A Lesson In Seduction

by Susan Napier

  His sharp counter-attack vanquished the momentary weakness. ‘Oh, come on, Roz, you do exactly the same thing with everyone you meet. A gesture here, a character trait there...they’re all grist to your actor’s mill. As I was going to explain to you this morning, clarifying my thoughts about a person or a problem by writing them down is a habit of mine—my observations were purely for my own benefit. I have—had—no intention of showing my personal jottings to anyone else.’

  His grim self-correction told her he now knew that she had not only wiped the file off his hard disk but had also stolen the back-up floppy which had been in the drive.

  ‘For God’s sake, Roz, surely you can’t still think I’m an undercover journalist?’

  She wished she did. At this point she would have been relieved to find out that he was simply an overenthusiastic hack, because a far more disturbing alternative had arisen.

  Luke’s word-processing program had been personalized with his full name. When Rosalind had inadvertently opened her file the copyright box had appeared for several seconds, but only later in the day had the impact of it exploded on her consciousness like a bomb.

  Luke Peter James.

  One of his names was Peter.

  It could be just a coincidence. It probably was just a coincidence, she had feverishly tried to convince herself.

  He couldn’t be Peter Noble. Peggy’s son was unemployed and on benefit, and even if he had been tracking Rosalind’s movements as precisely as Peggy had claimed he wouldn’t have had access to the kind of information or money that would have enabled him to follow her to Tioman. Unless he included fraud amongst his obsessions...

  But what if everything Peggy had told Rosalind about her son was wrong? After all, she only knew what Peter had chosen to tell her. Peggy had been far too afraid of stirring up the murky past to make any independent investigation into his background... she didn’t even know if his story about his adoptive family was true. What if he had told Peggy a pack of lies? What if Luke was telling a pack of lies to Rosalind?

  He himself had pointed out the dangers of making assumptions. Just because Rosalind had independent verification that he was a triathlete, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t also be a borderline psychotic. Maybe all that heartbreaking stuff about his wife dying was a scam to arouse her sympathy.

  Of course, it was all absurdly unlikely, but the circumstantial evidence was very unnerving: Luke’s name was also Peter, he was adopted and the same age that Peggy’s son would be, he had torn out an article about Rosalind—perhaps to add to his extensive collection at home—and was keeping a detailed account of her every move.

  If ridiculing the idea out of existence didn’t work, she could just ask him—but if Luke was Peter Noble she might be safer pretending to be unaware. To acknowledge his obsession might be to validate it. Oh, why hadn’t she spoken to the psychologist whom Jordan had urged her to consult about handling a personal confrontation with her psychotic fan? Because she had been too busy hoping it would never happen...

  ‘Rosalind?’ Luke persisted. Wasn’t relentless persistence a sign of an obsessive mind? ‘I said, you surely can’t still believe I’m compiling a sleazy kiss-and-tell for some moronic magazine?’

  At the reminder of the kisses they had shared an icy thrill of erotic fear coursed down her spine. Even now, wondering if Luke was her stalker, she felt the powerful tug of attraction, the insidious stirring of sexual curiosity.

  Maybe she was the one who was deranged! Rosalind scrambled hastily to her feet, away from the temptation.

  ‘There’s nothing for you to tell anyway!’ she said, hearing the amused contempt ring false in her own ears.

  ‘Isn’t there?’ He rose more slowly, like a hunter wary of frightening his skittish prey. He seemed larger in the darkness and Rosalind’s heart began to beat up into her throat.

  ‘We kissed a few times, had a few laughs together—it didn’t mean anything to either of us!’ She quietly put one sandalled foot behind the other and began to shift her weight backwards.

  ‘Didn’t it?’

  He was circling around her, and she turned to keep him within her night-blurred sight. She could hear her pulse in her ears, could feel but not see his eyes boring into her, and experienced the tingling of her scalp that usually presaged a severe attack of stage fright. Oh, God, if he was Peter she mustn’t let him paralyse her in real life as she had let him do to her on stage.

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then why are you spitting at me like a cornered vixen? Could it be that you feel threatened by how much you enjoyed those few laughs...?’

  It was such an apt description of her feelings that she recoiled. ‘Damn you!’

  His voice oozed with heavy satisfaction as he continued to pad softly around her, increasing his speed so that her head began to whirl as she tried to keep up with him, the hem of her halter-necked slip-dress flaring around her knees. ‘No, damn you Roz. You started this game; we’re not going to stop now, just because you’ve discovered that you don’t get to make all the rules.’

  She lifted her hands in a fierce warding-off gesture, some words from Shakespeare sliding unbidden into her mind. ‘He was furnished like a hunter/O, ominous! he comes to kill my heart.’

  ‘What game?’ she said desperately. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about—’

  His soft laugh was grim with determination.

  ‘I’m talking about this...’

  His mouth was as warm and exciting as she remembered, his body as hard, and once more her passionate nature was hostage to his fervent enthusiasm. She stopped struggling, her fear dissolving in the heat of a seductive yearning. What Luke lacked in finesse he certainly made up for in zeal. How could she be afraid of someone who made her feel so beautiful, so powerful, so desirable and, uniquely in her recent experience, so utterly complete?

  Her trapped hands fluttered briefly against his lean flanks before her fingers curled into the rough linen weave of his softly gathered trousers, not tugging him closer, but not pushing him away either. Like her dress, Luke’s shirt was made of silk, and the two whisper-thin surfaces were slippery against each other, generating a slick friction which, with every movement, every wild breath and ripple of muscle, made parts of Rosalind ache for a similar caress.

  His mouth suddenly broke away and Luke leaned his forehead against hers, resting it there while his arms fell loosely to her hips, cradling them against his fierce arousal.

  ‘You’re right—however it started this isn’t a game for us any more,’ he panted raggedly. ‘Let’s stop teasing each other...to hell with all the rest. Come to bed with me, Roz...please... I won’t hurt you, I’ll protect you... Come back with me now and dazzle me with your splendour...’

  The hunter was disarming himself before his captive prey.

  ‘Come...dazzle me with your splendour...’

  How could any woman resist such a poetic, impassioned plea?

  Hours later Rosalind was still reliving the pleasure of that exquisite moment, and cursing the self-doubt which had smothered her impulse to accept his invitation. She had wanted to fling herself headlong into the reckless glory of loving Luke, but for the first time in her life her steadfast optimism had failed her. She had been afraid to trust her instincts, afraid that her judgement was warped by her feelings.

  Rosalind Marlow, the wild child of tabloid journalism, afraid to take a risk. What a laugh!

  Rosalind paced back and forth in her bedroom, her heart aching for the man she had deserted under the casuarina tree. Had he been hurt by the fierceness of her rejection? Maybe she had gone overboard in her attempt to sound as if she was still angry with him. Luke hadn’t even tried to follow her...surely if he was obsessed with her he wouldn’t have let her just walk away?

  She stopped and pressed her ear against the wall. Still not a single sound or vibration from the next chalet. She rested her hot cheek against the cool paintwork and closed her eyes. Damn it, where was he? Why the hell wasn�
�t he knocking at her door, pestering her to change her mind?

  Because he wasn’t Peter, that was why, her guilty conscience whispered. Luke was simply an honest man who had got out of his depth with a witchy woman who blew inexplicably hot and cold and acted mortally insulted when he paid her the supreme compliment of trying to understand her.

  Where on earth could he have gone? To the bar, to drown his humiliation in vodka? Or...more likely from what she knew of Luke...had he gone for a long, solitary walk to brood over his sorrows?

  Rosalind jerked upright. What if Luke fell victim to the dreaded ricochet effect? What if, in his wanderings, he encountered some shameless, man-eating hussy who offered him the opportunity to soothe his wounded male ego with some mindless sex? Her blood boiled with jealousy at the idea. She felt sick at the thought of him with any other woman.

  Her green eyes narrowed grimly as she made up her mind. Luke had stopped short of making any emotional declarations but she sensed that he had strong feelings for her, otherwise he wouldn’t be in such a turmoil.

  This definitely wasn’t just a physical attraction. If Rosalind loved him she couldn’t keep running away from the responsibility, but nor could she blind herself to her suspicions, as she had done with Justin. The Justin she had thought she was in love with had been a flawless young god who had turned out to have feet of clay. Luke was a flesh-and-blood man who had attracted her because of his flaws, rather than in spite of them.

  Still, this time she had much more to lose than her girlish dreams and Rosalind had to be certain with her heart and her head that she was doing the right thing for Luke as well as for herself. If she couldn’t bring herself to take him on trust, well, she would have to take him without, and hope to make up for her lack of faith later...

  First, and most important of all, she needed to reread what he had written about her—properly, from start to finish this time, instead of relying on the few jumbled extracts that had leapt at her from the screen that morning. She wanted to know just how much of his own feelings and motives he had recorded in his so-called ‘diary’.

  Grabbing the small computer disk from her bedside table, Rosalind went out onto the balcony and peered around the edge of the lattice screen at his darkened bedroom. She knew Luke would have locked the front door of his chalet when he’d gone out, but, as she had hoped, he had left his balcony sliding door slightly open.

  For someone as nimble as Rosalind it was a matter of seconds to kick off her sandals and swing herself over the sturdy wooden rail. The computer disk between her teeth, she edged along the narrow wooden parapet until she was on the other side of the screen and clambered back over the rail.

  The sliding door moved silently on its smooth track and Rosalind uttered a smothered giggle of nervous fright as the filmy white curtain suddenly billowed out of the widened gap to wrap itself around her. She fought her way free only to stub her toe on the raised track and stumble into the room with a whispered curse.

  She would make a hopeless cat burglar, she thought, realising that she had dropped the precious disk and would have to waste time fumbling around on the floor in the darkness. She put out a hand and knocked it against the back of a cane chair. If only she could turn on a light...

  The light clicked on beside the bed and she found herself staring at Luke, who was rumple-haired and crumple-eyed as he pushed himself upright, the sheet slithering down his bare chest to settle around his waist.

  ‘Roz?’

  ‘Luke!’ she said faintly, shocked by the sight of him. He had been here all along! Sleeping, for God’s sake, while she had been miserably pacing her chalet, agonising over his whereabouts! She put her hand up to her frantically beating heart, wondering how she was going to explain her presence in his bedroom.

  It seemed that an explanation was not required. A beatific expression stole into his sleep-darkened eyes.

  ‘Rosalind, you came!’ He pushed back the bedclothes and rose to greet her, splendidly naked.

  ‘I knew you would,’ he said warmly, strolling towards her, his mouth curving in delighted welcome. ‘I knew you’d change your mind and come to me...’

  Not only naked, but also magnificently aroused and completely unselfconscious about it, thought Rosalind hazily as she watched his graceful stride eat up the distance between them. Poetry in motion...every muscle moving in well-oiled symmetry under his burnished skin, the smooth hairlessness of his chest, belly and legs accentuating the thick, dark brown cloud of curly hair at the juncture of his thighs.

  With difficulty Rosalind tore her eyes away from the fluid ripple of his thighs and met his gaze, suddenly understanding the reason for his total lack of shyness.

  He wasn’t quite aware, she realised as he blinked lazily at her, his naked arms sliding around her waist as he bent his head to seek a leisurely kiss. His eyes still had that distant, dream-dark look and his mouth was tenderly whimsical as it nuzzled her startled lips apart. His eyelids fluttered shut again. Aside from the rigid thrust of masculinity nudging against her thighs he was utterly relaxed, and his warm body seemed to envelop hers like a butter-soft glove, absorbing her into his languorous dream-world.

  ‘Touch me,’ he invited, his tongue slipping inside her mouth and rubbing sensuously against hers. ‘Everywhere, all over; I need to feel you all over me...wanting me...loving me...’

  His flat hand slid up and down her silk-covered back, massaging her against his chest, his other hand finding hers and drawing it down between their bodies, pushing her fingers into the soft nest of hair. He groaned, racked by shudders as he curled her pliant fingers firmly around him, shaping her to his need, arching his back as he thrust graphically into her soft grasp. ‘Oh, God, yes...like that...you know I love it when you touch me like that...’

  Rosalind went liquid with pleasure. Luke might have gone to bed wanting to hate her but he obviously hadn’t succeeded. She must have disturbed him in the middle-of an intensely erotic dream—a dream about her...

  In Luke’s subconscious they were already lovers and now, if she didn’t stop him, he was going to turn that dream into reality.

  But she didn’t want to stop him. She had forgotten the computer disk lying half-hidden under the bed. She no longer cared why she had come, only that she was here and that Luke, in his half-waking state, was open to her in a way he had never been before, expressing his deepest, most intimate needs with a frankness that was usually censored by his extreme reserve.

  He was strong in his desire, yet vulnerable in a way that moved her to the depths of her being. Tenderness mingled with passion and she felt a surge of the old recklessness. In his dream Luke spoke of loving, not sex. In his dream he needed her, trusted her, believed that she would never disappoint him...

  Rosalind wanted to share his dream. For however brief a time she too wanted to be free of the shackles of doubt, free to need and to trust and believe that love could conquer all. Whatever unwelcome knowledge lurked ahead, at least she could make of this consummation an untainted memory to hold in her heart...

  Her hand moved on him and he moaned excitingly into her mouth. She eased their bodies closer together, the slow rotation of her hips replacing her stroking fingers as she caressed her hand back up his chest and over the strong column of his throat, sliding her arms over his shoulders and going on tiptoe to deepen the long, voluptuous kiss.

  Her passionate response snapped him to full awareness. His mouth stilled and his eyes flew open, his hands pausing in their restless exploration, one splayed between her shoulderblades, the other shaped to the base of her spine.

  His mouth lifted far enough for him to murmur a surprised question that wasn’t really a question. ‘Roz...?’

  ‘Who else?’ She pulled his head back down and flicked her tongue along his parted lips, savouring his delicious surprise as he struggled to comprehend that the woman he held was not the armful of dreams he had confidently embraced.

  His gush of breath was warm and spicy, filling her senses with
delight. ‘I—What...what are you doing here?’

  ‘Making love to you,’ she vowed, tilting her head back so that she could see his face. Dark colour ran up under his skin, and his eyes flamed with a scorching hunger as his lips moved soundlessly.

  ‘No...’ She pressed a thumb to the soft curve of his lower lip, stilling the formation of another question. ‘It doesn’t matter how, or why...’

  Confusion swirled in the smouldering heat of his gaze. ‘But—earlier—you said—’

  ‘Do you want to talk, or make love?’ She cut him off huskily, impatient for the violent pleasure she knew he would give her, not wanting her gloriously reckless mood dissipated by cautious reminders.

  His teeth nipped at her thumb, his mouth closing over it to suckle it briefly before releasing the moistened tip. ‘Can’t we do both?’

  She shook her head, her rich voice mellowing to a slow, sexy drawl. ‘I don’t feel civilised enough for conversation. I tend to go a little wild when you touch me and tonight I want to let go completely; I want to set the wildness free. I only hope that you don’t find me too uninhibited for your tastes...’

  A pulse jolted in his left temple. ‘I don’t know what my tastes are,’ he reminded her roughly, his lower hand unconsciously dragging her hips possessively against him. ‘I know so little about women and their physical needs that it’s far more likely that you’ll be the one who’s disappointed by my inexperienced performance...’

  She cupped her hands over his slightly roughened jaw and slid them down his throat, feeling the ripple of nervous tension as he swallowed.

  ‘This isn’t an audition, Luke,’ she chided him softly. ‘Believe me, you have all the right instincts and that’s all that matters. All you have to do is enjoy yourself and the rest will happen naturally.’ Her eyes were very green as she assured him gravely, ‘And just for the record it’s been a long time for me too. Years... I guess I was waiting for a very special man to make me feel special...and that man is you, Luke...’