The Morning After

‘Nothing,’ she mumbled, and made a play of straightening the wet snorkelling gear littering the bottom of the boat.

César watched her for a while, his face tight and grim. Then he sighed again, and turned his attention to pulling up the anchor.

They chugged back to the little cove in sober silence, sitting close in the tight confines of the small boat, yet with a thick wall erected between them. With a deft cut of the motor at just the right moment he eased the nose of the boat up onto the beach on the crest of an incoming wave. Then he was jumping out and wading forwards to help Annie clamber out.

The feel of his hand on her arm made her flesh tingle, and she couldn’t stop the revealing shiver that feathered her slender frame.

His grip tightened fractionally in response. ‘It won’t go away,’ he repeated roughly from just behind her. ‘We’ve lit the flame, Annie. Now it’s hungry for more.’

She didn’t answer, but pulled free of him and walked away on legs weak and trembling in reaction, because she knew that he was right. And, far from going away, it was getting stronger. Worse. Desperate almost.

* * *

Dinner that evening was an ordeal. To be fair to César he tried to keep the mood light and casual, but she could hardly look at him without feeling her senses catch light.

It frightened her—the intensity of her awareness of him. Her mind refused to stop replaying to her how his silken, tight skin, hidden beneath the conventional white shirt he was wearing, felt to the touch, or reminding her how those long, blunt-ended fingers he used to pick up his glass or lift his fork to his mouth could draw such clamorous pleasure from her. His mouth, sipping intermittently at wine, was saying words she did not hear, because she was too lost in the memory of how they had felt tasting her—

‘More wine?’

‘What?’ She started, her eyes focusing on the sardonic expression in his. He knew, and she flushed, looking quickly down and away. ‘No—thank you,’ she refused, and jerked to her feet. ‘I’m—t-tired,’ she stammered nervously. ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’

She didn’t wait for him to answer, didn’t look at him again, but she was fiercely aware of his sardonic gaze following her hurried journey across the room, and felt as if she was ready to crack in two under the tension inside her as she left him with a flurry of nervous limbs.

CHAPTER NINE

THE moon set early in the Caribbean, leaving it to the myriad stars hanging in the satin-dark sky to provide what light there was filtering into Annie’s bedroom. It was enough, or at least enough to save the room from a total blackout. She could just make out the mirror hanging on the opposite wall, for instance, and the dark shapes of furniture scattered about the room.

Wide awake, even though it had to be way past midnight, she traced the shapes lazily with her eyes, her body very still beneath the white cotton sheet that she had drawn up beneath her arms. But inside she was restless, troubled—disturbed by what was bothering hear and what she could not seem to control unless she lay very still like this and breathed very carefully, and centred her whole concentration on keeping it all severely banked down.

Is this what it feels like, she wondered, to want what you shouldn’t want? To desire what you should not desire? To need it so badly that it actually became the driving force for your life’s blood?

Sighing shakily, she lifted a hand to rest it beneath her cool cheek, settling against it as though it would offer some comfort, some relief.

It didn’t, and the fingers on the other hand began to tap a restless dance against the graceful curve of her long thigh beneath the sheet. Her gaze lowered to watch them, her mind acknowledging that the restlessness was beginning to break out. Perhaps she should get up and take a walk along the beach? she mused. Do something—anything to take her mind off what she knew was trying to break through all her restraints.

Sex. You’ve tasted the elixir, Annie, and now you’re hungry for more.

She smiled at her own mockery, then stopped smiling, the fingers stopping their tapping when her gaze caught the washed-out glint of gold encircling the third finger on her left hand.

Married to a man who made you a millionairess within minutes of putting that ring there. She frowned. What had made him do it? No man in his right mind gave a woman he hardly knew a gift like that!

There again, no man who saw that woman as little better than a whore took her to bed and ravished her. Not a man of César’s calibre, anyway.

He was a strange man—a complicated man. A man who contrarily confused, infuriated and fascinated her with his quick-fire changes in character. One minute arrogant, insufferably domineering—bullish. The next, soft, caring, gentle, considerate—dynamically charming when she least expected it.

Dangerous too, she added to her growing list. Dangerous because he had managed to do what no man before him had ever done, and had got beneath the protective skin she wore so thickly around herself. Dangerous because he wanted her with a hunger that burned constantly behind whatever else they were doing, whether that was slinging insults at each other or just trying—trying—to be civilised towards each other.

And what about yourself? she then countered grimly. Your behaviour is no less contrary than his! You profess to hate and despise him for what he’s done, but you also want him with the same unforgivable hunger.

Every time you look at him you torture yourself with memories of how his lips felt against your own, or how frighteningly superb he looked naked and aroused, or what it felt like to have him deep inside you! If he so much as touches you your skin leaps into vibrant, burning life, your stomach muscles knot and your thighs throb.

Hell, even lying here just thinking of him and it’s all beginning to happen!

Restlessly she moved again, flipping over to lie curled on her side, half considering getting up, going for that walk along the beach that she had suggested to herself, when her bedroom door came open, and all thoughts of any kind were suspended as the disturbingly dark bulk of a man seemed to fill the whole room.

He paused for a moment. She stopped breathing, her very bones tingling as if they’d just received an electric shock.

Then he was stepping inwards and closing the door behind him. Her heart took up an unsteady hammer. Eyes huge, throat locking, she watched him walk slowly towards the bed where she lay.