Whirlpool Read online

  Kirby shrugged, not bothering to hide her disappointment.

  It was all very well to theorise about such things; putting them into practice was a different prospect altogether. ‘Thanks for trying, anyway.’

  ‘Let’s have a rest before we go back,’ he suggested.

  She agreed readily. Between the morning’s exercise and the champagne she was now feeling rather sleepy, and a doze would be welcome before the long ride back to Braythorpe.

  She cleared up the remains of their meal, leaving the chicken scraps under a bush where the badgers and foxes would find them. In the meantime, Damian had folded the blankets into a makeshift bed. She eyed him askance.

  He grinned.

  ‘It’s too cold for a proper assault on your virtue, my love. But I am offering my manly shoulder as a pillow for your fair head.’

  ‘No funny stuff?’ she challenged.

  ‘No funny stuff,’ he promised. ‘Come.’

  His arms did seem a great deal more welcoming a cushion than the stony ground, but it was with a great many misgivings that Kirby curled up beside him, and let him slide a strong arm under her shoulders.

  However, as soon as she laid her head on his chest a delicious languor stole through her whole body, and she felt herself relaxing with the guilelessness of a child. And, before she even had time to even contemplate the wisdom of what she was doing, she was asleep.

  She awoke to the patter of drops in the trees overhead.

  A couple of hours had passed. The threatening sky had begun to weep at last, and, though they were sheltered where they lay, she could smell the rain in the air.

  She lay as she had fallen asleep, snuggled close up to Damian, his arms linked defensively around her. So intimate, she thought dreamily. So warm and wonderful, to lie like this, cradled against his strong man’s body.

  She could hear his deep, regular breathing, could smell the clean smell of his hair, that fragrance which stirred her senses more strongly than any cognac.

  It was a long time since she’d lain in a man’s arms like this. A long time. Not since Keith’s death. And that had been very different from this.

  The way Damian held her was so protective. So possessive.

  Even in sleep he seemed to be watching over her, guarding her. She’d never had this sense of security before. Nor this sense of…what was it? Something new, yet so achingly familiar. Something she knew so well from dreams, and yet had never felt in waking.

  It would be so easy to call it love. So dreadfully easy to let that dam wall crumble, and feel the weight of the water spilling out, tumbling down the rocks, exploding into a force that could not be controlled, could not be contained …

  One hand was clasped around her shoulder. Strong hands, precise and yet sensual. Hands whose touch on her body could make a fever rage. She battled that memory down, unable to deal with it right now.

  She moved her head gently so that she could see his face. He was so beautiful. In sleep he looked younger, not so commanding. His lashes were thick and dark enough to be the envy of any woman. The curving laughterlines on either side of his mouth were relaxed.

  How in God’s name had she been so foolish as to let him back into her life? Beguiled by his promise that he could slay her dragons. But it had been more than that.

  Much more.

  From the moment she’d set eyes on him at Caroline’s house she’d known that she was treading the edge of the precipice again.

  If she’d had Keith beside her, she’d have been able to draw back and save herself. But without Keith she had been wandering along that crumbling edge, with the whirlpool waters swirling down below, waiting to claim her soul.

  She reached up with infinite delicacy, and touched the deeply carved line of his mouth with her fingertips.

  His lips were velvet-soft, warm. She recalled their kiss with a painful stab of desire. When perdition was so enchantingly sweet, should she bother about saving her soul? Why not just let herself go, let the current drag her down, down, down?

  She felt him stir slightly, and drew her hand guiltily away.

  ‘Don’t stop,’ Damian said softly. ‘I was enjoying that.’

  ‘Sorry,’ she said in embarrassment. ‘Did 1wake you?’

  ‘No. The rain did. 1was just lying here thinking about what it felt like to have you in my arms.’

  ‘You’ve probably got pins and needles in every limb,’ she said with remorse. ‘I’ve treated you like a mattress for about two hours.’

  ‘I’m tingling,’ he agreed. ‘But not because you’ve cut my circulation off. Actually, my problem is quite the reverse.’

  He drew her close to him with powerful arms, and pressed his mouth deep into the chestnut curls of her hair. She felt him inhale her scent deep into his lungs.

  ‘God, you smell so marvellous,’ he rumbled.

  ‘I’m not wearing any perfume,’ she replied unsteadily.

  ‘Yes, you are. You smell of the moors. Of heather and rain and a beautiful woman’s silky skin…’ She closed her eyes helplessly as she felt his lips touch her temple.

  He kissed her there, then again and again, braiding a daisy-chain of kisses that stole down the curve of her cheek to the corner of her mouth, where the skin became soft and agonisingly sensitive.

  ‘Damian, you promised,’ she whispered, terrified by the hot rush of excitement that he was sending through her veins. She turned her head aside to avoid the sweet torment of his mouth.

  But he drew her face gently back to his. The wonderful, deep eyes gazed into hers, drowning her in their depths. ‘Are my kisses so unwelcome?’ he murmured.

  ‘They’re an unnecessary complication.’ Her tongue tripped clumsily over the words, betraying how disturbed she was.

  ‘There’s nothing complicated about a kiss.’

  ‘Depends who’s giving it. Who’s receiving it.’

  ‘I’m giving,’ he whispered, ‘you’re receiving…’ He kissed her full on the lips, his mouth covering hers with a decisive passion that overwhelmed her defences—such as they had been.

  She tried not to respond, clenching her teeth and making .fists out of her hands. But the intoxicating pressure of his kiss melted her strength, making her jaw relax, opening the moist intimacy of her mouth to his invasion.

  She had not been kissed like this since she was eighteen years old. Not since that night in the summer-house. But there was nothing adolescent about this kiss. It was devastatingly adult, an erotic caress that was almost shocking in what it did to her. She felt his tongue search for her own, slippery and firm incontrast to her own meltingly timid response. The heat in her veins was rising, her pulses starting to pound like pagan drums.

  She found herself clinging to him, as if to a rock in a raging sea. His hand slid under the protection of her jacket, under the layers of wool and cotton she wore beneath, until his palm claimed the silky skin of her flanks. She arched to him unrestrainedly, tacitly begging his tongue to probe deeper, to satisfy her mounting hunger for him.

  She felt his hand caress her skin, sliding upwards to claim the firm curves of her breasts. Her nipples thrust against his fingertips, hardening unbearably under the expert, tantalising caress.

  It was as though her body had been a dead tree that had suddenly covered itself in blossom. Suddenly, the erotic centres of her body were aching with need, aching with a hunger she’d never known before. As he touched the exquisite peaks of her nipples, she could feel her own thighs moving in unmistakable invitation, her loins molten and ready for love.

  Now every touch of her clothes against her own aroused body was a torment. She wanted to undress, here under this lowering sky, with the thunder of Sovereign Force in the air, and give herself to Damian.

  Give herself with the abandon of a sacrifice on a barbarian altar …

  As her thigh pressed between his, she encountered the thrusting pressure of his desire, and heard the deep rumble of his response, like the purring of a panther.

  Kirby
’s hand slid down his hard, flat belly, feeling the robust musculature beneath her palm … until her fingertips reached him, traced the column of his erect manhood. She felt his body shudder with the shocking pleasure her touch gave him, and a wild exultation filled her heart at the realisation that she could affect him just as intensely as he affected her.

  Her fingers grew bolder, exploring, caressing, until he gave a rough gasp, and reached down to catch her wrist in his fingers. For a blazing moment, he pressed her palm even more fiercely against the outline of his manhood.

  Then he drew her away, his breathing ragged and uneven.

  He looked down at her with eyes that were the stormy colour of the North Sea. There was a deeper flush on his high cheekbones. ‘This isn’t the time, Kirby,’ he said harshly. ‘And it isn’t the place.’

  ‘It’s too late to stop now!’

  ‘Almost,’ he growled. ‘But 1still have a shred of sanity left.’

  ‘Damn you,’ she whispered. ‘What are you doing to me?’

  ‘Nothing that you haven’t done to me,’ he replied. ‘How have we managed to stay apart for so long, Kirby? We need each other so much!’

  ‘You were the one who left!’ She touched his cheek with trembling fingers, ‘You were the one who broke us apart!’

  ‘So you rushed off and married Keith Waterford.’

  ‘I didn’t rush off,’ she flung back at him. ‘Keith threw me a lifebelt. I was in no position to refuse. Damian, you said you didn’t want me round you any more!’

  ‘Don’t,’ he said, shutting his eyes. ‘You don’t know how many times I’ve heard myself say those words…and cursed myself. If only you knew, Kirby. If only you had the faintest notion—’ He clamped his mouth shut, biting off the words. He kissed her instead, with hard passion. ‘Come on,’ he commanded. ‘Let’s go before it really is too late.’

  It took a feat of will to rise on her shaking legs, and brush the twigs of heather from her disordered clothes.

  This sick pang of desire inside her—how long had it been since she’d felt it? Had Keith, gentle, sweet man that he had been, ever made her feel remotely like this?

  She knew the answer. Only Damian had the power to make love to her in a kiss, to ravish her soul with a touch.

  His big, powerful body moved with effortless grace as he organised the horses, and helped her up into the saddle. Kirby looked out across the rainy moors, feeling the unyielding leather of the saddle press against the secret arousal in her loins. It was a pressure that only intensified the ache, the dragging pain of unfulfi1ment.

  She almost would rather have walked all the way back than face the ride-if her legs hadn’t been so pathetically weak.

  ‘We’re going to get soaked,’ Damian said, mounting his own horse. ‘This wasn’t the best day to choose for an … escapade.’

  ‘I’ll never forget it,’ she told him quietly. She had spoken so softly that she wasn’t sure he had heard her above the rain-permeated wind. But then the smoky eyes met hers, and she caught the glint of his wonderful smile.

  ‘Neither will I,’ he said. He held her gaze for a moment longer until she felt the lurching of her heart as his unspoken thoughts touched her.

  Then he nudged his horse into motion, and they set off through the fine drizzle back down into the dale.

  She pulled the hood of her jacket up over her hair, and squinted against the wind. There was no sign of the rain letting up. It was going to be a wet ride. But nothing mattered, not compared to the wild singing in her heart.

  And for a long, long time, as her horse picked his careful way through the purple swaths of moorland heather, she could still hear the glorious thunder of the waterfall in her ears.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As DAMIAN had predicted, they were both soaked to the bone by the time they reached the stables where they’d hired the horses. The wind had blown the ram into every possible gap in their clothing, and even Kirby’s hood hadn’t saved her hair from turning into a dishevelled mass of dripping curls.

  They surveyed one another ruefully. ‘A very romantic but wet afternoon,’ was Damian’s judgement. ‘I think a cold whisky and a hot bath are in order.’

  She knew he was staying at the Beechings, a private hotel outside Braythorpe. Elegant as it was, it would not offer the comforts of home, and she heard herself offering hesitantly, ‘I’ve got both at my place … if you want to come back with me?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said firmly. ‘I definitely want to come back with you, Kirby.’

  He spread a rug over the seats of his Porsche. ‘They’ll still get soaked,’ she mourned over the beautiful leather upholstery.

  ‘Things are meant to be used, he replied. Don’t fuss.’

  It was raining even harder as they pulled up outside the Lodge, and darkness was setting m, Any delays m their descent from Sovereign Force, she reflected, and they might have ended up spending the night out on the moors. ‘Which first?’ she asked him. ‘Hot water or cold whisky?’

  ‘Hot water,’ he decided.

  She led Damian to an upstairs bedroom, and showed him the bathroom. With its gleaming brass taps and marble fittings, it was an opulent relic from a bygone age, and he gazed round admiringly. ‘Another period piece. I’ll say one thing for the Victorians—they knew what comfort was all about.’

  ‘And there’s plenty of hot water,’ she smiled, turning on the taps. ‘Towels are over there … and I’ll see if I can find you something dry to wear.’

  ‘Something of Keith’s?’ he asked, meeting her eyes.

  She shook her head. ‘I gave all his clothes to Oxfam.But I’ve got some over-sized jumpers that might fit you, and I might even find a pair of jeans somewhere.I’ll put your wet clothes in the tumbledrier in the meantime so, at worst, you might have to sit around in this for an hour or two.’

  ‘Thank you, dear,’ he said solemnly, taking the dressing-gown she passed him.

  ‘It’s mine,’ she told him, ‘but it’s huge. It ought to fit you.’

  He hauled off his sodden jersey in one fluid movement.

  She couldn’t stop her eyes from glancing at his body.

  He was magnificently built. There was so little fat on his frame that she could see the hard muscles under his skin as he moved. The tan he’d picked up in Portugal was already starting to fade, but his skin had an almost Mediterranean darkness next to her own. Dark hair etched its way down his muscular chest, covering his flat belly in a disturbingly animal pelt.

  He smiled at her, his eyes sultry. ‘Playing house is quite fun, isn’t it?’

  ‘Depends who you’re playing with,’ she replied, trying to sound normal.

  ‘It might be pleasant to play with you,’ he purred.

  ‘Wendy Catchpole has already marked your card,’ she retorted. ‘Go play with her.’

  ‘Witch.’ he grinned.

  Steam was starting to fill the bathroom, chastely cloaking his near nudity. But even so, as he began to unbuckle his denims, she turned and fled.

  She went down to put his wet clothes in the tumbledrier.

  The big house was silent—it was the staff’s afternoon off—but for once it did not echo around her.

  Damian’s presence seemed to warm the whole place, his aura chasing out the loneliness that was so often her only companion here. She left the machine spinning, and went up to her bedroom. There she hunted out the biggest Jersey’s she could find while her own bath ran, coming up with a weird and wonderful assortment of things.

  She left them in his bedroom.

  Soaking in the bathtub, she thought over the day looking absently down at her own naked body. She had never been voluptuous, but that had never particularly worried her. Too many curves on a petite figure often resulted in dumpiness. And, whatever else she was, she was not dumpy. Her figure was delicate the flare of her hips as graceful as a classical Greek vase, Her breasts were high and firm, their tips peaked with rosebud nipples, She had excellent legs, with slim, firm thighs. Where they
met, a delicately shaded triangle of curls shimmered in the water.

  I know you body so well, he had said. I’ve thought of It so many times over the past six years. Remembering its sweetness, its delicacy.

  Pretty words. Did he know how much they affected her? Why had he hinted at deeper feelings, feelings much more serious than friendship or old times’ sake?

  Why had he been coming on so strong? This afternoon, up there at Sovereign Force, he could not have been more loving. Dreamily, she watched her own nipples tighten at the erotic memory. If he’d wanted to make her desire him even more than she already did, he had certainly succeeded. ‘There was still an ache in her stomach where arousal had blazed.