She didn’t undress, but slipped as she was under the covering sheet. She was nervous and excited, but made herself relax, because she might have to wait quite a while. In the end, she dozed a little, and eventually woke with a start, convinced it was morning and her chance to escape missed completely.
But the room was still bright with moonlight, and the house was filled with a deep quietness.
She slid out of bed and padded to the door, opening it cautiously and listening. Still no sound.
She crept back into the bathroom and collected her toilet bag. It was all she possessed in the world, and she had no intention of leaving it behind, although it seemed she was forced to abandon the rest of her belongings for the time being. Including her passport and her travellers cheques, she thought, biting her lip. But she’d be back for them, bringing the authorities with her.
She tiptoed across the passage. His door was closed, but the handle turned easily and quietly under her fingers, and she slid into the room like a little ghost.
All she had to do was pick up the keys and go, but something impelled her to take one last look at him. He was asleep, half-turned on to his side, his skin very dark against the stark whiteness of the bedlinen. The rumpled sheet draped across his hips in no way disguised the fact that he was naked.
He looked younger, she thought with an odd little catch of the breath, with some of that proud arrogance muted by slumber.
For a long moment, she stood, staring down at him, her mind playing tricks, her imagination taking her down paths she had never before wanted to tread. Then, her lower lip caught in her teeth to bite back what might have been a sigh, she tiptoed to the chest and picked up the keys with infinite care.
She seemed to be saying goodbye with every step of the stairs as she descended. Her captivity had lasted hours rather than days, but already in some strange way the house seemed as familiar to her as—as her own home in England. She gave herself an angry mental shake. She should be thanking her stars she was escaping, relatively unscathed, not indulging in stupid and unnecessary nostalgia.
The jeep was parked off the track just under the wall. She approached it with a certain amount of trepidation. But—she could drive, therefore it followed that she could drive this, and the fact that her licence was in England, and she was not insured were details she hoped she would never have to discuss with anyone.
She slid in behind the wheel, and felt for the ignition. She tried each key in turn, and because it was dark and she was nervous, she missed the right one, and had to start again. This time, she counted them off in her head as she used them. And again, by some mischance, she missed.
Get a grip, she adjured herself silently, taking a deep breath. Third time has to be lucky.
He said, ‘Those are the keys to my sports car, Gemma. Do you think I am quite a fool?’
She almost screamed, and the keys fell clattering to the floor of the jeep. She bent to retrieve them, but he was there before her, picking them up with one hand, clasping her wrist with the other.
His voice went on mockingly, ‘You were almost convincing, my cooing dove, with your virginal fears. But at the same time, I was sure you could not resist the bait, if it was offered.’ Insolently he dangled the keys in front of her. ‘And I was right.’
Her voice shook. ‘Damn you to hell.’
He grinned. ‘The return of the virago. I am not sure I do not welcome it. I wonder how many other facets of your personality I shall discover before the night is over?’ His grip tightened on her wrist. ‘Now come with me.’
She had no choice. She realised now there had never really been one. She had been playing a game, but he’d been dictating the rules, every step of the way. And, when he wished, changing them.
In the living room, he had lit a lamp. He had dragged on a pair of jeans, but he was barefoot, bare-chested, and she looked at the lithe body which would soon possess her own, and knew that he had the power to possess her soul too. And she knew she could not let that happen. She remembered Maria’s words,
‘Andreas wearies quickly of his women
’ with a pang. That was what she had to guard against—the moment when he sent her away, because he had no further use for her as an instrument of vengeance, or more damagingly, as a woman.
He said, ‘You are shivering, matia
mou
.’ He held out a hand to her. The gesture and the smile which went with it teased and beckoned. ‘Let me warm you.’
She took a quick breath. ‘No.’ She turned away, turning her back quite deliberately on the outstretched hand, and the lure it offered of warmth, of laughter, of passion—and, ultimately, of a heartbreak which could destroy her.
He sighed sharply. ‘Gemma, don’t be a fool. You knew from the first...’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You made the position perfectly clear. I know why I’m here, and I know what you intend to do.’
The smile was back in his voice. ‘My sweet one, I intend to make love to you.’
She shook her head, staring blindly at the wall. ‘No—not love. Earlier today, you spelled out exactly what it would be—“a brief sordid association”. Those were your words.’
‘Yes.’ His tone roughened. ‘But I spoke of Maria and your brother, not of ourselves. You misunderstood ...’
‘I’ve never misunderstood.’ Her throat felt tight. ‘I know why I’m here, in this situation. And I know that you’ll never let me go until I’ve paid this—this unspeakable debt for Michael. So I will—pay. I accept that’s the way it has to be.’ She took another long breath. ‘And I won’t fight. I—I won’t try and stop you. You can have me. But that’s all you’ll have.’ She bent her head and stared down at the floor. ‘So—so don’t try and dress it up with talk of making love, or—or wanting because that’s not part of it.’
‘You think I don’t want you?’ There was an odd note in his voice.
‘I don’t think about it at all, because I don’t care.’ Her throat felt constricted. ‘If going to bed with you is my passport out of here, then I’ll go. But—please—no more cat-and-mouse games, and no more talk about making love. Just—do what you want and get it over with.’
There was a long and terrible silence, then he said very quietly, ‘You do not know what you are saying.’
She nodded. ‘But I do. There’s no way you can make this easy for me, so I’d be grateful if you could at least be quick. If you wouldn’t mind,’ she added, like a polite child.
‘But I do mind.’ His voice was like molten steel. ‘And you will mind too, Gemma. You are not made of wood, so why pretend that you have no feelings?’
‘Because it’s better to have none,’ she said. ‘If I allowed myself to feel something, it would be hate—hate for you for bringing me here, hate for myself, for being a woman.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t want to feel those things—they’re damaging, destructive.’
‘And indifference is not?’ he challenged.
She said wearily, ‘I don’t know. But it’s all I have.’
There was another silence, then he said with cold courtesy, ‘Then let it be as you wish.’
They went to his room. She watched him straighten the bed, shake up the pillows, then turned away hastily as he began to unzip his jeans. If she’d secretly hoped that her defiant speech would kill any desire he had for her stone-dead, then she’d miscalculated, she thought wearily.
He said, ‘I am waiting.’
She risked a quick glance. He was in bed, propped on one elbow, watching her, his eyes as black as onyx, and as hard.
Gemma cleared her throat. ‘Would you put out the lamp please?’
‘No.’
As she unwound the sash, she tried to comfort herself with the reminder that he’d seen her in the shower only that afternoon. That, outwardly at least, her body no longer held any secrets for him. But it did not prevent her from fumbling every button.
The walk across the room to the bed seemed the longest she had ever taken. She slid under the sheet and lay next to him, not touching. Her pulses sounded like thunder in her ears. She wondered if he could hear them top.
He put out a hand, and gently stroked a tress of hair back from her forehead.
He said, ‘My Gemma, it does not have to be like this between us, and you know it. Turn to me, sweet one. I promise I will make you happy.’
And afterwards unhappy, she thought. When it’s over.
She didn’t look at him. ‘No—this is how it must be.’
He said harshly, ‘So be it then. Am I permitted to kiss you—caress you—or would that simply prolong your agony?’ He paused, and when she didn’t reply gave a short laugh. ‘I see. Then, if nothing else, my dove, relax for me, otherwise you will feel pain.’
She felt pain already. It filled her heart and mind. It swamped the universe, but she welcomed it because it helped her to remain detached as his hand swept a slow, remorseless path down her body.
She had said she wouldn’t resist, and when the long fingers stroked her thighs, she allowed him to part them, without demur. And he was keeping his side of their cold bargain too, she realised, dazedly accepting his almost clinical exploration of her most intimate self. Whatever she’d been expecting, it had not been this, she thought, trying not to flinch and failing.
He saw, of course. ‘I am hurting you?’
Gemma bit her lip. ‘You’re very—thorough.’
He said coolly, ‘And you are very inexperienced. In that, at least, you told the truth.’
She turned her head away and stared at the small flame flickering in the lamp. There was another small flame, somewhere deep inside her, barely alight, struggling for life, which she had to ignore. Because even this bleak, impersonal discovering of her was having its effect on her body’s reflexes.
It would be so easy, she thought wretchedly, to reach up and draw him down to her, to put her lips against his face, his skin. So easy, and so fatal.
She stole a glance at him through her lashes. He looked stem—remote, and when he moved over her, she was frightened again, because he was a stranger whom she had absolved of all necessity to be kind. And if he was brutal, she would only have herself to blame, she thought, her nails scoring tense crescents in the palms of her hands.
But when he’d said he could be patient, he had not lied, she discovered wonderingly. She might not have deserved consideration but it was there for her just the same. And skill. And an infinite control which reduced the initial pain of his possession that her taut, unyielding muscles had made inevitable.
And, as he entered her completely, she cried out, not just because of the hurting, but in amazement too that this joining of their bodies which should have been so traumatic was, in the end, so incredibly, miraculously simple.
He took a corner of the sheet, and gently wiped the tiny beads of sweat from her forehead and cheekbones, and in that moment she let herself acknowledge freely for the first time that she loved him. That the ultimate disaster which she had tried to avoid had already overtaken her.
And she acknowledged too, as he began to move inside her slowly at first, that this brief treasuring of his warmth and strength as part of her would be all of him she would ever have to remember.
Echoing his own words, she thought, ‘So be it, then.’
As he reached his climax he groaned something—her name—some words in his own language, then rolled away from her burying his face in the pillow, while his harsh, ragged breathing slowly steadied.
Gemma lay beside him, not speaking, aching, wondering what she should do next. Go back to her own room, perhaps?
After a while, he flung back the sheet and got out of bed, crossing the room to the bathroom.
She heard the sound of running water. Perhaps this was a signal for her to take her leave she thought, lifting herself up, and wincing a little. But the next minute he was back, carrying a bowl of water and a small towel. He sat on the edge of the bed, and began to bathe her with the dampened towel, first her face, and then, drawing back the sheet, her body.
She saw without surprise that she had bled a little. It was strange, she thought, but oddly sweet to lie there, allowing him to perform this intimate, but at the same time impersonal service for her.
When he had finished, he put the bowl down beside the bed, and let the towel drop to the floor beside it.
She said quietly, ‘May I go now?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘You may not.’ There was a note in his voice which seemed to warn her not to press the point.
He lay down beside her again, pulling the sheet to cover them both, and blew out the lamp. His arm went round her shoulders, pulling her down to him, pillowing her head on his chest. His other hand closed round the curve of her hip, drawing her closer to the warmth of his naked body. Cradled against him, she felt the tensions and the misery slowly begin to ebb away. His skin felt like silk under her cheek, the beat of his heart like the pulse of the universe under her hand.
After what had happened, it was madness, she thought, to feel so safe, so comforted.
Yet, after a while, against the odds, against all reason, she fell asleep in his arms.
Chapter Seven
SHE awoke to the beauty of a dawn sky and the realisation that she was being watched. She turned her head a fraction and looked into his eyes.
He brushed his mouth lightly across hers, and she knew what had woken her.
‘You have rested well?’ he asked.
Her, ‘Yes’ sounded strangled, because the hand that had been resting on her hip travelled upwards, and was now cupping her pointed breast, his thumb lazily stroking her nipple, sending fierce shafts of pleasure through her.
‘And I did not hurt you too much?’ He bent his head, and trailed a pattern of tiny kisses around the breast he was caressing, taking the aroused rosy peak between his lips, and tugging it sensuously.
She gasped. ‘What are you doing?’
He lifted his head and smiled at her. ‘Making love to you, agape
mou
, as I should have done last night.’ He kissed her other breast, his tongue moving against her skin, filling her with piercing excitement.