by Penny Jordan
Quite when her feeling of fear was eclipsed by the slow-growing dawn of fevered excitement, she didn’t quite know. One moment it seemed she was resisting him, fighting him with every locked muscle; the next her body was turning traitor on her, her skin quivering beneath the slow assault of his mouth. A feeling of languor stole over her, a weakness that made her boneless and compliant, eager for the taste of his mouth when it eventually reached hers.
Mindlessly she clung to him, unaware of anything other than the fact that this man had unlocked doors within her that she hadn’t even known existed.
His mouth taught, teased, explored and finally swept them both to a fury of passion that rendered them equally vulnerable to the sensations racking them.
Natasha came to her senses first, alerted initially by the hot touch of his hand against her breast, and secondly by the sound of the girls’ voices outside in the corridor.
When she pushed him away, Jay stood tautly watching her with eyes that didn’t focus properly, his skin flushed with the same heat burning inside her.
For the first time in her life she had known the fierce lure of a man’s passion, and she was still half drugged by it.
‘Damn you!’ Jay muttered savagely. ‘Damn you to hell, you little…’ He said a word that cut into her like a knife. ‘Don’t be misled by this! The men of my family seem to have a weakness for women of your type, but in my case it’s a weakness I don’t intend giving in to.’
Before she could object, before she could tell him how wrong he was about her, the girls burst in, demanding to know what had delayed them.
Natasha turned her back toward them, and gained a certain amount of savage satisfaction in leaving Jay to deal with their questions.
CHAPTER SIX
THE car which Natasha had bought with such pleasure stood reproachfully and unused in the garage Jay had grimly allocated to it.
It wasn’t just pride that kept Natasha from telling him the truth and explaining that she had bought the car from her own money—after all, ultimately, he must surely realise the truth when no invoice was forthcoming?
No, there was more to it than that. Something much, much more… Something insidious and dangerous that gnawed at her and made her feel more vulnerable than she had ever felt in her life. She needed the barrier of reminding herself how irrationally and unfairly he had behaved towards her; how he had misjudged and abused her. She needed it and she was determined to retain it.
Even so, no matter how justifiable her actions and her right to spend her own money as she chose, she found it impossible to touch the car.
The girls had both begged for rides in it, suggesting that she take them on a visit to see their friends, but always she found some excuse to put them off.
Instead, she persuaded them to take her riding round the ranch. Rory had saddled the mare for her and, although at first the girls had been inclined to tease her for the way she rode, it had only taken Rory’s comment that the English way of riding was the only correct way, to silence their teasing comments.
Her new Stetson protected her from the sun, and soon she was able to appreciate how vast an area the ranch covered.
She had deliberately stayed out of the way the evening after their return, when Jenneth and her husband had come over to dinner, not wanting to watch Jay dancing attendance on the other woman, giving to her the kindness and courtesy that was so lacking in his manner towards herself. She was not eager to examine too closely her motives behind this reaction; she only knew that the intensity of her sexual reaction to him left her feeling acutely vulnerable and frightened.
Even then, when surely any man of sense must have realised how innocent and untutored she was, he had gone on blaming and accusing, she reflected acidly, as she slid tiredly off her mount’s back.
Today she had spent almost four full hours in the saddle, and her muscles were starting to ache a little.
She had been surprised and pleased at the ease with which her old riding skills had come back to her. Once when they were out, the twins had pointed out Jay and some of his men to her, but although Jay had looked in their direction he had not ridden over to them.
Tonight Jenneth and her husband were coming to dinner again. The twins had given her the news dolefully, convinced that the blonde was making a play for their uncle.
‘You wait and see. She’ll get a Mexican divorce from Howie, and she and Uncle Jay will be married before he’s had time to turn round.’
‘Would that really be so bad?’ she had asked, painfully aware of her own sharp thrill of anguish.
‘Yes! She’d pack us off to Europe as soon as she could. Why can’t you get Uncle Jay to fall in love with you, Natasha? We’d much rather he married you…’
Rosalie, always more intuitive then her twin, must have read something in her face, because she shushed Cherry, and said awkwardly, ‘You don’t have to do that, but if you could just pretend that he was in love with you, that would frighten her off.’
‘Yes, I read this story once, and that’s just what happened,’ Cherry piped up, relating an improbable scenario with relish, apparently unaware of the fact that one word from Jay would make nonsense of any attempt on Natasha’s part to pretend that they were in love.
The twins’ concern for their uncle wasn’t entirely selfish, Natasha knew. They both cared very deeply for him. They were also frightened and vulnerable: frightened that if he did marry Jenneth they would lose him, and she could understand that fear all too well…
According to the twins, Jay and Jenneth had quarrelled and broken off their long-term romance, Jenneth departing in high dudgeon to Fort Worth, returning as the wife of Howie.
Now, it seemed, she was tired of that marriage, and Jay was tired of being without her.
Every time she pictured Jay and the blonde standing together, a strange sensation of pain and loss permeated her, a sensation that persisted no matter what she did to banish it.
She had spent so much time since her arrival avoiding him that it had become second nature. Thus it was something of a shock to walk into the main hallway of the ranch house, just at the very moment he was coming out of his den.
For a moment it seemed as though they were both held in some strange thrall, staring at one another in tense silence.
It was Jay who broke it, his voice harshly bitter, as his glance flicked her trim, jean-clad figure. ‘You’ve not been out in your new acquisition yet, I see. What are you trying to do? Impress me with your sense of remorse?’
The unfairness of it infuriated her. Her eyes, always the first indication of her changing mood, burned bright amber, flecked with gold, the colour leaving her skin abruptly as it always did when she was angry.
‘Impress you!’ she said scornfully. ‘I’d have to be crawling in the gutter before I’d want to do that, and even then I’d think twice.’
She felt his immediate response in the hot blaze of his eyes, his body so tautly controlled that she could almost feel the tension in his muscles. As she almost ran past him she felt his anger beat against her; knew that he ached to take hold of her and slowly deprive her of breath, of life, and yet she didn’t regret her words. She had thrown them down between them like a gauntlet, wanting him to experience the furious impotence that overwhelmed her each time he misjudged and insulted her.
Now she had done it, and when the madness boiling her blood receded she would probably regret her folly. But right now, it was a pleasure to turn at the top of the stairs and look down to where he stood watching her, dark colour burning his cheekbones like two angry weals, the bones standing out in sharp relief beneath his tanned skin, his eyes glittering with dark rage.
Never had she been more aware of his Indian ancestry; it showed in the taut angularity of his bones, in the tension of his muscles, in the complete stillness of his body as he willed it to a state of control.
Civilisation had been stripped away to reveal the savage, just as when her temper was aroused she reverted back to the blood sh
e had inherited from her Russian ancestress.
It came to her with a start that it was a bond they both shared: alien and dangerous blood mixed volatilely into their more phlegmatic inheritance.
She didn’t want to go down for dinner, but she had run out of excuses. If she stayed upstairs tonight Jay would think she was cowering there out of fear.
She dressed quickly, almost angrily, her movements lacking their normal feminine elegance. One after the other she discarded outfits, not really knowing what she was looking for until she found at the back of the cupboard an outfit she had bought in Harvey Nichols on impulse just before she left.
It was a two-piece designed by Flora Kung, a golden-yellow silk skirt, short and tapered, falling from a neat waistline. The jacket was a wild mixture of golden-yellow, white and cerise, with long sleeves and a wrap-over bodice that fastened with tiny fabric-covered loops and buttons on a wide, fitted waistband.
Every time she moved, the silk clung and whispered seductively. The golden yellow colour enhanced her rich hair, her eyes still glowed fiercely topaz, her skin flushed delicately and becomingly. Almost as though she were donning special armour, she was wearing the silk underwear she had bought on an extravagant impulse. Silk stockings clung to her legs, and her backless sandals were golden-yellow leather, with orchid leaves over the toes.
A dusting of golden powder and bronze eye-shadow, an application of mascara and lip gloss, a spray of the Giorgio perfume Adam had bought her for Christmas applied to her pulse points and she felt every inch the voluptuous femme fatale Jay seemed to think she was.
She met the twins just as they emerged from their rooms. Both of them stared at her in gratifying fashion, but she didn’t realise why until Cherry hugged her enthusiastically and whispered, ‘Great! You’re going to do it, I knew you would. You’ll have no problem convincing Jenneth that Uncle Jay’s in love with you, dressed like that.’
Natasha stared at her. In her fury at Jay, she had completely forgotten the girls’ obsession with their uncle’s relationship with Jenneth.
She opened her mouth to deny that she had any such intentions and then closed it again as Dolores appeared at the top of the stairs.
‘Time you was all down with Jay. His guests will be arriving any moment.’
Her chance was gone, the girls were racing downstairs ahead of her, firmly convinced that she was all set to play the role they had cast for her, and the fault was hers. She shrugged lightly. Well, by the end of the evening they would realise they were wrong. They would be disappointed, of course, but when she explained they would soon understand.
Natasha reached the bottom of the stairs just as the doorbell rang. Jay himself emerged from his den to answer it, and so Natasha was standing almost right beside him when Jenneth and her husband walked in.
The blonde frowned and came to an abrupt halt the moment she saw Natasha, while her husband’s eyes widened appreciatively.
‘Well, now, Jay! That’s some pretty lady you’ve got here,’ he drawled with what Natasha privately considered to be overfulsome flattery.
Nevertheless, she hid her distaste and extended her hand to shake his, grimly waiting for Jay to denounce her, as the female who had seduced and exploited his grandfather. But to her surprise he said only, ‘Natasha is a friend of…of the family’s, and she’s staying with us for a while.’
Obviously Jenneth knew nothing about his grandfather’s odd will. Was it because Jay was frightened that he would lose her a second time if she realised he was not the sole beneficiary? Natasha wondered grimly. The blonde’s rather cold blue eyes narrowed, and she said in a playful voice that held more than an underlying hint of ice, ‘Not a friend of yours, surely, Jay? At least, not one I’ve ever known existed…’
To her own amazement, Natasha heard herself saying softly, ‘Oh, Jay and I have been friends for a long time. We were introduced by his grandfather…’
Somehow or other her arm had found its way through Jay’s and she was clinging to his side, much as the blonde woman had done when Natasha had seen them in Dallas.
One part of her mind refused to accept what she was doing, looking on instead in bemused and horrified bewilderment.
Beneath her fingertips, Jay’s arm was as rigid as that of a statue. She heard him breathe in sharply, and out of sheer devilment ran her fingers lightly against his exposed wrist. The sensation of his dark fine hair against her fingertips was oddly stimulating, engrossing her to such an extent that she forgot the reason why she was doing this. She heard Jay expel his breath harshly, and risked a flirtatious look up into his furious eyes.
He might well look furious, she thought bemusedly. So would she in the same circumstances. What on earth was she trying to do, get herself scalped? Because that was what she read in his eyes: a promise of a long and painful death.
She had had to do it, or disappoint the twins, she told herself virtuously as she released him and turned to make small talk with Jenneth’s husband, judiciously deciding not to go in for overkill. Jay deserved to suffer a little…after what he had done to her…
It stunned her, this capacity and desire for revenge. Where had it come from?
It was too late for second thoughts or fear now, there was no going back. Jenneth was glaring at her with open venom, the twins hovering in the background. Both gave her encouraging grins as she turned her head and saw them. What on earth had she done? She realised that she was shaking, and wondered what had possessed her. She must have been out of her mind!
She comforted herself with the thought that Jay would find some way of reassuring Jenneth that she had only been play-acting, thinking that if he tackled her about it, she could always… Always what? Let him think that she was what he had accused her of being? She shrugged aside the pain slowly seeping into her. Why did she always feel this anxious desire to court his good opinion? Why had she so instantly felt that flash of antipathy and dislike towards Jenneth? Why had it felt so right to stand at Jay’s side, her hand through his arm, her body lightly touching him?
‘That’s a rather unusual outfit,’ Jenneth commented as they all walked into the dining-room. She was dressed in sugar-almond pink, with flounces, and her implication was quite plain.
Never had Natasha taken so much pleasure in straying from her normal subdued elegance.
‘Isn’t it?’ she agreed with a smile. ‘I bought it in Harvey Nichols…where the Princess of Wales shops, you know…’
As she had expected, Jenneth looked slightly discomfited, and Natasha saw no reason to add that as far as she knew Princess Diana had never bought an outfit by the same designer.
‘Really?’ Jenneth made a slight recovery. ‘But then, of course, she’s blonde…and these are such vivid colours…with red hair…’
‘Yes, redheads are lucky,’ Natasha agreed. ‘We don’t have to stick to insipid pastels… Such a relief, especially when one becomes older. There’s nothing more ridiculous than a woman dressed in baby pinks and blues once she’s past the age for them, don’t you agree?’
Another killing glance joined the one Natasha had already received, but, fortunately, before she was called upon to think up any more acid remarks, Dolores came in to announce dinner.
It came as something of a shock to Natasha to discover that she was seated at the opposite end of the table to Jay, almost as though she were the hostess.
As she sat down, Cherry whispered to her in explanation, ‘Dolores doesn’t like Jenneth, either. She says once Jenneth comes in she’s walking out.’
It seemed that she was part of a wholesale conspiracy to rescue Jay from the clutches of his would-be wife! Just how appreciative of this concerted effort he was likely to be she wasn’t too sure, but why should she concern herself with Jay’s feelings? When had he ever concerned himself with hers?
The meal that followed held all the ingredients of a black farce. Jenneth complained that she couldn’t eat the shellfish. At the same time as she was listening to Jay expressing concern, Natash
a was wondering if Dolores had deliberately chosen to serve the delicious mussels in their white wine sauce, knowing that Jenneth wouldn’t be able to eat them.
The Texan equivalent of a traditional British Sunday roast lunch followed, and again Jenneth merely picked at her food, this time claiming that so many calories would ruin her figure. Since she was slender almost to the point of frailty, Natasha could only see this complaint as a rather obvious means of drawing Jay’s attention to her fragile frame.
A quick look at Howie confirmed that he was watching his wife’s flirtatious manner towards Jay with frowning suspicion. Telling herself that it was not her job to rescue Jay from the consequences of his folly, Natasha suppressed a sigh as she valiantly engaged the older man in conversation.
Once she had got through his seemingly impenetrable outer shell of toughness, Natasha discovered that he was a surprisingly interesting man: a lover of both ballet and opera, as he shyly confided in her.
Once or twice as they talked, Natasha was conscious of the fact that they were coming under scrutiny from Jay, and he finally interrupted Howie harshly to say, ‘Natasha, Jenneth was asking you a question.’ Natasha retaliated with a sweet smile and a soft, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, darling…’ before turning to look at the blonde.
She could almost feel the twins’ glee, and certainly Jenneth looked far from pleased at the intimate way she had addressed Jay.
After dinner they all went out on to the porch to have their coffee, at Jenneth’s insistence.
Howie grimaced and complained that he would be eaten alive, but Jenneth’s girlish pout won the day.
‘Jay, you must show me your mother’s garden. I always think this is the best time of the year for it… Jay’s mother came from Boston, and when she was first married, she had the most beautiful garden designed in the English style. It’s watered by a special underground sprinkler system. Have you seen it yet?’
