‘Lisa!’ She heard him sigh against her skin. ‘I can’t even ask you to forgive me, to do so would be an outrageous arrogance, how could anyone forgive such a crime?’ Lisa felt him tremble against her and was overwhelmed by a longing to comfort him. She took him in her arms, instinctively holding him as though he were Robbie, trying to find the words, to take the pain out of his eyes. His skin seemed to burn against her, and she realised that he wasn’t Robbie and that she wanted him—badly. She felt him move restlessly in her embrace, his voice thick and husky as he muttered, ‘Lisa, for God’s sake, I’m not made of stone…’
Neither was she, and when she left she wanted to take with her the memory of this night together; the pleasure of being in his arms, of being part of him, and so instead of releasing him, she let her lips wander over the smooth skin of his shoulder, her fingers trailing provocatively along the length of his body. She felt his tense withdrawal almost immediately, wincing at the expletive he muttered jerkily, his eyes almost black in the moonlight as he realised she was deliberately tormenting him and that she wasn’t going to stop. For one brief moment Lisa thought he was going to recover his self-control. She could almost feel his tension—and then with a smothered groan he slid his fingers into her hair, tilting her head back, his eyes hot, hectic colour burning up under his skin as he looked at her.
She wasn’t seventeen any longer. She loved him and she wanted him, and suddenly it was easy to let the seductive curves of her body, silvered by the moonlight, whisper their own message to him. Her heart was thumping as he lowered his mouth to hers, and she could feel his own pounding heavily against her. He kissed her lightly, his mouth merely brushing hers, but Lisa could feel the hard arousal of his body against her, and laced her fingers behind his neck, letting her lips part invitingly beneath his, a fierce surge of pleasure lancing through her as she felt the sweat break out across his chest, his body trembling violently against hers as his control slid away and his mouth moved urgent and demanding over hers, depriving her of breath, depriving her of everything but the need to respond to, and match, the fierce tumult of desire that possessed him.
Now it was too late to turn back, and she had no desire to do so, Lisa admitted as her body responded passionately to Rorke’s touch. Now it was her turn to protest as his hands stroked over her skin, caressing and arousing, inciting her body to arch wantonly beneath his, welcoming the hard pressure of his thighs as they parted hers, her fingers tensing into the hard muscles of his back as his mouth closed over hers in a kiss that echoed his fiercely hungry possession of her body.
It was only later, when the glow of satisfaction had faded and the memory of what he intended to do returned, that Lisa regretted what she had done—not for herself, but for Robbie. For Robbie’s sake she ought to have been strong.
Rorke, strangely enough, seemed reluctant to release her, keeping her within the circle of his arms, his body still tangled with hers, as though he couldn’t bear to let her go. She tried to move away and his grip tightened.
‘Don’t move,’ he murmured throatily, his lips brushing the exposed skin of her shoulder. ‘I never want you out of touching distance again, Lisa.’
‘I should think Helen will have something to say about that,’ she reminded him bitterly. ‘Oh, it’s all right, Rorke,’ she added before he could speak, ‘I know the truth. I know you intend to divorce me and fight to get custody of Robbie so that you can inherit all your father’s estate, but I’m not going to let you do it. You can divorce me if you wish, but…’
‘Divorce you?’ He raised himself up on one elbow and stared down at her, his voice bitterly incredulous. ‘Just what the hell are you talking about, Lisa? You know damn well I’d never divorce you. God, I wrote to you often enough telling you that, begging you to come back to me, Robbie or no Robbie. Five long years I’ve been without you, Lisa. Five long years when you’ve haunted me to the point of madness. I found your books in a shop on St Lucia, a woman was buying one and when she opened it I saw your name inside. I bought the lot. I even tried to discover your address from the publishers, but they weren’t having any. I was like a man possessed, Lisa, wanting you, hating you, hating myself, convinced that you had lied. I’ve had a long talk with Dr James,’ he said suddenly changing the subject, ‘about my loss of memory. He ascribes it to guilt, and I suspect he’s right. I couldn’t remember because I didn’t want to remember how I had broken my vow to myself, so instead I accused you.’ His voice thickened unsteadily. ‘God, when I think…’
‘Then don’t,’ Lisa advised him softly, remembering how he had claimed in London that it would destroy him to believe that she had told the truth.
‘I never stopped wanting you, Lisa,’ he told her huskily, ‘and when my father became ill and wanted to see you it gave me another chance to come and look for you. The ideal excuse to get you back here; back into my life, in my home, in my bed, and in my arms, Lisa, and now that you’re here, there’s no way I’m ever going to let you go. Why did you never even answer my letters? Did you hate me so much?’
‘I never got them,’ Lisa told him simply. ‘I never even went to the bank where you opened an account for me. How did you find me, Rorke?’ she questioned.
‘I used a private detective. I showed him your books, told him your name, and he did the rest.’
‘And you still wanted me, even though you…’
‘Even though I thought you had another lover?’ He pushed irate fingers through his hair. ‘God, Lisa, you know by now how I feel about you, surely? Yes, I was as bitter and as hurt as hell when I thought you’d given yourself to someone else. For a time I think I went right out of my mind. But I loved you. I loved you and I couldn’t let you go…’
‘You loved me?’ Her eyes were huge in her pale face.
‘You doubt it? After tonight’s performance?’ he asked with dry incredulity. ‘Lisa my love, you can’t be that innocent. You must have learned something about men in the years we’ve been apart.’
‘The
only things I know about the male sex are those I’ve learned from you and Robbie,’ Lisa told him wryly, too shaken by his admissions to pretend. A kind of fierce excitement was burning through her body, a tension that threatened to tear her in two, but she refused to give way to it. ‘I thought you merely desired me. I was too young to talk properly to you, Rorke, and when Helen told me you merely desired me… She told me you wanted a divorce,’ she added, recalling her most recent conversation with the other woman, and pain darkened her eyes momentarily.
‘Helen’s been pushing for that ever since you left me, but she knows exactly where she stands,’ Rorke remarked dryly, ‘and it isn’t next to me—not now, not ever.’
‘It was partially because of her that I left,’ Lisa admitted weakly. ‘She told me you wanted me, but she said if it wasn’t for Leigh and my position in the family, you’d have simply had an affair with me. She said you would get tired of me, and then there was Robbie…’
‘If it hadn’t been for Leigh I’d have smuggled you on board Lady and sailed off with you a long time before I did,’ Rorke admitted. ‘But I’d still have married you, Lisa, don’t make any mistake about that. Any doubts I had concerned your feelings for me, not mine for you. You’re forgetting I was an adult male, you were still a child, I couldn’t help feeling guilty about trapping you into a relationship you weren’t ready for. Oh, I knew I could arouse you…’ he laughed when he saw her expression, ‘and you’ll never know how tempted I was to do so at times… but I wanted you to love me as an adult woman.’
‘And now?’ Lisa asked hesitantly.
‘And now,’ Rorke retorted lazily, smiling at her, ‘you are a grown woman, and I still love you and want you very much.’ His expression changed suddenly, becoming almost tortured. ‘I can still arouse you, Lisa.’ He glanced down at her body and his expression made her pulses leap. ‘But I want more than that,’ he told her huskily. ‘I want your love too.’
She looked at him, wondering if she was actually hearing correctly. He had said he still loved her, but… She heard him give a muffled imprecation and then she was in his arms, his lips against her skin. ‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he muttered hoarsely. ‘God knows you’ve every reason to doubt and mistrust me…’
But had she? Would she have felt the same if she’d known that he had wanted her back, written to her? Couldn’t she, now that she knew the full story, understand a little better? Didn’t she, after all, still love him?
‘I don’t doubt you, Rorke,’ she said softly, wondering at how true the words were once she had voiced them. ‘I hated it when I thought you were going to divorce me and marry Helen. There’s never been anyone but you,’ she admitted shakily, ‘and I still love you so much it makes me ache inside.’
‘Helen knows exactly what I think of her—I’ve told her often enough, but she persists in clinging. I could have murdered her when she insisted on joining Robbie and me the other day, especially when she persuaded him to climb up on to that coral.’
‘Do you think she really pushed him?’ Lisa asked hesistantly.
‘I don’t know. I suspect there’s a strong possibility, although I couldn’t get her to admit it. What I have done, though, is suggested that in future, if she’s wise, she’ll think of a watertight excuse whenever her uncle invites her to stay with him. I don’t want her on St Martins ever again. God, when I saw your face when you looked at Robbie! Of course I was concerned for the boy—almost against my will I found I liked him, but it tore me apart to see you destroying yourself over another man’s child. However, that was nothing to the agony I faced when I discovered he was actually mine,’ Rorke told her in a low tortured voice. His face had gone pale, and Lisa could almost feel the raw agony he was enduring.