She'd stared at herself, her lips parted, for the first time in her life levelling in the swell of her breasts against the lace of her blouse, and the way the bias-cut skirt clung revealingly to her slender hips. Then finally, her heart beating erratically, she'd let herself out, praying that Mrs James next door wasn't on the prowl, and followed Jared.
She found him beside a clump of wind-stunted rowan trees. He was propped against one, his chin on his knees, gazing out to sea, though lost less in the blue heat-haze that shrouded it than in his own thoughts. She stopped, all of a sudden wishing desperately that she was anywhere else but here. But as she tensed to take a step backward some instinct must have warned him, for he turned his head sharply.
For a moment she saw something flicker in his face that she took to be impatience, and, writhing with embarrassment at her own gaucheness, she said quickly, 'Hello, Jared. Sorry to have disturbed you. I didn't know you—'
'Come and sit here.' He patted the warm turf beside him, and as she sat down, folding her skirt carefully around her, he smiled at her. 'You look nice.'
His eyes were blue-grey—he must, for once, be in a good mood.
'Just one thing, though.' Reaching across, his hand brushing her nape, he hooked a finger in the ribbon that confined her hair into a neat pony-tail, gave it a tug and brought the pale auburn cloud tumbling to her shoulders. 'That's better—you should always wear it like that.'
He gave her an odd little smile which set her pulses catapulting against her skin, and she turned her head away. Under her hand was one of the clumps of creeping thyme that scented the cliffs in high summer. She pulled a stem and held it to her nose, inhaling deeply, then, more to cover her uncertainty that anything, held it to Jared's nose.
'It's lovely,' she said. 'Smell it.'
The branches of the tree overhead cast a shifting pattern of light and shade on their faces, so close together that, as he turned his head to look directly at her, she felt his breath, warm on her lips.
'Petra?' he said huskily, and when she could no longer meet his gaze, but looked down, her eyes screened by her lashes, he put his thumb under her chin and tilted her face to him. Then her eyes closed completely as his mouth came down over hers.
He'd kissed her before, but they'd always been fleeting, casual caresses, This kiss was different, though—as the ocean was different from a quiet country pool—and as her lips parted, giving his tongue free entry to her mouth, the touch and taste and feel of him ravished all her senses, sweeping her away instantly into uncharted realms of turbulence. When he put his hand to the top button of her blouse she lay quiescent in his arms. Slowly he undid each tiny pearl in turn, pulled it away from her, then deftly removed her white cotton bra. His tanned fingers rested for a moment, lightly bunched over one tender, swelling breast, then he freed the hook and eye catch of her skirt and slid it down over her hips and legs, followed by her white cotton, rather schoolgirlish panties, until finally she lay quite naked, no feeling in her beyond that she would love Jared forever and ever, as he would love her. Very gently he kissed the angle of her neck and shoulder, his lips brushing low fire over her skin.
Oh, Petra,' he murmured shakily, your body—your hair smells marvelous—like a field of new-mown meadow grass.'
He looked into her eyes, his own smoky-grey with desire, then down at her pale body, all diamond points of sunlight and dark shadow. When slowly, infinitely slowly, with a hand that trembled slightly, he caressed her from her shoulder down over the curve of her breast, little fiery pinpricks scorched her skin wherever he touched it.
She reached up and, sliding her arms round him, pulled him down to her, then kissed him with quivering eagerness, her whole body alive and greedy for him.
'Oh, Jared,' it came out as a shuddering sigh, 'I do love you so much.'
Next instant he thrust her violently from him so that she sprawled on to the grass.
'Get dressed,' he said harshly. His face was turned to stone.
'But—what have I done?' Her voice almost broke, and when she lay there, too shocked to move, he caught her by the shoulders and wrenched her upright.
'I said—get dressed.' And, snatching up her clothes, he threw them at her then, leaping to his feet, stood staring out to sea.
She huddled on the grass, clutching her crumpled clothes to her, to cover herself. All she wanted to do was crawl away painfully into a dark hole somewhere and die, but she forced herself to whisper, 'Please Jared, tell me w—what I've done.'
He kept his back to her, still gazing out to sea, but then at last, 'If you must know, I don't much care for women who throw themselves at me—who beg me to make love to them.'
He spoke in a light, cruel voice she'd never heard him use before, and it cut through her like a sword thrust to the heart. Biting hard on her mouth, so that she tasted blood, she said softly, 'I'm s
orry.'
Her hands were shaking almost too much for her to dress, but somehow she pulled herself on to her knees and tumbled herself into her clothes. She gathered up her dishevelled hair into its ribbon then, without a backward glance at that figure, as hard and unyielding as a granite statue, fled from the place of her shame.
A few days later she overheard some women gossiping in the village stores, Jared Tremayne?
Oh, yes, he's gone cleared out.' A knowing look. 'Well, folks do say he's been getting overfriendly with that Mrs Kendrick, and now her husband's found out . . .'
Ten years on, Petra, staring at her kitchen wall but seeing images which had for so long laid buried deep inside her, acknowledged silently just how deep her wounds had been. And now the man who had inflicted those wounds had come back.
Her mouth chalk-dry with fear, she abandoned all pretence at work, and, going through into the sitting-room, paced up and down, hugging herself. In her small patch of garden, Sam w a s stalking a tiny sparrow; it had seen him but, as though hypnotised, seemed incapable of escape. She rapped the window and, the spell broken, the bird fluttered off and Sam turned to glare at her. Beyond the low wall was the smooth green grass of the cliff, and then, beyond that, the sea, pale, translucent, blue-grey. The gale still hadn't quite dropped, and she could hear the whitecapped breakers crashing unseen against the jagged rocks at the cliff-foot. Passion was like the sea, she thought involuntarily—a terrible power that swept you away and ultimately destroyed you. At sixteen, she'd seen in her father, in the bitter shattering of her parents' marriage, exactly what an ugly, frightening thing sexual passion was. She would never surrender her life to it.
And yet . . . just a couple of kisses from Jared, and he had ignited her body once again in a way no other man had ever done.
She was scared of him—for her own safety's sake, she had to admit that simple fact. She was terrified of what he could arouse in her. But if you were frightened of someone you armed yourself against him, didn't you? Yes, but what can I do? she moaned to herself. Then, as the answer came, she ran across the room and, almost sobbing with relief, snatched up the phone. When Simon answered a surge of joy swept through her—deep inside she'd had some superstitious dread that he would not be there.