Forgotten Passion

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘RORKE! I thought I told you I wasn’t going to share this room with you,’ she said bitterly.

‘So you did,’ he agreed blandly, extracting a key from his pocket and deftly locking the door behind her before returning the key to his pocket. ‘And I told you that I wasn’t going to allow you to worry my father any more than you have done already. We’ve been reconciled, Lisa, remember? He knows how much I wanted you before, no way is he going to believe that wanting you like that I’m going to allow you to sleep in another room.’

‘I’m not sleeping in this room with you!’ Lisa protested fiercely, her eyes going to the bed. His clothes had been removed. Where had he put them? Back into the wardrobe? ‘There was nothing in our arrangement about this, Rorke.’

‘Oh, come on,’ he drawled cynically. ‘Think what you’re getting out of all this, Lisa. Is it so much to ask? That you simply allow my father to believe we’re idyllically happy together? Just think of what you’re getting in return. Security for you and for Robbie. It’s a damn sight more than either of you got from his father!’

The sound of her open palm against his face shocked her. She hadn’t meant to hit him, but somehow it had been the only way to alleviate the rage boiling up inside her.

‘Bitch!’ Rorke muttered thickly, touching the place where her hand had left a scarlet imprint against his skin. ‘What’s the matter, Lisa, don’t you like being reminded of Peters? I should have thought his son was a constant reminder.’

‘Robbie is your son!’ Lisa hurled at him. ‘Are you blind? Can’t you see that he’s the image of you? Everyone else can.’

‘Everyone else sees what they want to see, but I know the truth. And don’t tell me again that I made love to you on board Lady…’

‘Why not?’ Lisa demanded bitterly. ‘It’s the truth,’ suddenly too enraged to want to protect him any longer.

‘It can’t be. I promised myself I wouldn’t touch you until we were married, I…’

‘You were suffering from concussion, although I didn’t realise it properly, and you did make love to me, Rorke.’

‘No!’ He was breathing heavily, his eyes glittering with a mixture of emotions, and not for the first time Lisa realised how bitterly he would have fought against possessing her before they were married. Although she hadn’t realised it at the time, he had kept a tight rein on his feelings. That night in St Lucia had been the first time she had realised he wanted her. He had had no intentions of making love to her; they had even had separate cabins, but somehow his accident had caused him to push aside his self-imposed restraint and he had possessed her—fiercely and intensely, Lisa remembered, almost frightening her with the depth of his passion. Was that why he refused to remember what had happened between them? Wouldn’t his mind allow him to acknowledge that he had weakened; had done what he had sworn not to? She sighed.

‘Admit it, Lisa,’ he said huskily. ‘Admit that I never touched you that night.’

‘Why?’ she demanded tautly. ‘Why should I?’

‘Because every time you throw it at me, it’s a physical torment. I can’t believe that I could touch you and not remember… I can’t believe that…’

‘That’s your problem, not mine, Rorke,’ Lisa taunted him. She was enjoying getting under his skin, enjoying the tension building up inside him. Was he actually beginning to doubt himself? If so she was glad. Let him suffer as she had suffered!

‘And anyway, if you really believe you never touched me why did you let Leigh acknowledge Robbie as his grandson?’

‘Just what the hell are you trying to imply?’

His fingers dug into her shoulders and she cried out in protest, but he refused to set her free. ‘Robbie isn’t my child, Lisa, but perhaps I’d be a fool not to take what I can from this damnable situation and make sure the next one is.’

‘No!’

The denial was torn from a dry throat. Lisa tried to pull away from him, but his fingers bit cruelly into her tender skin. ‘No, Rorke,’ she protested, reading the intent in his eyes. ‘You said you wouldn’t touch me…’

‘Ah, but you want me too, Lisa.’

It was said so dulcetly that at first she thought she must have misheard him, but his fingers were already sliding under the straps of her dress, easing it from her shoulders. The single lamp cast mellow shadows across her skin, and Lisa felt Rorke expel his breath slowly, as he bent his head and touched his lips to the smooth skin of her shoulder.

Her pulses raced frantically, the effort of containing her breathing to even calmness torturing her aching lungs. Whatever happened she mustn’t let Rorke see how he affected her. She kept perfectly still as his lips moved tormentingly across her skin. She felt him reach behind her, the musky, male scent of his body enveloping her as he found her zipper and slid it down. She wasn’t going to plead with him. That was what he wanted. He wanted her to beg him to stop, but she wasn’t going to. Her stomach muscles ached with the effort of fighting down the sensations spreading through her. Her arms were rigid at her sides, and she could feel her dress slipping downwards. Rorke’s fingers caressed her spine, tracing the vertebrae and sending shivers of pleasure coursing through her. She could feel the silkiness of his shirt against her breasts and felt a primitive longing for the intimate caress of flesh against flesh.

‘You’re a very desirable woman, Lisa,’ Rorke murmured into her throat, ‘far more desirable now than you were at seventeen. There’s an allure about you, curiously at odds with your maternal state, an almost virginal aloofness. It must drive your lovers wild to possess you, to make you ache with the need that consumes them.’

Lisa shivered with the intimacy of his words; the pictures unwillingly conjured up by her feverish mind. Rorke had been her only lover and already she yearned for his touch.

‘Why aren’t you touching me, Lisa?’ he murmured against her skin. ‘I know you want to.’

‘I don’t,’ she protested, forced to make the curt denial, but his hands were already cupping her breasts, his thumbs stroking tauntingly over the aroused nipples. Her flesh seemed to swell at his touch, wantonly seeking his possession, no matter how much she tried to shrink away.

‘Liar,’ he drawled sardonically, looking down into her eyes. ‘Perhaps the most effective punishment for your crimes would be for me to arouse in you the need you once aroused in me, Lisa. For you to endure the agonising ache of wanting that eats into you, never allowing you a moment’s peace. Have you ever wanted anyone like that?’