A Solitary Heart (20 page)

agony of uncertainty, she couldn't bring herself to look at him. She

chose a seat well away from his indolently outstretched length.

Throughout the rest of the sunny afternoon, she avoided any direct

contact with him, gravitating instead towards the uncomplicated

companionship of the others as the group went to the zoo and walked

along the various enclosures. She knew she was behaving in a

manner inconsistent with that morning, but she couldn't help herself;

she felt suspended in a single moment of time, a nocturnal animal

frozen in the glaring headlights of a car, not knowing which way to

escape, just waiting, fatalistically, for the impending collision.

He didn't chase her. Indeed, he strolled along with every appearance

of ease, the strong sunshine lightening his windswept tawny hair with

strands of light gold, his eyes vivid against the tanned darkness of his

handsome features. He carried on a light, effortless flirtation with

Jane, who laughed and gave as good as she got, while Sian, for the

first and only time in her life, burned with miserable jealousy for the

attention he gave her friend.

They went back to his condominium at six in the evening, to get

ready for the party. People were due to start arriving at eight, so

everyone pitched in to prepare the food before changing clothes.

There was a plentiful supply of food: cheese, crackers, cold chicken,

beef and pate, potato chips, a ham and broccoli quiche already ready

for the oven, pickles and olives. All that needed to be done was to

arrange everything on the dining-table at the end of the large living-

room area, and to shift the couch and chairs so that there was a large

open space for dancing.

Sian changed into a pale lemon sleeveless top with a matching ankle-

length, gauzy skirt that flowed gracefully with the movements of her

long legs. With a wide red belt, and chunky red jewellery that was in

striking contrast to her pale skin, her shining black hair flowing

unconfined, she looked slim and colourful, and very feminine.

Her face showed no hint of her turmoil, nor the inner wince she felt

when Joshua put some bouncy music on the excellent stereo and it

jangled a loud intrusion on her sensitised nerves. To anyone watching

she appeared to be enjoying herself in a quiet, good-natured fashion,

and, when the guests began to arrive and the condominium filled to

overflowing, she found to her surprise that somewhere she had

stopped acting the part and actually was having a good time.

She did like Matt's wide, gregarious circle of friends. Their careers,

ages and lifestyles differed hugely; about the only thing they seemed

to have in common was a universal high opinion of their host, who

was immensely popular with both sexes.

Of course the advantage in having a host to such an occasion was that

he was sure to invite all his male friends. Sian noticed in amusement

that Jane had bright shining eyes like a child set loose in a candy

shop, and that Steven hovered very close to her with his jaw set.

She found herself in great demand as a dancing partner, and had just

consented with a laugh to yet another dance with a very funny,

attractive colleague of Matt's when he appeared at her shoulder and

told the other man bluntly, 'Buzz off, Rick. Sian's dancing this one

with me.'

She cocked an ironical eyebrow as his friend took the interjection

philosophically. 'I might have known you'd have your eye on the

most beautiful woman in the room.'

He put his arm around her shoulders. 'That's right, but if you're quick,

the little blonde in the corner is good company. She's also Sian's best

friend, so mind your manners, hear?'

'Yes, Papa Matt,' said Rick with a grin as he turned to locate Jane,

who was talking to Steven. His eyes lit up appreciatively. 'Don't I

always?'

'I'm not sure I approve of you setting Jane up like that,' remarked

Sian, as she watched Rick thread his way through the people to her

friend.

'Rick's OK,' said Matt with a sidelong glance and a smile. 'He's a bit

of a Casanova, but great fun as light relief, and he's not intimidated

by an intelligent woman. Besides, it won't do Steven any harm to feel

the burn of a little competition.',

They bore witness to the first encounter. Rick reached the couple and

said something, and Steven scowled but Jane turned her melting gaze

up to the other man and said something in reply that creased Rick's

face with surprise and delight.

Matt's arm tightened around Sian's shoulders as he said quietly,

'Now, what about that dance?'

'I haven't heard you ask me yet,' she replied coolly, still disgruntled at

how he had arrogantly assumed that she was his for the taking.

But wasn't she? Oh, wasn't she?

He turned around to face her, and cupped the soft upper flesh of her

arms with a warmth of grip that sent a reactive shiver down her spine,

and, with a sombre look in his keen, intent eyes, he said grimly,

'That's because, after avoiding me all day, I was afraid you'd say no.'

She scowled and said to his chest, 'Don't be silly, I haven't been

avoiding you.'

'Then you won't object to a dance, will you?' He opened his fingers

and slid the flat of his hands with slow, infinitely patient sensuality

around to the small of her back and pulled her to him.

The entire day might never have happened. In a blinding flash, she

was back in the molten, mind- destroying build-up of eroticism from

that morning, and her slender body bowed to his hard length like a

vulnerable reed before a storm. She had to put her arms around his

waist; he was the only port of stability in the increasingly violent

tremors that racked through her, breaking down her fragile poise.

He made some kind of sound, a taut, incoherent exclamation, and his

head lowered to rest against the top of hers as he tightened his hold

so that she thought he would break her spine. Then in a quick,

snaking movement that whirled her into breathless shock, he pulled

them both out of the crowded room and down the hall.

Sian was distressingly close to tears. She could no more comprehend

the reason for it than she could take into her numb mind the direction

in which they were going. Her legs functioned automatically to the

demand of his long, swift stride while his arm was an unbreakable

band of steel around her waist, and the profile of his face, when she

glanced up, was fixed and rigid.

The study was empty and dark. He did not bother with shutting the

half-closed door or turning on the light, but instead went straight to

the end of the settee where he turned to sit and grip the edges of it,

regarding her with a terrible, helpless hunger.

He had let her go upon entering the room. She stood, half in shadow

with the hall light crowning the black sleek fall of her hair with a

dusky aureole of coppery gold. Frightened obscurely, she folded her

arms across her chest and regarded him in equal measures of

apprehension and belligerence.

'Sian,' he said. He made her name into a soft caress of sound and air,

and then again, with a siren's lure of simplicity, 'Sian.'

She took a faltering step towards him, and his hands tightened on the

settee until even she could see in the shadows how the cords in his

wrists stood out in silvery relief.

'Tell me,' she whispered, needing it so badly she shook. 'For God's

sake, just tell me.'

The words came out of him, dragged into existence with hard effort

at control. 'I am trying, good God, I'm trying to be patient, but it's a

little difficult when I want you so badly I can hardly see straight.'

His naked bluntness sizzled down her body with as much galvanising

power as if he had physically touched her, and she bit into the heel of

her hand with an audible catch of her breath.

'I want you,' he said slowly, watching her. 'I want to be inside you.

You drive me insane, and I want to make you as crazy, I want to hear

you cry out with it. Just a smile from you can make me weak at the

knees with pleasure. The touch of your skin is finer than any silk, the

scent of your hair goes to my head like wine, and the new-washed

colour of your eyes when you wake up in the morning is a sea wide

enough to drown my senses.'

Somehow he had lost the febrile tension from a moment ago, and

lounged back with lazy grace. Her eyes peering over her hand were

massive, and she groaned, half in terror, 'Oh, you could talk the sun

out of the sky, you could.'

'I want to watch your face when you climax,' purred gentle

temptation. 'Reach out, Sian. Kiss me, please, with your soft and

sweet lips. Touch me, stroke me, do what you like with me. I do bite,

but only if you want me to. Come to me, and pleasure yourself. It's

been forever since this morning, and I'm dying for it.'

'And if I do, where does that leave us?' she challenged, his seductive

invitation playing havoc with her feverish imagination.

'Darling, how should I know? I'm no prophet. The future will be

whatever it will be.' He cocked his head and suggested throatily,

'Would one more kiss from you make us enemies or lovers?'

She could no more resist him than she could resist herself. She took

another step forward, and another. He shifted to part his long

outstretched legs further, allowing her to come up between them, and

his head fell back as he watched her, and the open eager desire in his

eyes was the last thing she saw as she started to lower her head to his,

and the pervasive sweetness of the surrender was far greater than

anything he had promised her before, burnished as new as the first

time, yet leavened with voluptuous memory.

'What about—just good friends?' she whispered, leaning the heated

flow of her body against his inner thighs.

'Oh, yes,' he murmured, tilting his face, 'whatever happened to them?'

Her lips came down and touched his in a light, flower- petal caress,

and the blissful agony of his self-restraint transmitted itself in the

heightened stress of his breathing. She could feel his wide chest

labour deliciously as she brought her hands to rest on the front of his

shirt, running them up the covered muscle to the column of his neck,

which beat a rapid tattoo against the tips of her" fingers.

Then, when she lifted her head, he twisted sharply and said, with

quick and urgent pleading, 'No, don't -'

'Don't what?' she murmured, lost in the strains of the languid dance.

'Don't go,' he groaned, and reached with one hand to rake her head

back down and plunge into her mouth.

The roaring bonfire had them writhing together in an ascendant blaze

that fused mouth to mouth, heart to racing heart, and her arms twined

around his neck, and his hold was an inescapable bond around her

body.

She fell victim to the loss of his seductive control, as his fingers

clenched into her hair, and he broke from the kiss to run his hot,

open, trembling lips along the line of her cheekbone to the sacrificial

stalk of her neck. Mindlessly she raked her fingernails along the

width of his back, and his harsh resultant gasp melted her like wax.

They were both so engrossed in each other that neither heard the

quick, light footsteps over the loud music blaring from the living-

room, or Joshua calling out, 'Matt? Sian?'

The light in the study came on, and shattered the silver- shadowed

intimacy into incandescent shards.

Matt's head reared back. She jerked in surprise and would have

pulled out of his arms, except his hand at the back of her head,

around her waist, held her stationary. All she could do was stare into

the glittering pools of his eyes as he looked beyond her to his

younger brother.

Whatever he saw in the heavy, dead silence behind her made his face

settle into hard stern lines. He said to Joshua coolly, 'I'll be out in a

minute.'

The other man said nothing, but the sharp report of the door

slamming spoke volumes, and Matt looked down at her with a frown.

Her expression had filled with distress, her green eyes clouded with

concern. She whispered, 'God, I—just didn't think. Maybe I'd better

go talk to him.'

'No,' he said with a sharp sigh, 'I'll do it. Are you all right?'

'That's the second time today you've asked me that,' she murmured,