Deception (13 page)

'I suppose I could,'
he murmured thickly, his eyes on the tender curves of her mouth. 'At your age
you must know what you're doing.'

Only half hearing his
remark, she nodded her head, the quickening beat of her heart seeming to make
her deaf to everything else.

Yet, as he bent down
to her, she wasn't prepared for the
total
possession of his kiss when it came, nor the years of
experience behind
it, which mocked her first bewildered attempts to match it. Startled, she tried
to draw back, but his arms slid completely around her, crushing her slender
body closer, while one hand grasped a handful of her silky hair, pulling her
head back to take the full force of his hard mouth.

The hardness of his
chest made her breasts ache. She had invited his lovemaking, but it was more
than she had bargained for. His mouth was like an assault. As the kiss hardened
and lengthened she couldn't move. All the sensation which she had thought
she must have imagined, in his bedroom, was there. It flooded her body, jerking
her convulsively against him, bringing a sharp fear which tensed her slight
limbs virginally against the instant hardening of his, as the same
excitement mounted sensuously within her.

The drowning sensation
was too rear to be bearable. Frantically, as he groaned against her, her hands
clutched his arms, as though in a desperate attempt to save herself. This was
not as she had planned. If she had been guilty of planning anything at all, it
had only been one chaste little kiss. Nothing like this. Not something that was
turning her limbs to jelly and threatened to render her completely helpless.

As the pressure of his
mouth increased roughly, her lungs ached with the effort of trying to breathe,
and if she had almost forgotten what she was doing so, apparently, had Logan.
His arms tightened with an urgent passion that seemed to penetrate every pore
of her being.

The feeling was so
sweeping that she subconsciously fought against it by clenching her lips
tighdy. She found the strength to do this even while her head was swimming.
Vaguely, she fancied she was doing rather well until, as
though he was aware of her resistance and seeking
to punish
her for it, his hands moved around to caress the rosy peaks of
her breasts. It was then she was lost, as with an involuntary gasp her
lips parted under his.

Moments later the wild
panic returned, as she became aware of rising emotions which she couldn't
control. Logan must have known what she was trying to fight, but he didn't seem
noticeably intent on helping her. Instinct warned her that something might be
pushing him harder than she knew. A certain passionate hunger was conveying
itself in the hot, sweet exploration of his
mouth, his momen
tary blindness to everything but his own deep
needs. Unwittingly perhaps, she had put a match to something explosive. If
she got hurt she could only blame herself, for hadn't she invited—begged
him and tempted?

'Let me go!' she
gasped, with superhuman effort dragging her bruised mouth away from his.

He refused thickly,
'It's not enough, Thea, not nearly enough!'

Raising
heavy, distracted eyes, she saw the flush of colour
over
his cheekbones, his green eyes darkening to near black.
He wasn't
angry—she realised weakly that his strongest emotion at the moment wasn't
anger but desire. In a kind of mute protest she shook her fair head, but she
hadn't the strength left to fight him.
 
  

From her manner of conveying
it, Logan obviously read her protest as a form of agreement. Gently he smoothed
the heavy hair away from her damp forehead, as though to give her breathing
space, and his hands caressed the long line of her throat, pausing on the pulse
that beat there frantically. His touch was insistent but kind and she couldn't
resist it. With a trembling sigh of pleasure, the fight went out of her as she
felt his lips on her temple before he pressed them on her closed eyelids,
the side of her cheek, along her jawline. Then he was covering her mouth
again with deep, drugging kisses which made her
only want
to cry out and cling to him.

Easing away from her
for a moment, he unbuttoned his shirt. Slowly he took her hands, sliding them
inside it, around him, until once more she was crushed against him. Swiftly he
undid the fastening on the back of her bra. From there his hands explored the
slight indentation of her spine,
as far as
it went, before coming back to curve forcibly over
her slim hips, her
yielding breasts.

That she was suddenly
weak and shivering didn't arouse his compassion. When his mouth again took her
own, she was floating mindlessly in empty space, torn strangely by fierce
flashes of blinding light. As she clung to him her fingers tightened over the hard
muscles of his broad shoulders before burying themselves in the dark
thickness of his hair. Helplessly she shuddered against him, gasping his name.

When she had asked him
to kiss her, it had been on a quickly regretted, fever-born impulse. Never had
she dreamed it would be like this. She should put a stop to it, if only because
she had begun it. Logan was only taking what he thought she had offered.
Ashamed, she realised that, while she wanted to go oh and on, such complete
devastation could only end one way. Yet many girls committed themselves
easily. Why shouldn't she?

It was Logan who
called a halt. He eased away from her quite deliberately as if, Thea thought
resentfully, he had a switch he could flick on and off. Her mind was dazed, but
that didn't prevent this peculiar indignation coming through. She heard the
harsh rasp of his breathing, felt the sweat running down his heated shoulder
blades between her hands, yet his willpower was such he could turn away. It was
as if he had suddenly remembered who he was and what he was doing, and was in
no way pleased by the picture he saw.

He turned his head
away and, as she forced herself to look at him, she could see only the taut
line of his jaw. When he turned back to her his face had resumed its habitual harshness.
Fascinated by his obvious ability to switch quickly from passion to
indifference, she lay quite still, watching him. Grimly he removed his arms
from about her and got up from the bed. She tried to keep on looking at him,
but as he began buttoning his shirt colour flared in her cheeks and her eyes
fell away.

Making no attempt to
touch her again, he stood staring down at her. 'You're still ill,' he said
curtly, lifting a blanket and flinging it over her, something she had been too
frozen to do herself. 'When you asked me to kiss you, you were probably
delirious, out of your mind.'

If he was giving her
an opening she had no choice but to take it. She could sense the anger in him
and knew he would have no compunction about firing her. The desolation inside
her grew and wept but would not be denied one bitter protest.

'Were you trying to
prove I was or I wasn't?'

No way was he going to
rise to the bait. 'I set out to calm you down, but it wasn't a great success.'

Only a cad would have
hinted at her over-zealous response. 'Can you wonder? Going about it the
way you did!'

'You weren't exactly a
passive participant.'
      

His eyes were
beginning to smoulder and she guessed he wasn't quite as cool as he liked to
make out. But there would be no getting through his cool control. Never in a
thousand years would a girl such as herself be able to do that.

'Thea,' he bent,
putting a hand on her slumped shoulder, forcing her to meet his wary eyes. 'I
don't know how much experience you've had, but I suspect not much.'

'Why should you think
that?' She was crazy to go on baiting him, but she couldn't seem to help it.
Caution was overlaid with a fine recklessness.

For a moment his hand
tightened cruelly and his eyes glittered. 'Were you trying so very hard to
please me? I think I had to persuade you every inch of the way. I'll admit,
once you forgot your strange little inhibitions, you didn't hold much back,
but, believe me, it's a housekeeper I want, not a mistress.'

Between clenched
teeth, Thea cried tersely, 'That's the last thing I'd be!'

'Very commendable,' he
sneered, 'unless your ambitions go beyond that? You wouldn't be the first who's
tried and failed.'

'You're insufferable!'
she gasped. 'Full of conceit! I know I asked you to kiss me, but it—it
was just so I could satisfy myself about something.'

'What?' He pounced so
sharply, Thea instantly regretted referring even remotely to what had happened
the first night she had been at Drumlarig.

'It was nothing,' she
muttered, turning suddenly to bury her throbbing head in her pillows. 'Now will
you please go away!'

'With pleasure,' Logan
ground out, dropping the subject, which she had feared he might pursue, and
leaving the rqom with an ominious thud of the door.

Quietly despising
herself, Thea cried herself to sleep.
 

When Logan came into
the kitchen next morning he glanced at her pale cheeks and sighed. 'I hope
you're feeling better, Miss Andrews?'

Thea was surprised to
find she was. She had feared she wouldn't be able to get up, but within five
minutes, after struggling out of bed, she had discovered that the worst of her
cold was gone. A quick wash had alleviated any lingering symptoms and a
cup of tea appeared to have completed the cure. Her head still felt heavy,
her throat a little sore, but that was all.

Tilting her chin, in a
way not befitting her supposed age, she said coolly, 'I'm quite recovered from
everything, Mr Murray. You have no need to worry that I'll prove a nuisance.'

'I'm pleased to hear
it.' His tone was as formal as her own, conveying cold satisfaction that she
was being sensible. His eyes swept over her, the too tight tee-shirt, the
even tighter jeans, but he said nothing about them.

Yet, as his eyes came
back to the pronounced swell of her figure, a hot flush of embarrassment
flooded her face and she could cheerfully have killed him. He told her, if
without actually putting it into words, he wanted nothing more to do with her,
while his glance said something else again. He must have a sadistic streak in
him, she thought, to taunt her so deliberately. As soon as she could get to
Fort William she would get something to wear more in keeping with the sedate
image of a housekeeper. Until then he would just have to put up with her the
way she was and stop complaining!

But she was more
annoyed with herself, a few seconds later, to find she was watching him as
closely, as he removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, revealing
strongly muscled arms as he washed his hands at the sink prior to having his
breakfast. His powerful figure as he stood, legs braced, did things to her
heart which weren't comfortable. She could feel her breath quicken, her pulses
race.

It seemed the final
humiliation when he turned quickly and caught her staring at him and, though
she swiftly lowered her tell-tale eyes, she was despairingly aware of what he
must have read in them. That wasn't so bad, however, as being unable to
hide the consternation on her face when she returned from taking Jamie to
school and found Logan making arrangements to take the doctor's daughter out to
dinner.

It couldn't have been
a coincidence. He must have timed it to the exact minute that Thea entered the
hall. He was telling Miss Stewart what time he would pick her up. 'Six-thirty
sharp, which should give us plenty of time to talk before dinner.'

What did he want to
talk about? Thea felt her face go white as she tried to break the fixed contact
of his green eyes. With them he held her as surely as he might have with ropes
around her, the mockery in them hurting her as surely as a whip. With an effort
she looked away.

Jealousy, which Thea
refused to admit, slowed her footsteps as she unashamedly strained to hear
what else he had to say to Miss Stewart. He probably took Irene Stewart out
regularly, but she didn't think Logan Murray was a man to publicise his
movements. Then suddenly Thea realised his motives. This was his way of letting
her know that never would a Murray of Drumlarig stoop so low as to seriously
consider one of his servants attractive. Anything which had happened in an
indiscreet moment had better be forgotten—or out she could go!

Like an act of dumb
defiance, Thea banged the kitchen door, but Logan didn't come near. He went out
the other way and Thea told herself she was glad. She had come to Drumlarig
seeking peace of mind, but this was the last thing she was rinding. Neither
Jerry nor any other of her men friends had disturbed her as much as Logan
Murray— and this after only two weeks!

No sooner had Logan
gone than a stranger walked in— a woman, in her early thirties, and very
attractive. Need" all the women who came here be so beautiful? Thea wondered
despondently as, coming out of the kitchen again, she found this lady crossing
the hall.

On seeing Thea, the
woman stopped short. 'Oh, I'm sorry,' her brown eyes, which matched her hair,
widened in bewilderment, 'I didn't know Logan had a visitor.'