Mistress on Loan (20 page)

'Well, go to him, Adrien, if he's want you want. But keep the pendant and lock it up in a bank somewhere. You'll need it when he dumps you again. Or when you have to buy him off.'

His laugh was brief and humourless. 'In ancient times they said rubies were an antidote to poison and a cure for grief. I hope that's true, for your sake. Because you're going to need both of them.'

This was the moment for every scrap of courage she'd ever possessed.

She said, 'I've only ever needed you, Chay. Only ever wanted you.'

His mouth tightened. "That's not true, and we both know it. You were planning to marry him, for God's sake.'

'I'm not proud of that,' she said. 'I never looked past the charm. Perhaps I didn't want to. I was so alone, Chay. So lonely. In my heart, I was waiting and waiting for you to come back. But you never did. And he was a familiar face. Someone from the time before that loneliness.'

'Was it loneliness that sent you back into his arms yesterday?' His voice was harsh. 'I was there, Adrien. I saw you kissing him.'

'No,' she said. 'You saw him kissing me. That's a different thing entirely. And I believe you were meant to see it. Why else were you there?'

He said slowly, 'There was a phone message. Jean took it.' His brows drew together. 'It said you'd met an old friend and wouldn't be back until late.'

'He called me on his mobile at the cottage to make sure I was there. He must have rung the Grange next.' She shook her head. 'He set the trap, and once again we walked into it.'

'You told me that he wanted you back. You admitted it.' Chay's face was still stony.

'You accused me of meeting him behind your back. I was hurt. I hit back.' She spread her hands. 'I have red hair, Chay. That's something that will never change. Or not until I'm old and grey, anyway.'

'You'll never be that, Adrien,' he said quietly.

'The image I'll always have of you is how you looked tonight—in Venetian red with my rubies round your neck.'

'Chay.' Her voice broke on his name. 'Don't...'

'You were a solitary child,' he went on, as if she hadn't spoken. T was isolated too. I told myself I preferred it that way. Yet when you weren't there, I always felt—incomplete. All the time you were growing up I had to accept that we'd become strangers. That I had to stand back—stay aloof.'

There was sadness in his eyes, an odd vulnerability twisting his mouth. 'It was a nightmare—waiting for you to stop hating me. Longing for the moment when you'd look at me and smile again. When it finally happened, I felt reprieved—reborn.'

He sighed. 'I'd just started to make some serious money when I saw the pendant. I knew I had to have it for you. I wanted it to be a talisman, to keep you safe until you were ready to marry me. I was going to ask you that weekend. Tell you I'd wait until you were ready.

'None of us had the least idea that Piers would be arriving for your birthday. He just—turned up. I thought you must have invited him.'

'No,' she said vehemently. 'No—never.'

'So I had to change my plan. I couldn't risk him knowing how I felt about you. How serious it was. Because I knew he'd try to destroy it, or take you from me.

'When he stole the pendant and planted it in my room I knew that Angus was right, that he was capable of anything. That next time it could be drugs.

'I couldn't involve you. You were too young— too vulnerable. I told myself it wasn't our time. That one day I'd return and claim you.

'But when I found you again, you were engaged to him.' His voice was suddenly husky. 'Can you imagine how that made me feel? I could see nothing—think of nothing— except you in his arms— his mouth—his hands—touching you—possessing you.'

He shuddered. 'I went slightly crazy. I told myself that you'd belonged to him, but now you'd belong to me, in every way. I planned how I'd take you to bed—how I'd make love to you so completely that he'd be driven from your mind forever. That you'd forget he ever existed. Until you could see, taste and breathe nothing but me.

'But instead, by forcing myself on you, I ruined everything for both of us. And I can't forgive myself for that.'

'Is that why you wouldn't make love to me again?' Her eyes widened. 'Out of some conviction that you'd hurt me the first time?'

He said tiredly, 'Adie—you were a virgin. I should have known that and treated you differently—with more consideration.'

Her voice was passionate, 'Chay, my darling fool, I didn't want to be considered. I wanted to be loved. I needed you to kiss the hurt away and show me how it ought to be between us. I thought that I'd disappointed you. That you didn't want me any more.'

'I've wanted you all my life.' There was yearning in his voice, and something deeper, too. Something almost primitive, making Adrien's body stir with sudden excitement. 'Throughout all the anger and the hurt and the partings you were the lodestar of my life. You drew me to you always.' His voice roughened. 'I wanted only to keep you safe, and instead I've driven you away.'

She shook her head, untying the sash of her robe.

'Your mother said the choice was mine,' she told him huskily. 'And I choose to stay. Oh, my love, let's stop punishing each other and be happy. I'm yours—if you want me.'

He was shaking as he lifted her into his arms, his mouth burning against her naked skin. The little velvet case fell unnoticed to the floor as he carried her to the bed and followed her down on to it, his hands tearing at his own clothing with savage energy. Adrien twined her arms round him—her legs. She cried out in shocked pleasure as his mouth tugged at her nipple. His hands grazed her thighs with trembling urgency and she opened herself to him, arching against him voluptuously, her fingertips seeking him, guiding him.

She moaned as he filled her, the sound hoarse, almost pagan. There was no time for niceties or even lover-words. Their mutual need was too fierce, too consuming. The desire to take and he taken too strong. The time for denial— even for gentleness—was over. She moved with him, her grace against his power, caught, possessed, by this new and overwhelming rhythm. With each thrust she seemed to draw him deeper and deeper inside her, her body clasping him like dark petals round a stem. She felt herself carried closer and closer to the edge of some whirlpool of emotion, and fear mingled with excitement. Then, far in the depths of her being, she felt the first tiny pulsations of pleasure, like the flutterings of a wild bird. Sensed them building quietly into sweet ripples of delight that suffused her entire being. And told her there was more.

Sighing, she lifted herself to him in a demand she barely understood, and heard her falling breath change to a whimper as all control was suddenly ripped away by some blind, atavistic force. She was total animal, drinking savagely from his mouth, her hands raking at him, her voice blurred, unrecognisable, urging him on. Her body convulsed in sweet agony as she was lost, torn apart, dazed and dazzled by the shattering rapture of her climax.

As he came, he gasped for her, his voice hoarse and breathless, as if he was drowning. And she felt the ultimate scalding heat of his possession. Some time later, he said, 'Are we still alive?'

'Never more so.' She caressed his lips with hers, her hands stroking his sweat-slicked hair.

'How could you know—so completely—what I wanted?'

'Because you're the other half of me.' He kissed her deeply, his tongue teasing and sensual. 'How could I not know?' He paused. 'Marry me, Adie, my one true love. I can't live without you.'

'And you were sending me away.' She put her palms against his chest, savouring the race of his heart.

'But only so that I could follow. You wouldn't have got far. I was hoping that if I let you go—you might miss me and want to come back.' His smile twisted her heart. 'If all else failed, I thought you might want the house.'

'The house is beautiful.' She put her lips to the pulse in his throat. 'But I'd walk out of it tomorrow to go with you.'

'I think we'll stay. It's time there was happiness here— and new life,' he added softly.

'Yes,' she said. 'Ah, yes.' Then, 'We'll build another treehouse.'

'As many as you want.'

'We'll fight,' she warned.

'How else would we make up?' Chay settled her against the pillows and drew the covers over her.

'Does it have to be marriage?' She curved herself into his arms, smiling wickedly. 'I've just begun to enjoy being your mistress.'

His lips touched her hair. 'Nothing need change. Wife by day,' he whispered, 'mistress by night. That's the deal, my love. And there's no negotiation. This time it's for ever.'

'For ever,' she echoed drowsily, and turned, in tenderness and trust, to sleep at last in her lover's arms.

The world's bestselling romance series.