by Liz Fielding
It had been a moment of triumph. A moment to cherish.
He frowned as he remembered what had disrupted it. Damn Melanie. She knew better than to throw herself at the first smooth talking man who came her way. He didn’t need a complication like that right now.
The sharp tap of heels on the marble floor brought him back to the present. He knew it was her. She had been in his head for days and he had become so attuned to her that he could recognise the lilting cadence of her walk, pick her scent out of the very air. ‘I was just thinking about you,’ he said and smiled.
‘Were you?’ Her confident step faltered as she saw him. Something had driven her from the drawing room, he could see it in her heightened colour, the brightness in her eyes, but the last person she wanted to see was him. He might have been offended if he hadn’t been so certain that she was more afraid of herself than of him. That only served to heighten his interest.
‘I wondered where you’d gone. Are you, despite all expectations to the contrary, managing to have a good time?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’
‘I hope you crossed your fingers before you said that because it’s fairly obvious that you’d rather be anywhere else, right at this moment.’ She had already told him she didn’t like parties and despite the sophisticated dress, the casually assumed air of confidence, she was as nervous as a kitten.
Her air of assurance had momentarily fooled him when she had arrived. But she had the theatre in her blood. Putting on a performance was part of the family show and she was putting on a performance now as with a beautifully judged little gesture, she put her head to one side, offered him a smile.
‘I’m sorry, but I did warn you,’ she said.
‘So you did. Perhaps we should dance again. You seemed to enjoy that.’
A delicate pink suffused her cheekbones. ‘Where’s Melanie?’ she asked, looking around, any excuse to avoid his eyes.
A door opened, the noise of the band filled the hall as a group of youngsters spilled out. Luke glanced at them irritably.
The party had been Mel’s idea. She had been getting restless cooped up in the Metropole and it had seemed like a good idea to let her invite some friends down from London and the party was an opportunity to offer hospitality to some local people. But it really wasn’t his scene.
He glanced at Fizz. She was trying to find some way to escape him without actually being rude.
‘Do you want to rejoin the fray,’ he invited, ‘or would you rather find somewhere quiet?’
‘Shouldn’t you be looking after your guests?’ she offered.
‘You are my guest. And since I have no intention of dancing with his honour the mayor, or the president of the chamber of commerce, I shall look after you.’
‘You could talk to them. I’m sure they’d be interested to hear your plans for Harries.’
‘I’m sure they would. But if they want to discuss business they must come to my office. As I’ve just reminded Mel, this is her party and amusing the civic dignitaries might keep her out of Andy Gilbert’s amorous clutches for a while at least.’
‘Or drive her into them. She doesn’t know anyone in Broomhill, Luke. She needs you to be there for her.’
She was lecturing him about his duty? That was rich coming from a Beaumont. But he had succeeded in capturing her full attention, although her consideration for Melanie would impress him more if she wasn’t using it as a stick to beat him with. But it had lit the promise of a spark in those big dark blue eyes.
‘And if I’m not, someone else will be happy to take over? Someone like Andy Gilbert?’ he suggested, fanning it gently.
‘He’s a very appealing young man.’ It was, after all, one of the reasons she employed him.
‘Personally I can take him or leave him.’ He straightened, dragged a finger and thumb down the length of his long, straight nose. ‘But maybe you’re right. She needs some company her own age. I realise I’m going to have to let her go but I wouldn’t have believed it was going to be so difficult.’ He stopped as he saw genuine concern in her face. He didn’t want that. He wouldn’t be able to handle that. He lifted his shoulders in a careless shrug. ‘I guess I’m beginning to realise that I’m just not cut out to play nursemaid.’
She didn’t like nursemaid, he noted with interest. The sparks had brightened considerably. ‘That’s a bit unkind, Luke.’
Restrained. She was working very hard to keep a lid on her emotions but he wanted another glimpse of the Fizz Beaumont who had stormed his office, refusing to take no for an answer. ‘Is it? Well I never promised to be kind.’
‘Just what did you promise?’
The promise he had made to Melanie had been too deep for words, too personal to share. It was in his head and only he knew it. ‘You’re very free with your tongue now you’ve banked my cheque, Miss Beaumont.’
‘Your cheque has nothing to do with it, Mr Devlin. Melanie is young, she needs a little fun.’
‘And I’m sure Mr Gilbert will do everything in his power to see that she gets some. In the meantime I’ll allow you to lecture me about my failings at length, but over something stronger than fruit juice. Come on, the study is out of bounds to the rabble and no one will miss me for a while.
He took her hand before she could think of any excuse and headed to the back of the house, away from the incessant thump of the band’s bass note, the murmur of voices and the sudden bursts of laughter coming from the drawing room.
Her hand felt so small in his, so fragile that conscience momentarily pricked at him. Then he remembered another hand that had held his, clung to his fingers. He shut the door and they were blanketed in silence. Beyond the heavy oak door the party might never have been happening.
The study was dim, lit only by the flames licking over the logs, the warm red under-glow of the cinders hot reflections in the glasses standing on the sideboard. He released her hand and she moved quickly away from him. He made no attempt to hold her, waving her to the sofa in front of the fire before picking up a decanter.
‘Brandy?’
‘No, thanks. I’m driving,’ she said, looking anywhere but at him. ‘And the roads are going to be treacherous tonight.’ He smiled as she remained on her feet.
‘Are they? I suppose you have the most up to date weather information coming into the station.’
‘All the time. The latest was definitely for snow.’ She wandered across to the window and pulled back the curtain. ‘I don’t suppose Melanie has ever seen snow.’
Melanie. She never missed an opportunity to bring up the girl’s name. If she only knew how dangerous that was. But he smiled, put down the decanter and joined her at the window. A few flakes were drifting onto the lawn.
‘She’ll be a like a big kid. She’ll want to build a snowman, have a snowball fight, get a toboggan up on the hill.’ He looked down at the top of her head, the smooth cap of chestnut hair, bright as a new conker. He wanted to stroke it, slide his fingers through it, feel it trailing over his skin. He swallowed. ‘You know. I think you’re right. She definitely needs someone like Andy to make sure she has a good time.’
She turned her head, looked up at him. ‘So you’ve decided to pass on your nursemaid’s cap?’
‘Cap, apron, ceremonial rattle if he’ll take over playground duties. But somehow I doubt if Andy has quite that role in mind.’
‘I think Andy can be relied on not to do anything reckless.’
‘In other words, you’ve read him the riot act?’
She let the heavy velvet curtain drop back over the window. ‘I can’t have him upsetting our new star. But he’s only human. If Melanie takes the initiative...’ Her breathing was getting ragged. The ice was beginning to thaw. She was fighting it, but she wasn’t winning. It was time to turn up the heat a little.
‘I hope you’re as careful of your new sponsor.’
‘He’s more than capable of looking after himself. I think I ought to be going, Luke. I’ve only driven in snow once before a
nd it made me feel dizzy.’
He reached over her head and lifted the curtain. The snow was beginning to swirl thickly. ‘Then it’s already far too late. You’ll just have to stay here.’
‘And taste the pleasures of your four-poster bed?’
Luke didn’t immediately answer. She had shocked herself, he could see that. The words had spilled out before she could stop them, like champagne into a glass. Fizz. He smiled deep inside as he cracked the code.
Fizz. God, but how it suited her. Best kept chilled. Inclined to erupt when shaken.
The thought of making love in a four-poster bed had been simmering in her head, fanning the damped down fire. Her careful lack of interest had alerted him and he had known then that he would take her there; that she wouldn’t, in the end, be able to resist the romance of it.
But while he had thought to melt the ice a little, it seemed that unwittingly he had used a blow torch because now she had said the words, there was no way of taking them back.
Desire did something to her face, lighting it from within and she looked unbelievably beautiful. Without a word he let the curtain fall and reached for her, lifting his hands to gently cradle her face, slide his fingers through the silk of her hair, twisting it around his wrist and she came to him, as he had known she would. Dancing with her had simply been a prelude to making love.
For a moment he held her, nothing more. But everything more. Beneath his fingers he could feel her pulse throbbing at her temple, the edge of his thumb brushing against her cheekbone raised the fine down as she shivered against him, as if every minute contact of his skin against hers was an agony of pleasure.
He understood. The sensation was a two-way passage and he wanted to touch all of her, to feel her touching all of him.
She clung to him, boneless. Only his strength was supporting her and he could see his twin reflections silhouetted against the firelight in the bottomless depths of her eyes. And then, when his lips were so close that they were all but touching hers, she closed her eyes. He had never seen such a look on a woman’s face, such complete surrender.
It was a moment to cherish and for long seconds he simply looked at her. Fizz Beaumont was an original. She didn’t play games, demand promises, expect declarations of undying love. She wanted him and as he bent to kiss her, his very personal vendetta against the Beaumont family was entirely forgotten. She wanted him and the feeling was wholeheartedly reciprocated.
His lips touched hers, barely a kiss, no more than a gentle exploration of the possibilities. He didn’t know how he kept himself under such control, only that he mustn’t frighten her now. He had to give her an opportunity to draw back, shrug, laugh a little at such foolishness.
Foolishness.
This was worse than foolishness. It was crazy.
There was a party on the other side of the door. People. Melanie.
His teeth tugged gently at the fullness of her lower lip, teasing her lips apart, and he dipped his tongue into the honey pot of her mouth.
The taste of her was delicate, enticing, intoxicating. He wanted more. He wanted it all. Then she was kissing him back and everything beyond the door was forgotten.
For a single stunned moment he drew back to stare down at her. It was there, the look that had been haunting him since he had first set eyes on her. Hot desire.
Abandoning any idea of carefully fanning the sparks into flames, his mouth came down on hers like a naked flame on gunpowder, torching the need he had seen hidden beneath the ice, inflaming a response so intense, so emphatic that when he raised his head long moments later she mewled an anguished protest.
‘Patience, sweetheart,’ he murmured, as she tugged at his tie, dealt ruthlessly with his shirt studs, scattering them on the study floor in her haste to undress him. ‘Let’s go upstairs -’
But she had wasn’t hearing him. She stepped back and with a single smooth movement she slid down the zip at the side of her dress. It slithered down the length of her body and pooled at her feet. Then she stepped out of the black circle of cloth, kicking it to one side, and she was naked before him but for the smallest triangle of black lace at her hips, the sheerest lace-topped black stockings that clung as if by magic to her long legs.
A soft expletive left his lips. An ember dropped in the grate. Nothing else moved in the entire world while he stared at her, mesmerised by the glow of her skin in the firelight, the dark tight buds that tipped her breasts, the glorious flare of her hips.
Then he reached out to touch her, the pad of his thumb tracing the fine skin drawn tight at her temple, the hollow of her cheek, the long elegant column of her neck. His lips followed this tender homage, lightly grazing her skin, the tip of his tongue tasting her smooth, firm flesh, his teeth teasing the sensitive lobes of her ears. She was quivering beneath him and she whimpered, softly.
‘Tell me what you want, Fizz,’ he encouraged her. He knew what she wanted, but he wanted to hear her say the words. To surrender to him utterly.
‘Hold me, Luke. Touch me... Please...’ He liked that. No, he loved that.
To hear the want in her voice made him feel a hundred feet tall. The tips of his fingers stroked across the satin skin of her shoulders, but she wanted more and she reached out, swaying towards him. But his other hand tangled in the hair at the nape of her neck, holding her away from him while he explored the tender hollow of her throat, his hand flattening out as it stroked down over the slope of her breast. She gasped as his palm grazed its peak, hardened in eager anticipation, reaching up to him, begging for his touch.
‘You like that?’ And as his thumb momentarily brushed that impulsive bud she shuddered as the invisible thread that tied it to a deeper, more urgent need tugged at the very core of her being and he felt her knees buckle as he caught her to him. She closed her eyes and a low growl of desire came from somewhere undiscovered within her.
His eyes flickered to her face, watching the fleeting expressions that chased across it as he continued his slow, fascinated exploration of the contours of her body. The gentle swell of her stomach, the flare of her hip, tracing the triangle of lace that covered the fluff of hair that marked her sex.
‘Beautiful,’ he declared, sinking to his knees, his mouth exploring the smooth white skin at the top of her thigh, exploring the gap between thigh and sex, his thumbs stroking lightly over her silk clad legs, until he was almost overcome with the scent of her arousal. Then he tugged down the tiny lace panties and buried himself in her.
She gasped with shocked delight, driving her nails deep into his back, arching her hips against him and with a sense of triumph that made him want to beat his chest he knew that it was the first time for her, that he had given her something new.
‘Luke.’
Her voice was strangled as she clutched at his head, not wanting him to stop but wanting more, demanding more. As he drew back to look up at her she sank to her knees and kissed him, tasting herself, her breasts flattening themselves against his chest. Then it was his turn to groan as she grazed his nipples with the tips of her nails and they leapt to attention beneath her touch until he too was lost and out of control. That was when he pushed her back onto the floor and pinned her beneath him, just where he had always meant her to be.
‘I’ve wanted you, Fizz,’ he said as he saw the intensity of passion glittering in her eyes. ‘God knows how I’ve waited.’
‘So why are you?’ Her voice was thick with her own need. ‘Waiting?’
‘You have to ask that?’ he groaned. ‘We can’t ... not here. What I need right now is upstairs.’ But Fizz wrapped her legs about him, imprisoning him and smiled like a cat.
‘I like it here.’
‘You think I don’t?’ She tightened her grip and he began to sweat. ‘For heaven’s sake, Fizz...’ He suddenly realised that she was playing with him and he laughed. ‘You little witch, behave yourself.’ In answer she reached up and her little pink tongue licked at the hollow of his neck, her teeth nibbling at his chest. Luke deci
ded that he didn’t have to suffer alone, dipping his head to seize a nipple between his teeth, roll it around his tongue so that she drew up her legs in an unconscious gesture of longing, threw back her head and moaned. ‘Now,’ he enquired, ‘do you really want to make love on the carpet?’
‘It’s a very...’ - she gasped as he touched her - ‘...nice carpet. And as an alternative to walking naked through the hall, it has a lot to commend it.’ She reached down to unfasten his trousers, slide down his zip and for a moment he surrendered to the sensual delight of her touch. Then, the pulse beating hard in his temple, thrumming in his ears, he struggled to re-assertive himself. ‘No, Fizz. Please. There’s a door hidden in the panelling, a staircase -’ He cried out as she arched against him, the thrumming was growing louder, knocking, knocking...
‘Luke? Are you in there?’
Melanie’s voice from beyond the door brought him crashing back to earth and for a moment they stared at one another.
‘Melanie!’ Fizz whispered. He saw the sudden flare of realisation in her eyes and knew that he had, for the moment, lost her. As the door handle turned he put his hand over her mouth, afraid she would call out.
‘It’s all right, the door’s locked. She can’t get in,’ he murmured softly, reassuringly, but instead she bucked furiously beneath him and rolled away.
‘Luke?’
‘I’m on the telephone, Mel. Give me a minute.’
‘It’s all right. It’s just that Claudia has arrived and she’s looking for Fizz. Do you know where she is?’
He swore, softly. Then rose to his feet, attempting to straighten his clothes with fingers that shook like those of a boy. ‘Fizz was dancing when I last saw her,’ he called out, gathering his wits as Fizz scrambled about the floor in a panic to find her clothes. ‘I’ll be with you in five minutes.’
After a moment he turned, but any thought that they might ultimately retire to the privacy of his bedroom and resume their delicious foreplay was immediately dashed. The barriers were back up and he could see that it was going to take a lot more than a blowtorch to burn them down next time.
