Stranger in the Night

by Charlotte Lamb

  'The girls you used to tell me about,' Clare said, glancing at him.

  Macey grinned. 'Yes?' His blue eyes mocked her.

  'Did they exist?'

  'Oh, yes, they existed,' Macey said teasingly.

  Clare eyed him. 'I see.'

  His mouth twisted. 'I had some crazy notion it might wake you up to what you were missing. I'd get so frustrated, I'd have to break away from you, prove to myself that I wasn't incapable of pulling a bird if I tried. But somehow my little flings never worked out. It was a sort of whistling in the dark. I always came back to you. I was totally hooked, I had to come back for my fix. Seeing you was better than nothing at all. Life without you was a very pale colour.'

  'I'm sorry, darling,' she whispered, stroking his face, her fingertips tingling at the sensation of feeling his skin beneath them.

  'So I should think!' Macey grinned. His smile went and the blue eyes burnt. 'I've been through seven different kinds of hell in the past seven years, Clare. You're going to have a lot to make up for, darling.'

  She looked at him passionately, her green eyes shaken. 'How could you go on loving me? You should have started hating me instead.'

  'Oh, I had that, too,' he said, laughing harshly. 'I've cursed you from here to the ends of the earth and then sat like a fool praying for the phone to ring or for a glimpse of you on the other side of a street. I'd have been certified if anyone had known the state of my mind. I despised myself for my lack of will power. I told myself to walk off and forget you and I would walk off and be unable to think of anything else. My God, I loathed myself!'

  'And I didn't even guess,' she murmured unsteadily.

  'No,' he said drily. 'That was the only thing that kept me from shooting myself; the fact that you had no idea was all that made it possible to cope. I won't pretend I found it easy when you kissed me in your casual way or cuddled up to me on sofas. If you'd known what sort of thoughts were going round my head you'd have run screaming.'

  Clare caressed his black head with her fingertips, smiling at him. 'Wicked man!'

  Macey turned those blue eyes on her, and her heart raced. 'If we got married right away we could honeymoon here,' he said huskily.

  Clare tried not to show him the effect that suggestion had had. 'This is so sudden, Mr Janson,' she murmured lightly, but her smile died as he looked at her and a burning languor began deep inside her.

  'My God, Clare, you don't know how badly I want you,' he whispered as he bent to kiss her.

  When he detached himself again he was breathing so unevenly that the sound of his heart almost deafened her as she lay, trembling, against him.

  The fierceness of the desire which had burst out in both of them had left them too shaken to speak. Macey's heart took what seemed years to slow from that violent galloping.

  His lips brushed her hair. 'What suddenly made up your mind for you?' he asked in that low, husky voice.

  'I don't know,' she lied. 'I just looked at you and thought: I love him.'

  'Keep thinking it,' Macey told her. 'Never stop, darling. Now I've got you I'll never let you go.' His arms tightened round her. 'Do you know, I had a little game I used to play with myself when I was aching for you. I'd promise myself little rewards for work. If I finished a particular scene that day I'd let myself ring you. It got to be quite a habit and it kept me working when I was worn out. I'll have to think up some new scheme if I can see you all the time.'

  'We'll work on that together,' she said, looking at him from under her lashes, a smile teasing him.

  Macey's hands tightened on her. 'We will,' he said, his breathing quickening again. 'When will you marry me?'

  'Tomorrow,' she promised.

  'Reckless!'

  'I feel reckless,' she agreed, half seriously. 'I feel as though I had champagne in my veins, not blood.'

  'That can be arranged,' he mocked.

  'Who needs champagne? I've got you,' she said, and Macey's skin ran with colour, his eyes demanding.

  'Shall we honeymoon here?'

  'Anywhere,' Clare breathed, melting with passion under the hungry stare of the blue eyes.

  'My God, yes,' he said, his voice shaking. 'I wouldn't even notice if it was a bus shelter on Clapham Common.'

  'You might not. Others might.'

  'Not Clapham Common, then,' he said light-heartedly. 'How about the North Pole?'

  'Too cold.'

  'The Sahara?'

  'Too hot.'

  'You're hard to please,' he said, roaring with laughter.

  'How about here?' she asked huskily.

  His eyes froze on hers, his whole body tense. 'Here, then?'

  'And now,' Clare whispered, her skin burning, her green eyes feverish.

  Macey drew a long, rough breath. 'My God, I thought you'd never offer,' he said before he picked her up and carried her, smiling, out of the room.