Нина Харрингтон – In Bed with Her Ex: Miss Prim and the Billionaire / Mardie and the City Surgeon / The Boy is Back in Town (страница 20)
‘Haven’t I reason? Didn’t you desert me when I was almost at death’s door?’
‘No, I didn’t desert you,’ she cried. ‘I did it for you—’
‘Surely you can think of something better than that,’ he sneered.
‘It’s true. I had no choice.’
‘You’re lying and it’s not even a clever lie. Anyone could see through it.’
‘Listen to me—’ she screamed.
‘No, you listen to me. I hate you, Cassie, or Mrs Henshaw, whoever you are today. I shall hate you as long as I live. There’s only one thing about you that I don’t hate, and it’s this.’
He pulled her hard against him and looked down into her face. She felt his hands move away from her shoulders to take her head, holding it in the right position so that she couldn’t resist. She knew what he was about to do, but nothing could prepare her for the feel of his lips on hers after so long.
‘Marcel,’ she gasped.
‘You’ve been trying to drive me insane all evening, and now you’ve done it. Are you pleased? Is this what you wanted?’
It was exactly what she wanted and only now did she admit the truth to herself. All her anger and defiance had been heading for this moment, trying to drive him to take her into his arms. Her body, her senses and, if she were honest, her heart, had been set on this, and if he’d resisted her it would have been an insult for which she would never have forgiven him. A sigh broke from her, and her warm breath against his mouth inflamed him more. He deepened the kiss with his tongue, seeking her response, sensing it, driven wild by it.
Her arms seemed to move of their own accord, gliding up around his neck, holding, drawing his head fiercely against hers, sending him a message with her lips and tongue.
But suddenly he drew back as though forcing himself with a great effort.
‘Tell me to stop,’ he growled. ‘Tell me. Let me hear you say it.’
‘How can I?’ she said huskily. ‘You never took orders from me.’
‘You never needed to give me orders. I did what you wanted without you having to say it.’
‘You were always so sure you knew what I wanted,’ she murmured, looking up with teasing eyes that were as provocative as she meant them to be.
‘You never complained.’
‘Perhaps I was afraid of you.’
‘Perhaps I’m afraid of you now. I’m in your power, aren’t I?’
‘Then tell me to stop,’ he repeated with grim emphasis.
For answer she gave him a smile that tested his self control to the limit. She felt the tremor go through him, and smiled again.
‘Tell me to stop!’ he said desperately.
‘Do
‘Damn you!
His hands were moving feverishly, finding the buttons of her pyjamas, wrenching them open, tossing the puritanical jacket aside. He touched her breasts with his fingers, then his lips, groaning softly so that his warm breath whispered over her skin, sending a frisson of delight through her.
She was aware of him moving towards the bedroom, taking her with him, but then all sensations merged until she felt the bed beneath her. He raised his head to gaze down at her and she instinctively began to work on his buttons, ripping them open even faster than he had ripped hers.
It was dark in this room and all they could see of each other was their eyes, fierce and gleaming with mutual desire. And then the moment came. After so many years they were one again, moving in a perfect physical harmony that defied their antagonism. The old memories were still alive, how to please each other, inflame each other, challenge, defy, infuriate each other. And then how to lie quietly in each other’s arms, feeling the roar die away, leaving only fulfilment behind.
She could barely make out his features, but she sensed his confusion. For once in his life, Marcel was lost for words. She gave him a reassuring smile.
‘Would you really have stopped if I’d asked you?’ she murmured.
A long silence.
‘Let’s just say … I’m glad you didn’t ask me,’ he said at last, slowly.
She waited for him to say more. Whatever the past, they had suddenly discovered a new road that could lead back to each other. Surely now he would have words of tenderness for her?
Full of hope, she reached out, brushing her fingertips against his face.
But he drew back sharply, stared at her for a moment, then rose from the bed like a man fleeing the devil.
‘No,’ he said softly, then violently,
‘Marcel—’
‘No!’ he repeated, then gave a sudden bitter laugh. ‘Oh,
‘Look at me. How easily I … well done, Cassie. You won the first battle. I’ll win the others but it’s the first one that counts, isn’t it? Did you hear me on the dance floor tonight, saying I waited for no woman? That has to be the biggest and stupidest piece of self deception of all time. All those years ago I waited for you—waited and waited, certain that you would come in the end because my Cassie loved me. Waited … waited …’ He broke off with a shudder.
So the past couldn’t be dealt with so easily, she thought. She must tell him everything, help him to understand that she’d had no choice but to save him from harm. But surely it would be easier now?
‘Marcel, listen to me. I must tell you—’
But he couldn’t hear her. He’d leapt up and was pacing about, talking frantically, lost in another world. Or perhaps trapped in a cage.
‘Once I wouldn’t have believed it possible to despise anyone as I’ve despised you. In those days I loved you more than my life, more than—’ He stopped and a violent tremor went through him. ‘Never mind that,’ he said harshly.
‘I guess you don’t want to remember that we loved each other.’
‘I said never mind,’ he shouted. ‘And don’t talk about “each other”. There was no love on your side, or you could never have done what you did.’
‘You don’t know what I did,’ she cried.
‘I know that I lay for days in the hospital, longing to see you. I was delirious, dreaming of you, certain that the next time I opened my eyes you’d be there. But you never were.
‘I called your mobile phone but it was always switched off. The phone in your apartment was never answered. Tell me, Cassie, didn’t you ever wonder why I vanished so suddenly? You never wanted to ask a single question?’
She stared. ‘But I knew what had happened, that you’d had an accident and were in hospital. I told you that in my letter.’
‘What letter?’
‘I wrote, telling you everything, begging you to understand that it wasn’t my fault. I put it through your door—I was sure you’d find it when you came home. Oh heavens! Do you mean—?’
‘I never read any letter from you,’ he said, and she was too distracted to notice how carefully he chose his words.
‘Then you never knew that I was forced to leave you—I had no choice.’
He made a sound of impatience. ‘Don’t tell me things that a child couldn’t believe. Of course there was a choice.’
‘Not if I wanted you to live,’ she cried. ‘He said he’d kill you.’
‘He? Who?’
‘Jake Simpson.’
‘Who the hell—?’
‘I’d never heard of him either. He was a crook who knew how to keep his head down. People did what he wanted because they were scared of him. I wasn’t scared at first. When he said he wanted me I told him to clear off. You were away at the time. I was going to tell you when you got home, but you had the accident. Only it wasn’t an accident. Jake arranged it to warn me. He showed me a picture of you in hospital and said you’d die if I didn’t drop you and turn to him. I couldn’t even tell you what had happened because if I tried to visit you he’d know, and you’d have another “accident”.
‘I went with him because I had to. I didn’t dare approach you, but I couldn’t endure thinking of you believing that I’d played you false. In the end I wrote a letter and slipped it through your letter box. Obviously you never got it. Perhaps you’d already left by then. Oh, if only you could have read it. We’d still have been apart, but you’d have known that I didn’t betray you, that I was forced to do what I did, and perhaps you wouldn’t have hated me.’
She looked at him, standing quite still in the shadows.
‘Or maybe you’d have hated me anyway. All these years—’
‘Stop,’ he said harshly. ‘Don’t say any more.’
‘No, well, I guess there’s no more to say. If I could turn back the clock I’d put that letter into your hands and make you read it and then perhaps I wouldn’t have been such a monster in your heart—’