by Anne Mather
They probably thought she was just another eccentric Englishwoman, she thought, as she rode the lift back to the fourteenth floor. Who else would order expensive food and wine like that, and then leave most of it?’
Her room was halfway along the carpeted corridor. The rooms were set in pairs off narrow foyers, double panelled doors with the numbers in gold lettering. She inserted her key in her own lock and entered the room swiftly. She was not unmindful of her vulnerability here, alone, in a strange city. Although the corridor had been deserted, she had had a faintly apprehensive feeling ever since she left the dining room. In consequence, she slipped the safety chain into place and turned the dead bolt before turning to face the lamplit room.
But when she did, her heart almost stopped beating. A man was seated in the armchair by the window, his head silhouetted against the lights of the city outside. Most of his body was in shadow, only his long legs, crossed at the ankle, protruded into the light. Her first thought was how casual he seemed, just sitting there, waiting for her, and then how stupid she had been to secure the door without first checking that she was alone.
Panic swept up into her throat, but before she could summon her legs into action or get some sound from her frozen vocal chords, he got to his feet. ‘Don’t scream,’ he said, moving forward, and as she slumped against the panels behind her, Lincoln stepped into the light.
Her immediate reaction was one of tearful indignation. How dared he come here, scaring her half to death? she wondered resentfully. He must have known how terrified she would be. But hard on the heels of this thought came the incredulous realisation that he had evidently gone to the trouble of finding her, and why would he do that, after that stilted little conversation they had had earlier?
‘I’m sorry if I frightened you,’ he said, and as her panic subsided, Sara was able to look at him properly. At last she was able to see for herself why Tony was so concerned about him, for no matter how he had sounded on the phone, he looked awful. He was very pale, and haggard, with purplish pouches below his eyes. He looked every one of his forty years, and more besides, she reflected anxiously. Dear God! what was wrong with him? Why was he pushing himself like this?
‘How did you know where I was?’ she asked huskily, pushing herself away from the door. It was hardly important, but she needed time to think.
‘Antony usually stays here,’ said Lincoln carelessly, pushing his hands into the pockets of the black leather jacket he was wearing. ‘The management know me. When I asked the number of your room, I let them think we were related.’
‘But how did you get in here?’ Sara shook her head. ‘Do you have a key?’
‘The bellhop let me in. They said you were dining in the restaurant, so I said I wanted to surprise you. I’m sorry, but I’m not in the mood to exchange pleasantries over a dinner table.’
‘You don’t look as if you’ve eaten for days,’ said Sara bluntly, noticing how his corded pants hung on his hips. ‘For heaven’s sake, Link, what have you been doing to yourself? And why wouldn’t you agree to see me this afternoon?’
Lincoln pushed back an unruly swathe of dark hair with a hand that shook a little. ‘Do you blame me?’ he muttered, watching her with wary eyes. ‘I’m not exactly fit to see anyone. I suppose Antony told you I’ve been feeling—under the weather.’
‘Under the influence, more like,’ she said shortly, noticing the faint slur that marred his speech. It had not been evident on the phone, but it was evident now. ‘You’ve been drinking, haven’t you? Isn’t that rather stupid?’
His lips twisted. ‘You were always direct, weren’t you, Sara? That was one of your most disarming attributes!’
‘Don’t be sarcastic!’
‘Well, don’t be so bloody pious, then. For God’s sake, why have you come here? To make my life even more of a hell than it already is?’
Sara gulped. ‘No.’
‘But Antony did send you, didn’t he? If I wasn’t sure before, I am now.’
She frowned. ‘Why?’
‘This hotel. Your staying here. Antony booked it for you, didn’t he? I’m surprised he didn’t come with you.’ He hunched his shoulders. ‘I wish he’d mind his own bloody business!’
‘Do you?’ She gazed him. ‘And I suppose you wish he hadn’t interfered over Jeff as well!’
‘As a matter of fact,’ said Lincoln savagely.
Sara flinched. ‘You’d rather your son had become a—a cabbage?’
‘I’d have seen that didn’t happen,’ he retorted harshly, but she couldn’t let him get away with that.
‘You weren’t having much success when I arrived,’ she reminded him unevenly. ‘You couldn’t even talk to one another! As I recall it——’
‘All right, all right!’ He clenched his fists. ‘My God, you’re determined to have your pound of flesh, aren’t you? Okay. You persuaded me to tell Jef the truth, and he believed me. I’m grateful for that. But I don’t have to like it, do I?’
Sara dropped her keys into her bag and set the bag on the bureau by the door. She was shaking now, but she was determined not to let him see how much he had hurt her.
‘So,’ she said, avoiding the accusing glitter of his eyes, ‘why have you come here? If—if you hate me so much, why didn’t you just ignore my call?’
Lincoln closed his eyes for a moment. ‘I don’t hate you,’ he said wearily. ‘I wish to God I did! My life would be so much easier if I could just put you out of it!’
She blinked. ‘But—why? What did I ever do to you?’
He gave her a disbelieving look. ‘You don’t know?’
‘No.’ She was bewildered. In spite of what Tony had told her, she was out of her depth here. Did he care about her or didn’t he? And if so, why had he offered her a job instead of telling her?
Lincoln stared at her like a hunted animal for a few tense moments, and then, abruptly, he turned away, looking round the comfortable hotel room with restless eyes. ‘I need a drink,’ he said thickly, his eyes alighting on the refrigerated bar. ‘Give me your key.’
‘N—no.’ Sara refused to participate in his self-destruction. ‘Link—Link, we have to talk. Please, won’t you sit down. At least you could tell me what I’m supposed to have done.’
He regarded her coldly. ‘You won’t give me your key?’
‘No.’
‘Very well.’ Pushing his hands back into his pockets, he brushed past her and walked towards the door. I’ll go and get a drink some place else.’
‘Oh, Link!’ With a defeated little sigh, she went after him, and as he fumbled with the safety chain, she pulled her keys out of her bag. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘take them. Just don’t—don’t shut me out again.’
Lincoln took the keys, but didn’t move towards the cabinet. ‘Shut you out?’ he echoed blankly. ‘When did I do that?’
‘This—this afternoon,’ said Sara, remaining where she was with a great effort of will power. ‘I thought you didn’t want to see me. I was going to catch the evening flight home.’
His lips parted. ‘And why didn’t you?’
‘Because—because I wanted to stay,’ she stammered miserably. ‘There! Now you can have the last laugh. I may have come here because Tony asked me to, but my motives weren’t entirely unselfish.’
He stiffened. ‘What are you saying? That you really wanted that job I offered you?’
Sara hesitated. ‘If it’s still vacant, yes.’
‘Oh, Sara!’ With a sigh, Lincoln thrust the keys she had given him into his pocket and ran unsteady fingers round the back of his neck. ‘Look, I don’t know how to tell you this, but—well, there was no job.’
‘No?’ She tried to hide the sudden surge of emotion that gripped her. ‘But you said——’
‘I know what I said,’ he replied heavily. ‘Oh, what the hell! You might as well hear it from me as from somebody else. I only pretended there was a job, to get you to come to New York. Once you were here, I was hoping I might persuade you to cha
nge your mind about—well, about our relationship.’
Sara quivered. ‘Our relationship?’ she echoed softly. I—didn’t know we had a relationship.’
‘No.’ Lincoln’s tone was flat. ‘That’s what I thought. Well …’ he pulled the keys out of his pocket again and dropped them on to the bureau, ‘I guess this is where I came in. Sorry about the intrusion. It won’t happen ag——’
‘Oh, Link!’
Her agonised cry of protest stilled his hands as he fumbled with the bolt, and her eager arms sliding round his waist from behind evoked a muffled oath. But Sara was no longer in any doubt that what Jeff had suspected, and what Tony had said, was true. Amazing—incredible—as it might seem, Lincoln did care about her, and whatever he wanted from her, she was more than willing to give.
‘Oh, Link,’ she said again, pressing her face into the hollow of his spine, ‘don’t go! Please, don’t go! I need you!’
She could feel him trembling as he turned to face her, but the hands sliding over her shoulders were hungrily possessive. ‘What did you say?’ he demanded roughly. ‘Do you really want me to stay? Or am I just another case you’re going to try and cure?’
She sniffed a little tearfully now. ‘Well, you are a case,’ she told him huskily. ‘And how do I know this isn’t just the alcohol talking? For heaven’s sake, why didn’t you just tell me how you felt in Florida?’
‘I could ask you the same question,’ he muttered, pulling her against him. ‘And why do you think I needed the alcohol? Sara—God! I thought I was only a substitute. I thought it was Jeff you cared about!’
‘Jeff?’ She gazed at him blankly. ‘But you couldn’t——’
Oh, I could,’ he assured her unsteadily. ‘Keating told me he’d seen you in one another’s arms. What was I supposed to think?’
Sara shook her head, remembering that occasion with disbelief. ‘It wasn’t like that,’ she exclaimed fiercely. ‘Jeff had just made it into his wheelchair for the first time. I hugged him, that was all. I hugged him! There was nothing sexual about it.
Lincoln groaned. ‘But you always kept me at a distance!’
‘I thought that was what you wanted. After you accused me of trying to blackmail you——’
He shook his head. ‘I apologised for that.’
‘But I couldn’t forget it.’
‘You don’t understand,’ he said, his voice muffled by her hair, as he released the pins holding it in its knot and buried his face in its tumbling softness. ‘That night—that night we spent together meant more to me than I wanted it to. I didn’t want to get involved, and I guess I tried to convince myself that I could get over it.’
‘But you stayed on,’ she reminded him, drawing back to look at him, and he gave her a wry smile.
‘With Rebecca,’ he agreed emotively. ‘I guess I was trying to prove my indifference. It didn’t work.’
Sara’s tongue touched her lips. ‘Did you—did you sleep with her, too?’
‘Will you believe me if I say no?’ he enquired huskily. ‘I’ll be honest—I intended to. But every time I took her in my arms, I kept seeing your face!’
‘Oh—darling—’
She put up her hand to touch his cheek, but Lincoln was not proof against such endearments. With an exclamation, he turned her palm against his mouth, and then, cupping the back of her head with his hand, he brought her lips to his.
After that, it was difficult to think of anything but the searching possession of his tongue in her mouth. He was hungry for her, and she desperately wanted to show him that she shared his need. With a complete abandonment of inhibition, she burrowed inside his jacket, parting the buttons of his shirt to press her burning face against his skin. It was so wonderful to be able to share these intimacies with him, and he parted his legs to draw her closer, letting her feel his urgent need.
His kisses deepened as his hands explored her body, finding the nub of her zip at her nape and propelling it surely downwards. Then, with his lips seeking the smooth skin of her shoulder, he swung her up into his arms, and presently the cool sheets that the maid had turned down for the night were at her back.
‘Let me,’ she whispered huskily, as he began to loosen his shirt, but when her hands encountered the swollen length of him, taut beneath the bulging cloth of his pants, he put her quickly aside.
‘I can’t let you,’ he said thickly, unbuckling his belt and tearing open his zip to expose his throbbing manhood. ‘There’s only so much I can take, and right now I can’t wait!’
‘I can’t wait either,’ she breathed, opening her bra and tossing it aside as he came down beside her. But it was Lincoln’s hands that disposed of her panties, and parted her legs for his possession.
It was quickly over. The thrusting invasion of his body soon brought them both a shuddering satisfaction, and Lincoln collapsed upon her only seconds after she had reached her climax. So much for a lingering reunion, she thought ruefully, but oh, how marvellous it had been! She had only been half alive since that night at Orchid Key. But now she felt revitalised in every nerve and sinew.
It was some minutes before Lincoln stirred, but when he did, it was only to prop himself up on his elbows. ‘You see what you do to me,’ he murmured, smoothing the moist black hair back from her forehead. ‘I’m sorry—I wanted to be gentle, but I’d waited so long …’
‘I’m not complaining,’ she teased, stroking a bead of perspiration from his temple. ‘I got the feeling you needed me.’
‘You’d better believe it,’ he groaned, burying his face between her breasts. ‘I love you! I just wish I believed this was as good for you as it is for me.’
Sara frowned. ‘What do you mean? You must know I love you, too.’
‘Do you?’ He lifted his head again.
‘How can you doubt it?’
‘And you don’t think I’m—too old for you?’
‘Too old?’
‘I saw the way you looked at me when you came in. You looked—shocked.’
‘I was shocked,’ she exclaimed, twining her fingers in the hair at his nape. ‘Link, have you looked at yourself recently? You’ve got so pale and tired-looking. And you’ve lost weight.’ She paused. ‘Tony said you were drinking yourself to death.’
‘An exaggeration, I think,’ he said roughly, but when she reached up to rub her lips against his, he closed his eyes. ‘Okay,’ he added, opening them again, ‘maybe I have been imbibing a little too freely, but hell—it was the only way I could live with myself!’
‘If only I’d known,’ she sighed.
‘But that doesn’t alter the fact that Jeff is more your age than I am.’
‘So what?’ She wound her arms around his neck now, ‘I don’t love Jeff. I love you! Are you going to let me stay?’
‘Stay?’
Sara hesitated. ‘That is what you want, isn’t it? That I should stay with you?’
Lincoln regarded her warily, his lean attractive features mirroring a little of the tension they had exhibited earlier. ‘Is that what you want?’
She blinked. ‘Well, of course it is,’ she stammered. And then, swallowing: ‘What’s wrong?’
He shook his head. ‘Nothing.’
‘Yes, there is.’ She shook him. ‘Link, you’re shutting me out again. What did I say? Tell me!’
He rolled on to his back beside her and stared at the ceiling then. ‘All right,’ he said flatly. ‘I had a more—permanent relationship in mind. But if you want——’
‘A more permanent relationship?’ she echoed, pushing herself up on one hand to look down at him. ‘Do you mean—marriage?’
His eyes turned towards her, and she thought he had never looked more attractive to her. Their lovemaking had banished the defeated expression from his face, but now it was being replaced by a weary resignation. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Old-fashioned, aren’t I? But that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.’
Sara shook her head. ‘You—want to—marry me?’
‘Do
n’t look so surprised. I may have had one unfortunate experience, but I’m not opposed to the idea.’
‘Oh, Link!’ Suddenly realising how shamelessly she was exploiting his need of her, she lowered herself against him, and with her mouth teasing his, she breathed: ‘I’m not opposed to it either. I just didn’t think you would want to marry me.’
His hands slid into her hair, almost pulling it away from her scalp as he forced her upwards. ‘What did you say?’
‘You heard me,’ she murmured painfully. ‘Oh, darling, I’d marry you tomorrow, if I could. But not if you’re going to scalp me every time I make a mistake.’
‘Do you mean it?’ With a disbelieving oath, he rolled over, bearing her back against the mattress. ‘You do mean it!’ he added, seeing the eager acknowledgement glowing in her eyes. He shook his head. ‘Oh, Sara! What a lot of time we’ve wasted!’
There was a satisfying silence, and then Sara whispered huskily: ‘We’d better not waste any more, hmm?’
‘No chance,’ Lincoln assured her, with a return of his usual confidence. ‘I’ll have to tell Antony—Tony—he can interfere any time he likes!’
ISBN: 978-1-472-09973-0
NIGHT HEAT
© 1987 Anne Mather
Published in Great Britain 2014
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
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