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Camille stood at the cheval glass brushing her hair. She studied herself critically. She looked no different except for an apricot flush on her cheeks, which she attributed to the fire in the grate she had just rekindled and not to the memory of last evening in Zack’s bed. Their hunger for each other had been insatiable and they had not been denied. Their night together in Utah paled in comparison to the shared bliss of last night.
She stifled the sob that rose in her throat. In the light of day, she realized that nothing had changed. He still didn’t love her. Why did her body betray her so? She wanted to hate him, to loathe him, but every time she so much as thought of his hands and lips and how they played her body like a finely tuned instrument, she became aflame with desire for his touch, his caress, his kiss.
The shower in the bathroom stopped running and she braced herself for the inevitable moment when she would have to face Zack. He had already gone into the bathroom before she awakened. She had quickly left the comfortable warmth of the bed and hurriedly wrapped herself in a dressing gown that wasn’t sheer or revealing in cut. She wanted to put every barrier she could between her and her husband. Vulnerability was to be avoided. She couldn’t afford it.
The bathroom door opened and Zack stepped through it, vigorously drying his hair with a towel. He had a terrycloth wrapper tucked around his slim, taut hips. Otherwise, his body was disturbingly exposed to her, and Camille’s heart skipped erratically at the sight.
“Good morning. You didn’t have to get up just because I did.” He was cheerful, his eyes sparkling blue, as he crossed to her, draping the towel around the strong column of his neck. The damp hair clung to his head in a boyish, charming manner and his brilliant smile was beguiling. Why couldn’t he be fat and ugly and bald? Then maybe she could despise him as she should.
“You look beautiful this morning, Camille,” he whispered as he placed his hands on her shoulders and drew her against him. She resisted surrender as his lips traced a tender path across her temple, down her cheek, and finally came to rest on her mouth, claiming it with a burning kiss. Her whole body went rigid as she fought the tremors of longing that were already shaking her control. His probing tongue encountered sealed lips where hours before it had found eager acquiescence and equal desire.
He didn’t countenance her resistance, and his hands became more demanding, his lips more persuasive. She parted her lips in an effort to object to his ardor, but he used that instant to find what he was seeking, and the touch of his tongue on hers ignited once again the fires of passion she was struggling to quench.
In spite of her anger toward him for the power he wielded over her and berating herself for her weakness to it, she moaned pleasurably as he placed one hand on the small of her back and drew her closer to his hard body. He found the opening to her dressing gown and slipped one hand inside, fondling her breast gently as his lips move
d down her throat to the top swelling curve. “You’re lovely, Camille. Soft, beautiful, feminine,” he whispered as he brushed butterfly kisses on her smooth flesh. “Your body satisfies mine completely.”
That was still all it was to him! It was purely a physical attraction. Yes, their bodies had recognized this chemistry between them right away, but there should be more. There must be more! She loved his body, and it was useless to deny that, but she loved him for so many other reasons. It was his total lack of love for her which wounded her, pierced her spirit. He loves someone else even as he uses me to satisfy his sexual lust. No. No!
The anguished tears that had been threatening since the extraordinary wedding ceremony yesterday finally surfaced, and Camille’s body shook with a different kind of tremor that Zack was sensitive to immediately. He raised his head and impaled her with his eyes. Tenderly, his fingers traced the trail of her tears before he brushed them away.
“What is it, Camille?” His tone was soft, but she could see the smallest flicker of anger in his eyes and a muscle in his jaw twitched, a trait Camille had come to recognize as a sign of extreme agitation and impatience.
She stammered and lowered her lashes in order to avoid meeting those penetrating eyes. “I… please don’t make… love… to me again. I can’t. I’m sorry.” And she was. Far sorrier than he could ever guess. Even as she denied him, she longed to know again the wonder of lying in the security of his arms.
He stepped back from her, relinquishing his hold. Camille quickly covered her exposed breasts, a gesture he watched with derision and obvious disgust.
“Is it so terrible, my lovemaking, that my bride of less than twenty-four hours cringes and weeps when I touch her?” he asked scornfully, his lip twisted into a sneer.
No! her mind screamed. If only you knew how much I crave your touch! Instead she said with a cracking voice, “No, Zack, it has nothing to do with that. You should know by now that I respond—” She broke off, unable to continue under the implacable blue stare.
“Then what, Camille? What!?” His frustration was apparent.
She twisted her hands and clamped her teeth over her bottom lip to keep it from trembling. I love you. I love you. Why couldn’t she tell him? Perhaps then he would take her in his arms and pledge his undying love for her. She couldn’t; he wouldn’t. He had loved once. Dearly had told her so. Whoever that woman was had hurt him deeply, and he hadn’t been ready to love again until he gave his love to Erica. Now he had been forced to forfeit that.
Camille was in an untenable predicament. Without revealing her love for him, how was she going to explain her torment? She couldn’t allow him to see her true feelings. It would be too humiliating, and he would regard her with more contempt than ever before.
“I… We… At Snow Bird—”
“Dammit, woman, are you never going to forgive me for that?” He smacked his palms together smartly and she jumped. “How long must I be punished before it’s sufficient? We’re married now. What more could I do to redeem myself with you?”
Punishment! This marriage was punishment to him. Somewhere in a quiet, private spot of her heart, she had held on to a thread of hope that he might not view it as such, but his words had dashed that hope. A tight pain was squeezing her chest, and a burning flush of shame swept her body. Zack flung the towel from around his neck and into a nearby chair, slammed one clenched fist into the palm of his other hand, and then faced her belligerently, hands on his hips.
It was his arrogant stance and expression of righteous indignation that snapped Camille from shame and humility to fury. He was blaming her again! Just as always, she saw accusation in his frigid eyes.
“Don’t get angry with me, Mr. Prescott. This whole obscene situation is your fault. It was you who took my innocence without so much as a thought—”
“How in the hell do you know what I thought?” he interrupted. “You have no idea what I was thinking, do you? You ran away, remember. I never had a chance to tell you what I was thinking.”
“Then tell me now. What were you thinking that night when you so peacefully and inculpably fell asleep beside me?” she shouted back at him. He was momentarily shaken by her flare of anger, but he recovered himself quickly, pulling that impenetrable mask over his features.
A short expulsion of breath escaped the grim lips, and he raked tense fingers through his drying hair before answering resignedly, “I don’t know what I was thinking, Camille.” He spread his arms palms up in mute appeal. “I am a single adult male. I met an attractive woman—girl. I enjoyed her company for several days, then shared what I thought was a mutually satisfying physical experience.” He shrugged almost apologetically. “I don’t know what else you want me to say.”
I want you to say that you fell in love with me, she grieved silently. She sniffed back more tears and asked, “You thought of nothing else?”
“Yes! Hell, yes. I thought you were highly intelligent. I thought you were amusing, fun to be with. Surely you know I thought—think—you were beautiful and incredibly sexy. I like your hair and the golden lights in your eyes.” His voice grew husky. “I liked the look and feel of your breasts and the taste of your mouth.” He took a tentative step toward her, but when she reacted by stepping backward, he continued with no inflection. “If you want me to say that I planned a glorious future for us in those few hours, I’m sorry. I didn’t think up names for our first three children. Do you condemn me for following through with an instinct as old as time, Camille? A man and a woman meet, and they are attracted to each other, and they have sex together. It happens all the time.”
She bowed her head and mumbled, “Not to me, it doesn’t.” He didn’t respond to that. The room was silent except for the logs popping in the fireplace. Far away, Camille heard Dearly rattling pans in the kitchen and Simon’s low, modulated voice. Tears rolled unchecked down Camille’s cheeks. There was no reason to hide them now.
