Page 43 of A Bewitching Compulsion

'No. It serves you right for being so juvenile. Trying to impress me with your prowess, like a teenager flexing his muscles! Or was it the fact that you can't bear the thought of anyone being better than you at anything?' She began on her blouse.

'You were the one who started it, suggesting I was some puny city boy,' he pointed out, slicking his hair back, spraying cool droplets of water from his arm over her bare feet in the process. 'After I'd come to apologise for what I said yesterday! I was... angry, confused… It shook me, Tamara turning to you instead of me and you accepting her with open arms… and heart. You've never been so generous with me.' As if he'd been jealous of both of them.

'You ask a great deal more than Tamara does,' Clare prevaricated, Reluctantly unfastening the last button, her courage beginning to waver.

'Mmm.' David's mind wasn't really on the conversation. He was wondering what kind of suit she was wearing. A one-piece, no doubt, as modest as they come. 'Whatever you said to her must have been effective, because she actually deigned to make a deal. Did she tell you?' Clare shook her head. 'She won't go back to the school that suspended her, she'll go to a day school in Auckland and board at the music school. If—if she makes an honest attempt to work and sort out her options for next year—and I don't mean she has to get great marks, just a good character, I'm not asking for miracles, after all—then she can come on tour in the holidays, and to Russia, if that comes off. She wasn't ecstatic, but then neither was I, so we've settled for an armed truce… Where in the hell is your suit?' He jerked upright with the hoarse cry.

'I didn't bring one,' said Clare calmly as she shrugged off her blouse, revealing the camisole beneath. She wasn't wearing a bra, and the cold air instantly made it obvious. She reached for the zip on her slacks.

'You mean you swim here in the nude?' David pushed away from the edge to stand, hands on hips beneath the water which lapped against the thick spread of hair on his chest. He looked quaintly disapproving.

'Not usually.'

'Did you think that was why I asked you out here, to go skinny-dipping?' he demanded, not liking the way the tables had been turned.

Clare pulled off her slacks and imitated his stance. In skimpy lace panties and camisole, it was dramatically effective. 'Didn't you?'

'No, dammit, I didn't,' said David raggedly. 'The joke's gone far enough, Clare. Put on your suit before someone comes.'

'I told you, I didn't bring one. And nobody's going to come.' She toyed nervously with the lace edging at the bottom of the camisole. David's stunned eyes were riveted by the motion.

'How do you know?'

'Because I told them not to.'

'You told—' Black eyes shot with silver moonlight whipped up to hers. His were wary, baffled and… hungry. He swore. 'I didn't get you down here to seduce you, Clare. I just wanted to… to… all right, to pay you back a little. But also to settle unfinished business between us.'

'You mean you are wearing something?' Business? Clare didn't want to be serious; she wanted action, not talk!

'Yes! Dammit, Clare, this relationship is not going anywhere until—' His stern command was cut off by a winded sigh. Clare had taken a deep breath and peeled off the camisole. The briefs-followed, and for a moment she stood gilded in the moonlight before she gracefully slid into the water. David stood, eyes closed, head thrown back, body stiff with outrage and arousal as Clare moved closer and waited until he opened his eyes again.

Steam had already dewed her face, and the moonlight tracking across the lake into the little pool mocked him with its glimmering caress of the ripe breasts just below the waterline.

'Clare, I don't know what you think you're doing—'

'You don't know? Poor David. Shall I show you?' Her hand briefly rested on the taut muscle bunched at the juncture of neck and shoulder before sliding down under the steamy surface. The hairy roughness then smoothness of his stomach was exciting, but when her fingers skimmed the edge of his trunks there was a churning of the water as he grabbed her wrist in iron fingers.

'OK, Clare, I admit that I thought we might indulge in a little light lovemaking, but we're not giddy teenagers unable to control our desire—'

'Speak for yourself…' Thwarted of her need to touch him with her hands, she stepped closer, her thigh brushing lightly against his, her full breasts nudging his chest. The clenched tension in his body was a seduction in itself. She looked up into his smouldering eyes and smiled. Was that steam or sweat on his brow? She reached up with her other hand to touch and taste. The moisture was salty. She sucked it from her finger, and he groaned and caught that hand too.

'Clare, we agreed to take the time—'

'You agreed. You made that decision on your own without consulting me. Well, now I've made mine.'

He misunderstood her. 'Good. Tell me what it is, and then I can stop acting noble. It's crippling me.' In answer to the silky caress of her thigh, his body arched involuntarily into hers, a hiss of agony escaping his clenched teeth.

'Oh, no, no more of your sexual blackmail,' Clare told him ruthlessly. 'I'm not going to be manoeuvred to some private piece of music you have composed in your head. You may make deals with your daughter, but you don't make them with me. I've decided I want you. Here. Now. No procrastinations, no evasions. Just yes or no.' She leaned forward to take a small bite of his smooth, rigid shoulder, lowering her lids to hide the pain of her uncertainty. She had never seduced a man before, let alone an unwilling one, and she was rather shocked at her own boldness. But she loved him so much, she had to have him, quickly, before the world crashed in on them again. 'What's it going to be, David?' She licked the small indentations her teeth had made, and suddenly felt herself hauled against him, her hands forced into the small of her back.

'Yes! It has to be yes,' he whispered harshly in the steamy stillness. He pressed warningly against her hands, letting her feel the fullness she had teased into life. Released from the rigid restraints he had placed on himself, he was suddenly in full command again, no longer the victim but the victor. He saw the flicker of doubt in her eyes as she realised what she had aroused, and smiled grimly. 'If sex is all you want, I'm happy to oblige. It's a long time since I've had a woman.'

'David—' Was that all she would be, a faceless body?

'But that's not what you want either, is it, Clare? Don't worry, I'll make it good for you. And when we're finished we'll do it again and again until you realise that the act alone will never be enough…'

'David, please…' She wasn't concentrating on his quiet words, but on the way his mouth moved around them, and he saw the possessive hunger in her eyes and knew she required proof.

The sweet wildness was like nothing that Clare had ever known. There were no gentle preliminaries, just a savage consummation of days and nights of sensuous longings. If they had been on a bed, or on the green grass of the bank, Clare knew that her creamy skin would have been bruised, but the water, with its enervating heat and dragging resistance, softened the erotic clash of their bodies to a slow dance of passionate intensity. Only once did David make an effort to restrain the compulsion. Before the first thrust of his possession he hesitated.

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