Читать книгу Taken by the Boss - Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 15

CHAPTER EIGHT

THERE was someone in her bedroom!

Kit wasn’t sure what had woken her: an unexpected noise, a sixth sense? But something had certainly disturbed her sleep and now she was aware of another person in the room with her—even though she couldn’t see them in the dark shadows of the room, she could hear the soft sound of their breathing.

‘Marcus?’ she called tentatively.

She had no idea what he would be doing creeping about her bedroom during the early hours of the morning. But there again, he certainly hadn’t seemed to have too much hesitation about walking into her bedroom unannounced yesterday evening!

The fact that she received no answer to her query convinced her that she was right in thinking it wasn’t him…

‘Who is it?’ she said sharply, sitting up as she desperately tried to see into the shadows. ‘Who’s there?’ she demanded as anger started to replace her apprehension.

If someone was trying to frighten her, then they were succeeding, and if they were trying to frighten her, then they deserved her anger!

‘I said—’ She broke off abruptly, her wrist grasped between tight fingers as she reached out to turn on the bedside light.

‘I heard you, Kit,’ came the unmistakable voice of Mike Reynolds.

‘What are you doing in my bedroom?’ Kit gasped disbelievingly, moving frantically across to one side of the bed as she felt him sit on the other side of it. ‘How dare you—?’

‘Be quiet, Kit,’ he rasped, maintaining that steely grasp of her wrist. ‘And don’t be naïve; you know exactly why I’m here.’

‘No, I—’

‘Yes,’ he cut in forcefully. ‘To be honest, I couldn’t quite believe my luck, when, instead of coming in here to join you when he came up to bed half an hour ago, I saw Maitland go into the room next door.’

Kit’s eyes widened as she once again tried to see Mike’s face in the darkness. ‘You’ve been outside watching my bedroom?’ Somehow just the thought of that made her skin crawl.

Mike gave a disgusted snort. ‘What else did I have to do with my time after Maitland’s threatening behaviour earlier?’

‘Marcus didn’t threaten you,’ she defended, wishing now that Marcus had actually hit Mike—the verbal warning alone obviously hadn’t worked!

‘I thought your delicate sensibilities might prefer that description to the arrogant bastard he really is!’ Mike said contemptuously.

‘Isn’t it a little late for you to be thinking of my delicate sensibilities?’ she suggested, her vision having finally adjusted to the dim moonlight. She was able to see Mike’s face now, if not his actual features. ‘You have to leave, Mike,’ she told him.

‘And if I don’t choose to?’

‘Then I’ll scream,’ she informed him determinedly. ‘Marcus is in the bedroom next door,’ she added as a deterrent, knowing that Mike was a coward at heart.

He gave a humourless laugh. ‘Poor little Kit,’ he taunted. ‘So naïve. So trusting. Your boyfriend is no longer in his room next door!’ he informed her with hard satisfaction. ‘Maitland only stayed a couple of minutes before leaving again. And he hasn’t come back. Now, I don’t know about you, but considering how thick he and Andrea Revel have been the last few months, I would say it’s pretty easy to guess exactly whose bed he’s in right now! Wouldn’t you?’

Yes, she would, Kit accepted heavily, angry with Marcus for putting her in such an embarrassing position, but even more upset that he had left her an easy target for Mike Reynolds!

‘Will you just leave?’ she said stiffly. ‘Before you do something we’re both going to regret,’ she added warningly.

‘Oh, come on, Kit,’ Mike cajoled. ‘For goodness’ sake, lighten up, will you? After all, we’re old friends.’ His tone was persuasive as his hand moved caressingly up her arm.

‘Are you totally thick, or just plain stupid?’ she challenged, annoyance easily overcoming her fear. ‘I do not find you attractive. I have no intention of becoming involved with you. In fact, I’m sure I’ve made it perfectly plain that I don’t even like you!’ she finished frustratedly.

‘Do you realise your boyfriend has persuaded Desmond to throw me out of here first thing in the morning?’ The cajoling tone had turned to fury, and his hand tightened about her arm.

‘Not soon enough, as far as I’m concerned!’ Kit came back heatedly.

‘Now just—’

‘Or me!’ rasped an authoritative voice that Kit easily knew belonged to Marcus. At the same time she felt Mike’s hand release her arm as Marcus landed a punch on his jaw, which threw him off the bed.

‘Get your things together now, Reynolds, and just leave!’ Marcus was standing gloweringly over Mike as Kit at last managed to reach the switch for the bedside light. ‘And I would advise you not to show your face anywhere near me in the next decade!’

Mike got slowly to his feet, the slight discolouration on his jaw already visible. And, despite her earlier protests about physical violence, Kit knew that she felt no regret at Marcus’s action. In fact, she felt like hitting Mike herself!

‘Playing musical beds, Maitland?’ Mike sneered. ‘One woman won’t play, so you’ve come back to try the one in reserve?’

Marcus’s eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Reynolds,’ he rasped. ‘Neither do I have any wish to know. Just go!’

‘What do you think, Kit?’ Mike turned to her tauntingly. ‘Second-best about your limit, is it?’ He gave a derisive smile as she wasn’t quick enough to hide the flinch his hurtful words inflicted.

She knew he was being deliberately nasty, knew he was enjoying her discomfort, but there was so much truth behind his words that for the moment she couldn’t think of anything to say.

‘Go,’ Marcus repeated in carefully controlled tones.

Mike went, slowly, nonchalantly, as cockily sure of himself as ever.

Kit’s shoulders slumped once he had left the room, reaction starting to set in as she began to shake. Amazingly, she had no doubts in her mind that if Marcus hadn’t come in when he had Mike really would have tried to force himself on her.

What made someone behave in that way? She had made it more than obvious that she disliked him, that she didn’t find him attractive, that she certainly didn’t want any sort of relationship with him, and yet he had still persisted. Maybe she had led a sheltered life, but she didn’t understand that sort of behaviour…

‘What on earth possessed you to let that man into your bedroom—?’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Kit rounded on Marcus disbelievingly, her eyes widely accusing as incredulity took over from the near-collapse she had felt coming on.

His mouth was a grimly set line. He was dressed only in the white silk shirt and trousers to his black dinner suit, having discarded the jacket. ‘You knew what sort of man he was, so what on earth—?’

‘Possessed me to invite him into my bedroom?’ Kit finished through gritted teeth, getting out of bed, perfectly respectable in her coffee-coloured satin pyjamas, but reaching out to pull on the matching robe anyway. She hadn’t thought that she would have her bedroom invaded in this way, not by one man, but two!

‘Exactly,’ Marcus agreed.

Kit gave an indignant sigh, at the same time tying the belt to her robe securely about the slenderness of her waist. ‘It’s all your fault,’ she began.

‘My fault?’ he echoed as his head rose incredulously. ‘And just how do you account for that, when I did everything in my power earlier this evening—apart from actually hitting the man!—to dissuade him from coming anywhere near you again?’ His mouth twisted scathingly.

‘He said you threatened him,’ Kit accused.

‘Obviously not strongly enough,’ Marcus responded. ‘I’m just surprised at you for inviting him into your room after that.’

‘You just don’t get it, do you?’ she rejoined impatiently. ‘I didn’t invite Mike in here; he broke in while I was asleep. After first ascertaining that you had crept off to Andrea’s bedroom, of course.’

‘That I had—! What do you mean, he broke in?’ Marcus seemed to think this part of her conversation was much more important than answering her other accusation.

Kit didn’t agree with him, knew that if Marcus hadn’t gone off to Andrea’s bedroom Mike would never have dared to enter her bedroom in the way that he had.

She was also aware that this might be misdirected anger—but she had to blame someone, didn’t she?

‘Exactly what I said.’ She moved away impatiently. ‘The man needs locking up!’

Marcus remained silent for several nerve-racking moments and then he slowly nodded. ‘We can do that,’ he murmured harshly. ‘If what you say is true—’

‘Of course what I say is true!’ Kit turned on him indignantly. ‘I don’t tell lies.’

‘Look, Kit,’ Marcus’s expression softened slightly as he seemed to take in her agitated, wide-eyed appearance, ‘I don’t think losing your temper with me is going to solve anything—’

‘Why isn’t it?’ she exclaimed. ‘If it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t even be here. And if it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t have been subjected to Mike Reynolds’s unwanted advances! Neither would I have had to meet—’ She broke off then, realising—almost too late!—exactly what she had been about to say.

The last thing she wanted to do was introduce the subject of Catherine Grainger to this already explosive situation!

‘Yes?’ Marcus prompted, dark brows raised enquiringly.

‘Desmond Hayes,’ she substituted defensively, only too aware of the seriousness of the slip she had almost made. ‘Although, of the three of you, I think I prefer his company!’

Marcus’s brows rose even higher. ‘I noticed that the two of you seemed to be getting on well together, but—’ He gave an incredulous shake of his head. ‘Kit, you’ll only end up getting hurt if you fall for Desmond,’ he warned darkly.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ She glared at him, two bright spots of angry colour in her cheeks. ‘I said that, so far this weekend, his is the company I prefer, not that I’m attracted to him! Does everything have to come down to this male female attraction thing?’

His mouth twisted wryly. ‘No, of course not. Although, it’s usually a relevant factor.’

‘Not to me,’ she sighed. ‘For your information, the only thing I’ve been able to learn this weekend by observing and listening, as you put it, is that Desmond is still very much in love with his wife!’ She was breathing hard in her indignation, her chin raised challengingly, nipples roused beneath her robe.

A fact Marcus seemed very aware of as his gaze moved slowly over her.

Making Kit aware at the same time, the flush in her cheeks caused by something else entirely now, a wild fluttering in her chest, her breath seeming constricted in her throat, every inch of her tingling skin seeming as aware of Marcus as he was of her.

Not the most ideal situation to find oneself in at almost three o’clock in the morning when alone with a man you already knew yourself to be half in love with!

Although he had certainly done little to encourage those feelings this evening!

Kit straightened, her hands thrust defensively into the pockets of her robe. ‘I think it’s time you left, Marcus,’ she told him, instantly wishing she had sounded more convincing.

‘Yes,’ he acknowledged with as little conviction.

She swallowed hard, her tongue moving nervously across her bottom lip, instantly knowing that had been the wrong thing to do as Marcus’s gaze darkened, a nerve pulsing in his jaw.

After the noise and bustle of the evening, it was all so quiet about them, the house itself seeming asleep. Only the beat of Kit’s heart, it appeared to her, sounded loudly in the silence.

Her eyes widened as Marcus slowly took two steps towards her. Her throat felt constricted so that she couldn’t speak, not when he stood in front of her, not when he took her into his arms, not when his head lowered as his lips took gentle possession of hers.

His kiss deepened as passion exploded between them. Marcus’s tongue moved questioningly against her lower lip and Kit’s response was to draw him deeper inside her.

He felt so right against her, their bodies moulded together as if two halves of a whole, Marcus’s hands moving caressingly the length of her spine before tightening on her lower back to pull her into his hardness.

Warmth spread through her lower body at this evidence of his own arousal, her neck arching as Marcus’s lips moved down its length to the sensitive hollows beneath.

Kit could only groan longingly as he pushed aside her robe and pyjama top to take one hardened nipple into the moist warmth of his mouth, sucking her deep inside him as his tongue lathed that sensitive tip.

Kit felt as if she were on fire, the centre of that fire situated at the very heart of her, her hands clinging to the broad width of his shoulders as his hand moved caressingly to her other breast, his thumb moving delicately, oh, so delicately, over the hardened tip.

She had never known such pleasure in her life, felt her control rapidly slipping away from her, her response to his caresses instinctive, as if her body had always known his touch, his caress.

A sob caught in her throat as she realised she was in love with this man, a part of her knowing this was just too much on top of everything else that had happened to her.

Marcus instantly pulled back slightly, raising his head to look at her with concerned blue eyes. ‘I won’t hurt you, Kit,’ he promised.

It wasn’t him she was afraid of—it was her own newly realised emotions! Because she was already in love with Marcus. Deeply. Irrevocably. Knew it as surely as she knew her name.

And he was making love to her in such a way that she knew there could be only one way of this ending. Unless she put a stop to it—now!

Offence was her best form of defence… ‘Marcus, haven’t both of us had enough—excitement, for one evening?’ she ventured.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Me, by having Mike invade my bedroom in the way that he did. And you, because—Andrea Revel,’ she concluded, able to ease out of his arms now as his hands fell back to his sides, straightening her robe back into place as she moved even further away.

‘Andrea?’ Marcus repeated in a puzzled voice. ‘What does she have to do with us?’

‘Us?’ Kit repeated, feeling more in control now that she had put some distance between them. Although she had no doubt that the memory of their closeness would haunt her dreams—day as well as night!—for a very long time. ‘There is no “us”, Marcus,’ she responded quietly.

‘Exactly what are you accusing me of where Andrea is concerned?’ Marcus demanded, his expression stormy now.

‘I’m not accusing you of anything,’ she returned with more bravado than she really felt. If Marcus were to so much as touch her again, she knew she would be in his arms, with no thought of what tomorrow might bring! ‘I told you, Mike only came in here earlier because he saw you go off to Andrea’s bedroom.’

‘He might have seen me leave my bedroom,’ Marcus conceded. ‘But what makes either of you think it was in order to pay Andrea a nocturnal visit?’

Kit gave a shrug. ‘It’s obvious the two of you are still involved.’

‘Says who?’ he came back.

‘Says anybody who looks at the two of you, apparently,’ she returned, remembering all too easily how even the insensitive Mike Reynolds had taunted her about the relationship.

Marcus drew in a harsh breath. ‘For your information, I went downstairs to enjoy a cigar with Desmond,’ he explained. ‘He was kind enough to invite me to join him. But for the record,’ he continued coldly, ‘as I’ve already told you, Andrea and I are finished. Totally. Irrevocably.’ He walked purposefully to the adjoining bedroom door to wrench it open. ‘I’ve told Desmond we shall be leaving tomorrow. He would prefer that we make it after lunch; is that going to be okay with you?’

‘Fine,’ Kit accepted numbly, just wishing he would go now and leave her alone to try and regain some of her shattered defences.

He paused in the open doorway. ‘You know, Kit, I don’t know what I’ve done to give you this—unflattering opinion you seem to have of me, but I can assure you that I do not make love to one woman while being involved with another!’

She swallowed hard, easily able to discern the scorn in his tone. But she was just too tired, too emotionally raw from her newly realised love for him, still too physically aware of him, to try to make any sense out of what had been a disturbing, confused evening.

‘Goodnight, Kit,’ Marcus said gruffly when it became obvious she had nothing else to say.

‘Goodnight,’ she echoed shakily, managing to remain standing upright until he had left the room.

When she collapsed shakily back onto the bed, at last allowing the tears that had been threatening for the last hour to overflow and cascade hotly down her cheeks.

Was this nightmare never going to end?