Dark Paradise (23 page)

His arms circled her with savage tenderness, swinging her off her feet. He carried her the few paces to the bed and put her down with infinite gentleness, his face flushed, the blue eyes passionately intent as he came down beside her.

Kate yielded to him totally, all inhibitions flown as he caressed her body, his mouth possessing hers in heated demand. She was weightless, floating on the sea of sensation he had aroused in her, waiting without fear for the inevitable culmination.

When she felt him lift himself away from her, her hands clung.

'Where are you going?'

Matt said softly, 'Nowhere.' His hand slid down her body from her shoulder to her rounded thigh in a gesture of total possession.

Through half-closed eyes she watched him move round the room, drawing the shutters against the sunlight, locking the door, and, finally, shedding his clothes. Then he came back to her.

Kate said huskily, 'You're beautiful.'

'Really?' The long arms wrapped round her, drawing her against him. 'Is that the artist speaking, or the lady?' His mouth teased hers, his tongue flicking along her lower lip.

She whispered, 'Both.' And her body arched against his in mute invitation, total giving.

In Matt's arms, she lost all sense of time and place, learning through the hungry expertise of his hands and mouth how many levels of arousal there were, how many avenues of pleasure to be explored. But even as she dissolved in pleasure, her body aching sweetly for the final consummation, she was aware of the restraint he had placed on himself, the almost savage self-control he was exerting because of her inexperience.

And then, as if he sensed the need for patience was past, and that her desire was as complete as his own, his body covered hers. Wordlessly, she touched him, guided him, welcomed him, moving in accord with him even as his initial gentleness splintered rawly into driving passionate urgency.

Her voice broke on a little cry. 'Oh yes, darling, yes!'—and was engulfed in a pleasure so intense that it seemed her body might shatter like fragile glass.

She returned to normal breathing consciousness slowly. Matt's sweat-dampened body still rested languorously against hers. His eyes were closed, the dark arrogant lines of his face transmuted into a kind of vulnerability. She touched his mouth with her finger, tracing its strong curve, and felt him smile at the shy caress.

She smiled too. She felt triumphant, victorious. 'He's mine,' she thought. 'He belongs to me.' And then, with a sudden chill, she remembered Leanne.

She thought, 'I won't run away. I'm going to stay and fight her. I won't let her have him.'

Matt said softly, 'You've gone very tense.' He propped himself up on an elbow, his other hand cupping her chin. 'Not hating yourself?' he probed. 'Or hating me?'

Warm colour invaded her face. 'No.'

'Good.' He bent and kissed her lingeringly. 'Are you hungry?'

'Yes,' she admitted, amazed to discover that she actually was.

'I mention it because it's lunchtime, and Jethro will be sending out search parties for us.' He kissed her again. 'Perhaps we should put on some clothes and start behaving like house guests.'

'Perhaps we should,' Kate agreed in a subdued voice. She didn't want to leave this room, she thought. She wanted to remain here in Man's arms, safe from the mysteries and undercurrents in the rest of the house.

His hands smoothed gently along the skin of her shoulder. 'What are you thinking?'

'Not a great deal,' she said evasively, unwilling to confess her own reluctance to allow the outside world to impinge upon them again.

He grinned, his eyes caressing her. 'Then you do it beautifully. I could watch you all day.'

'Then why don't you?' she challenged lightly.

He groaned. 'Witch! I wish it were as simple as that. But I'm here to work, in case you'd forgotten. And you-' he bent and touched his lips to the rosy peak of one breast—'are a distraction.' His voice deepened huskily. 'It's probably as well you're catching that plane tomorrow.'

Kate stiffened. She said, 'What do you mean? I thought—don't you want me to stay?' She despised herself for the words as soon as they were uttered. They sounded like a plea for mercy.

She saw, with a sinking heart, the way his dark brows had drawn together in a frown. He said, 'What I want really doesn't matter. It would be better if you went to St Lucia and caught the plane as arranged.'

'Better for whom?' she demanded. 'And in what way?'

His mouth tightened. He swung himself lithely off the bed, reaching for his clothes. He said, 'It would be safer. And it would avoid further complications.' He looked at her, the blue eyes travelling broodingly down her body. 'Complications which I'd intended to avoid,' he added.

The room was warm, but she felt cold. The victory she had gloried in no longer existed. All their passionate coming-together represented to him was—a complication.

Because during his stay in this house, he was Leanne's lover, for whatever motive, and the most that Kate could hope to be was a diversion from his purpose.

A sob rose in her throat and was ruthlessly suppressed. She'd made a fool of herself, that was all. She'd allowed her senses and emotions to overpower her reason, and now she had to pay the price.

Matt had taken her, but it was over now, and he wanted her no longer. He didn't want possible recrimination, or emotional hassle when she discovered she had to share him. It was better—safer—for her to be out of the way.

She snatched up her dress, holding it against her defensively.

'I understand,' she said tautly. 'I'm sorry if I've upset your plans in any way.'

Matt said harshly, 'You've been doing that since the moment we met.'

He jerked her into his arms, crumpled dress and all, and his mouth took hers angrily, bruisingly. Then he released her so abruptly that she nearly stumbled, and went away from her across the room, unlocking the door, then closing it behind him, without even a backward glance at her.

Kate sank down on the edge of the bed, still clutching her dress against her body. She stared ahead of her into the mirror of the dressing table at the stranger who confronted her there, with her bruised bewildered eyes and trembling mouth.

She said, 'It's over. All over,' in a voice she didn't recognise.

And knew with absolute finality that she couldn't spend another night in this house.

'But are you really sure that this is what you want?' Carlos gave Kate a worried frown.

'Yes,' Kate said firmly. 'Quite sure. Now will you help me, or not?'

He sighed. 'Yes—if you are so determined. But I don't understand. Why is it so important that you leave today and not tomorrow as arranged?'

Kate turned away. 'I can't explain,' she said tonelessly. 'You'll just have to take my word for it that it's more than important to me—it's necessary.'

'I see.' There was a pause, then he said awkwardly, 'I hope it is not because of anything I have said. Sometimes—sometimes I don't always think straight. I say stupid things. I imagine stupid things.' He laughed uncomfortably. 'Like linking Matthew Lincoln with— with Leanne. Where that woman is concerned I lose all sense of proportion.'

Kate shook her head. 'Not always.' She tried to smile, to control the sudden tremble of her lips. 'Sometimes you hit the nail right on the head.'

Carlos went very still. 'What do you mean?'

She said wearily, 'I mean I saw them—last night, from the window of my room. They were down at—at the pool together.'

Carlos said hoarsely. 'They were? You—you saw them, you say?'

'I saw enough,' Kate said. She moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. 'And when I—taxed Matt about it, he didn't deny it.'

She looked at Carlos, and saw him almost gaping at her, his jaw dropping. She went on, 'But then why should he? I don't own him, after all, and as you said, Leanne can probably help him to that interview.'

There was a silence. Then he said slowly, 'I wish I had never spoken to you about it.'

'No,' Kate said, 'I'm glad you did. At least I wasn't under any illusions. So you'll drive me to the airstrip?'

'I'll do better than that,' he said with sudden briskness. 'I'll telephone to the airport at St Lucia and see if there are any seats on the early evening flight. We could still make it, if you can get ready in time.'

'My case is already packed. I only have a few last things to put in it,' Kate told him. This sudden enthusiasm after his early reluctance to help her had her a little bewildered.

When she had first sought Carlos out after lunch was over, and told him she wanted to leave that afternoon, he had protested. Arrangements had been made, he insisted, and his father would be offended and angry if there was any alteration. He would think his hospitality was being spurned. But now…

'Fine,' said Carlos. 'After I've called the airport, I'll have them bring a car round.' He shrugged. 'As you've decided, then no more time need be wasted. We may as well get on our way.'

She watched him leave the room. The dog Caesar pattered after him, then changed his mind, and came back to Kate, dropping his muzzle on to her knee. She stroked him, looking into the intelligent eyes.

She thought, 'No time to waste, so why am I sitting here like this?'

And the answer came, 'Because you're a fool. Your experience with Drew taught you nothing. You still want your illusions. Because you let Matt make love to you, take you to paradise and back—you want that expanded into loving—caring and sharing, everything there is. You want him.'

Caesar whined sharply as if he sensed her inner misery, and she touched the long muzzle, soothing him.

She went slowly up to her room. It felt as impersonal as any hotel stopping place. It was hardly believable that she could ever have been so ecstatically, passionately happy here, or suffered so much either. Not a trace of either seemed to hang in the warm air. Her open case in the middle of the floor was an intrusion. She fetched her sponge bag from the bathroom, searching the empty drawers in the dressing table, anxious not to leave so much as a tissue.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and leaned closer, examining her face. They said making love changed you, she thought. But she didn't think they meant the kind of bleak vulnerability she saw in her eyes. She didn't look like a girl with a lovely secret.

She bit her lip and got up from the revealing mirror. She fastened her case and took a last look round, realising with a brief grimace of distaste that she had forgotten the dress and other things which Leanne had loaned her. She had put them in the wardrobe out of sight, but she ought to take them back. Unless she asked Jakey to do it as she was leaving, she suggested to herself. But that was the cowardly way. After all, she knew the worst now.

'What more can she do to me?' Kate asked herself with a kind of desperate levity.

She hung the dress and nightgown over her arm and started off down the gallery. She wasn't sure which Leanne's room was, but it had to be near Jethro's, and she could retrace her steps there. Had it only been that morning that she had stood among all those orchids and been given her release? It seemed a lifetime ago.

She turned a corner, and stopped dead, the startled breath gasping out of her as if someone had driven a fist into her solar plexus. Matt was there. He and Leanne were walking slowly down the gallery together, talking quietly, their attention centred so deeply on each other that they certainly weren't aware of her standing, rooted to the spot, behind them.

Hardly daring to breathe, she stood, watching helplessly as they reached a door which Leanne opened. Smiling, she took Matt's hand and drew him after her into the room beyond, closing the door behind her, closing out the world, and Kate with it.

Kate turned and ran. She didn't care how much noise she made or who heard her. She ran back to her room, where Carlos was waiting for her, a trace impatiently.

'There's a seat on tonight's plane,' he greeted her without preamble. 'At least you won't have to look for a hotel room in St Lucia.'

'No.' Kate dropped the clothes she was carrying across the bed as if they scorched her. 'Can—can you see that these are returned to your stepmother, please?'