A Solitary Heart (18 page)

answer at all, which left her the freedom to vacillate as much as she

wanted. Sooner or later he would want a real reply, but that was a

consideration that could be put off to the foggy, indefinite future.

Besides, she found that his invitation asked more questions than it

answered. All he had really done was to invite her back for another

visit. He could have done the same to any one of his male friends.

Except that she wasn't one of the guys, and Matt had not invited

anyone else, just her. Just her and him, together, doing things that

couples do, dancing, eating out, visiting friends, walking in the park.

Making love?

He hadn't asked her
that,
had he? This was the crux of the matter, the

whole entire problem, the mote in her eye that was a tiny, secretive

image of their bodies locked together in consummative passion.

She could always make the stipulation that if she came, she would

stay in the guest-room. Then he might get offended and withdraw the

invitation—how crass!—or he might agree blandly—how deflating—

or he might even look at her in surprise, as if to suggest that he hadn't

been considering anything else—how embarrassing. Or he might—

just might—with adroit and dextrous skill set himself to changing her

mind.

Which, oh dear, brought her back to the bedroom scene again.

All right, then. She would tell him no, the first chance she got. That

settled things, didn't it? That put an end to the dilemma once and for

all, for she didn't think that he would offer again.

And she would go home with the others on Sunday after telling Matt

goodbye, thanks very much for a super time, it's been swell. She

would get back to her life, go to graduate school in the autumn, just

as she'd planned, and everything would revert to the normal, placid,

complacent existence it had been before. No uncertainties, relatively

little stress, no fast and hilarious repartee, no thrill of excitement, no

burgeoning delight in her femininity, no fascination, no Matthew.

Ever.

Damn the man, and damn his confounding habit of getting under her

skin. He was to blame for the quandary she found herself in—if only

he had stated, when he had asked her, just 'what he expected from

her, then she wouldn't be tying herself into knots over this, would

she?

It was really very simple—how could she say yes or no when he was

so busy being clever and oblique? She sat very still and quietly

worked herself into an almighty fume, then started violently when the

lights came up and the audience rose to their feet, clapping and

whistling.

She had missed the entire second half of the play. It had vanished in a

puff of sulphur, and she had so enjoyed the first part as well.

That, too, could be laid at Matt's door. When they went to a late

supper at an Italian restaurant, her bad temper couldn't be contained.

It spilled out of her in little biting snippets spoken through lightly

clenched, smiling teeth.

The others laughed. They thought she was just being funny. But after

his first thoughtful look of surprise, Matthew, who was the target of

her sarcastic witticisms, started to get angry as well, and soon they

were snarling and snapping at each other's heels like a pair of

Yorkshire terriers.

That pleased her mightily, and so did the tight, iron- hard set to his

mouth when at last the evening ended, and they strolled back to his

condominium.

The heat of the day had finally dissipated, and a cool, brisk wind

blew steadily off the lake. At first the chill breeze on her face was

intoxicating, but then she shivered, and Matt, who had strode in dark

menacing silence beside her, shrugged out of his suit jacket and held

it out to her.

She refused it.

He snarled, taut and low and furious, 'Take it.'

'I don't want it!' she snapped, in pain and delight.

'I said take it!' He flung it at her violently, and it would have slid to

the filthy pavement had she not clutched at the material in reflexive

shock. Then, with a haughty shrug, she slung it around her shoulders

and quickened her pace to join the others.

Back inside, the group made goodnight noises and dispersed to the

various rooms to prepare for bed. Sian trailed Matt's jacket over the

back of the couch without thanks and strode quickly for the haven of

his study.

She was not quick enough. He caught up with her in the hall, and

snaked one powerful hand around her upper arm.

She was jerked around to face him. She fumbled desperately for a

sense of outrage at the manhandling, but instead only felt a kind of

despair that glistened wetly in her hard, bright eyes. He stared at her

for a long.

breathless moment, then his own lowering fury seemed to disappear,

leaving behind the aspect of a stern and tired man.

'You can't do it,' he said flatly.

'Do what?'

'You can't make me angry enough to withdraw my invitation.' He

bent his head down to her and whispered, a bare inch from her face, 'I

want you to come. Tough luck, you'll just have to learn how to

handle it. So stop acting like a silly bitch, all right?'

Then he let go of her and strode back to the living- room. As she

stared, he tilted back his head with a heavy sigh, yanked his tie loose,

and began to shrug out of his shirt as he disappeared from sight.

She made an inarticulate, strangled sound. Oh, God, oh, God. She

wanted to run to him now, throw her arms around his waist and ask

for forgiveness. She knew just how silken the texture of his bare

chest would be.

Instead she bolted like a rabbit for the study, shut the door behind her

and leaned back, then pounded her fist against it in frustration. She

had the feeling it was going to be a long and sleepless night.

SURPRISINGLY enough, however, when she had taken her turn at the

bathroom off Matt's bedroom to wash and brush her teeth, then gone

back to the study to don her long nightshirt and slip between the

covers on the soft, cushiony airbed, she tumbled straight into a deep,

heavy sleep.

She half surfaced to a fleeting awareness occasionally because of the

unfamiliarity of her bed and surroundings, and once, very early in the

morning, when the early sunrise lightened the study in spite of the

closed curtains. She blinked up at the French print that hung over her

head, then her eyes closed again and she dreamed of Paris in the

springtime.

She was strolling along the wide promenade by the bank of the Seine

river when it started to rain, soft and warm against her upturned

cheeks. A group of smiling Japanese tourists offered her an umbrella,

but she shook her head. She liked the gentle rain; it soothed and

caressed her skin with long, sensitive fingers and whispered the

satiny words, Wake up, darling. Won't you wake up?

She sighed and turned on to her side, and opened her eyes as she

came off the airbed and lay like a burrowing animal underneath the

untidy shelter of her covers.

Matt knelt over her, cupping her face with his hands. Her sleepy,

bemused gaze travelled all over him. He was shirtless and shoeless,

clad only in a pair of faded jeans, and he smelled soapy clean,

warmly male, his damp, tawny hair combed back from a freshly

shaved face.

'Wake up, darling,' he whispered, stroking her softened lips with the

ball of his thumb.

'Hi,' she murmured, still half asleep and blissfully, luxuriously

languid. Surprised by pleasure, without the memory of the need for

defence or barriers or inhibiting insecurities, her lovely green eyes

smiled up at him.

Something shook over his face, a kind of wonderment, and with a

sigh that sounded like surrender he bent down and kissed her

vulnerable mouth. With an action that seemed as natural as breathing,

she reached up to stroke her fingers through his cool, damp hair to

the back of his head, while her heavy eyelids fluttered shut.

He shifted under her caress, a sensuous movement of inarticulate

delight, while his lips wandered, mobile and explorative, over the

contours of hers. An indolent heat washed through her reclining

body, which stretched and turned in instinctive response. His hands

moved from her face to slide along the slender stalk of her neck, over

the light cotton material of her nightshirt, down her exposed torso.

To touch her was to know her: all the delicate beating hollows of

sensitivity, the grace in her curved ribcage, the soft firm mounds of

her breasts which tingled with a new and exciting fire as he brushed

against them.

She was drowning in a wellspring of sheer desire, wandering a vast

uncharted territory where the shape and strength of his naked,

muscled shoulders were both guide and anchor. Her mouth opened

like an amazed flower; he groaned at the gift, and took it with

breathless care, searching deep in the intimate crevices for further

paths of subterranean delight, pushing her head back against the

carpet.

Her hands at his shoulders twisted and shook, and slipped with an

intensified sensory shock down the tensile expanse of his powerful

back, and collapsed his body into a downward arc that brought his

full weight on to her.

He was heavy, such a big, strong man, but she was so meltingly

boneless that the contact only heightened the whirling pleasure,

erecting through the thin T-shirt her nipples that were crushed against

his chest, deepening the empty ache between her legs. His mouth

quickened over hers, taut and slanted with fierce demand, drawing,

calling upon her, building her desire to a heat that dampened the

tendrils of hair at her temples and shook her breathing with

unfulfilled stress.

She moaned with soft incomprehension, for the empty ache was

becoming an agony, and in instant passionate response he thrust one

heavy knee between her legs, his entire length throbbing hard and

aggressive, at breast and hip and the soft, innocent arc of her pelvis.

The bedcovers were an infuriating barrier. She couldn't stand it;

rational thought in the heart of this mating was an impossibility. She

twisted under him in urgent frustration, and the grip of his hand over

her breast tightened painfully... and he arced back his head with a

tortured gasp, breaking the melded contact with her mouth, and it

was such a brutal withdrawal, so like the last time, that her face

twisted in a harsh sob of protest.

'God!' The exclamation tore out of him raggedly, and he trembled

from head to toe. 'Sian, my God, help me stop.'

'I don't want to.' The words dragged out of her, nearly incoherent, and

he gripped her head with both hands.

'Neither do I.' His whisper was a groan. 'But not here, not now—with

the others in the apartment -'

Her eyes flared open, wild and brilliant with a harsh return to sanity,

and she groaned deeply, 'Oh, no.'

'Darling, I'm so sorry,' he breathed, and stroked the tight, distressed

line of her cheek. 'I didn't mean for it to happen like this, to get so out

of hand -'

It was such torment, to feel and see and want him so badly that it

brought tears to her eyes, and her face clenched as she turned away

sharply from him and gritted, 'Get out,'

'I can't,' said Matthew harshly. 'Not until I know you're all right.'

'Yes, yes, I am, just
please—
go away and give me a few minutes to

pull myself together!' Her voice broke on the last word, and for a

suspended instant she felt his thoughts as surely as she felt his

thudding heartbeat against hers: his wordless, almost uncontrollable

desire to give her comfort which would be the last, fatal straw, for

she could not deny it, no more than she could deny him anything else

he wished for in that moment.

Then he pulled away from her, in a silence that screamed reluctance,

and said quietly, tightly, 'I'll be in the kitchen.'

Go. Go. She wrapped her arms around herself, huddling underneath

her covers until the door shut behind him. Then she groaned, a long,

animal sound, and shivered as though she had a high fever.

The aftermath of such a fierce, unconsummated desire was something

she didn't know how to cope with. She didn't have the tools; her only