‘No, it’s not okay. I’m sorry, Conrad, but I can’t do this any more.’ His hands were firm and warm through the towelling and he was as impeccably groomed as always, whereas she must look as though she had been dragged through a hedge backwards. It somehow seemed to sum up their relationship.
‘You can’t do what any more?’ His voice was quiet, lazy even, but she had seen the import of her words register for a second in the intent blue gaze, and she knew he understood what she was saying. And he didn’t like it; she knew that too.
‘This, us, being together and not being together. Seeing that woman last night—’ She stopped abruptly. She didn’t know how to put it. ‘I don’t want to end up like her,’ she said tightly.
‘What?’ He let go of her abruptly, stepping back a pace.
Her heart was thudding so loudly now it was echoing in her ears, but at least she could think better without him holding her, and the distance between them helped her to say fairly coherently, ‘That’s what you’re trying to do, turn me into someone like her.’
‘The hell I am!’ He glared at her, his mouth pulling into a thin line as he said coldly, ‘It might have slipped your memory, but this charade of being together and not being together was very much your idea, not mine, so don’t try that little tack, Sephy. I don’t know what meeting Katie has to do with anything—damn it, I haven’t seen the woman in a couple of years—but if anyone should be griping it’s me, not you. You’ve had this all your own way.’
‘How can you say that?’ Anger had flooded in, melting the numbness and bringing a rush of adrenalin that brought her ramrod-straight in front of him. ‘How can you dare say that? I told you at the beginning I didn’t want an affair with you—’
‘And we both knew you were lying,’ he said insolently, moving a
pace nearer and staring down at her with glittering blue eyes. ‘You want me, Sephy, and it’s nothing to be ashamed about, for crying out loud! And you’re not the only one who’s had enough of this damn travesty. I’ve waited for you to come to your senses—longer than I’ve ever waited for any woman, I might add.’
‘What do you expect me to say? Thank you?’ she spat sarcastically, the pain in her heart enabling her to fight back.
‘No, you can show your appreciation for my patience another way,’ he said with hateful mockery.
‘Not in a month of Sundays!’ she shot back furiously, hiding the sudden dart of fear under her blazing rage.
‘A month of Sundays?’ He was towering over her now, and as he reached out and jerked her against him he said softly, ‘I wouldn’t have to wait two minutes, let alone a month of Sundays, and you know it. Tell me. Tell me you don’t want me and I’ll leave right now. Tell me to get out of your life, Sephy.’
‘I—I don’t want you,’ she stammered. ‘I want you to go.’
‘Little liar.’ He smiled, but it was a mere predatory twisting of his lips a second before they claimed her mouth.
‘Let go of me!’
As she jerked her head away and struggled in his arms he made a low sound of irritation in his throat before renewing his assault on her senses, moulding her closer against his hard body.
If he had been rough or violent, if he had hurt her, she could have fought him and kept fighting, but his attack was warm and thrilling and frighteningly perceptive. She could feel his heart slamming against the hard wall of his chest and her own was an echo, her mouth opening under the continued assault and her head falling back against the sinewy strength of his arm.
The feel of him, the warmth and scent of his body, was wildly intoxicating, and as his hot hungry mouth trailed fire over her ears and throat before returning to take her mouth with gentle ferocity she knew the restraint he had been employing over the last months was all used up. He was going for the kill.
He was whispering her name, touching her and caressing her until her body was trembling, and she was moaning softly in her throat without being aware of it as she strained closer to him.
It was only when she felt cooler air on her hot flesh that she realised the robe was on the floor and she was only clothed in the dubious covering of the wafer-thin nightie, which exposed more than it concealed. It should have mattered but it didn’t.
His hands were on the soft swell of her breasts, their peaks hard and urgent against his knowing fingers, before they moved to her slender waist and womanly hips, and as he fitted her soft feminine curves against the hard thrust of his arousal she could feel the alien raw power of his manhood through their clothes.
‘Say you want me, Sephy, say it,’ he muttered hoarsely against her lips, and as she opened her dazed eyes she looked into his and they were hot and midnight-blue. The cool façade had been well and truly blown apart—this was a man intent on possession. ‘Tell me I’m right.’
What was she doing? As she stared into his face the thought hammered in her head. This was about more than proving one of them right, didn’t he understand at least that? But, no, he didn’t. If he could fit her into a nice convenient slot in his mind that was all he needed. But she didn’t fit like the others, she just couldn’t think and feel like them—she wanted all of him, not a taste now and again until even that was taken away.
‘I do want you.’ She knew exactly what she was doing as she spoke the next words that would provide the ultimate wedge between them. ‘But it’s because I love you. And not because of the sexual chemistry between us or your wealth or your looks or anything else that could be taken away or lost with fate or time. I love you, all of you, the complete man—warts and pimples and all. If you lost all your money tomorrow or were hurt or injured nothing would change in my feeling for you.’
‘No.’ One small word but it had the power to make her feel as though she was nothing. The look on his face, the stark disbelief and rejection was all she had feared and more. ‘You’re mistaking something very natural, the sexual chemistry you spoke of, for something that doesn’t exist. You’ll come to realise that in time, believe me.’
His hands had moved to her upper arms now and he was holding her slightly apart from him as he stared into her drowning eyes. ‘If you had known other men you’d understand—’
‘I don’t want to know other men, Conrad.’ She suddenly felt so weary, so drained, that even standing was an act of will. They were at opposite ends of the world, of the universe—there was no meeting point; there never had been. He wanted someone who was content with material things, someone he could buy, a woman who wouldn’t make the mistake of caring. And right at this moment she felt that was what he deserved.
‘You will,’ he said tautly. ‘In time you will.’
And then she understood. His childhood and youth, bad as they had been, weren’t all of it. And unknowingly she repeated the essence of the words he had said to her months before. ‘Who was she?’ She should have known there was something—someone.