Читать книгу Reclaiming His Wife - Susan Fox P. - Страница 10

CHAPTER FIVE

LIKE a rabbit mesmerised by a fox, Taylor watched him watching her even as he dipped his head and his mouth closed over her honeyed finger.

There was desire in his eyes, more potent and deadly than that which she had seen burning in them earlier.

‘Jared…’ She closed her eyes against the raw need she saw in him, against the ache of a new kind of hunger in herself that only this man could assuage. The suckling warmth of his mouth brought with it images of the pleasurable nights she had shared in his bed, the provocative action of his tongue encircling her finger calling forth more erotic imagery, of pleasing him, of his pleasuring her in the most intimate and earth-shattering ways so that remembering produced a deep sensual throb in her lower body.

She opened her eyes. He was still watching her, his proud dark face flushed now from more than the heat of the fire.

‘You used to taste like this all over. Remember, Taylor? You gave me honey every time I took you to bed. Like a queen bee paralysing me with her sweetness until I could do nothing but surrender to your hold over me—and still I could never get enough of you.’

His voice trembled with the depth of his desire. If he had been trying to turn her on, he had succeeded, but only at the expense of his own self-possession. Without even looking at him she could tell he was aroused, and she found herself craving the demands of his rock-hard body. He would be big and ready to take her. Helplessly, she realised, she wanted him to do just that. Push her back against the rug and come down heavily on top of her, give her no choice but to submit to him so that she could drown in the ecstasy of his driving passion, sate this unbelievable need of him and not feel afterwards that she had relinquished her pride or determination to be free.

With every gram of her will, she dragged herself back from the brink of stupidity to say shakily, ‘But you didn’t love me.’

For a moment his fingers tightened around her slim hand.

‘Didn’t I?’ His lips had moved to play erotically over the perfumed flesh of her wrist, and yet the eyes that continued to hold hers were intensely probing, assessing, and as unfathomable as the darkest night.

‘Let me go.’

Surprisingly, he complied at once.

‘I’d better get some more logs in,’ he said heavily, getting to his feet, as though he were totally unaffected by what had just happened between them.

But he had been. And severely, Taylor thought, watching him scoop up the wicker basket and carry it back across the room.

Even so, it felt like another put-down. Like he had been testing her, she decided bitterly, her spirits lowering like the sudden drop in the room temperature as he went through the kitchen and opened the back door, letting in the biting air from outside.

They spent the rest of the day treading carefully around each other, treating each other with polite caution as though each was reluctant to delve too deeply into what the other might be thinking or feeling.

The first thing they did after Taylor had found enough scraps to feed the birds was to search the house for candles, finding the half-burned remains of one, still in its holder, in the cupboard under the kitchen sink.

‘That isn’t going to last an evening!’ Taylor groaned despairingly, then found a whole boxful while she was looking in the electricity meter cupboard under the stairs.

‘So you won’t have to worry about being left in the dark with me after all,’ Jared commented dryly when she rushed eagerly back to the kitchen to acquaint him with her find.

Taylor didn’t respond, sensing that there was more than one meaning behind that outwardly innocuous remark but, apart from that, the day continued on an otherwise even course.

Wrapped up in warm layers, scarves and gloves, together they scraped the snow from the drive that sloped upwards alongside the house, making a clear path to the lane. Then Taylor beat the soft snow from the bonnet and roof of her car, opened the electrically operated door to the adjoining garage that was a later addition to the house, and climbed into her car with the intention of putting it away.

Unfortunately the little hatchback refused to comply immediately; coughing and spluttering each time she turned the ignition key.

‘Problems?’

Jared was beside her open door, big and capable, ready to lend a hand.

‘It’s just cold,’ she said, silently urging it to start, which, fortunately, it did after a bit of gentle coaxing with the ignition.

‘The drive’s treacherous. I’d leave it right where it is,’ he advised grimly.

‘No, I’d prefer to put it away.’ She didn’t like the thought of her car—her key to self-sufficiency—being left out in such extreme conditions.

‘Then perhaps you’d better let me do it,’ he suggested, looking every bit like taking over. ‘I intended to put it away last night but I’m afraid seeing you swept all my good intentions out of the window.’

‘I can manage,’ Taylor assured him firmly, deciding to ignore his comment as she pulled the door closed, shutting him out.

If he could do it, why couldn’t she? she thought, conscientiously steering the car towards the open garage.

Having never negotiated the drive before, however, she hadn’t reckoned on the unexpected swing to the left at the top of the incline, or the sheet of ice just outside the garage door.

Pressing her foot down on the accelerator, needing a few more revs to accommodate the slope, she had almost levelled up when the back wheels started to spin alarmingly.

Feeling the car starting to slide, she braked instinctively, but too hard, she realised too late, and with a sinking heart felt the back wheels pull away from her as the car skidded with an ominous scraping into the steel frame of the garage door.

‘Oh…!’ She swallowed the small invective, uncertain as to what hurt most as Jared rushed up to survey the damage, her loss of face or what she might have done to her car.

‘I’m afraid you’ve put a hell of a crease in the front wing,’ he called over his shoulder before moving back to open her door. ‘Good try,’ he breathed in a way that left her unsure as to whether he was praising her efforts or being sarcastic. ‘But you’d better let me take it from here.’

This time Taylor didn’t argue. If she had she could only have wound up making an even bigger fool of herself, she decided, and she was feeling bad enough as it was.

With banked resentment that she knew was totally unjustified, she watched him put the car into reverse gear, pull back and set it easily on a straight course into the garage, bringing it to a halt beside the dark gleaming lines of his own saloon.

Shoulders hunched, she was waiting on the drive as he used the remote control switch to close the garage doors— a feature that certainly hadn’t been there in his grandmother’s time, she was certain—and as he strode back down to her she gripped her upper arms as though to fend off more than the freezing air.

‘There you are. All safe and sound where nothing can touch it,’ he said dryly and now she knew he was mocking her. ‘Does it hurt so much to let me help you?’ he enquired, walking beside her back down the drive. She wasn’t looking at him but she could feel his eyes resting on her with a regard that was as ruthless and penetrating as the icy wind. ‘Is it just me you want to prove your independence to? Or are you the same with every other man?’

‘So I pranged my car.’ The sparkling hillsides were almost painful to her eyes and she dragged her dazzled gaze away, tossing over her shoulder, ‘Do you have to make such an issue of it?’

There was a side gate in the low hedge that separated the drive from the garden. He reached around her, opening it with a sharp click of the latch.

‘One day, Taylor, you might realise—to use an old cliché…’ he held the gate open as she preceded him through ‘…that no man—or woman—is an island. We all need each other.’

She didn’t answer, mainly because passing so close to him she was all too aware of his long, lean body—of his dark and dangerous persona—dangerous to her at any rate, she decided, sticking out her chin, fighting against the truth of his words.

Perhaps he was right, she thought, hearing the gate close behind them. But needing someone too much left you exposed and vulnerable, didn’t it? Hadn’t she learnt that lesson long ago, with the bitter betrayal of that first and fundamental trust?

They had sandwiches for lunch with the tinned salmon Jared had bought in town, then they boiled more water to wash up and were glad to get back into the warm sitting room where Jared heaped more wood on to the fire, and where, for the rest of the afternoon, they talked and read. Taylor couldn’t remember afterwards exactly what they talked about. Current affairs. The state of the nation. Global warming.

It was easy not to be too worried about global warming, she thought, when the temperature was ten degrees below outside and you were wondering whether the candles were going to last out until the power was restored. But the discussion was stimulating nevertheless, like their discussions in the early days always had been, and it was all right if they kept to safe, impersonal subjects. She could go along with that.

When dusk fell they lit a couple of the candles and drew the curtains to shut out the winter’s night.

They cooked potatoes for supper on the open fire, listening to them sizzle, inhaling their increasingly delicious aroma as they cooked. Then they cut wedges of crumbling cheese and buttered the soft white flesh of the halved potatoes, watching them run golden with black flecks from the melted butter and the crisp, disintegrating layers of the charcoaled skins.

Jared produced a red wine that was too cold at first but which grew warmer standing, uncorked, on the hearth.

‘The snow ploughs were out in the valley.’ Glass in hand, he had just dropped down to join her in front of the fire, having finished his meal on the settee. She had been too snug to move from the rug, and now she wished she had.

‘I know.’ She had seen them, way down on the flat white plane that formed the very mouth of Borrowdale, or at least seen the work that they were doing, watched over by the harsh faces of the imposing fells.

‘It could be days before they get to us up here.’

She looked at him quickly. Her eyes were dark and guarded.

‘What are you thinking?’ In the flickering candlelight his mouth took on a sardonic curve. ‘That it couldn’t have worked out better if I’d planned it?’

She shrugged, trying to appear nonchalant. ‘You’re so scheming, Jared, it wouldn’t have surprised me if you had.’

He had shaved finally, earlier in the day, but now that dark shadow was appearing again around his mouth and jaw so that in the subdued and dancing light his features took on an almost formidable attraction, as menacing as the cruel heights of the scree-scarred fells.

‘Believe me. Improvising round a camp-fire wasn’t exactly what I had in mind,’ he told her, pushing a charred log back into the flames with the poker and a scintillating spray of sparks.

‘What exactly did you plan?’

Pursing his lips, he set the glass he had just drained down on the hearth beside her. ‘To wine and dine you in the best hotels Cumbria has to offer. For you to enjoy your holiday.’

Taylor cocked her head to one side, her eyes still wary. ‘Why? To try to tempt me into coming back to you?’

He shrugged. ‘Let’s just say for old times’ sake if you prefer.’

For old times’ sake…

Broodingly her gaze roamed over the mason-cut stone of the fire surround, lifting to the old clock ticking peacefully away in the centre of the mantelpiece. Beside it, on either side, antique figurines and plates bore testimony to a gentler age—a slower, less materialistic world. Like those framed drawings she had penned and he had hung in the recesses bore testimony to a happier time, Taylor thought with a sudden wave of nostalgia for those days washing over her with such unexpected force that determinedly she uttered, trying to stay afloat, ‘No, not for old times’ sake. Anyway, we were always fighting.’

‘Not always,’ he said softly.

She couldn’t look at him, knowing she would see in his eyes the same fervent emotion that thickened his voice. But, try though she did, she couldn’t stamp out the memories of her own traitorous desires. They sprung out at her, sensual and erotic, from the darkest corners of her mind, of wild, uninhibited nights when, scored by his verbal lashings she had turned away from him in bed, only to be dragged unceremoniously into his arms where hurt, anger and pain had turned to lust as dark and desperate as their rows had been. Because how could it have been anything but lust—on either of their parts—when it had been born out of such bitter words and scarring accusations? she wondered, shamed now even to think how wantonly she had abandoned herself to him.

‘That’s all in the past,’ she said and got quickly to her feet. Warmed by wine and the fire she felt a little bit woozy. ‘I think I’ll go to bed,’ she told him, collecting up some of the dishes to take them outside.

‘Don’t jump down my throat when I suggest this, but why don’t you share my room?’ he said. ‘It’s not warm by any means but the fire’s heated the chimney-breast and at least it’s taken the chill off the air. Your room was like an icebox when I went in there this afternoon.’

His offer was tempting. So was the desire to give in to the pangs of wanting that just being with him had stirred in her ever since he had ploughed back into her life. But pride, or common sense, or whatever it was prevailed and she said primly, ‘No thanks. I’ll be perfectly all right where I am.’

‘Suit yourself,’ he said noncommittally and, picking up the bottle, poured a little more wine into his glass, his movements measured and steady, Taylor noted, as though he couldn’t have cared one way or the other.

He was right about the bedroom though, she realised a little later after cleaning her teeth by candlelight in the equally cold bathroom. It was positively freezing!

She could see her breath on the air in the flickering yellow light as she hurriedly undressed and pulled on her short and less than substantial tunic of a nightdress.

Pale lemon, with a deep V-neck, cap sleeves and cutaway sides that left much of her thighs bare, it was something she had packed for a centrally heated bedroom, not the toe-nipping jaws of near Arctic conditions!

Blowing out the candle, she scrambled quickly into bed and, pulling the heavy duvet up around her, curled up into a tight ball. She lay like that for a long time with her teeth chattering, hoping to get warm, until her feet grew so numb she was forced to move to try rubbing them together. The bottom of the bed was freezing and her feet were like two blocks of ice!

Sometime later she heard Jared come up to bed. Always one to sleep with her bedroom door open, Taylor watched the flickering light of the candle he carried sending eerie shadows across her bedroom walls. Then he went into his own room and closed the door, plunging her into darkness once more.

‘Pig,’ she murmured under her breath, knowing he wouldn’t be shivering like she was. He scarcely felt the cold beneath all that sinewy muscle and he could easily have offered to have taken her room when he had informed her of how cold it was. Instead of which he had expected that she would lightly take herself off to bed with him!

Restlessly she turned over, tugging the duvet grudgingly around her. She heard Jared moving about in the room across the landing; water running in the en suite, then the sound of the big bed creaking as he got in.

She didn’t know how long she lay there awake and shivering, certainly long after he had fallen asleep, she was sure. At one point, jumping out, she groped around in the darkness and the wardrobe for her grey overcoat and threw that down on the bed. She had to warm up soon, she thought, or she’d die of hypothermia!

More than once, worn down by circumstances and the strain of the past two days, she felt sleep start to claim her, only to find herself awake a few moments later, still shivering with the cold.

Wanting to use the bathroom, she lay there for some time, growing more and more awake while she tried to summon up the courage to get out of bed. Eventually, telling herself things weren’t going to get any better no matter how long she lay there, she scrambled out and raced to the bathroom, darting back only to misjudge in the darkness the exact length of the ottoman that stood at the foot of the bed.

Stubbing her toe on one corner, she stumbled against it with an almighty clunk and then, hopping painfully, managed to grope her way along the duvet and dived back into bed, shuddering not only from the cold, now, but also from her numb and bruised toe.

Facing the window, with her eyelids screwed tightly shut against all the discomfort, she wasn’t aware of anything else until she heard Jared ask deeply from the doorway, ‘What is it? What the devil’s going on? Are you all right?’

‘No.’ Her teeth were chattering so much she could barely speak. ‘I can’t stop shivering,’ she admitted, past caring now.

‘You little fool.’ A few swift strides brought him across the room.

Without wasting any time he was ripping back the duvet.

‘Come here,’ he growled, sliding in beside her, and with that he was pulling her into his arms.