With a groan he rolled over on to his back and pulled her gently on top of him. This time there was no pain, just a marvellous slow yielding as sh
e took him into herself. And then came sensations beyond her most impassioned imaginings, then, past them again, an ecstasy which shook her with the mindless paroxysm of its rapture.
She felt as though she were mounted on a fairground carousel—a prancing gilded horse beneath her—being whirled faster and faster. And then the flimsy rope which tethered her snapped and she was hurtling out beyond the universe, through endless time and space. She glimpsed a place so wonderful that tears flooded into her eyes, and then she was tumbling back, and the earth took her into its orbit again.
They had fallen asleep, wrapped in each other's arms. Some time in the night the wind had abated, and now, with daylight, she could look out on a still, newly washed world. She had been sitting, huddled in the armchair beside the window, for over two hours now, and still Jared had not stirred.
She listened again to his steady, rhythmic breathing, but then, as all at once he muttered something and flung himself over on to his side, she leapt up, her heart thumping, and tiptoed towards the door.
'And where are you off to?' Like a cat, he had sprung into instant wakefulness. She stood, her hand on the door.
'T—to get dressed.'
'What's the hurry? Come here.' He held out a lazy hand.
'No. The storm's dropped—we can get to the airport now.'
'There's no hurry. The chopper isn't picking us up till ten.'
Her fingers tightened on the handle, then she swung round. 'You mean you've already arranged that?'
'Of course.' He was lounging back against the pillow, his hands behind his head, but his eyes were watchful.
'So you knew about the storm?'
'Yes—and so would you if you'd bothered to get yourself up and listen to the shipping forecast yesterday morning.'
At his careless tone two angry spots of colour flared in her cheeks.
'I was already busy making cakes by then,' she said tightly. 'And as at that time I wasn't proposing a joy-ride to the Scillies, there was no need, was there?' She came across to the bed and stood, staring down at him, as the anger-anguish warred inside her. 'You've set this whole thing up, haven't you? Those phone calls before we left
— they were to Mrs Jenkins, and to book the helicopter, weren't they?'
'Might have been.'
'And . . . ' she sucked in her breath as the realisation hit her ' . . . this place—I don't believe it's really open. You
— you persuaded them to.'
And when he merely shrugged, with a lazy half-smile, 'Oh, God, it's so sordid—so sleazy. What they must think.' Tears of angry humiliation burned her eyes. 'You got them to open just so you could seduce me.'
His face hardened. 'Seduce you? Darling, you were damn near begging me for it.'
She winced as his words hit their mark, but then set her teeth. She would not let him see how the gibe hurt her. 'And you deliberately set out to get me drunk with that wine.'
'Drunk? On a few dainty sips? And in any case . . . '
Without warning he flung back the sheet, and she averted her eyes, unable to bear the sight of that beautiful body which, just hours before, had brought her again and again to such peaks of ecstasy. With deliberate casualness he picked up his robe from the floor, slipped it on and loosely belted it. Padding across to the trolley, with all the grace of a feral panther, he took out the wine bottle, shook the water droplets from it, and turned to her.
'Surely you remember, Petra—my promise that when I took you I intended you to be—I think my exact words were, stone-cold sober.'
He held out the bottle so that she could see the label, then read aloud, his eyes chiselling into hers, "Alcohol-free sparkling wine'.'
With a mock-regretful smile he dropped the bottle back in the bucket. 'And, now that we've settled that little problem to our mutual satisfaction, come here.'
'No.' She backed away from his outstretched arms. 'No, I won't.'
'Why the hell not?'