by Julia James
It was almost impossible for him to speak. His arousal was absolute...his body was in meltdown. He had to have her—he had to possess her. Had to complete what he had wanted to do from the very first moment of laying eyes upon her lush, alluring body, since he had first felt the response in those emerald eyes...
Oh, she might be as mercenary as he feared, as manipulative as he suspected, but none of that mattered. Only this moment mattered—this urgency, this absolute overriding desire for her that was possessing him.
A moment later he was ready, and triumph surged through him. At last he could take what he wanted—possess her, this woman who would belong to no one else but him...
She was drawing him down on her, her thighs enclosing his as her body opened to him, and with a relief that flooded through him he fused his body deep, deep within her own...
Immediately, like a firestorm, sensation exploded within him and he was swept away on burning flames that consumed him in a furnace of pleasure. For an instant so brief he was scarcely conscious of it, he felt dismay that he had not waited for her. But then, with a reeling sense of amazed wonder, he realised that she had come with him into the burning flames...that she was clinging to him and crying out even as he was, and that their bodies were wreathed in a mutual consummation that was going on and on and on...
Never before had he experienced such a consummation. Never in all his wide and varied experience had the intensity been like this. It was as if his whole mind and body and being had ignited into one incredible, endless sensation—as if their bodies were melding together, fusing like molten metal into each other.
When did it change? When it did it start to ebb, to take him back down to the plane of reality, of consciousness? He didn’t know—couldn’t say. Could only feel his body shaking as it returned slowly, throbbingly, to earth. His lungs were seizing and he could feel his heart still pounding, hear his voice shaking as he lifted himself slightly from her, aware that his full weight was crushing her.
He said something, but he did not know what.
She was looking at him—gazing up with an expression in her eyes that mirrored what he knew was in his own. A kind of shock. She was stunned by what had happened.
For one long moment they seemed just to stare at each other disbelievingly. Then, with a ragged intake of breath, Bastiaan managed to smile. Nothing more than that. And he saw her eyes flutter closed, as if he had released her. A huge lassitude swept over him, and with a kind of sigh he lowered himself again, settling her sideways against him, pulling her into his warm, exhausted body.
Holding her so close against him was wonderful, reassuring, and all that he wanted. His hands spread across her silken flanks, securing her against him, and he heard her give a little sigh of relaxation, felt one of her hands close over his, winding her fingers into his, and then, with a final settling of her body, she was still, her breathing quietening as she slipped into sleep.
In his final moment of remaining consciousness Bastiaan reached back to haul the coverlet over them both and then, when they were cocooned beneath, he wrapped his arm around her once more and gave himself to sleep, exhausted, replete, and in that moment possessing all that he wanted to possess on earth.
* * *
Something woke her—she wasn’t sure what. Whatever it was, it had roused her from the deep slumber into which she’d fallen...a slumber deeper and sweeter than she had ever known.
‘Good morning.’
Bastiaan, clad in a towelling robe, was looking down at her. His dark eyes were drinking her in. She did not answer. Could not. Could only hear in her head the words that had forced their way in.
What have I done? Oh, God, what have I done?
But she didn’t need to ask—the evidence was in her naked body, in her lying in the bed of Bastiaan Karavalas.
Memory burned like a meteor, scorching through the sky. Awareness made her jack-knife. ‘Oh, God—what time is it?’ She stared at him, horror-struck.
His face pulled into a frown. ‘Of what significance is that?’ he demanded.
But she did not answer him—did not do anything except leap from the bed, not caring that she was naked. Not caring about anything except snatching, from wherever she could see them, her clothes from the previous night.
Dismay and horror convulsed her. She pushed into the bathroom, caught sight of herself in the huge mirror, and gave a gasping groan. Three minutes later she stumbled out—looking ludicrous, she knew, with her tangled hair tumbling over her shoulders, her evening dress from the night before crumpled and idiotic on her. But she didn’t care—couldn’t care. Couldn’t afford to care.
She might be wearing Sabine’s clothes, left over from the night before, but Sabine herself was gone. Sarah was back—and she was panicking as she had never panicked before.
‘What the hell...?’ Bastiaan was staring at her.
‘I have to go.’
‘What? Don’t be absurd.’
She ignored him. Pushed right past him out into the reception room and stared desperately around, looking for her bag. Dimly she remembered that her day clothes were in a plastic bag that must, she thought urgently, still be in the footwell of Bastiaan’s car. But there was no time for that now. No time for anything except to get out of here and find a bus stop...
Oh, God, it will take for ever to get back. I’ll be late—so late. Max will be furious!
She felt her arm caught, her body swung round. ‘Sabine—what is going on? Why are you running away?’
She stared, eyes blank with incomprehension. ‘I have to go,’ she said again.
For a second there was rejection in his eyes, and then, as if making a decision, he let her go.
‘I’ll call a cab—’ he said.
‘No!’
He ignored her, crossed to a phone set by the front door, spoke swiftly to someone she assumed was the concierge. Then he hung up, turned to look at her.
‘I don’t know what is going on, or why. But if you insist on leaving I cannot stop you. So—go.’ His voice was harsh, uncomprehending. His expression blank.
For one timeless moment she was paralysed. Could only stare at him. Could only feel as if an explosion was taking place inside her, detonating down every nerve, along every vein.
‘Bastiaan, I—’
But she could not speak. There was nothing to say. She was not Sabine. She was Sarah. And she had no place here...no place at all...
He opened the front door for her and she stumbled through.
As she ran for the elevator she heard the door slam behind her. Reverberating through every stricken cell in her body.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BASTIAAN WAS DRIVING. Driving as though he were being chased by the hounds of hell. The road snaked up, high into the Alpes-Maritimes, way beyond the last outpost of the Riviera and out into the hills, where bare rock warred with the azure skies. Further on and further up he drove, with the engine of the car roaring into the silence all around him.
At the top of the pass he skidded to the side, sending a scree of stones tumbling down into the crevasse below. He cut the engine but the silence brought no peace. His hands clenched over the steering wheel.
Why had she run from him? Why? What had put that look of absolute panic on her face?
Memory seared across his synapses. What had flamed between them had been as overwhelming for her as it had been for him—he knew that. Knew it with every male instinct he possessed. That conflagration of passion had set them both alight—both of them.
It has never been like that for me before. Never.
And she had gazed at him with shock in her eyes, with disbelief.
Had she fled because of what had happened between them? Had it shocked her as it had shocked him? So that she could not handle it, could not cope with it?
Something is happening, Sabine, between us—something that is not in your game plan. Nor in mine.
He stared out over the wide ravine, an empty space into which a single
turn of the wheel would send his car—himself—hurtling. He tried to make himself think about Philip, about why he had come here to rescue him from Sabine Sablon, but he could not. It seemed...irrelevant. Unimportant.
There was only one imperative now.
He reached for the ignition, fired the engine. Nosed the car around and headed back down to the coast with only one thought in his head, driving him on.
* * *
Max lifted his hand to halt her. ‘Take it again,’ he said. His voice was controlled, but barely masking his exasperation.
Sarah felt her fingers clench. Her throat was tight, and her shoulders and her lungs. In fact every muscle in her body felt rigid. It was hopeless—totally, absolutely hopeless. All around her there was a tension that was palpable. Everyone present was generating it, feeling it. She most of all.
When she’d arrived at rehearsal, horrendously late, Max had turned his head to her and levelled her with a look that might have killed her, like a basilisk’s. And then it had gone from bad to worse...to impossible.
Her voice had gone. It was as simple and as brutal as that. It didn’t matter that Max wasn’t even attempting to get her to sing the aria—she could sing nothing. Nothing at all.
But it was not the mortification of arriving so late to rehearsal, her breathless arrival and hectic heartbeat that were making it impossible for her to sing. It was because inside her head an explosion had taken place, wiping out everything that had once been in it.
Replacing it only with searing white-hot memory.
Her night with Bastiaan.
It filled her head, overwhelming her, consuming her consciousness, searing in her bloodstream—every touch, every caress, every kiss. Impossible to banish. Impossible for anything else to exist for her.
‘Sarah!’ Max’s voice was sharp, edged with anger now.
She felt another explosion within her. ‘I can’t.’ The cry broke from her. ‘I just can’t! It isn’t there—I’m sorry... I’m sorry!’
‘What the hell use is sorry?’ he yelled, his control clearly snapping.
And suddenly it was all too much. Just too much. Her late arrival and the collapse of her voice were simply the final straw.
Alain, her tenor, stepped forward, put a protective arm around her shoulder. ‘Lay off her, Max!’ he snapped.
‘And lay off the rest of us too!’ called someone else.
‘Max, we’re exhausted. We have to have a break.’
The protests were mounting, the grumbling turning into revolt. For a dangerous moment Max looked as if he wanted to yell at them all, then abruptly he dropped his head.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Break, everyone. Half an hour. Get outside. Fresh air.’
The easing of the fractured tension was palpable and the company started to disperse, talking in low, relieved voices.
Alain’s hand dropped from Sarah’s shoulder. ‘Deep breaths,’ he said kindly, and wandered off to join the general exodus outdoors.
But Sarah couldn’t move. She felt nailed to the floor. She shut her eyes in dumb, agonised misery.
Dear God, hadn’t she said she must have no distractions. None. And then last night—!
What have I done? Oh, what have I done!
It was the same helpless, useless cry she’d given as she’d stood in Bastiaan’s apartment naked, fresh from his bed.
Anguish filled her—and misery.
Then, suddenly, she felt her hands being taken.
‘Sarah, look at me,’ said Max.
His voice had changed—his whole demeanour had changed. Slowly, warily, she opened her eyes. His expression was sympathetic. Tired lines were etched around his eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘We’re all burning out and I’m taking it out on you—and you don’t deserve it.’
‘I’m so sorry for arriving late,’ she replied. ‘And for being so useless today.’
But Max squeezed her hands. ‘You need a break,’ he said. ‘And more than just half an hour.’
He seemed to pause, searching her strained expression, then he nodded and went on.
‘Should I blame myself?’ he asked. There was faint wry humour in his dry voice. ‘Wasn’t I the one who told you not to be late this morning? Knowing who’d turned up to see you? No, no, cherie—say nothing. Whatever has happened, it’s still going on in your head. So...’
He took a breath, looking at her intently.
‘What I want you to do is...go. Go. Whatever it takes—do it. I don’t want to see you again this week. Take a complete break—whether that’s to sob into your pillow or... Well, whatever! If this rich cousin of Philip is good for you, or bad, the point is that he’s in your head and your work is not.’ His voice changed. ‘Even without last night you’ve hit the wall, and I can’t force you through it. So you must rest, and then—well, we shall see what we shall see.’
He pressed her hands again, his gaze intent.
‘Have faith, Sarah—have faith in yourself, in what you can accomplish. You are so nearly there! I would not waste my genius on you otherwise,’ he finished, with his familiar waspish humour.
He stepped back, patting her hands before relinquishing them.
‘So—go. Take off. Do anything but sing. Not even Sabine’s dire ditties. I’ll sort it with Raymond—somehow.’
He dropped a light kiss on her forehead.
‘Go!’ he said.
And Sarah went.
* * *
Bastiaan nosed the car carefully down the narrowing street towards the harbour. She was here somewhere—she had to be. He didn’t know where her pension was, but there were a limited number, and if necessary he would check them all out. Then there was the nightclub as well—someone there at this time of day would know where she might be.
I have to find her.
That was the imperative driving him. Conscious thought was not operating strongly in him right now, but he didn’t care. Didn’t care that a voice inside his head was telling him that there was no reason to seek her out like this. One night with her had been enough to achieve his ends—so why was he searching for her?
He did not answer—refused to answer. Only continued driving, turning into the area that fronted the harbour, face set, eyes scanning around as if he might suddenly spot her.
And she was there.
He felt his blood leap, his breath catch.
She was by the water’s edge, seated on a mooring bollard, staring out to sea. He felt emotions surge through him—triumph shot through with relief. He stopped the car, not caring whether it was in a parking zone or not. Got out. Strode up to her. Placed a hand on her shoulder.
‘Sabine...’ His voice was rich with satisfaction. With possession.
Beneath his hand he felt her whole body jump. Her head snaked around, eyes widening in shock.
‘Oh, God...’ she said faintly.
He smiled. ‘You did not truly believe I would let you go, did you?’ he said. He looked down at her. Frowned suddenly. ‘You have been crying,’ he said.
There was disbelief in his voice. Sabine? Weeping? He felt the thoughts in his head rearrange themselves. Felt a new one intrude.
‘What has made you cry?’ he demanded. It was not him—impossible that it should be him.
She shook her head. ‘It’s just...complicated,’ she said.
Bastiaan found himself hunkering down beside her, hands resting loosely between his bunched thighs, face on a level with hers. His expression was strange. His emotions stranger. The Sabine who sat here, her face tear-stained, was someone new—someone he had never seen before.
The surge of possessiveness that had triumphed inside him a moment ago on finding her was changing into something he did not recognise. But it was moving within him. Slowly but powerfully. Making him face this new emotion evolving within him.
‘No,’ he contradicted, and there was something in his voice that had not been there before. ‘It is very simple.’ He looked at her, his eyes holding hers. ‘After last
night, how could it be anything else?’
His gaze became a caress and his hand reached out softly to brush away a tendril of tangled hair that had escaped from its rough confines in a bunched pleat at the back of her head. He wanted to undo the clasp, see her glorious blond mane tumble around her shoulders. Although what she was wearing displeased him, for it seemed to be a shapeless tee shirt and a pair of equally shapeless cotton trousers. And her face was blotchy, her eyes strained.
Yet as he spoke, as his hand gently brushed the tendril from her face, he saw her expression change. Saw the strain ebb from her eyes, her blotched skin re-colour.
‘I don’t know why you ran from me,’ he heard himself say, ‘and I will not ask. But...’ His hand now cupped her chin, feeling the warmth of her skin beneath his fingertips. ‘This I will ask.’
His eyes rested on hers—his eyes that had burned their way into hers in the throes of exquisite passion. But now they were simply filled with a single question. The only one that filled his head, his consciousness.
‘Will you come with me now? And whatever complications there are will you leave them aside?’
Something shifted in her eyes, in the very depths of them. They were green—as green as emeralds. Memory came to him. He remembered how he’d wanted to drape her in emeralds. It seemed odd to him just then. Irrelevant. Unimportant. Only one thing was important now.
The answer she was giving him with her beautiful, emerald-green eyes, which were softening even as he held them. Softening and lightening and filling with an expression that told him all he needed to know.
He smiled again. Not in triumph this time, nor in possession. Just smiled warmly upon her.
‘Good,’ he said. Then he drew her to her feet. His smile deepened. ‘Let’s go.’
He led her to his car and helped her in.
* * *
The rest of this week, thought Sarah.
The wealth of time seemed like largesse of immense proportions. The panic that had been in her breast and the tension that had bound her lungs with iron, her throat with barbed wire, were gone. Just...gone. They had fallen from her as she had risen to her feet, had her hand taken by Bastiaan. Her feet felt like cushions of air.
