Charlotte Lamb - Pagan Encounter

by Charlotte Lamb

  Leigh almost snatched it from his palm. 'Thank you,' she said, her tone blistering.

  'In the dining-room,' he added softly, as she turned to enter her room.

  She halted, her checks burning. Her eyes stared at him, angry irritation in them.

  'Why didn't you give it to me before?' she asked furiously.

  He smiled lazily. 'I was enjoying the anticipation,' he said in mockery. 'Not to mention the view.' His eyes ran over her again.

  For a moment Leigh's hand itched to slap his face and the blue fury of her eyes spat at him. He observed it with curiosity, as though interested to see what she would do.

  After a pause during which she fought a battle with herself and won, she said icily, 'Goodnight.' Going into her room, she closed the door and stood there, feeling her heart beating fast against the white silk of her blouse. A sensation of pure rage was filling her.

  She could not remember ever having been so angry before. Something about the man had made the hair on her nape bristle. She fought back to self-control, her hands tense. A tap on the door made her whole body tense with anger. She opened the door, suspecting she would find him outside, but Phil stood there, a pleading lock on his face.

  'Darling,' he said softly, his eyes imploring. 'Leigh...

  Her blue glance moved past his shoulder. The other man was a few feet away, his head turned to watch them. Leigh stiffened. 'Come in, Phil,' she said in a loving tone, and stood back to let him pass, her eyes held by the grey ones behind him.

  A faint, sardonic smile came into the hard face. She glared and closed the door on it.

  Phil caught her to his body, his face buried in her hair. 'Leigh, don't let's quarrel. I want this weekend to be special.'

  She could hear his heart beating against her as he held her, and she let herself lean against him, sliding her hands to his shoulders. Phil's mouth sought hers and she surrendered to him, her head tilted back to take his kiss. When he drew back he was darkly flushed.

  'Do we have to go down to the bar?' he asked unsteadily.

  She looked at him through her lashes, a teasing smile on her face. 'Are you trying to make the redheaded girl jealous?'

  'Damn her,' he said thickly. 'Leigh ...'

  She evaded his eager arms, her head shaking. 'I want to unpack. Phil, I'll see you in half an hour in the bar.'

  Reluctantly, Phil went out, and she set to work to unpack her clothes. When the room was tidy again she changed her clothes, finding a dove-grey dress in the wardrobe which she looked at for a moment before taking down. After changing she looked at her reflection thoughtfully. The dress had a demurely sexy style; the bodice very close-fitting, the neckline plunging in a deep v, while the skirt clung tightly to her slender hips.

  Through the smoky grey chiffon of the sleeves her arms glowed with a pearly shimmer, the cuffs buttoning at the wrist.

  She left her room, satisfied with her reflection, and talked to the lift, only to halt in angry surprise as a man strolled out of a shadowy alcove beside it and looked at her with mocking eyes.

  Lifting her chin, Leigh pressed the button. The man lounged on the wall, observing her in every detail.

  'No earrings,' he murmured.

  She stared ahead, giving no sign she had heard.

  'Leigh,' he murmured under his breath, watching her.

  She could not help a flicker of surprise that he should know her name. He caught the faint expression and moved closer as the lift arrived. She walked into it, tense as the doors closed and she was alone with him in the small grey box which was very like the colour of his steely eyes.

  She stood, her face averted, and flinched as a finger moved to slide down the chiffon of her sleeve.

  "Will you please leave me alone?' she suddenly erupted, turning on him furiously.

  She saw the mocking satisfaction in his eyes as he suddenly shoved his hand down on the button panel, his palm flat. The lift gave a sudden jerk and stopped, shuddering.

  Leigh looked in stupefaction at him, her body lense.

  "What have you done?' Her tone was suddenly shaking alarm.

  "We used to have one of these lifts,' he said calmly. "There's a fault in the electronics.

  Sometimes someone would lean against the panel and stop the lift. The wires get crossed somewhere and the lift refuses to move at all.'

  She was speechless, her eyes staring at his calm face, blue rage sparking from them.

  He folded his arms and surveyed her casually. 'It could take the engineer about half an hour to put things right. But first they'll have to find the engineer.' He gave her a sardonic smile. 'I'm afraid your boy-friend will have to wait a long time in the bar.'

  'I'll report you to the hotel management,' she said fiercely.

  He laughed. 'Oh, come on, you can do better than that. What happened to the icy calm with which you brushed off the boy-friend when he got too amorous?'

  Her cheeks burnt under his watchful stare. 'What are you talking about?'

  'During dinner,' he murmured, 'each time he tried to touch you, he got the slow freeze of those big blue eyes. I could feel his desperation from where I was sitting.'

  She drew herself up coldly, her brows level above her blue eyes. 'I have no intention of discussing my fiance with a perfect stranger.'

  'Fiance?' The question came sharply.

  Leigh held out her left hand. His grey eyes flashed over her ring and the hard mouth indented. 'Diamonds. A girl's best friend--nice ones, too. How long has it been on your finger?'

  'Two months,' she said, her mouth biting out the words. His questions irritated her intensely, but he had a way of asking them which made it somehow hard to refuse to answer.

  He slid his hands into his jacket pockets, leaning back, his eyes on her cool face.

  'And he's been on his knees ever since he proposed, I suppose, which is where you intend to keep him...

  She had a shock at the biting irony in the remark. Her eyes darkened with rage. She looked at him, feeling the most intense hatred she had ever felt for anyone in her life.

  Although she angrily rejected the suggestion, there was sufficient truth in what he had said to make her violently resentful.

  'If I were in his place,' he said lazily.

  'Which you never would be in a million years,' she flung, unable to resist the temptation of a retort.

  Undeterred, he smiled. 'If I were him I'd kiss you until you couldn't get off your knees, Leigh.'

  Hot colour flowed up her face and she was furious with herself for betraying any reaction to the insolent remark at all.

  Their eyes clashed across the small space of the lift. A sudden sense of panic made her breathe in shallow rapidity, her breast rising and falling fast. She could not even phrase a bitter reply. She was too knocked off balance, both by what he had said, and the cold, hard look on his face.

  He waited for a moment, then a mocking smile twitched at his mouth. 'Which is precisely what I'm going to do now,' he said very softly, watching her.

  Unknowingly, her face reflected an acute, bitter tension. Her eyes stretched wide, her cool pink mouth began to tremble. She took a backward step, coming up against the steel wall of the lift. He advanced deliberately.

  'If you touch me I'll scream the place down,' she whispered through dry lips.

  He placed his hands on the wall behind her head, endorsing her. His smiling, lazy eyes ran over her white face. She stared back, unable to move, conscious of a chaotic turmoil rising in her body.

  'You wouldn't dare,' she said jerkily.

  He laughed at that. 'I always take a dare, especially from a mouth like yours,' he told her tauntingly.

  'Don't touch me,' she ordered, trying to hold herself stiffly.

  "I'm not your tame fiance, Leigh.' he said sardonically. 'I give orders, I don't take them.' His body leaned forward until she could feel the inexorable weight of his hard thighs against her, and her pulses began to beat so fast she was dazed and incapable of thinking straight.


  Never in her life before had such a sensation swept over her.

  Her blue eyes focused helplessly on his face. At such close quarters the sheer sexual drive of the man was devastating. Trembling, she felt the impact it was making in her own body, and, driven by darker instincts than she had ever felt before, descended suddenly from icy wrath to a humiliated, whispered plea for mercy. 'No, please...' Her voice was shaking as her eyes watched the long, hard, implacable mouth move down to take possession. Every nerve in her body was crying out in panic.

  She tried to struggle, twisting between his hands. Against her mouth he murmured coldly, 'Keep still or you'll make me angry.'

  Leigh's brain told her to ignore the softly spoken threat. She only had to scream, to fight him, she thought, for him to leave her alone. But instincts older than time dictated that she obey him. The threat of disturbing masculine violence had affected her at a primitive level which her brain could not reach. Until this moment she had felt she was in control of her life, priding herself on her ability to shape her world to suit herself. When Phil kissed her, however passionately, his caresses pleaded, as if it were she who controlled what happened between them.

  For the first time in her life she found herself helpless in the grip of another human being's iron will power, and the experience was shattering. His hands tilted her head back, leaving her totally at his mercy, the savage, bruising pressure of his mouth forcing her submission, grinding her lips apart. He made no concessions. There was no question as to who held the whip hand. Her proud dignity fell away from her and dark colour began to bum in her face and throat as new feelings began to surge through her.

  When he removed his lips and began to slide them silkily down the side of her throat, his fingers caressing the nape of her neck, she stood, shivering, breathing so erratically that it hurt her lungs. He raised his head and looked at her through half-lowered lids, acutely observing her flushed rigidity. Lowering his hands, he took her wrists and placed her arms around his neck, still watching her. She quivered but made no protest. His hands lay flat on her midriff while he stared into her wide, dazed blue eyes. She felt them glide upward until they covered her breasts. A long hoarse cry came from her and her lids closed helplessly.

  His hard mouth was on her own in the next second. Leigh's heart was racing. She felt boneless, as though hardly able to stand. She arched towards him as though he were a magnet drawing her inexorably, and his hands gripping her back, pulling her closer until their bodies dung. Her lips parted, responded, burning for deeper contact. Quite unconsciously her hands were moving over his hair and neck in little, restless movements.

  She barely understood when his fingers gently pulled down the zip of her dress, the powerful hands stroking over her naked shoulders and down her back. He pulled cut the pins and her blonde hair tumbled down around her face, but the slender body in his arms made no sign of protest, pliant under the caress of his strong mouth and hands, totally responsive to his stark masculinity.

  When he stopped kissing her she was shaking, her lids closed over the blue eyes, her parted mouth swollen with fee long exchange of passion. For a moment he looked at her face intently. She opened her eyes to look back at him helplessly.

  Abruptly he released her and she swayed backward, her legs shaking under her, her dress falling off her shoulders revealing the white gleam of her skin, her blonde hair tumbled loosely around her face. The cool facade had cracked wide open. She almost fell as the support of his body was removed. For a moment she was totally off balance, emotionally and physically.

  The grey eyes watched, alight with sardonic mockery, and she stared back at him, her eyes dazed.

  'Perhaps I should give your fiance a few lessons,' he murmured drily.

  She heard voices at a distance. 'The engineer,' he said with a twist of his hard mouth.

  'In the nick of time!'

  Leigh hurriedly began to pull herself together. Her hands shook as she pulled up her zip, began to pin back her hair, bitterly aware that all the time he lounged easily against the wall, watching.

  'Your lipstick needs some running repairs, too,' he told her mockingly.

  She got out a handkerchief and bitterly wiped her mouth as if removing all traces of his kisses. He laughed under his breath.

  'Beautifully done, but too late, Leigh,' he said softly. She looked at him with intense hatred. 'You're the most loathsome man I've ever met in my life,' she said between her pale lips. Her trembling hands renewed her make-up and inspected her hair. By the time she had restored the elegant exterior of her appearance, she felt the lift give a sudden jerk and begin to move downward.

  He did not move, his eyes intent on her profile. She felt his gaze as though it burned her very skin.

  Softly, he murmured, 'Another minute in my arms and you would have been unable to stand on those delectable legs, Leigh. I'm sorry for your fiance. He doesn't know what he's missing. You can be quite a woman.'

  She ignored him. The lift doors slid apart and she stepped out into the foyer. Phil, his face alarmed, was waiting there. He caught her into his arms, kissing her cheek. 'Darling, I was so worried ... were you frightened?'

  Deeply conscious of the man walking out behind her, she deliberately turned her head to meet Phil's mouth. 'I was terrified,' she said, in absolute truthfulness. 'It was horrible!'

  Phil led her into the long cocktail bar and helped her, >>s though she were an invalid, to sink into one of the black leather couches. The redheaded girl gave her a quick, hostile look. Jefferson, his bald head shining with perspiration, eyed her admiringly.

  'What happened?' he asked. 'Lift got stuck?'

  'An electrical fault,' she lied. Phil eagerly brought her a drink and she swallowed it far more rapidly than she would normally have done. She desperately needed the sting of the alcohol at that moment. Her knees were still taking and her body felt unfamiliar, as if her cells had evaporated under the heat of the moments she had spent in the man's arms, leaving her in a state of helpless weakness.

  As she lowered the glass to the table, her trembling fingers still holding it, she became aware of his presence beside their table. Her wide, stricken eyes flashed to his face. A sardonic smile flickered over his mouth.

  Well, well, my companion in captivity,' he murmured. He glanced around the table.

  'Good evening. A most unexpected accident, wasn't it? How lucky that the engineer on hand to deal with it.'

  "Thank God he was,' Phil agreed. He smiled in his friendly fashion at the other man.

  'Will you join us?

  'What will you have?'

  The grey steely eyes flickered briefly across Leigh's pale face.

  "A whisky,' he murmured. 'Thank you.'

  Phil beckoned the barman and gave the order. 'Soda?' he asked.

  The grey eyes remained fixed on Leigh, who avoided his glance. 'Please,' he said softly. 'You're very pale,' he told her. 'Are you feeling better now?'

  'Yes, thank you,' she said stiffly.

  He looked at Phil. 'I'm afraid your fiancee was very disturbed by the incident in the lift.

  Her legs almost gave way under her.'

  Leigh gave him a look of silent hatred. He smiled at her, his eyes taunting.

  'In fact,' he added softly, 'she nearly fainted on me.'

  Leigh could have screamed to relieve the bitter, burning rage which was consuming her.

  'May I have another drink, Phil?' she asked huskily.

  'Of course,' said Phil, but his eyes were anxious as they studied her face. 'You do look white, darling. Are you sure you're all right?'

  'I'm perfectly fine,' she snapped.

  The soft, mocking voice said, 'Nervous tension. I should leave her alone for a while.

  She'll feel better when she's had another drink.'

  His whisky arrived and he leaned back, sipping it. Suddenly Leigh felt the hard pressure of his leg against hers and hurriedly withdrew her feet, curling them up under the seat out of his reach.

  Her gi
n came, and she drank it, feeling incredibly thirsty, as though her mouth were dry with ashes.

  'My God, you certainly needed that,' he said.

  She could have thrown it in his face. Instead, she looked at the redheaded girl with a smile. 'I'm afraid I've forgotten your name.'

  'Fiona,' said Jefferson, his eyes admiring the girl's slim body in the bright green dress she wore. She was a shapely creature in the thick woollen dress, her breasts high under the material, her waist tiny. She gave Leigh a polite pretence of a smile in return.

  'You work for solicitors, don't you?' she asked Leigh.

  'Yes,' said Leigh.

  'Ah, a secretary?' asked the grey-eyed man.

  Phil laughed. 'She's very good.'

  'I believe you,' came the smooth reply. f Leigh looked at him with hatred. 'What do you do, Mr.----?' She paused, indicating she did not know his name.

  'Hume,' he said softly. 'Mattieson Hume.'

  Leigh's face reflected her astonishment. Phil and she exchanged long looks, then Phil pursed his lips in a silent whistle.

  Mattieson Hume's hard face moved enquiringly from cc-e to the other of them. He had noticed the way they looked at each other.

  What do you do, Mr. Hume?' Fiona asked, her green eves smothered beneath a layer of thick make-up, her Ids as bright as her dress.

  I work in the newspaper business,' he said, briefly ladling at her.

  "Ooh, a journalist,' she said, impressed.

  His mouth was wry. 'You could call me that.'

  "Not a very apt description, however,' said Leigh, her eyes on her glass.

  "How would you describe me, Leigh?' he asked, and there was laughter in his voice.

  She lifted her eyes to survey him smoulderingly. 'Don't tempt me,' she snapped, before she had had a chance to consider the retort.

  Phil's face held astonishment and apprehension. He put a hand over her knee warningly.

  She looked at him sideways and read the look in his face. She realised that that he was thinking of Ann, imagining that her remark had its roots in her view of Mattieson Hume's behaviour towards her cousin's story. Having spent that half-hour in the lift with the man she no longer doubted her cousin's. For a short while she had considered the possibility that Ann's emotions had had little fuel provided by Mattieson Hume's own actions, but a man who could act as he had towards her in the lift could have deliberately made love to poor little Ann in the hope of seducing her, only to change his mind when she grew too fond of him.