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He looked at her for a long moment and he must have read something of what she was feeling in her face, because his own became expressionless and his voice was cool and even when he said, ‘Okay, perhaps it will be better in the morning. Get some sleep; you look all done in.’
He had turned away before she even began to close the door but then, in one of the swift, panther-like movements that characterised him, he was facing her again.
Daisy would have taken a step backwards if he hadn’t pulled her into his arms, because she had read his intention in the narrowed, glittering eyes, but then he was kissing her, fiercely and hungrily, without waiting for her assent.
She struggled—for some long moments she struggled—but she had been injected with a deep drugging desire from the first second she had seen him outside her room, let alone when he had touched her, and she was aching and melting inside.
He was crushing her mouth and his hands were moving over her satin-smooth skin in an agony of desire; there was no gentleness, none of the former control which had distinguished their previous encounters. Dimly, in the back of her mind, the knowledge surfaced that if she didn’t stop this he wouldn’t, but she didn’t want to. She didn’t want to. She was going to leave him, nothing could change that, but why shouldn’t she have one night, one night out of a subsequently lonely lifetime, to remember? She deserved this. If nothing else she deserved this one brief, snatched taste of heaven.
He was making soft, deep, appreciative growls in the back of his throat and she answered the primitive call with small moans of her own as they swayed, locked together, in an embrace that was all fire and heat.
Reason had utterly gone as she began to edge back slowly into the room, drawing him with her, her body still pressed close to his as she searched for relief from the slow, sweet ache in her lower stomach. She could feel the bunched muscles in his powerful chest and shoulders under the thin silk of his shirt as her hands moved hungrily over the hard planes of his magnificent body, and she matched, kiss for kiss and caress for caress, the fierce desire that was consuming him.
‘I want you, Slade.’ She wasn’t aware she was voicing the passion that was burning her up. ‘I want to remember this. Hold me, touch me, make love to me…’
Her voice trailed away as his hands became still and his mouth froze on hers for an endless moment before he raised his head to look into her drugged eyes. ‘Remember it?’ he asked hoarsely, his voice still shaking from the passion that had engulfed him moments before.
‘What’s the matter?’ Icy trickles of awareness were slithering down her spine and she suddenly felt afraid at the expression on his face. He suddenly didn’t look like Slade.
‘You said you want to remember it,’ he said slowly, his body drawing away from hers and his warmth leaving her flesh so that she felt bereft and cold. ‘This is to be a one-off, is that it?’ he asked with terrible composure.
‘I… You know how I feel,’ she stammered weakly, her legs trembling as she backed away from the look on his face. ‘I’ve…I’ve been honest with you. I haven’t pretended.’
He stared at her for a full thirty seconds without saying a word and then when he did speak there was none of the caustic anger she expected, just an utterly controlled, cold stoniness that cut her to the core. ‘I don’t want to be serviced, Daisy,’ he said with brutal crudeness, his eyes never leaving hers, ‘and neither do I intend to be used like a stallion on a stud farm.’
‘That’s not what I mean.’ She was shocked beyond measure, her face as white as a sheet and her eyes black with anger and hurt. She couldn’t believe he had reduced it to that.
‘No?’ He continued to stare at her, the piercing gaze laser-sharp and merciless. ‘Then how else would you explain a one-night stand between us—a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am encounter that you have no intention of repeating? There are any number of women I could call on for that,
Daisy. I don’t want that from you.’
She wanted to explain, oh, she wanted to so much, but how could she? She didn’t even understand it all herself so how could she explain it to him? Daisy thought feverishly. She looked back at him, her hair a shimmering silver halo about her white face and her eyes enormous, and tried to force some words past the dryness in her throat but they wouldn’t come.
‘Go to bed, Daisy.’
His voice was softer now and very quiet and it made her want to cry. And she couldn’t cry—she mustn’t—that would be the final humiliation, she told herself frantically as he turned and made for the partially open door.
She stayed where she was—she couldn’t have moved if her life had depended on it—and just before he stepped on to the landing and closed the door he faced her again, his face as distant as his voice as he said, ‘Goodnight.’
She tried to say something back but failed utterly, merely inclining her head and hoping the trembling that had taken her over hadn’t made itself known to those piercingly astute eyes, and then, after a last curt nod of his head, he was gone.
Daisy stared at the closed door for some minutes before she could persuade her legs to carry her into the bedroom, and even then she stumbled along as though she were intoxicated.
What must he be thinking? She took off her clothes mechanically, her fingers feeling numb and frozen, and after slipping her bathrobe over her shaking body she walked through to the bathroom. Despite the late hour she stood under the warm shower for some long minutes, the hot water going some way to alleviate the chill that was making her teeth chatter even though the cold was coming from within.
It was when she glanced into the mirror as she brushed her teeth that reality hit. The small white face with the desperate haunted eyes staring back at her wasn’t her! It couldn’t be. She looked at herself, the toothbrush stationary in her hand. But she recognised this face. It was the face that had looked back at her that first day after Jenny had gone.
And then the tears came, hot and acidic, burning a painful trail down her face and dripping off her chin. And even when she was in bed, curled up in a tiny embryonic ball beneath the covers, the tears continued to flow until at last, utterly exhausted, she fell into a deep, dreamless sleep in which there was no past, no present and—blissfully—no future.
CHAPTER TEN
IT WAS the brilliant sunlight falling on her face that woke Daisy at eleven o’clock the next morning.
She had been aware of rising through layers and layers of warm, comfortable cotton wool moments before she opened her eyes, but there had been something telling her not to rush—to take her time—and once she was really awake she knew why, as the recollection of the night before came rushing in.
‘Oh, make it not be true.’ Daisy gave a muffled groan as she rolled over with her face stuffed into the pillow, but it was a vain prayer and she knew it. She had made a fool of herself—oh, boy, had she ever—and how she was going to face Slade again in this lifetime she just didn’t know.
She sat up abruptly, drawing her knees into her chest as she groaned again. She had thrown herself at him, no more and no less, and he had refused, in no uncertain terms, what she had offered him.
