‘Not good.’ Gerald grimaced. ‘In fact, that’s why I felt so guilty. I helped ruin the boy. He must have suffered very badly from my crash. I wish I could see him to apologise, help, make amends.’
‘But surely he earned a good salary for himself?’
‘Oh, no,’ he said, frowning. ‘I was his only client, and I barely paid him enough to live on.’
Lucy whitened, swaying, and her father at once reached for her.
‘It’s all right,’ Randal’s cool, strong voice said deeply behind her as a pair of hard hands slid to her waist to steady her. ‘I’ve got her.’
‘I think something’s wrong,’ Gerald said in rapid alarm. ‘She’s awfully pale...’
‘Wedding nerves,’ Randal drawled mockingly, turning Lucy in his arms, a gleam of insolence in his eyes. ‘I just told her it was time to get ready to leave. Our honeymoon flight leaves in two hours.’
‘Is Edwina helping her change?’ Gerald asked, looking around for her.
‘Yes,’ Randal said above Lucy’s head. ‘Better give her a shout.’
Seconds later, she was whisked upstairs to one of the bedrooms by Edwina Marlborough. The beautiful satin gown was discarded, replaced by the suit she had chosen to go away in: a green silk fitted suit with a peplum that accentuated her slender hourglass figure.
‘I’m so glad he chose you.’ Edwina gave her an impulsive hug, waves of scent clinging to her soft skin. ‘You’re everything I dreamed of in a daughter.’
If she knew the truth...but Edwina must never know. Downstairs, her father held her in a strong embrace, obviously moved, and whispered good luck. Then the guests spilled out on to the steps of Mallory as Lucy and Randal ran out to the car in the early evening sunlight.
‘Rome is perfect for a honeymoon,’ Randal observed as they drove to the airport. ‘It’s a city that takes my breath away, every time I see it. I’m sure you’ll fall in love with it.’
‘How nice,’ she said in a tense voice, and turned her face from him. The things he had said about Edward were still spinning in her mind like a madness she could not accept. If it were true...but how could it be? And how could she believe Randal anyway? He had a vested interest in casting shadows over her relationship with Edward. He knew she still loved him and he wanted to break that love, shatter it with any weapons he could find. When she returned from this appalling honeymoon, she would find out if Edward really was living that lifestyle. Then, and only then, she would make her decision about whether or not he was—oh, she could hardly bring herself to think it—treacherous.
They landed in Rome. It was eight o’clock Italian time. The sun blazed down over the city. A limousine met them at the airport and whisked them away.
As they drove into the eternal city, Lucy caught her breath, as Randal had said she would. Triumphant music seemed to play in her mind as she saw the gleaming white stone of achingly beautiful buildings, monuments, cathedrals...round every corner...on and on...white steps and towering statues and every time they turned a corner there was another building that stopped her heart, until she was reeling under the impact of such classicism, modernism, antiquity...
The hotel was in the centre of the city. Lucy was tense with excitement and nerves as they were shown to the bridal suite. It soared above the city, a long white suite of impossible luxury, and, as she looked out of the wide windows, she knew she was going to fall in love with Rome.
‘We’ll unpack after dinner,’ Randal said coolly behind her.
Glancing through her lashes, over her shoulder, she saw him lounging against the door, a curious expression on his hard face, and her mouth went dry with abrupt desire.
They ate dinner in the magnificent dining-room, surrounded by musical Italian voices and cool marble. Randal ordered champagne. Lucy could barely taste her food, and left most of it, her heart pounding as she thought of the night ahead.
Afterwards, they went up in the lift, and the tension was intolerable. Randal unlocked the suite door, brooding eyes following her as she walked past him. Her pulses were throbbing hotly at throat and wrists. She heard him close the door and she turned.
They stared at each other in breathless silence.
‘Time for bed,’ Randal said softly, and her heart stopped beating. He moved towards her with the predatory grace of a lion, absolute power and terrifying justice in his strong, handsome face.
Lucy backed. ‘I don’t want to—’
‘Yes, you do.’ His hands reached for her.
‘No!’ Fear leapt in her green eyes as she evaded him.
‘Come on, Lucy,’ he drawled in that hard voice. ‘It’s our wedding night. You knew I’d make love to you. That’s the whole point.’
‘That’s why I don’t want to let you do it!’ she said heatedly, backing towards the open door of the vast white bedroom as he advanced on her. ‘It isn’t right! No marriage should be based on sex alone! It should be based on love and respect!’
He laughed mockingly, striding after her. ‘As your marriage to Edward Blair would have been? Oh, I can just see it now! Him robbing your father blind while you cook and clean for him like Cinderella!’
‘You shut up about Edward!’ she blurted out in suddenly fierce emotional confusion, shaking as she backed towards the large white double bed. ‘You’re trying to insinuate things about him! Terrible things! But I won’t listen!’
‘No, I know you won’t!’ he bit out, eyes blazing. ‘I sometimes wonder why I bother to tell you that black is black and white is white, because you have a capacity for self-delusion that I find quite staggering!’
Lucy fell on to the bed with a shocked gasp.
Randal knelt on it on one knee, his other long leg staying on the floor as he watched her in the sudden electrifying silence that vibrated between them.
‘Well, I think it’s time I ripped all the illusions from your eyes,’ he said under his breath, and jerked her green silk skirt halfway up her slim thighs.
Excitement pulsed through her. ‘You’re primitive!’ she said thickly.
‘So are you!’ he drawled. ‘And it’s time you faced it.’ The dark head swooped, his hard mouth closing forcefully over hers.
She fought him, hands hitting his powerful shoulders. He trapped her body beneath his, thrusting one hard thigh over hers, his hand on her waist, his mouth moving commandingly over hers.
‘Get off me!’ Lucy wriggled in angry excitement beneath him. ‘I hate this...hate you...’
He laughed, his mouth burning against hers. ‘Really? Then why is your heart beating like a sledgehammer?’
‘It’s not,’ she denied hotly, but her hands curled on his broad shoulders and she was already kissing him back.
‘You don’t want me to touch you?’ he taunted softly, and unbuttoned her jacket, very slowly, kissing her mouth as he did, his tongue slipping between her parted lips as he stroked her breast, slid the lacy bra cup down, took her hard, pulsing nipple between finger and thumb.
‘Oh, God...’ she moaned thickly, breathing faster, hot needles of excitement throbbing in her.
He smiled mockingly, stroked her breast, his mouth tormenting her with that slow, sensual kiss and she just breathed faster and faster, her heart banging harder and harder, while he taunted her with his expertise.
‘Want some more?’ he whispered against her mouth.
Lucy moaned, felt his strong hands slide to the zip of her skirt. Madness set in. She was frenzied, feeling him unzip the skirt, then ease it slowly, tormentingly over her hips while she clung to his broad shoulders, breathing thickly, staring at him through her lashes with hot, glazed eyes.
Her half-naked body was pressed slowly against his, his hard thigh parting her slim thighs until the hot pulsing centre of her body was throbbing against him with unbearable need.
‘You’ll make love to me,’ he said thickly, and his strong hands slid down to cup her buttocks.
Lucy gave a long, hoarse cry, and suddenly her hands were in his dark hair. She was kissing him hungrily,
her mouth open beneath his. He kissed her commandingly, his hands stroking her erotically.
Sweat pricked on her skin. Drowning in need, she was kissing him greedily, unbuttoning his shirt, pulling it apart and dropping it to the floor, running her hands over that hard-muscled chest and down to the taut stomach below.
Her body seemed to move against his of its own accord. She was fire in his arms, arching as he ran a hard possessive hand down over her naked spine, down to her taut buttocks, and she pressed softly against his hardness, beautiful and wildly out of control, wearing nothing but virginal white lingerie.
‘Randal...’ She was gasping against his mouth. ‘Randal...’
He shed his clothes, sliding naked against her, fondling her buttocks as he pressed her against his body, and she almost sobbed with need, delirious now, moaning as he moved strong hands up to stroke her breasts, then unhook the white bra, slowly remove it while she moaned, eyes closed, feeling her breasts bounce free, the erect nipples grazing his hair-roughened chest.
‘Do you want me?’ he taunted against her mouth.
‘Yes, yes...’ she whispered thickly, and moaned out loud as she felt him ease the white silk panties down over her thighs.
Slowly, his naked body slid between her quivering thighs. ‘Are you primitive?’ he demanded, pushing her slowly on to her back, his hardness sliding against the wet silk of her entrance.
‘Oh, yes...’ her voice panted in abject surrender. ‘Yes...’
‘Yes...!’ he said thickly, and entered her, making her cry out in pain and pleasure, her nails digging into his naked back as he took her, and she found herself moving in greedy, wanton pleasure against him, naked and abandoned and impaled on his body.
Excitement spiralled. The room fragmented into splintered colours. Her heart was slamming. She was flung headfirst into violent, dark ecstasy, panting hoarsely as her body jerked like a rag doll’s against his and every hot, wet spasm left her wallowing in pleasure, her mouth open and her eyes squeezed shut and her hands slipping on his shoulders, and she was lost, utterly lost, writhing against him like the whore he had said she was.
When the storm was over, she came to from a reverie, her body flooded with pleasure, shaking in liquid heat beneath him as he drove for his own satisfaction, his face a hard mask of desire.
Her shaking hands moved over him, encouraging him to experience that ecstasy that had just been hers. She wanted him to feel it...wanted to see him wallowing in pleasure as she had done.
Her mouth kissed the damp throat, her fingers slid down his naked spine; she heard him gasp as she slid them down to his buttocks, dug her nails lightly into him and then he gave a guttural shout and slammed hard against her, his body rigid.
Lucy watched his face, breathless with wonder. In the throes of ecstasy his face was contorted. He was out of control, completely real, completely human.
Emotion flooded her with unexpected force. She moaned his name, watched him give one last hoarse cry. His damp head fell to her shoulder and he dragged air into his lungs, his heart slamming so hard that she thought he might die.
Minutes ticked past in a silence of harsh breathing and pounding hearts.
Her hands cradled his head. She was holding him suddenly in her arms as though she loved him. Emotion was flooding her unstoppably, as though she was falling in love...
Randal raised his head. ‘Welcome to the land of the living,’ he said deeply. ‘Are all your illusions gone?’
She stared at him through sweat-damp lashes. ‘Ripped away...’
‘Every last one, Lucy?’ The hard voice mocked her. ‘What about the fair accountant? Do you still believe he was your knight in shining armour?’ He laughed thickly. ‘His horse limped and he was wall-eyed, but no doubt you believed you could fix that with love.’
Stung, she said bitterly, ‘My feelings for Edward are none of your business.’
‘Little Miss Fix It!’ he drawled with a barbed smile. ‘No doubt that’s why you hate me so much. You’ve got nothing to fix.’
‘Except your filthy mind,’ she said fiercely, wanting to hurt him suddenly, just as he had hurt her with his unbearably clever words.
He laughed mockingly. ‘Oh, I’m the only person in this bed with a filthy mind, am I?’
Her face ran with hot colour. ‘You made me do all that just now—’
‘I made you submit,’ he said flatly, ‘to your own desires.’
‘But I wouldn’t have submitted if you hadn’t forced me to!’
He gave a shout of laughter, his hair-roughened chest moving as he bent to kiss her, amused. ‘Typically illogical. You’re intensely feminine, aren’t you? Not a shred of logic in that beautiful blonde head.’
Fury made her eyes blaze. ‘Don’t patronise me, you chauvinist!’
‘Realist,’ he corrected in a languid drawl, smiling sardonically.
‘Realist, then!’ she snapped, hating him. ‘And I’m only in bed with you because you forced me into this marriage against my wishes. Just as you forced me to—to do all of that against my wishes.’
‘But that’s the essence of being primitive,’ he said softly, his mouth taunting hers with a slow, sensual kiss. ‘Thought dissolves...instinct takes over...physical drives override your better judgement...’ His blue eyes mocked her ruthlessly. ‘And good little girls become bad.’
She trembled beneath him, her pulses picking up the pace as she looked into those penetrating eyes, responding even as her mind fought him, her feelings rising up in a clamour of hatred and desire.
‘Is that what happened just now, Lucy?’ he whispered against her ear, his tongue snaking out and making her shiver as his hands slowly began to stroke her body. ‘Did you lose your mind in a landslide of desire?’
‘Yes!’ she hissed bitterly, her heart beginning to thud faster.
‘And how you fought it!’ he mocked. His hand found her breast, fondling it, making her moan in languorous protest. ‘You don’t know your own body...’ he said thickly, kissing her. ‘But I’ll teach you to understand it. And to understand mine.’
‘I don’t want to understand any of this!’ she whispered, eyes closing, head tilting back even as she spoke.
‘Yes, you do,’ he said thickly, his body hardening, filling her again as she gasped, tensed, her hands instinctively clutching his tautening buttocks.
‘Oh, God...’ She found herself kissing him, her heart thudding.
‘You don’t want to be good, Lucy.’ The dark voice stroked her pulses like a silken devil. ‘Not with me. Not tonight. I’ve always appealed to your baser instincts. You want to be bad every time you look at me. Don’t you?’ His mouth moved against hers as he whispered thickly, ‘Don’t you...? Say it...’
‘Yes, yes...’ She was moving as he started to move, desire spiralling, taking her over, her hands clutching him as excitement flared into fire between them and the long night began...a night of exploration, pleasure, and wanton, greedy ecstasy.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IN THE morning, Lucy woke in a haze of sensual warmth. Randal’s powerful arms were around her, his body warm against hers, so masculine and strong and hairy. She felt intensely feminine, aware for the first time of the softness of her skin, the beauty of her slender curves and the pleasure of being a woman.
He slept. Lucy looked down slowly at his body against hers. Memories of last night flooded in on her. She could still hear his hoarse cries of pleasure. She remembered how she had been lost in a recurring, endless grip of hot excitement, losing control again and again, her body completely in his hands.
She remembered at one point that she was drowning again in dark ecstasy, and she had thought dazedly, How much more pleasure...how much more...? But still it had not ceased. Minutes later, she had been aroused again by giving him pleasure, encouraging him, exciting him, wanting him to feel as she felt, until the whole night became a ceaseless exchange of pleasure.
How well she knew his body now. She shivered with excitement as she lay
there, staring down at him, remembering how she had learnt to touch him in certain ways, wanting to hear his rough gasps, hoarsely whispered words of desire, and finally the guttural cries that made her hair stand on end with excitement as he went over the brink into ecstasy, clutching her to him with hard hands that shook.
‘Good morning,’ his deep voice drawled, and she gasped, eyes shooting up to his face to meet those piercingly blue eyes and feel the hot rush of colour to her face.
‘Oh! I thought you were asleep!’
‘I was,’ he agreed, and drew her against him for a kiss, his lips warm and firm on hers. ‘Don’t worry. I woke an hour ago and admired you at my leisure. Why shouldn’t you do the same?’
Her colour deepened and she said huskily, ‘What time is it?’
‘Midday,’ he said with a glance at his watch. ‘We made love until just before dawn, then collapsed, not surprisingly.’ The blue eyes teased her. ‘You were quite incredibly exciting. I shall call you Venus.’
‘Don’t...’ she protested, eyes flickering shut with embarrassment.
He laughed, one hand sliding over the white satin curve of her hip. ‘You have no right to blush after last night, Venus.’
‘Stop it!’ she whispered, pulses leaping already. ‘Last night was different...I was helpless...it was dark...’
He laughed again, sliding her over on to her back. ‘And now it’s daylight, so you feel inhibited,’ he said softly against her ear, his body very hard against hers and arousing excitement as he slid against her. ‘I must break a new inhibition, and I must do it at once...kiss me...’
Lucy moaned in excited protest, and as her mouth met his she gave up all pretence of wanting him to stop, her body clamouring for more pleasure, unbearably involved with him now, hurtling on a roller-coaster of feeling as she clung to his broad shoulders and made love with abandon, crying out his name as he took her to that intoxicating, addictive ecstasy.
Later, they got up, showering together, their bodies more real now than skin had ever seemed to her as he washed her sensually and she washed him, enthralled by every inch of him, staring at his chest in fascination as she watched the warm water wash the soap away.
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