Behind the Facade (22 page)

He took her through to the bedroom and laid her
reverently on the bed. He then stripped himself of his own clothes and stood
over her.

She studied him then, as she had not had the chance
before, absorbing the sleekly ridged planes of his powerful arms and chest. She
let her gaze slowly drift downward from his broad shoulders to his hard, flat
stomach and his strong, muscular thighs. She was taken aback by his physical
magnificence, by the sheer size of him. He registered the alarm in her eyes. He
quickly bent and kissed her with such tenderness and skill that her nervousness
departed and fierce tingles of sensation surged along her nerve endings.

 She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him
towards her, but he drew back and searched her face.

 “You can still say no,” he ventured. 

“You don't get off that easily,” she declared.

Reaching back, she undid the clasp from her hair,
letting it spill down in gentle waves around her face. He uttered an almost
soundless exclamation and drove his fingers into it, marvelling at the silky
softness of it as it flowed between his fingers. She arched towards him
reflexively and he responded by gripping her head and dropping his mouth to
hers, grazing her lips
tormentingly
.

His mouth abandoned hers only to explore her face
and neck, leaving tingling electric shocks of pleasure in its wake. As he moved
down her body she was lulled by the gentleness of his touch, swept away on a
slowly rising wave of sweetness, until he moved aside the lace of her negligee
and suddenly took one areola fully into his mouth. She jerked up off the bed
with a startled cry but he didn't release her and, as his skilful tongue laved
and suckled her breast, the flames inside her burst into a raging furnace.

When he raised his head his hunger was reflected in
her groggy, stupefied gaze. He roughly pulled the negligee over her head and
gazed at her with tortured longing. “God Kate, do you know how beautiful you
are? I want to make love to you slowly this time, slowly and deliberately.”

He ran his hands lingeringly up and down her slender
body, trying to calm the urge to simply ravage her, his breathing ragged. She
trembled and bucked as he touched her, the interminable yearning for his hands
on her again finally appeased but inflamed by a deeper, fiercer ache for closer
contact.

Grabbing one of his wrists she tried to draw his
body down on hers, but he resisted, intent on pleasing her and exploring every
inch of her silken flesh. Where his fingers caressed and aroused, his
relentless, scorching mouth followed, stimulating her beyond reason. The
quivering of her body and the disbelieving, involuntary mewls of pleasure she
emitted made him realise how little used she was with such attention, which
also brought his own arousal to a state of almost mindless intensity.

Her hands seemed to rove of their own accord over the
smooth expanse of his shoulders and down his back. She silently marvelled over
the hard masculinity and animal beauty of his body, even as a tremor rippled
through her at the barely controlled tension she felt,  like high voltage
wires, vibrating beneath his heated skin.

He shifted back up her body and as he did so,
overwhelmed by her spiralling emotions, she surged towards him, clawing at his
back and pressing hot, needy kisses against the side of his mouth and neck.
“Wasn’t I supposed to be killing
you
?” she breathed desperately into his
ear. Rubbing her breasts against him, he groaned in torment, certain that he
must explode with his desire for her.

Feeling the hot, pulsing length of him against her,
a spasm of panic jolted through her but it was immediately replaced by a molten
flood of exquisite sensation as he nudged against her swollen, aching softness.

He still held back, bracing himself over her, his
face twisted with strain. “I've not got anything,” he hissed. Unbridled passion
had led to carelessness the first time. To be so a second time would be more
than careless, it would be inexcusable.

Kate almost wept with the ferocity of the sensations
assaulting her mind and body. He had tried to deny his feelings for her but
even now he was thinking only of her. “It’s OK. I was prepared,” she breathed.

It flashed through his mind that she’d known him
better than he knew himself. It might have been a mercy if she hadn’t. He
gathered her into his arms and plunged into
her,
both
of them crying out with relief as they finally answered their bodies demand to
mate. He drew out his strokes, wanting to pleasure her but also wanting to
mould her to him and brand her as irrevocably his. The strain eventually became
intolerable and the sensuous rhythm of their coupling became frantic with
urgency.
She cried out his name as she peaked,
her climax cascading over her like the molten waves of a volcanic eruption, her
body finally releasing her to ride the fall into trembling repletion. As her
body
pulsed
its approval, his own dam was breached and
he shuddered into her with a growl of gratification, hurled into his own
sensory oblivion.

They lay entwined together, their bodies glistening
with sweat, their breathing gradually slowing. Kate didn’t want to move. She didn’t
want to even speak for fear of breaking the spell. She simply lay with her eyes
closed, savouring this period of longed for intimacy.

She eventually opened her eyes and turned her head
to look at him. At first she assumed he was just relaxing but then, after some
fruitless verbal and physical prompting, she realised that he had fallen
asleep. She snorted resignedly and fell back on the pillows, a smile on her
face. How typically male! She could forgive him she supposed; after all he must
be suffering from jet lag and on top of their recent exertions it was no
surprise he had zonked out. She gently shifted his arm which had fallen across
her and, draping the duvet on top of him, she left him in peace. At least
whilst he was asleep, she thought, he was here, he was hers.

When she emerged from the shower, Michael was still
asleep but he had thrown the covers off and they were knotted round his legs.
He stirred restlessly and as she moved closer towards him she realised that he
was dreaming. Sweat was trickling from him and the muscles in his face were
twitching and jumping with the power of the dreams that troubled him.

She advanced towards him. “Michael?” she asked
worriedly.

His fists began clenching and unclenching. His head
twisted from side to side. She reached him and bent down, her face concerned.
He was muttering softly and feverishly under his breath.

She touched his arm. “Wake up, Michael, wake up!”
she entreated.

His eyes snapped open. He spoke in a strange but
horribly familiar voice, his accent one that caused nipping spiders of fear to
crawl up her spine: “Brenna.”

Kate pulled back, as if slapped. She watched him as
if from afar. Her mind shot back to memories of events it had tried desperately
to suppress. She was back in the room with her kidnapper, trembling as he
relived some vivid nightmare.

Michael blinked and passed a shaking hand over his
face. Then his eyes focused on her.

“Katie?” he asked, sitting up.

Kate was already moving her body on autopilot,
responding to the stark visual and auditory stimulus it had just received, like
an animal reacting to the sight and smell of its natural enemy. She ran for her
dressing table and yanked open the drawer. She didn’t pause for thought until
she had turned to face him, holding a gun pointed directly at his naked chest.

“Whoa!” Michael exclaimed, putting his hands in the
air. “What’s the matter? What are you doing?”

She stood facing him, the gun quivering but still
held tightly in both hands, her breath coming in convulsive gasps, eyes wide
with terror and confusion.

Michael began to get out of the bed. “Stop it!” she
commanded. “Don’t move!”

He paused, frowning.
“Katie,
sweetheart.
Please put the gun down. Whatever has got into you?”

 He slowly stepped onto the floor, his hands
held out in a placatory gesture. He approached her, speaking softly and
murmuring endearments in an attempt to calm her down.

She backed away, her body shaking, eyes roving his
face. Was she going insane? Michael and her kidnapper couldn’t be one and the
same person. It was just too incredible, too sick. Had the re-telling of her
story served to unbalance her mind?

“Michael?” she queried hopefully, her voice breaking
on a sob. “Please tell me you’re Michael!”

He stopped as if doused in icy water, his features
frozen in consternation. However, he quickly recovered and warmth seeped back
into his face, transforming his mouth into a sympathetic smile. “Of course I’m
Michael,” he assured her. “I’m the man you said you love?”

She gazed at him, tears slipping down her cheeks but
hope burgeoning in her face.
Neither her heart or
mind
could accept the revelation she had received. It was just too painful. She’d
been shot by an arrow. It might be hard and cold and real, but she could not
accept such an unpalatable truth. She must reject it. She must tear it out.

“Yes!” she
agreed,
her
voice high with desperate vindication. “You can’t be him! You look nothing like
him!” Surely she could trust her own eyes above all else?

He had reached her now and he placed his hands over
hers and stared lovingly into her eyes. “You’ve been through so much, Kate.
It’s not surprising that it has all suddenly overwhelmed you.”

He gently wrested the gun from her rigid fingers and
then enfolded his arms around her in a comforting embrace.

She clung to him in relief, weeping and crying, “Oh
Michael! I thought you were him! I thought you were him!”

He gripped her more tightly in response to this and
sucked in a deep breath, releasing it on a sound that was more groan than sigh.
He abruptly let go of her and turned away, planting his hands on her dressing
table, still gripping the gun he had expropriated from her, the muscles in his
arms and back rippling with tension. Fear began to creep back into her mind,
like a disease that had never quite been cured.

She saw him lift the gun and then place it back down
on the table.  He reached up to his eyes. And then he turned back to her,
the chilling grey eyes of her abductor staring out of the face she thought she
loved.

She emitted an anguished cry and brought her hands
up to cover her face. He recognised that she was still trying to reconcile his
conflicting identities. He knew it was pointless to let the deception continue.
It was almost a relief to drop the subterfuge.

He spoke quietly but clearly, his Irish accent
strong and mocking, “You were right, a
chuisle
. I am
your worst nightmare come true. I am the man you hate.”

She couldn’t respond at first, the emotions
grappling inside her were simply too immense. They swelled and rose in her
throat, forming a wild cacophonous sea choking her. Had she got over everything
only for it to drown her in madness just at the moment when she thought she’d
found some happiness?

Cold reality suddenly crashed down upon her like an
inexorable wave, liberating her. She dropped her hands and ran at him, her face
twisted in agony. “No!” she screamed, raining blows down upon him, “No!”

She had no more impact on him than if she had been
hitting a wall of granite. He grabbed her flailing hands and forced her back
against the wall to more easily contain her. He waited, smiling at her
contemptuously. She twisted like a rabid animal in his iron grasp, spitting and
screeching, trying desperately to hurt him but only hurting herself. 

She finally wore herself out and released one last,
heart-stricken cry. Her legs lost all strength and she would have collapsed but
he caught her arms and held her up.

“Why?” she implored weakly.
“Why
have you come back to persecute me?
Why couldn’t you just leave me
alone?”

He pinned her against the wall, feeling her body
shaking through his fingers. He stared at her agonised, tear-swollen face. His
hand touched her cheek but she cringed away. He scowled and jerked her head
back round viciously. “You weren’t so
fuckin
’ frigid
earlier,” he hissed.

He traced the outlines of her face with his finger.
She endured it trembling, her eyes filled with revulsion. The pain of loss shot
through him like a brief electric shock but he clamped down on it savagely.

 “What gave me away?” he asked.

“You talk in your sleep,” she answered quietly,
seeing no point in concealing this.  

He frowned but then his brow cleared. “Ah,” he
conceded. “You dislike my Irish accent? A pity I had to ditch it. Most women
find it endearingly sexy but never mind.” He bent to whisper in her ear, “I
still managed to get a good few fucks out of you, didn’t I?”

She retched. A myriad of pitiful emotions washed
over her expressive face. Hatred, gaining ascendency, flew into her eyes.

“You bastard!” she spat.

 “What’s the matter? Don’t you love me anymore?
What was it you said?” He mimicked her previous protestations, “Whoever you
have been, whatever you have done in the past, none of it matters.”