Page 39 of A Bewitching Compulsion

'The hell you aren't! Did you bring your lover here, to flaunt in my face? Let me in.' It was the merest of courtesies, because they both knew she couldn't stop him.

He stood in the middle of the small room, taking in the comfortable furnishings in a predatory sweep. 'Where is he, Clare?'

'You have no right—'

'I told you the rules. No visitors.'

'You're visiting,' she pointed out, edging towards the bed as he moved, carefully keeping between David and the lump under the covers.

He looked at her, flushed and nervous, backing away from him, not realising that the lamp behind her was revealing the sheerness of the French silk. His smile was a slow threat. 'I make the rules, so I get to police them. In the closet?' He matched the sudden demand with an equally sudden movement, and flung open the door of the built-in wardrobe. If Clare hadn't been so angry and offended, she would have laughed.

'You're making a complete fool of yourself, David.' She perched on the edge of the bed and felt behind her to pull up the sheet she had turned down earlier, but she had forgotten the mirror on the wall by the closet. David turned and in two strides was towering over her, reaching past her to rip the sheet back down.

He stared at the bright, enquiring brown eyes, as dark as his own, looking up at him from the pillow. For a full thirty seconds he stared in silencer Then he looked at Clare, whose pretended nonchalance was ruined by her hectic colour and quivering mouth.

He sat down beside her on the bed and placed the teddy bear on to his knees. The bear was wearing striped pyjamas with a very enlightening monogram embroidered on the jacket.

'J.' David traced the thread. 'Now what could that stand for I wonder? John? Jake? Joseph?'

Clare averted her face. David's voice was very soft, very controlled. Dangerously so. She sensed that to laugh or to taunt him now with his folly would push him over the edge. And he was waiting, wanting to be pushed…

'Or… could it be… Julian?' The softness congealed into a thin sheet of ice. 'Aren't you going to introduce me to your… friend, Clare?'

Clare risked a tiny step on to the slick surface. 'It's not really mine. It's Tim's. But he… he gave it to me.'

'To keep you company?'

'S-somethdng like that.' All her desire to laugh was gone. David was stroking the bear's soft hand, and the way his fingers slid through the silky fur was unnervingly evocative.

'So this is Uncle Julian whom you sleep with?'

'Y-yes.' She didn't trust that mildness, not in conjunction with the fierce tension in the big body. 'You…you were the one who jumped to conclusions…'

'Forgivable in the circumstances, wouldn't you say?' David seemed absorbed in his stroking of the bear. Clare felt a ridiculously possessive surge of resentment. She wanted to snatch the bear out of those magic hands lest Uncle Julian, too, find himself seduced.

'You could have asked...'

David turned his head and she forgot to breathe. Oh, there was anger there, and resentment, but a smouldering excitement, too.

'I did ask,' he pointed out.

'You deliberately embarrassed me in front of everyone. You… you made me angry.'

'That's nothing to what you made me. You told me there was no one besides Lee, and suddenly your son is chattering on about some mysterious man with whom you seemed to be deeply and secretly involved. I was jealous. I was afraid I'd explode if it turned out to be the truth.'

'You did,' pointed out Clare recklessly.

'Oh, that wasn't an explosion, Clare, That was just a minor eruption. The explosion is yet to come. Did you wear that beautiful piece of silk for me?'

'No,' she said weakly. 'All my nightwear is… is…'

'Sexy? It's wasted on Uncle Julian. He strikes me as very much of a bear's bear.' David, arranged the furry limbs to his liking. 'You need someone who can not only listen but respond. A woman like you could never be fulfilled by a platonic relationship that's all give and no take. Uncle Julian is all very well for a cuddle or two, but he has a fatal flaw.'

'Oh?' The word stuck in her throat.

David sat the bear on the bedside-table.

'He's not Russian.'

Source: www.allfreenovel.com