Читать книгу For One Night - Пенни Джордан, Penny Jordan - Страница 6

NUMB WITH SHOCK, Diana moved to one side as the first spadeful of earth hit the coffin.

A long, deep shudder racked through her body as she stared down into the darkness of the open grave. In that box was the body of her best friend; for eighteen long months they had fought together against the enemy destroying Leslie’s body, and less than a week ago they had lost their fight.

Even now, she could hardly believe it. She and Leslie had been at university together; they had got their degrees at the same time, and their first jobs. Then they had lost touch for several years, meeting again only when Leslie’s first book had been published, and she herself had been working as a researcher for the host of the television chat show on which Leslie had been asked to appear.

To their mutual delight they had discovered that they still shared the same outlook on life, and the same zany sense of humor. Now that she could support herself as a writer, Leslie had decided to move to London, and it seemed a natural follow-on from this decision that they should buy a flat together.

Both of them had their own personal lives; Leslie was still getting over a two-year relationship that had turned sour when her lover became jealous of her writing success. And as for her own love life … Diana sighed.

In the days when she had first joined the television company and had still been starry-eyed with wonder and excitement, she had fallen hard for one of the producers, only to learn quite by accident from one of his previous victims that he made a second career out of bemusing and seducing all the young and naive newcomers to the company, callously notching up his tally of successes with a celebratory booze-up with his menfriends, when he regaled them with the intimate details of his amatory skills.

She had been one of the lucky ones, she had found out about him before it was too late, but it had left her with a deep mistrust of all media men. She froze them off the moment they attempted to get close to her.

Between themselves, she and Leslie had agreed that they were better off concentrating on their careers, and treating men with the same casual disregard that the male sex adopted toward women. What neither of them had realized was that there was going to be precious little time in their lives for socializing. Leslie had developed the first symptoms of the disease that was to kill her within weeks of them moving in together.

At first she had said nothing; but Leslie was wasting away visibly, and in the end she had been forced to tackle her friend about her loss of weight, Diana remembered.

She turned her head away from the awfulness of the gaping hole in the earth, a cruelly bitter spring wind teasing silky strands of red-gold hair and blowing them against her pale face.

She had thought that perhaps Leslie was suffering from some eating disorder; but the truth had been far worse than her imaginings.

She had been woken up one night by Leslie’s heartbroken sobs, and had gone into her room. At first, Leslie had tried to deny that anything was wrong, but, finally, she had told Diana everything.

She had felt unwell for a while, tired and listless, and at first she had put it down to the strain of her broken relationship, plus the heavy workload she had taken on. She had gone to see her doctor, hoping he could recommend a tonic, only he had sent her to hospital for tests, and the results were indisputable. She had leukemia.

They had talked long into the night; Leslie had been completely open with her about her prognosis. She had no family; the aunt and uncle who had brought her up had been killed in a plane crash while they were at university. She had decided that she would find herself a privately run hospice where she could be properly looked after, but Diana had firmly refused to countenance this.

They were friends, and they would stay friends. She would look after Leslie.

It had proved harder than either of them anticipated. On several occasions the doctors had wanted to keep Leslie in hospital but, knowing how great her fear and distress would be, Diana had refused to allow them to do so. She had taken Leslie home and nursed her herself. In the last dreadfully painful weeks, Diana had applied for compassionate leave from her job.

Fresh tears blurred her vision, the first she had been able to weep for her friend. Her pain and anger went beyond mere tears; it seemed incomprehensible, an enormity of unfairness and illogical wrong that Leslie should be dead. She had been so young, had had so much to give to life.

Diana shivered in the cold wind. It was April; the earth was beginning to awake to spring after a long, cold winter. It seemed bitterly ironic that Leslie should have died now, just before nature’s resurgence of life. She remembered how, when she was well enough, Leslie had loved to watch the slow progress of the bulbs forcing their way through the cold earth. It had been a winter of record frosts and snowfalls, and she had had to wait a long time to see the first snowdrops and crocuses bloom.

Someone touched her on her arm and she swung round. The vicar was watching her compassionately.

In those last few months he had called regularly to see Leslie. Neither of them had any deep-founded religious beliefs, but she had been able to see how cheered Leslie was by his visits.

Now she was gone forever, buried deep in the earth of this North London cemetery.

“It’s too cold to stand here. Would you like to come back to the vicarage and have a cup of tea—”

There were no other mourners; Leslie had wanted it that way. She had no family, and the other people who could have been present would have been her friends and colleagues from the publishing world.

Diana started to refuse and then nodded. She didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t think she could face going back to their empty flat.

All the legal details had been seen to already. She had contacted Leslie’s solicitor as her friend had asked her to do. She swallowed the painful lump in her throat. She already knew that her friend had made her her sole legatee. They had argued about it. Diana had suggested that Leslie should donate any money she had to medical research, but Leslie had shaken her head.

“No, I want you to have it,” she had insisted, and because any form of argument, no matter how slight, had wasted her fragile strength deplorably, Diana had given in.

She had an appointment to see the solicitor, Mr. Soames, later in the afternoon, but right now she didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think about anything … anything …

She turned and followed the vicar, pausing to look over her shoulder one last time, and say a painful final goodbye to her friend.

LESLIE’S SOLICITOR, now her solicitor, Diana reminded herself, was a partner in a very old, established city firm who had been recommended to Leslie when her first manuscript was sold.

“Rather old-fashioned, with county connections,” was how Leslie had once described him to Diana. “I get the impression that most of his clients are of the ‘gentleman farmer’ fraternity—good solid yeoman stock. Frightfully British, and very, very honest—that’s Mr. Soames.”

“Miss Johnson, please sit down ….”

Diana suspected that everything Leslie had told her about him was perfectly true, as she studied the plump, middle-aged lawyer, sitting opposite her. He was sensitive enough not to offer any formal condolences, for which she was very grateful.

His office was furnished just as an old-fashioned solicitor’s office ought to be, with a traditional partners’ desk, and a wall full of glass-fronted bookshelves holding fat and no doubt dusty tomes. Even the telephone was the old-fashioned, plain black traditional variety. Diana refused his offer of a cup of tea, and waited as he unfolded the document on his desk, discarding the pink tape which had tied it.

“I know you are already familiar with the contents of Miss Smith’s will. You are the sole legatee.” He mentioned a sum of money that made Diana gasp in shock. “And then there is the flat you shared with her. You each owned half of it, but now, of course, you are the sole owner.”

He put down his papers and studied her over the top of his glasses. “If you will take my advice, Miss Johnson, you will make use of this bequest to make a fresh start in life. This isn’t the advice I normally give newly bereaved clients; the comfort of familiar things, familiar places, is something they need to cling to, but in your case …”

Diana stood up abruptly. She knew what Mr. Soames meant, and part of her knew that he was right. Already she was dreading going back to the empty flat; not solely because Leslie was no longer there, but because its very atmosphere had become imbued with the hopeless misery of those last agonizing weeks; and she could no longer bear to so much as walk inside it.

They shook hands and she left his office, stepping out into the harsh spring sunlight. On impulse she hailed a taxi and gave the name of a prestigious London hotel.

She would spend the night there. That would give her breathing space. Leslie’s doctor had given her a small prescription of sleeping pills which he had advised her to use if need be, but until now she had not bothered to resort to them. There had been too much to do … too much to keep her busy. Sorting out Leslie’s clothes … things like that. But now she longed to sleep, and the blessed anonymity of a hotel bedroom was the ideal place for her right now.

The foyer of the hotel was busy. There was a conference on, the clerk told her when Diana booked in. Perhaps because of this no one seemed to notice that she had no luggage, and she was speedily shown up to a very elegant bedroom, the last one they had empty, according to the clerk.

Once inside, she closed the curtains, and then opened her private minibar with the key provided.

The staff were busy, she reflected, as she noticed that someone had removed some of the stock from the bar, and that it had not been replaced. There was even a glass on the coffee table. Ignoring it, Diana poured herself a generous gin and tonic, and took it through to the bathroom with her.

At another time she would have enjoyed sampling the wide range of exclusive toiletries provided, but now all she wanted to do was to soak in a long hot bath and then to go to sleep.

She took one of the tablets, grimacing wryly as she swallowed it down with a mouthful of her drink. Mixing drink and drugs—hardly a sensible thing to do, but she didn’t feel like being sensible right now.

Diana lay in the bath until she felt the combination of alcohol and drug beginning to take effect, and then she clambered out and pulled on the terry-toweling robe provided, without bothering to dry herself.

The closed curtains gave the bedroom an eerie underwater effect heightened by the muted sunlight coming in through the windows. She lay down on the bed and closed her eyes, letting oblivion sweep over her, gradually carrying her out into its depths.

MARCUS SIMONS grimaced as he glanced at his watch. The conference had dragged on longer than expected, and then he had had a meeting to go to that had extended into dinner. Now it was gone one o’clock, and he was ready to drop.

Whenever he came to London it affected him like this. Funny really—in the days when he had worked in the City he had found it invigorating and stimulating. Now all he wanted was to get back to the farm.

Ten years ago, when he had inherited the farm from his uncle, managing it himself had been the last thing he had intended. It had been the last thing that Sandra had intended as well. His mouth compressed grimly as his taxi deposited him outside his hotel. He tipped the driver generously enough to merit a smile and walked inside.

Sandra had wanted him to sell the farm, and when he had refused she had broken off their engagement. It had hurt at the time, but now he was worldly enough to realize that he had had a lucky escape. There had been more than one woman in his life since Sandra, but no serious relationships. His sister, Ann, was constantly chivying him about it. She wanted him to settle down and get married, and was forever producing a stream of “friends” to that end.

He strode across the foyer; a tall man with a shock of thick black hair, and piercingly direct gray eyes.

He didn’t look like a farmer; his charcoal gray pin-striped suit had come from Savile Row, and he had about him that cool air of command that said unmistakably that he was successful in life.

He leaned across the desk and asked for his key. The girl who handed it to him eyed him enviously, studying the tanned planes of his face.

Now that was a man …. He smiled at her, and she felt a frisson of response shake her body. Wow … he was really something.

It was that peculiar time of the evening, too late for any lingering diners, too early for the nightclub set, and the large foyer of the hotel was almost deserted.

Marcus made his way to the cocktail bar, and then changed his mind about going in when he saw the woman strategically poised on the bar stool. She and the barman were the sole occupants of the room. She smiled at him and he looked away, suppressing a mingling feeling of pity and annoyance.

Did he look like the sort of man who paid for his sex? She was quite obviously a prostitute looking for business. As he turned to leave the bar he shrugged away his annoyance. Probably to her all potential customers looked the same, and it was juvenile of him to feel offended because she had thought he might be a possible client.

For some reason this brief trip to London to attend the Farming Management Conference had disturbed him. It brought back too many memories. London reminded him of the world he had shared with Sandra. He had been young then; young and in love.

Now he was well into his thirties, and cynical enough about both himself and the female sex to know that love had nothing to do with sexual enjoyment. It had been a long time since he had slept with a woman; too long perhaps, he thought grimly, remembering his instinctive masculine reaction to the perfumed femininity of his host’s wife at dinner.

It had been a long, hard winter, and there had been no time for extracurricular activities of any kind; but tonight, with an exotic feminine perfume tantalizing his senses, his awareness of the delicious femininity of his host’s wife, accentuated by the silky slither of her dress over her breasts and hips, he had suddenly felt an urgent need for the soft warmth of a woman in his bed.

But not a woman he had to pay, he thought disgustedly, as he pressed for the lift and then stepped into it. Ironically, he knew that there were any number of women among his friends and acquaintances who would be more than pleased to have sex with him. Unfortunately, they were not here in this hotel.

He had long ago made a rule not to involve himself sexually with the wives or girlfriends of his friends; and one of his longest-standing relationships had been with an attractive divorcee. But she had wanted a second marriage, and so they had amicably agreed to part. Sandra’s greed had made him wary of any form of commitment; and the farm took so much of his time that there was precious little left to spend searching for a wife.

The lift stopped and he got out. Dim lighting illuminated the corridor. He walked along it, checking the door numbers until he found his own. He slid the key in the lock and waited until the panel lit up to show that the door was unlocked.

The sight of the shuttered curtains threw him for a moment. He couldn’t remember closing them, but then he reflected that it had probably been done by the maids when they came to turn down the bed. He fumbled for the light switch and depressed it. Harsh yellow light flooded the room.

Someone was lying on his bed! His eyes narrowed as he studied the toweling-wrapped figure. All he could see was one set of pale pink polished toenails and a cloud of amber-colored hair.

The figure on the bed stirred, and he waited with impassively folded arms, leaning back against the closed door.

Diana’s throat was dreadfully dry, and her eyes hurt. She opened and then closed them again rapidly as the too bright light stunned her.

God, where was she? She felt totally disorientated. She moved, rolling over, and tried to pierce the drug-induced mists befuddling her.

She opened her eyes again, more slowly this time, and then they widened in shock, the mists dispersing rapidly as she saw the man watching her. Instantly she was pierced with fear. She scrambled to sit up, clutching the robe to her, as she looked frantically for the telephone. It was on the opposite side of the bed, and he was closer to it than she was.

Who on earth was he, and how had he got into her room? Was he some kind of maniac? He didn’t look like it, logic pointed out to her.

Summoning her voice, she demanded huskily, “Who … who are you and what are you doing in my room?”

There was a moment’s silence and then he said dryly, “Odd, but I thought that was my line.”

It took several minutes for the meaning of what he was saying to sink in, but once it had a surge of relief flooded over her.

He wasn’t an intruder at all, but someone who had strayed into the wrong room by mistake. She smiled at him, completely unaware of the effect her golden-eyed sleepy warmth was having on him.

Whoever she was, she had style, Marcus thought grimly. This was no ordinary lady of the night, that was for sure. How had she got into his room? Perhaps she had some arrangement with one of the staff—it wasn’t entirely unknown, or perhaps she had just got the wrong man ….

“This can’t be your room,” Diana told him. “I booked it myself this afternoon. Look.” She got off the bed, and picked up her handbag, showing him her registration card.

For a moment he was almost convinced, but then he remembered something. Walking over to the built-in cupboards, he opened one of them and showed her the clothes hanging up inside.

“If this is your room, how come you didn’t notice my stuff hanging here when you unpacked?”

Too late, Diana recalled the used glass, and the opened minibar. She should have guessed then, but she had been too wrought up to do anything other than seek the oblivion of sleep just as soon as she could. Even now her head still felt woolly, and her thoughts were confused.

“By the way … where is your stuff …?”

“I didn’t bring any luggage.” She could feel the color rising up under her skin as he looked at her, his thoughts quite plain to read in his mocking gray eyes.

Dear God, he thought she was a prostitute!

“Look, it isn’t what you think. I … I … booked in on impulse.” She turned her head away from his and said huskily, “Today … today I lost someone I loved very much. After … after the funeral I couldn’t go back to our flat, so I booked in here instead ….”

She was speaking the truth, he could see it in her face, hear it in her voice, and he was shocked by his own sudden surge of disappointment. For Christ’s sake; had he wanted her to be available? She wasn’t even his type. He liked small, curvaceous brunettes, not thin leggy creatures with clouds of amber hair and tiger eyes.

She had lost someone she loved, she had said. Her lover, no doubt. He was surprised by the fierce thrust of jealousy that pierced through him. It must be some sort of hang-up from what he had felt over dinner. It wasn’t her he wanted, it was just a woman … any woman, he told himself derisively.

“Look, lady,” he told her tersely. “This is my room, and right now I want to go to bed.”

Diana stared at him, nonplussed, and then remembered the desk clerk telling her that she was lucky to get their last empty room.

“Look, you’ve obviously got a home you can go to,” Marcus pointed out. “I haven’t—at least not locally, so why don’t I call you a taxi …?”

Spend the night alone in the flat? Diana shivered. No, she couldn’t, not this night.

“No, please … I …”

Please. His eyes had darkened over her whimpered plea, and he was looking at her with an expression she had no difficulty in interpreting. He wanted her. This tall, dark-haired man, a complete stranger, wanted her.

This was the point where she normally turned on her heel, and ran. She was used to male desire, and at twenty-five had had more than her fair share of potential lovers, but after discovering how callous and cruel men could be, she had rebuffed them all, keeping them at a distance. So why was her body turning all soft and molten inside, simply because this man was mentally stripping the toweling robe from her body, and caressing it with his eyes? Why did she feel this almost savage urge to go to him and lose herself in the maelstrom of desire?

She felt an uncontrollable need to experience the resurgence of life that only sexual communion could bring, she did want it, she realized fatalistically, she wanted … no, needed that communion, that renewal of life; she needed it if only to prove to herself that death can be conquered, that life does ultimately triumph.

In this stranger’s arms, she could forget the trauma of these last weeks; she could celebrate the reality of life; she could renew herself and feel really alive again for the first time in months.

At any other time Diana would have been shocked by her own thoughts, but now they seemed natural and normal.

The way she was staring at him made him feel almost as though she was looking through him, Marcus thought. He looked at her mouth, her lips half parted and quivering slightly. The bathrobe concealed the shape of her body and he suddenly longed to wrench it from her and take all the feminine sweetness of her in his arms.

He fought to control himself, his voice grating slightly as he warned her, “Stay here and there’s no way I’m going to be able to stop myself from taking you to bed with me—you know that, don’t you?”

Diana hesitated briefly, knowing she was teetering on the edge of a chasm, but unable to do the sensible thing and pull herself back.

In a dream she heard herself saying huskily, “Yes.” And then there was no going back. She took a step toward him, and heard him groan. Fired with a wild determination that pulsed through her, she unfastened the tie of her robe and let it slide from her body.

What was she doing? She had never acted like this in her life—she must be mad. But it was too late. She was in his arms, his hands shaping and moulding her flesh, his mouth hotly demanding as it fastened on hers.

He wrenched it away to mutter briefly, in her ear, “I don’t know who you are, or where the hell you’ve come from. What I’m doing now goes against every principle I’ve ever had but, God knows, I can’t stop myself. I know I’m going to regret this like hell in the morning, but all that matters now is the way you’re making me feel.”

He wasn’t telling her anything she didn’t feel herself. She couldn’t explain to him what was driving her, what she was feeling; and why should she? They were strangers; they each had a need—after tonight they would never meet again.

He picked her up and carried her over to the bed, lying her down gently, his eyes never once leaving hers as he quickly stripped.

His body was well muscled, sleek and hard, dark hair shadowing down over his chest and his flat belly. Diana looked at him in awe and fierce pleasure. Her previous sexual experience had been limited to clumsy caresses shared with fellow university students; the sensual side of her nature had been slow to blossom; and then before it could flower it had been cruelly destroyed by Randolph Hewitt’s cynical cruelty.

The shock of learning that he had simply been using her had withered away her youthful urge to share her heart and her body with anyone. There had been no one since Randolph, but that scarcely impinged on her consciousness now.

Now she felt, deep within her, nature’s remorseless drive toward the re-creation of life. She knew even as she looked into Marcus’s eyes that the need that drove her was in some way linked to Leslie’s death and the long, achingly unhappy months that had led up to it.

She was like a moth shedding its chrysalis; a phoenix having been destroyed in the flames and now being renewed.

She needed this … this sensation of flesh against flesh, this fierce clamoring of her blood. She needed this man, here and now, she admitted, as Marcus returned her look, studying the naked length of her, making her skin burn with febrile excitement as his glance lingered intimately, like a caress against her flesh.

“I must be mad doing this!”

His thoughts only echoed her own, but they didn’t stop the intimate melding of their mouths, his, hot and demanding, hers, meltingly enticing.

He kissed her with a hunger she hadn’t expected. Somehow she had imagined that for him sex must be a regular and frequent part of his life, but the touch of his mouth against her own, the fierceness of his hands against her skin told her that she was wrong.

Neither had she expected the sudden spiral of excitement and anticipation running over her nerve endings as he kissed her. Her need to purge herself of the horror and pain of Leslie’s death in the act of procreation was something she could accept and understand—just about—but the desire she felt for this particular man wasn’t.

She pulled back, tensing slightly, and heard him growl deep in his throat. “No, damn you, you aren’t changing your mind now. You’ve already made me want you too much.”

But despite his words, the silken glide of his hands over her rib cage and against her breasts was almost hesitant, as though he was waiting for her to tell him to stop. His thumb brushed against her nipple sending a savage surge of desire stabbing through her. She saw the gleam of triumph glittering in his eyes as he caught the betraying sound.

“You liked that?”

She shuddered finely as he repeated the caress and then bent his head to roughly brush the aroused areola with his tongue.

Flames—spears of sensation pierced her, making her cry out and cling despairingly to him, her nails etching sharp crescents in the flesh of his shoulders. His mouth absorbed the whole swollen bud, bathing it in moist heat, drowning her in awesome pleasure.

She cried out, her body arching like a bow. Tiny droplets of sweat dampened her skin and made it glisten beneath the soft illumination of the bedside lamp.

“Beautiful … you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen, do you know that?”

He was slurring his words faintly, like a man under the influence of drink or drugs, his breath quivering over her sensitized flesh as his lips continued to caress her breasts, tormenting them with brief kisses and tiny delicate bites, frustrating her growing desire to have her flesh taken deep inside the hot cavern of his mouth.

His touch was unleashing a wildness within her that she had never known existed. She wanted to scratch and bite, to cling and demand; she wanted …

Her hands slid over his sweat-slick back; her fingers drawing his head down to her breasts, a sharp cry of pleasure breaking the thick silence as he correctly interpreted her silent demand.

When the pleasure he was giving her became almost too sharp to endure she bit frantically into his skin, and felt his body shudder in open response.

His hands shaped her waist and hips, and then molded her against his aroused male form.

The heat of him was dangerously exciting, firing her own blood, making her ache for the culmination of her driven need. His hand touched her intimately, caressing and enticing her to abandon herself to him, his softly murmured words of praise singing in her ears.

Under his guidance she caressed him in turn, but both of them were too impatient to linger over the preliminaries, no matter how pleasurable. After all, they weren’t lovers, content to simply adore one another’s bodies, but two people driven by different emotions but similar needs, to find together an elemental completeness.

At the first surge of his body within her own Diana was filled with a wild exultation. She moved instinctively beneath him, hearing the savagery of his indrawn breath, and glorying in the fierceness of his possession.

She didn’t experience any pain, contrary to everything she had ever anticipated; her virginity might never have existed, so joyfully did her body welcome his.

Together they strove to reach the shimmering pinnacle of human experience; together they shared the awesome reality of the apex of human desire, Marcus’s deep-throated cry of release mingling with her own husky sob of delight.

It was over. Diana lay, trying to steady her breathing, while the world righted itself around her. In the wake of physical satisfaction came exhaustion, so complete and so numbing that she was deeply asleep within seconds.

Marcus looked down at her broodingly. He had just experienced the most physically intense pleasure he had ever known with any woman, and she had fallen asleep!

Now for the first time, reality hit him. She had used him as a substitute for her dead lover. It was like being tipped into a pool of iced water. When he surfaced he felt totally disorientated. Man was the predator, the hunter, the user and abuser of the female sex, so why did he feel as though he was the one who had been used? Why did he have this disquieting fear that his life was never going to be the same again?

They had had sex, that was all. He didn’t even know her name … She had simply been a body—a very beautiful and sexy body—but a body nonetheless. He must be crazy to be lying here in this emotional stupor. He ought to be worrying about far more mundane things. He reached out, unable to stop himself from tucking a stray lock of amber hair behind her ear. In sleep she looked like a little girl.

She mumbled something and moved in her sleep. The sheet slipped and revealed one creamy, rose-tipped breast, still swollen and flushed from his caresses.

Suppressing a fierce shudder, Marcus covered her again, and then swung himself out of the bed. He never wore pyjamas, but there was a spare robe in the bathroom. He put it on, and then eyed the bedroom’s one easy chair in grim determination.

He had behaved foolishly enough for one night—he would spend the rest of it alone in that chair, otherwise God alone knew what might happen. He had been stupid enough as it was—insanely so. He ought to have thrown her out when he had had the opportunity. Against his will he remembered the look of aching desolation he had glimpsed in her eyes earlier. It must be hell to lose someone you loved to death. Who could blame her for wanting to hang on to life in the most basic way possible?

Neither of them were to blame for what had happened; another time, and things would have been different. They had come together as strangers, he thought broodingly, and that was the way they must part—for both their sakes. He had enough problems on his plate with the farm, without involving himself with a woman who was grieving for another man.

He would be gone before she woke up. They would never meet again. He knew his decision was the right one, but some part of him was reluctant to let her go. Some part of him wanted to hold on to her and …

And what?

And nothing, he told himself firmly.