly his eyes slid over her; the pale perfection of her breasts, the nipples pink and erect; the curving shadow of her waist before it rounded out to her hips; the flatness of her stomach.

  His eyes switched back to her face, cold and flat. ‘I don’t know what you think you’re playing at Stephanie—at least, I hope I don’t know.’

  ‘I want you,’ she interrupted quietly. ‘You were right, I was being a coward. You said you wouldn’t make love to me unless I came to you and begged you.’

  ‘I said if you wanted me to make love to you, you’d have to beg me,’ Jake corrected her flatly. ‘I didn’t make any promises about doing so.’

  ‘Then I’ll just have to make love to you, won’t I?’ Stephanie said softly.

  ‘Look, Stephanie. I can guess what you’re doing, but I don’t…’

  ‘Want me?’ she cut in bravely. ‘I think you’re lying to me, Jake, but I’m prepared to give you the benefit of the doubt, and there’s really only one way to find out which of us is right, isn’t there?’

  Without waiting for him to respond, she bent her head, placing her lips to the pulse thudding in his throat. She felt him swallow against ridged muscles and knew a tiny flare of triumph as his tension increased.

  Not daring to look at him, Stephanie continued her delicate seduction, letting her lips and hands tell him all the things she couldn’t find the words for. Beneath her palm, his heart beat evenly, until she brushed her tongue lightly across each male nipple, when it thudded in tense reaction. When she touched him again, circling and teasing the hard nub of flesh, his fingers curled round her hair, his whole body tense, his curt, ‘Stephanie…’ a warning she decided not to ignore.

  ‘Don’t you like it?’ She made her voice sound lightly teasing, lifting her head against the pressure of his fingers to smile at him. The brief movement brought her breasts into contact with his chest, sending tingling spears of pleasure through her body.

  ‘That’s not the point…’ His voice was terse, and for the first time since she had known him, he did not meet her eyes when he spoke to her. Hope and triumph flared together. Pride held him aloof from her; well, she could understand that, but, for the first time she began to hope that his desire and her love could overcome that pride. Her hand brushed his thigh and she felt his muscles lock in repudiation, but nothing could conceal the sudden surge of desire he tried to check, and Stephanie tugged herself gently free of his grasp to touch her lips lightly again to his chest. This time, she felt the hard flaring of desire her touch aroused, and, when his fingers curled into her hair, it was to hold her against him, not to push her away.

  ‘I shouldn’t be letting you do this,’ he muttered rawly, ‘but, God help me, I’ve wanted it for too long. What you’re doing to me is the embodiment of every fantasy I’ve ever imagined about you.’ He shuddered deeply as his admission gave her the courage to touch him more intimately, exploring the male shape of him and exulting in the fierce surge of desire he was powerless to control. His mouth found the curve of her shoulder, ravaging it with biting kisses that aroused and excited, his hand cupping her breast. A thick male sound of appreciation shattered the silence, giving Stephanie the courage to pull away from him, and trace the hard muscle structure of his thigh with fingers that trembled slightly.

  ‘My God, don’t do that,’ Jake protested hoarsely.

  ‘Why? Don’t you like it?’ Her voice was almost as thick as his, and, in response, Jake groaned, curling her hand into his own and then placing it against his heart.

  ‘That’s how much I like it,’ he muttered, watching her with eyes that glittered silvery grey with molten heat. ‘I like it in ways I can’t begin to describe to you.’ He sat up, burying his mouth in her throat, moving it against her
skin, in a rough demanding caress. Her throat arching beneath the pressure of his mouth, Stephanie felt him cup her breasts with his hands, rubbing his thumbs over their sensitive tips.

  A hungry, aching sensation spread hotly through her body, making her moan his name and arch herself up against him. His mouth left her throat and moved towards her breast, his hand sliding away to investigate the curve of her waist.

  ‘Your skin’s like silk velvet,’ Jake groaned against her breast, ‘I can’t wait to feel all of it against me.’ His tongue caressed her nipple and Stephanie cried out with pleasure, feeling the shudder of response that ripped through Jake. She had aroused him just as she had intended, and now the time had come to let him take control of them both. Her body was instantly responsive to the rhythms he set it, her fingers tightening into his hair as he tugged, almost feverishly, on her nipple, his hand sliding between her thighs to incite and then soothe a searing need that made her deaf to anything but the singing pleasure of his touch.

  ‘You’re sending me up in flames,’ Jake told her, his voice slurred with the passion he no longer attemped to conceal. ‘Dear God, Stephanie, you do things to me I’d forgotten it was possible to do.

  ‘Jake.’ Her body shuddered with pleasure against him. ‘Jake, make love to me… Please…’

  ‘Hush… soon… soon,’ he promised, pulling her down against him and stroking his hand the length of her body. A surge of intense pleasure lifted her against him, her hands locking behind his neck as her mouth opened beneath his, admitting his penetration of its moist sweetness.

  Beneath her, Stephanie felt the cool cotton of the sheet, and she realised that Jake was laying her gently back on the bed. As he slowly released her, her fingers curled protestingly into his thigh, ‘Jake, don’t leave me.’ Her whole body ached for his possession with a feverish need she didn’t try to conceal… ‘Jake…’