White Lies (15 page)

'That's aubergine... fried plantain... dasheen.'

Mandy did her best. She managed to eat half of the food before she pushed the plate away. 'I've tried but I can't manage any more,' she said in a small voice. 'I can't go on, Pascal! You have to realise what you're doing to my hopes—they're see-sawing up and down and I can't wait any longer. We have to talk. I can't rest till we do.'

'I agree.' He stood up, stretching out his hand. 'I think my appetite has gone too. Shall we walk along the shore?'

Tense and nervous, she went with him down to the beach. Because of the narrowness of the steps she had to follow behind him and her eyes kept drifting to the broad sweep of his shoulders, the narrow hips, the warm strength of his hand as it clasped hers. Quite irrationally she wanted to reach out and smooth her fingers over his back, to feel the softness of his fair hair, the texture, the scent of his skin.

She was muddled. Battered by worry, doubt, fear, weakened by emotion and longing. Longing for Pascal, for his arms, his kisses. Had she said Pascal to herself? She meant Dave. Of course she meant Dave.

And yet... He turned. Smiled gently at her. 'All right?' he asked softly.

'Mmm.'

'You need someone to hold you.' And now that the path was wider he did just that, one arm around her shoulder, holding her as if she'd fall apart if he didn't.

It was nice. More than that. All her instincts were driving her to fling herself into his arms properly, to let him crush her to him, to beg for his kisses—anything to use up the huge surges of emotion that threatened to erupt from her turbulent heart. Pascal understood how she felt and it gave him an unfair advantage over every other man.

She found him deeply attractive as it was. And now that there was this added dimension to him he was proving to be increasingly irresistible. She stole a look at his absorbed face. The moonlight made his skin gleam like burnished gold, the curve of his hair at the nape of his neck extraordinarily appealing to her disordered senses.

They reached the beach and walked along the sand. She tried hard not to let the magical night sway her— the soft rush of waves on the shore, the gentle peace of the bay, the pleasure of at last being with someone who
understood
that terrible emptiness she'd felt, the deafening silence of a house emptied of its laughter, and the starkness of a life spent alone and without an adored spouse's love.

Pascal's grip tightened and she lifted brimming eyes to him, only to discover that he was preoccupied with his own thoughts. 'I know you were hoping for a great deal when you arrived,' he said slowly, as if chewing something over. 'I understand what you were looking for—and why.'

'Then help me,' she begged tremulously.

Still he hesitated. 'I could. I'm not sure I should. My father's illness has been a blow to your plans, hasn't it?' he mused, his steps slowing to a standstill.

'A terrible blow,' she agreed shakily. 'I'd pinned all my hopes on curing my loneliness by coming here.'

She watched the strong jaw tighten, the deep breath that welled up and lifted his powerful shoulders with the force of some private regret. 'So he would have eased your loneliness. You do need protection,' he said wryly. 'From yourself. What would you like me to do?'

Her breath whispered out in a long sigh of relief. He would help her. She knew it. 'After tonight, after all we've shared, I feel I can trust you,' she said earnestly. 'We've exchanged some intimate information about each other. I know about your unhappiness, you know about mine. I understand why you acted as you did, you know why I had no other option but to come here.'

'And so?'

Mandy struggled to avoid the intensity of his smouldering eyes. But she was unable to look away. And she found herself saying breathily, 'There's only one thing I want you to do. And I want it more than anything.' She licked her lips, aware that he was scrutinising her with unnerving concentration. 'Pascal, I know you'll find this a presumption. I know it's not, perhaps, the most orthodox thing to do, but... I want you to take your father's place.'

Pascal stiffened in shock, and he blinked. 'Say that again?'

'Take his place! Please,' she begged fervently. 'Do it for me! It would mean so much to me!' She tugged at his sleeve, her eyes filling with desperate tears when he continued to stare at her, dumbfounded. Surely, as he had the key to his father's house and access to his father's desk, he could search for information about the mysterious client? Why was he being so reticent?

'You can't refuse me,' she said, her voice shaking with emotion. 'You've been determined that I shouldn't become involved with your father. Now I don't have to— not with you around to take care of everything instead. Please!'

He was totally still. Every breath seemed frozen in his body, with only the beat of his heart leaping against her impassioned cheek where she'd pressed it to his chest in a final plea. And she waited, her body as tense as his.

Absently, it seemed, he stroked her hair. 'Do you mean that?' he asked quietly. 'That I should take my father's place?'

Her whole body shuddered with unrelieved strain. 'Oh, yes, yes, Pascal!' she muttered into his shirt.

He tipped up her face and with his thumb wiped away the rolling tears. 'No promises. No strings,' he warned.

'I know,' she croaked. 'I know you can't make any promises. I know I might be disappointed. But I'd rather try it this way than...' Her voice drifted into silence. She was unable to contemplate failure.

'I hope we don't regret this,' he mused, stroking her face with his forefinger. 'But yes. I can't resist you. I don't-want to resist you. I agree.'

Mandy beamed in delirious delight through her tears. 'Pascal!' she cried, crying and laughing at the same time. 'Thank you! Thank you!'

'God!' he muttered, and somehow they were both huddled deep in each other's arms.

Mandy sobbed into his chest, reassured by the tightness of his embrace. They'd both been upset—Pascal had intended some brutal revenge on his father that had included her, but now he'd realised that that had been wrong. And he was going to help her to find her family!

'I'm grateful,' she sobbed, her shoulders heaving.

He stroked her back gently and waited for her tears to subside. When she emerged, sheepishly, from his arms and flung him a rueful, elated look, he smiled at her uplifted face and gently kissed her.

To her surprise she found herself kissing him back as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Her arms went around his neck, her fingers laced at the back of his head. Around them the jungle sounds intensified and the waves rushed more fiercely into the beach.

And his mouth drove deeper into hers as if he wanted to drive out the emotion that had been lying in his heart ever since his wife and baby died.

As she thought of his tragedy a huge shuddering breath flowed through her body and she drew his head forward to ease some of her own pain, some of her longing.

She swayed with the tenderness of his mouth as it moved over hers, the skill of his kiss making her feel light-headed and abandoned. The slow rhythm of his hands on her body echoed hers, smoothing over the soft cloth of his jacket, trailing around the contours of his big chest and resting briefly, wonderingly, where his heart hammered a tattoo as loud as hers.

He muttered in her mouth—French or patois, she wasn't sure, knowing only that his breath tantalised its sensitive interior so agonisingly that she willingly invited him to explore further. And when he did, and his tongue touched hers, she groaned aloud with the rawness of her own desire.

Her hair was loose now, tumbling on her shoulders, her eyes glistening and dazed. He kissed her throat, eased down her zip and let his teeth savage her pearly shoulders while his hands caressed her naked back. It was wrong. She knew that. But knowing it didn't i stop her. Something terrible was driving her—his mouth, his eyes, his murmurs of appreciation, the sheer animal hunger of his demands. And she couldn't, wouldn't, refuse.

The starvation had been too long, too deep. She'd found such pleasure in lovemaking before...but nothing like this!

Mandy threw her head back and moaned in her throat. The air touched her body with its warmth, caressing it. She was virtually naked now, her dress whispering to her feet. Blindly she kicked off her shoes and lifted her hands to Pascal's face, kissing him with deep passion, sobbing with need, frantic in her efforts to help him remove his jacket.

All she could hear was their laboured breathing. All she could see was his beautiful body, warm and hard, satin and steel. All she could feel was the tension coiled inside her and in him too, the terrible suppression of emotion and sexual need.

They were equal in their passion, clawing at one another, mouth on mouth, body thrust against body. They staggered across the soft, yielding sand, kissing and devouring as they went, their hunger rising with every step. And then, when soft grass met her feet, Mandy felt him bearing her down to the ground and they sank down together with a grunt of satisfaction.

His mouth was on every inch of her straining body, each kiss a torment of gently restrained passion. She too felt as though she wanted to touch the whole surface of his skin, to appease her own mouth where it had been so long starved of kissing. With a moan, she arched like a supple bridge as his tongue played with the rigid peaks of hep breasts.

Suspended between pleasure and torture, she reached out to cradle his head, afraid and excited, all of her senses focused on the sensations raging inside her. It wasn't love and it wasn't wise. Opening her drugged eyes, she saw the deep, awed look of tormented bliss on his face and let out a husky cry.

He looked up at her with eyes so primeval, burning with such a shockingly sexual desire, that she moaned again, drawing him to her for a long, impassioned kiss. And she was sliding on his skin, her arms and legs tangling with his, the terrible ache inside her clamouring for satisfaction. Her hips ground into his and suddenly she felt a wonderful, velvet warmth inside her and she cried out aloud with the relief of it because it was so right: gentle enough not to hurt, yet hard and relentless enough to ease her hunger.

All the time they continued to kiss as though their mouths couldn't get enough of one another, his hands now holding her head tenderly, his athletic body driving deeper into hers while she—she who had never known such passion or responded so ardently and wantonly— wrapped her legs around his body and forced her heels into him, matching his rhythm, flying, flying...

The core of her body was melting, liquefying and enclosing him with ever tightening spasms. She cried out again and again, heard his hoarse whispers in her ears, the tension and the release lifting her to a moment of pure, soaring joy. And then she shuddered in his arms, felt the nerves in her skin quivering as she subsided, then lay supine and indolent beneath him while he gently kissed her neck, his breathing stertorous in her ear.

She hadn't realised she had slept. But she was woken by gentle kisses on her collarbone and drowsily she smiled because she felt wonderful.

'I want you,' husked Pascal.

'Tired,' she mumbled.

'You don't
have
to do anything,' he murmured in amusement.

But she did. After a short time he'd aroused her languid body so intensely with his sweetly agonising caresses that she had to move, to encourage him, to enjoy him again. This time it was less raw and pagan a love- making. This time...

She gave a little whimper of protest as Pascal coaxed her into a frenzy. This time it was a deeper and more powerful experience than anything she'd known with Dave.

And as she fought with Pascal, begged him to take her, used every wile to make him lose his new and infuriating control, a small part of her was saying, This is pure sex. Lust. And it shamed her because it was so utterly pleasurable and she couldn't get enough of Pascal's body. He felt the same about her. They sated themselves till dawn, inciting one another with touch and sight and sound and the scents of each other's body.

Then—and only then—did she push back the thought that it was more than lust. She knew because she felt complete in every way. In her body and her beautifully aroused and satiated senses, in her mind, her heart, her emotions. Something momentous had happened to her. Something that made her feel both afraid and elated.

And she felt rich for the first time in her life, finding an exhilaration in abandoning herself completely to the basic art of igniting the desires of an experienced and immensely strong-willed, powerful male and rendering him all but helpless by her touch.

The sense of power made her feel light-headed. And incredibly sexy. Incredibly fulfilled.

They swam naked, without breaking the silence between them. Words would have destroyed the timelessness, the spell that they had woven around each other.

With the glowing sky behind her she stood thigh-deep in the ocean and stretched her whole body without coyness, proud of the admiration in every line of Pascal's sultry mouth. And he was beautiful, his body perfect— toned, tanned, with less white skin beneath his waist than there should have been, perhaps because he bathed nude sometimes, she imagined, here on this isolated beach.

The water slipped like silk around her body as she swam, and she thought that she must be more aware of every tiny sensation than at any time in her life. Her head lifted back to the gentle warmth of the sun's first rays and she floated on the water unselfconsciously, listening to the silver-throated birds.

Pascal's body came up beneath hers and she sighed. Some time one of them had to break the enchantment. She would become embarrassed and ashamed and they would have to accept that this had been the result of hunger and emotion, something never to be repeated. Her body contracted at the thought of the loss.

'Gently,' he murmured in her ear. He swam with her to the shallows, lifted her to her feet and drew her to him, kissing her with a brutal sweetness that made her want to cry. 'Relax,' he soothed, sucking on her lower lip. He smiled into her pained eyes. 'Take it easy.'