Chasing Summer: Date with Destiny / Marooned with the Maverick / A Summer Wedding at Willowmere

‘Are you all right?’ he asked solicitously.

‘The wine has gone to my head a bit,’ she said, clutching the back of her chair.

‘Here...take my arm. What you need is some fresh air.’

‘Fresh air’ was putting it mildly. It was bracing and cold, a stiff breeze coming off the water. But at least it was sobering. Not that Salome had drunk all that much. She hadn’t. A couple of glasses at most. Perhaps it was the company that was so intoxicating, she thought tartly as Mike led her across the car park, his thigh brushing against hers with each stride.

‘Are you sure you’re capable of driving?’ he asked.

‘Perfectly,’ she stated with conviction, knowing she wasn’t over the legal limit and desperately wanting some respite from his physical nearness.

Still, she drove very carefully back to the apartment block, trailing after Mike’s Jaguar from a safe distance, and parking in slow motion in one of her allotted spaces in the basement car park. Mike carried her large case over to the single private elevator that operated from that level, using his key to operate the locked doors. Salome sighed as the doors whooshed shut and the lift began its rapid climb to the penthouse floor. A few minutes and she would be able to crawl into bed, taking her fuzzy head and wretched feelings with her.

Halfway between the fourteenth and the fifteenth floors, the unthinkable happened. The elevator shuddered to an unscheduled halt and the lights went out, plunging everything into darkness.

CHAPTER FIVE

IT TOOK a few seconds for Salome to grasp what had actually happened. She stood frozen and disbelieving, hoping against hope that the lights would snap back on and the elevator would resume its smooth ride upwards.

But darkness reigned supreme. Darkness, plus an unbearable silence.

‘Blast!’ Mike muttered after what seemed like ages. ‘You OK, Salome?’

‘Y-yes.’ No, I’m not! she wanted to scream at him. I’m terrified. I don’t want to be locked away here in this small space in the dark with you for what might be hours. Oh, God, I was almost there...in my own place...safe and sound...

‘You don’t sound as though you’re all right,’ he said, his tone concerned. ‘You’re not claustrophobic, are you?’

Only when I’m with you! ‘I don’t know,’ she choked out. ‘I don’t think so, but this has never happened to me before.’

‘Mmm...I guess there’s been some sort of electrical failure. Do you remember which side of the doors that emergency telephone was on?’

Was he mad? Good lord, she didn’t remember a damned thing about getting into this steel coffin with him except how long and elegant his fingers were when he pressed the buttons! ‘Er—no,’ she admitted huskily.

‘I think it was the left.’

A vivid expletive broke the stifled atmosphere as Mike tripped over the suitcase. Salome huddled into a far corner so that he wouldn’t trip over her. That, she could do without!

‘Here it is,’ he growled. Some more rummaging sounds and a metallic click. ‘There’s a dial tone. Hello? Hello? Anyone there?’

Another silence, punctuated by Mike’s heavy breathing. Or was it her own?

‘Anyone there, dammit?’ he continued irritably.

More silence.

He kept trying for some time, but no saviour answered. Finally, he put the receiver back with a weary sigh. ‘I’ll try again later. Don’t worry, Salome, someone must know what’s happened. We’ll get out of here eventually.’

She didn’t realise he couldn’t see her shaking her head.

‘Salome?’ A hand brushed over her nose.

‘Yes, I’m here,’ she said hurriedly, and moved sideways out of the corner and away from his searching hand. He wasn’t touching her now, but he was standing right in front of her. She could hear his breathing, smell his musky aftershave.

‘Don’t be frightened,’ he soothed.

‘I’m not.’

‘You sound it.’

She sucked in a deep breath, then exhaled. ‘I’m all right. Really.’

‘Do you want to sit down? We could use your suitcase as a type of seat.’ Common sense told her this was a practical suggestion, but she hesitated to give him permission to be pressed up against her. ‘Come on,’ he insisted.

She heard the sounds of his dragging the case up against the wall near by. Two firm male hands found her arms, pulled her over, and sat her down. ‘Move along a bit,’ he suggested as he tried unsuccessfully to fit beside her.

It was not the most comfortable of seats, with one of the side-locks sticking into her left buttock and the handle jammed against her hip.

‘I think we should lie the case down flat,’ Mike said after a minute.

They did so, and this was indeed more comfortable to sit on, but somehow more intimate, with their bodies being closer to the floor and their legs stretched out in front of them. Salome was clutching her handbag in her lap as though it would protect her against hidden invaders.

‘Well,’ Mike sighed after another awkward silence. ‘What shall we talk about?’

‘Do we have to talk at all?’ she snapped.

She could feel the way his head shot round to stare at her through the blackness. ‘I think you must be frightened,’ he remarked drily, ‘or you wouldn’t be so snappy.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous! I’m not exactly pleased, but I’m not frightened.’

‘If you say so.’

He said nothing after that, and in the end Salome could not take the sound of his quiet, even breathing any longer. ‘You’re not going to sleep, are you?’ she said accusingly.

‘Hardly.’ She didn’t miss the caustic tone in his voice.

Another couple of minutes ticked away in slow motion.

‘Tell me, Salome, what is that perfume you always wear?’

She was about to answer when the word ‘always’ registered, and brought an unexpected quiver of alarm. Any man who recognised a woman’s perfume as always being the same must have been taking rather special notice of her.

Not necessarily, logic dismissed. Mike was a connoisseur of women, and would notice such feminine trivia as instinctively as some men noticed makes of cars.

‘It must have a name,’ he persisted.

‘Orient Mist,’ she admitted curtly.

‘Mm. Evocative...but then, it’s an evocative perfume.’

Salome’s breath caught at the low, almost seductive tone in his voice. Against her will, an erotic shiver ran up and down her spine, reminding her of how vulnerable she would be to this man if he decided to take advantage of the situation they were in.

‘You’re cold,’ he observed when another shiver rippled through her. ‘Would you like my jacket around your shoulders?’

‘No, no,’ she hastily protested. ‘I’m fine. If I want anything extra I can always get something out of my suitcase.’

‘Ahh, yes...our seating... Still, it is getting cool in here, and we’d be warmer like this.’ He put an arm around her shoulder and drew her against him.

Horrified, she allowed it, for to pull away or cry out would have been more telling. But, oh...the feel of his body hard against hers was unbelievable! Tension gripped all her muscles, turning her into a mangled mess of misery and desire.

‘Relax,’ he murmured. She couldn’t relax. She just couldn’t. ‘What’s wrong, Salome?’ he whispered, pulling away as he would to stare down at her. Except that in the darkness she couldn’t see anything, her only physical sensation the feel of his warm breath close to her face.

‘Nothing...nothing...I—’

There was no stopping her gasp when his hands found and cupped her face. ‘You say nothing, but your voice is shaking and so is your body. If it’s not our hapless situation or the cold, then what is it? Surely you’re not afraid of me, are you?’ His words had a slow, steady delivery in the dark, like relentless drips of water.

‘No,’ she choked out.

‘Then why do you tremble so?’

This time she could find no words of protest, no denial for what he was about to conclude.

His ragged intake of breath still surprised her. ‘So!’ he exhaled, his fingers tightening their grip on her face. ‘You’re not as indifferent to me as you pretend. Or are you so frustrated tonight that you’d respond no matter who was touching you? Does the dark help? Can you block me out of your mind, pretend I’m one of those gigolo types you use whenever your frustration reaches unbearable proportions?’

‘Don’t,’ she groaned when his thumbtips started stroking her lips.

‘You don’t mean that,’ he rasped. ‘You want this, want it quite desperately, if I’m any judge. And, by God, I’m going to enjoy giving it to you!’

Thinking back, Salome realised that if she had given him a cold rebuff instead of her pathetic little ‘don’t’ he wouldn’t have gone ahead, and she wouldn’t have found out the disgusting truth about herself.

But she didn’t do that, and from the moment his mouth met hers she was lost, lost to sensations she had never experienced before, lost to needs that had only ever been lightly touched on, driven by a force so strong and intoxicating that she was powerless to resist it.

Not that Salome took an active role to begin with. She didn’t. She merely gave him access to her mouth, a robotic permission, as it were, to take her lips, to stroke them with his tongue, to press and probe at them till somehow they were open, as though shocked into it. And into that startled silent cavity he finally slid his tongue.

There was no harsh thrusting or demanding, just a persuasive, seductive exploration that set every nerve-ending tingling, that made her lips fall open even wider, till the corners of her mouth ached.

But it was an exciting ache that Salome would have endured willingly forever. She even moaned her disappointment when he finally withdrew, her fingernails digging into the leather of her handbag with a heightened tension that seemed to be gripping every extremity of her body. All she wanted was to have his mouth back on hers, to have his hands searching for and finding every hot, pulsating part of her body.

‘You don’t want me to stop, do you?’ he said hoarsely.

‘No,’ she admitted, her voice shaking. ‘No...’

His raw groan stunned her. Clearly, he wanted her almost as much as she wanted him. Maybe he had always wanted her. No, no, a dim memory refuted. That’s not so. He said that wasn’t so.

His next kiss obliterated any further thought, and this time his mouth contained nothing but uncontrollable passion, a taking rather than a tempting. Salome met him halfway, their tongues joining together in a violently sensuous mating that could only be eclipsed in one way. She had no doubt where they were heading, where these torturous kisses would end. No doubt. And much as a far distant corner of her conscience struggled to make her see the wrong and the danger, her body steadfastly refused to recognise any of it. It needed to do this, needed it with an intensity that was frightening because it was utterly and completely beyond her control.

They were slipping sideways on to the flat side of the case, Mike’s weight pressing down upon her, when suddenly he made a grunting sound and wrenched himself away. ‘What in hell’s this?’ he growled. The handbag was yanked roughly out of her hands and obviously flung aside with considerable force, for it thudded noisily against a wall.

Now his hands were back, pushing her right down across the case, her buttocks on one end, the back of her head falling off the other on to the floor. It was a crazily uncomfortable position for her, with one arm lying up the wall of the elevator, the other flung wide, yet Salome found it incredibly exciting. She liked the feel of his touch, possessive and masterful on her spread-eagled body, liked the way her impatient breasts were being thrust upwards into his impassioned hands.

She could hear his breathing, as heavy and ragged as her own, hear his dark mutterings as he began working on the buttons of her jacket and blouse, then the tie at her neck. Cool air suddenly caressed bare breasts, a rash of goose-bumps temporarily sobering her. For a split second the appalling truth of what she was allowing came home to Salome but, before she could react, Mike’s mouth moved across her breasts and closed over one single, straining nipple.

A moan was torn from deep in her throat, the fingers of both her hands curling over to dig into her palms. ‘Oh, God!’ she whimpered. She jammed her fists down beside her on the case, but this only served to give her a lever with which to arch her back further upwards, pushing her flesh deeper and deeper into his mouth. Her head swam with dizzying pleasure, the blood in her veins surging hotly through her body.

Finally, when she thought she had felt every nuance of delight her breasts could possibly produce, he took one rock-like point between his teeth and gave it a not-too-gentle tug.

Salome’s mouth fell open in a tortured gasp, the shaft of sensation slicing sharp and deep inside her. Her mind struggled to distinguish whether it was pain or pleasure.

Till he did it again.

Both! she realised with another gasp. Both...but she didn’t care. All she knew was that she wanted it to go on and on. Madness! Insanity!

So Salome was startled when all of a sudden an incredibly warm and loving wave of emotion joined those other more electric sensations, impelling her hands to lift and splay into his hair, curling the silky strands round and round her fingers as she held him to her breasts as fiercely and possessively as a mother held an adored infant. Strange words of love hovered on her lips, dying to be spoken. She moaned in her battle to keep them at bay. Somehow, even in her dazed state of rapture, she knew the danger of telling this man she loved him. It wasn’t true, anyway. Deeply embedded maternal instincts were confusing her. She didn’t love him. She couldn’t...

Perhaps he took her moans as a protest, for suddenly he stopped those tormenting little nips, and began licking her instead. She sighed, half relieved, half disappointed, though the feel of a moist and gentle tongue on those highly sensitised buds was oddly soothing. But, when a hand covered her knee and began sliding upwards, any sense of soothing disappeared, every nerve-ending instantly on alert.

Salome always wore suspenders, and she gasped when Mike’s fingertips moved from the top of her stockings to feather across the soft flesh of her inner thigh. But he didn’t linger there for long, his fingers homing in on the heat that was already searing its way through her panties. Her breathing ceased as he stroked the damp silk, tension and suspense at what he would do next holding her frozen.

There was no hesitation. His fingers slipped underneath, where he began to explore her with devastating intimacy. Salome could no longer hold her breath; the air punched from her body in gasps as she sucked in again and again for oxygen. Her heart was going at fifty to the dozen, blood pounding in her brain. She could feel her muscles clenching tightly inside, and while what he was doing was incredibly exciting, she began to get a glimpse of what it might feel like if he was really inside her, filling her, loving her.

‘Mike,’ she groaned.

She had forgotten his mouth was busy at her breast till he abandoned it and the air stung the moist bud.

‘Yes, I know,’ he muttered thickly. ‘I know. I will...’

Suddenly, lights blazed overhead, the floor of the elevator shuddering beneath them as it lurched into an upward movement.

Glazed green eyes looked up into smouldering black ones, horror dawning instantly. Salome’s head jerked up from the floor, her stricken gaze staring down at her semi-naked body, her dishevelled clothes, her knees, raised and evocatively apart. Mike was still leaning over her, his face full of recent passion and immediate frustration.

She threw at him what could only have been interpreted as a reproachful and damning glance. Immediately, that impassioned black gaze hardened, his cynical expression challenging her to deny that she had been a willing participant in all that had happened, and almost happened.

Salome knew she couldn’t, which only increased her shame and self-disgust. But mixed with the feelings of humiliation was a righteous and indignant anger, for, in her opinion, he had indeed taken advantage of her and the situation. Hadn’t she practically begged him not to kiss her?

Yet thinking about that first kiss now, and how quickly she had surrendered to his will, sent a humiliating heat to her cheeks. How could she have allowed such liberties, in a lift, of all places? As she uttered a tortured groan, Salome’s right hand shot out to give him a hard push in the chest, and he fell backwards. ‘Get away from me, you...you...’

‘Cad?’ he suggested drily as he levered himself from the floor.

A sob of fury broke from her lips. ‘That word’s too good for you!’ she cried, her hands scrambling to do her jacket up over the gaping blouse, her only thought now being that at any second the lift would stop and those doors might open on to shocked eyes. Feeling sick to her stomach, she catapulted herself upwards, stumbling when her right heel buckled under her.

Mike steadied her with a hand on her arm, but she wrenched away, sending him another vicious glare. ‘Don’t you touch me!’

His eyebrows shot ceilingwards in mock surprise. ‘Really! A minute ago you were begging me to. It just shows you the fickleness of some women.’

‘You know damned well I would never normally let you even touch me, let alone...let alone...’ A shudder of remembered disgust reverberated through her already shaking body. ‘You took advantage of me! You...you knew I was in a vulnerable state about Ralph and that woman. You probably deliberately got me tipsy, all the time planning to...to—’

The lift reached the penthouse floor and the doors whooshed open.

No one was there.

Sighing, Salome sagged back against the wall, relief flooding through her. She couldn’t have borne for anyone to see what her shame kept telling her must be obvious, with her tangled hair, her bruised mouth, her over-bright eyes, her disorganised clothes.

Though any relief was short-lived.

‘You were saying?’ Mike drawled. He had moved to stand with his back against the open doors, his arms folded, his harsh gaze merciless in its derision. Looking at him now, Salome found it incredible to believe that a minute ago she had been wanting him. At this very second she hated him, hated him for being able to make her feel what he made her feel, without love or caring. It was cheap and horrible and tacky. And almost beyond comprehension!

She had known earlier in the evening she was madly attracted to him, had even fantasised about making love to him, but the reality had been much more shocking. The speed of her surrender; the intensity of her feelings—the madness of it all!

All Salome could think of to explain it was that she must have changed, sexually. She had read of women like that, who became more interested in the physical as they matured, who started looking for sex for sex’s sake, whose taste in men became overtly pointed in one direction. Her mother was certainly evidence of that theory, she thought bitterly. Perhaps she had indeed inherited the same weakness. It had only taken a man like Mike to bring it out in her.

An awful thought surfaced. Perhaps she had projected this new self to him this afternoon. Perhaps that was why he had asked her out in the first place, because he sensed this new vulnerability and frustration. Her mind flew to those earlier moments today when she had been agitated and not known the reason. Now she had to accept that she had probably been wanting sex even then!

Salome shook her head, appalled. This was the last straw, being plagued by urges she couldn’t control. Ralph’s treachery had stripped her of most of her self-esteem and respect. Now it seemed she was going to finish the job all by herself!

No way, she thought with a desperate burst of defiance. No way!

Dragging in a deep breath, Salome picked up her handbag and tucked it under one arm. She righted her case and, without so much as a word or a glance, marched determinedly from the lift.

With a predatory swiftness Mike’s hand shot out to grab her wrist, swinging her round, making her drop both bags as she almost fell. ‘I’m not letting you off that easily,’ he snarled, hauling her upright in front of him. ‘Oh, I realise you weren’t letting me, Michael Angellini, make love to you in there in the dark. I was just a male mouth, a male hand, a male body. And now that the lights are on you’ve changed your mind. But that’s too bad, darling, because I haven’t changed mine. You’ve damned well teased me for years, and you’re not going to do it again tonight!’

She stared at him, green eyes widening with shock. And indignation. ‘“Teased ” you?’ she repeated, stunned. ‘I’ve never teased you!’

He gave a snort of disgust. ‘Oh, no? Then what would you call the way you acted every time you came into my restaurant? There you’d be, half dressed and all over your husband like a rash, yet all the time making sure I was noticing what you were doing, flicking those seductive green eyes at me, that luscious mouth of yours always curved back in a sweet but treacherously knowing smile. Did it give you a kick to go home leaving me actually aching with frustration? Well, did it?’

The hand on her wrist tightened to yank her hard against him, his head dipping till his mouth was terrifyingly close. ‘You knew I wanted you from the first moment we met,’ he grated out in a low, hard voice. ‘You used that fact to play a cat-and-mouse game with me, probably to arouse yourself so that you could stomach going home to sleep with a man you didn’t love. But you made a mistake, Salome. You might be a cat, but I’m certainly not a mouse—something you’re soon going to learn!’

Salome swallowed, her eyes blinking, her mind being bombarded with the most incredible and appalling thoughts. God in heaven, had he really wanted her all along? Even worse, had she somehow recognised this, and unconsciously responded even back then? Had Ralph been right about her anger being a substitute for desire? Shakily she recalled how she’d used to look forward to going to Angellini’s, despite the derision she was subject to there. Then afterwards, in the car, she would definitely be on edge. And, though she wasn’t sure, she suspected those had been the nights she couldn’t sleep, tossing and turning till dawn.

Salome groaned and shook her head. If this was so, then her marriage had been a total sham on both sides. Not only had Ralph not loved her, but she hadn’t really loved him either!

Everything inside her screamed out that this couldn’t be true. She had loved Ralph. She had! In desperation, her mind focused on the one thing she could throw back in her tormentor’s face. ‘You said you had never wanted me! You said—’

His laughter cut her off. ‘I said that I had never wanted to take you to bed, to sleep with you! And I didn’t. A bed, I never envisaged, and sleeping was hardly what I had in mind. Hell, it was all I could manage some nights not to drag you out into a back room and take you there up against the door!’

All colour fled from Salome’s face. ‘You don’t mean that. You couldn’t—’

‘I do and I could,’ he growled. ‘You want proof?’

‘Dear God, don’t!’ she moaned, her eyes pained and imploring.

‘Oh, for pity’s sake stop looking at me like that!’ he flung at her. ‘Hell, I won’t force you, though, damn it all, you probably deserve it!’ With that, he flung her away from him. ‘Go on, get out of here. Go. You’re not worth it!’

Stunned, shattered, Salome stood there for a moment, dazedly rubbing her throbbing wrist. Mike snatched up her case and her handbag, and shoved them into her hands. ‘Here...now run, woman, while you’re still in one piece!’

Turning blindly, she stumbled down the corridor to her door. Somehow, she located the keys, and eventually found herself inside, leaning with her back against the door. Then she slid down to the floor and started to cry.