The impassioned endearment that seemed to break over Caitlin’s head stunned her into utter stillness. It was David’s voice! He’d heard what she’d said to Michelle!
There was a crash of stacked plates being dumped on the tiled bench-top behind her. Strong hands grasped her waist and drew her against him. Warm lips descended on her bare shoulder. ‘Let’s make love immediately,’ he intoned with heated fervour. ‘I need you so badly. I’ve waited so long. You’re so beautiful.’
‘Good grief!’ Michelle cried in stricken horror. She spun on her heel. ‘Trevor! Trevor, come here at once! Get Dad! Get Mum! There’s a mad rapist in the kitchen.’
‘It worked,’ David said with some elation. ‘Now, quickly, Caitlin, into the pantry...’
Before Caitlin could collect her wits she was in the pantry.
‘...and lock the door,’ David concluded triumphantly, suiting his actions to his words.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’
‘Keeping your parents happily united.’
‘They don’t need any more uniting!’
Her mouth was an open invitation which he immediately plundered. Caitlin closed her eyes. Her disgrace was complete. Michelle would see to that.
David was leaning against the door, his arms wrapped protectively around her, her body pressed to his, and he was kissing her with such devouring, heart-warming passion, any defences she might have raised disintegrated under the devastating impact of his lips, his tongue, his teeth, the sheer sensational power of his desire for her.
He not only left her breathless, he bound her to him with a sensual intensity that Caitlin didn’t wish to fight. They had been lovers for months, and the addiction to his lovemaking was not crushed in a day. It was as though his body called to hers, arousing a compelling need for the togetherness it promised, a bonding that banished loneliness.
She strained closer. He moved his legs further apart to accommodate her, giving a more intimate contact, and she felt the hard burning heat of him seep through her thin clothes, appeasing the empty ache she had tried to ignore all day. Right or wrong, she revelled in his need for her, and she recklessly abandoned the constraints she had imposed on herself for the sake of her self-respect.
Her hands slid around his neck, her fingers thrusting through his hair, holding him to her, stroking him, loving him with a fierce, exultant love that returned kiss for kiss in an escalating frenzy of passion. His mouth moved from hers to graze erotically over her ear. ‘Caitlin...Caitlin...’ he breathed, as though repeating an ancient mantra inscribed on his soul.
She felt she was being drawn into a sweet swirl of deep inner thrall...a force of nature that would consume their separate lives and meld them into one being. The rest of the world was in darkness. The nights with David had always compensated for the concerns of the days. Almost. She had sometimes wished the nights would never end.
She lifted her eyelashes. There was no light. There was only a darkness that pulsed with feeling. She closed her eyes, content that it should be so. Let all the lights of the world go out as long as she could be with David like this.
The sound of voices approaching broke into their absorption with each other. Unwelcome. Inescapable. Causing David to lift his head and listen.
‘It’s not the fuses,’ said one.
‘Well, something caused the lights to go out,’ said another.
‘That was you, David,’ she whispered.
‘Power’s gone, as well,’ someone else said.
‘No, Caitlin. It was you,’ David murmured.
‘Better ring up the electricity commission. Get someone out here as quickly as possible.’
Caitlin looked at David although she didn’t see him in the pitch blackness. ‘How did you do it?’ she whispered again.
‘I?’ His voice was thick with emotion, but sounded innocent.
Above the sounds of confusion and crisis arising from the other side of the pantry door, there was one voice that carried with the clarity of a ringing bell.
‘How will I ever live this down? The meal is ruined!’
It was her mother’s voice.
She heard David sigh.
CHAPTER TEN