Desperate Measures (20 page)

turned on his side, propping himself on his elbow, one long leg bent, and slightly drawn up. He smiled at her. 'Is that better?'

'Yes,' she admitted unwillingly. He looked totally relaxed, as

much at ease as if he'd been posing nude all his life.

I wish I could be equally casual, she thought.

She tried to assume a clinical detachment as she studied him,

observing how the lean, elegant lines of his body had gained a new

grace, bone and muscle flowing in total harmony.

At the same time, she realised, there was something watchful

about the position he had taken up—something anticipatory, even

predatory. It was reflected in the smile which still played about his mouth, and in his hooded eyes. It was intriguing—almost mysterious.

Shaken by sudden excitement, she thought, My God, if I can

only capture this!

This time she didn't fumble or fudge the lines. Her pencil

seemed to sing across the paper, her hand and eye working in perfect

co-ordination. She had to do this, she thought feverishly. She couldn't lose it. Not now.

'May I rest a little?' Her consent taken for granted, Alain sat up

and reached for his trousers.

Unwillingly Philippa put down her pencil, aware of the tension in

her own shoulder and neck muscles, of the trickle of perspiration

between her breasts.

'Am I permitted to look?' Alain came to stand behind her.

'When it's finished,' she said huskily. His hands were resting

lightly on her shoulders, but the touch seemed to scorch her to the

bone. It was too reminiscent of the previous night, she thought

restively.

'It is time you took a break too.' His fingers moved, testing,

exploring. 'You're tied up in knots.'

Gently at first, then more forcefully, he began to massage the

aching muscles at the base of her neck.

She tried to pull away. 'I'm all right, really.'

'Tais-toi
,' he said. 'Let me do this for you.'

With a sigh of capitulation, Philippa gave herself up to his

ministrations. His touch was magic, she thought wonderingly, intimate yet impersonal at the same time in some strange way.

But, healing though his hands undoubtedly were, the stroking,

kneading movements were creating other strains, other tensions

elsewhere in her body.

'Relax,' he ordered softly.

But how could she, when, once more, her entire being was

responding—coming alive under his touch.

She felt his fingers move over her shoulder, and feather along

her collarbones, before sliding down to release the buttons on her

shirt.

'No!' She put up a hand to stop him.

'Sois tranquille,'
he said. 'Trust me.'

The shirt slipped off her shoulders, and down to her waist. His

fingers were on her naked spine, and the muscles which flanked it,

stroking and smoothing.

Her bared skin flushed and tingled under the play of his hands.

Her body began to arch in pleasure, her small breasts swelling with

sharp sensitivity. Tiny sparks danced behind her closed eyelids.

Trust him, he'd said, but the betrayal was coming once more

from herself. From the savage urgency of her unfulfilled body.

Then, with stark suddenness, it was over. The warm fingers

stopped stroking her body, and moved almost briskly to pull her shirt back into place.

'Voila.'
His tone was almost casual. He picked up her drawing block and pencil and handed them to her. 'Shall we continue?'

He walked back to the makeshift dais, pausing only to shed his

trousers, and lay down again, effortlessly assuming his former

position.

Philippa stared at the drawing in front of her until the lines

blurred. She was shaking so much that she could hardly hold the

pencil, and her mouth felt dry. She was running a fever—burning up.

The ache deep inside her had expanded into pain—into a hunger she

could no longer deny—a hunger which demanded assuagement, no

matter what it might cost.

She let the drawing board fall and stood up, tugging at the

buttons on her shirt until they gave way. One of them tore. Unheeding, she shrugged off the garment and let it drop to the ground.

Alain did not speak or move, but in the hectic silence, she heard

the rasp of a suddenly indrawn breath as he watched her.

She kicked off her sandals and trod barefoot across the space

that divided them.

The green eyes were watchful, guarded as he looked up at her.

He said softly,
'Et alors, madame?'

Her hands fumbled with the fastening of her jeans. The material

clung, encumbering her, and she thought she would never be rid of it.

But at last it was done. Her remaining covering was little more than a brief lacy triangle, but she stripped that away too.

Then she dropped to her knees beside him, her hand reaching to

touch, shyly, tentatively, the muscular sweep of his bare thigh. 'Alain?'

Her voice trembled into life.
'Alain, je t'en prie—je t'implore!'

Shall I make you beg me to take you? His mocking question was

now being answered at last by her total surrender.

He said harshly,
'Ah, Dieu!
and his hands took her fiercely, drawing her down beside him on to the folds of gold brocade.

His mouth was a flame, consuming her, and she yielded

deliriously to its demands, her body pressed against the length of his, savouring the intimate delight of the contact.

He lifted himself away from her slightly, his hands stroking down

her body, lingering on each curve and contour as if he was learning

her through his fingertips. Then the dark head bent so that his lips

could caress her breasts. The flick of his tongue across the roused,

rosy peaks sent needle-points of white-hot sensation shafting through her inmost being.

She moaned with pleasure, running her own hands in turn down

his back, across the taut, flat buttocks to his narrow flanks.

His response was urgent and immediate, his mouth returning to

hers, his hand sliding down to part her thighs, and seek the secret

places of her womanhood, so long denied to him.

He touched her delicately at first, his fingers a mere whisper of

sensation against her satin heat, then deepened the caress with a

warm and deliberate sensuality, beckoning her down a path she had

never traversed before.

Her eyes were wide and cloudy with excitement as she lay,

looking up at him, every quivering nerve-ending attuned to this new

and dangerous enchantment.

He smiled at her, then his head bent, and his mouth possessed

her instead with slow, devastating insistence.

The breath caught raggedly in her throat. He couldn't be doing

this to her. He couldn't...

Her senses were fainting, her body drowning in a warm rippling

pleasure which was carrying her inexorably to some edge—some

terrifying brink.

Her head fell back, and her body arched helplessly, rent apart

by shafts of delight so intense she thought she would die. There were tears on her face. She was aware of Alain moving, and his body

covering hers. Acting on pure instinct, her arms went up to lock round his neck, while her slender legs lifted to hold and weld him close to her.

Such a long time. The words sobbed inside her. Such an eternity

since this.

She felt him inside her, steel masked in velvet, and cried out in

joy and welcome, her embrace tightening convulsively as he began to

move, thrusting deeper and deeper inside her.

She was content for it to be like this—to give herself at last. But

then suddenly, amazingly, she experienced the swift dark surge of her own returning pleasure. The world of reason slid away, and in the

warm,

swirling ecstatic void which replaced it there was— only and

forever—Alain.

Philippa opened drowsily reluctant eyelids to find herself lying in

a welter of gold.

For a moment she was completely disorientated, telling herself

confusedly that she must be still asleep and dreaming, then reality

began to impinge, and she saw her golden world for what it was. She

began to remember...

Untrammelled late afternoon sun was pouring in through the

windows of the pigeonnier, illuminating every corner and crevice with warm syrupy light.

And Philippa herself was lying on the floor, completely swathed

in the folds of the gold brocade.

She sat up slowly, pushing her hair out of her eyes, assimilating

other details. Her own clothes, folded, had been acting as her pillow, but she had not the vaguest recollection of putting them there.

And, more significantly, she was alone.

Her sense of delicious lassitude began to evaporate. Where, she

wondered, was Alain?

She'd wanted him to be there when she woke, she realised.

Wanted the reassurance of his arms round her, and his lips on hers.

And more than anything, she thought, a warm wave of colour

sweeping over her, she had wanted him to make love to her again, to

ravish her body with his, exquisitely and completely, to make her cry out in abandonment as he took her, once more, to the heights of

culmination.

I've probably exhausted him, she thought with mingled guilt and

delight.

She had lost count of the times they'd made love. One lingering,

sensuous act had seemed to flow naturally into the next, as they

discovered new ways to pleasure each other.

She'd never imagined, even in her wildest dreams, that she

would be capable of such depths of feeling. But, at the same time, she acknowledged wonderingly that it was only Alain who could have

liberated her emotions with such totality.

She stretched, frankly enjoying the various unfamiliar aches and

pains that her body was making her aware of. Her muscles weren't

used to such prolonged exercise, she thought with a little grin. And the studio floor had been hard, although both of them had been too far

gone in rapture to care.

If Alain had gone to find somewhere more comfortable to sleep,

then she couldn't altogether blame him.

Her drawing-board was lying where she had dropped it, and she

picked it up, studying her drawing with smiling eyes.

I won't finish it, she thought. I'll have it framed, just as it is, and keep it somewhere totally private to remind me of today—the

beginning of the rest of my life with Alain.

She tucked the board under her arm and went, with one last

lingering glance at the sunlit room, down the stairs.

She had half expected to find Alain in the living-room. She'd

grown used to the almost perpetual aroma of coffee when he was

around. But the room was empty. There was no sound in the house. In

fact, no sign of life at all, so he must be very deeply asleep. Wherever he was.

Philippa put the drawing down on the table and went upstairs.

She pushed open Alain's door, and stood for an endless moment

as her shocked mind tried to assimilate what she saw.

The room was deserted—bare. All Alain's things were gone, and

the bed was stripped once more down to the mattress, the duvet and

bedding folded neatly at its foot.

Her hand caught at the doorpost, the knuckles turning white.

She heard her voice, strained, almost unrecognisable, saying, 'No—oh

God, please—no!'

But denial, however fervent, was useless. Without the slightest

doubt, Alain had gone—just as he'd promised he would. And nothing

that had happened between them—the breathless, seeking urgency

that knew no satiation, the frantic overwhelming pleasure—had made

the slightest difference to his resolve.

She flew downstairs, jerking open the front door, but there was

no car in the courtyard beyond. Slowly she sank down until she was

half kneeling, half crouching in the doorway. The warmth of the sun on her face seemed to be mocking her now.

She wanted to cry, but no tears would come.

How could he have gone like that, without a word? Yes, they had

agreed to part, to separate permanently, but that was a lifetime ago.

Didn't he know how she'd changed? How she now felt?

The unacceptable truth facing her was—of course he knew, but

it made no difference. Alain was probably all too accustomed to

evoking that level of response from his women. With him, love was not an

issue, as he'd made cynically clear. He'd had her, and enjoyed

her, and that was it.

He'd have enjoyed the victory too, she thought desolately. He'd

have relished breaking down her defences, destroying her stubborn

resistance, and reducing her to the level of a small, sobbing wanton

animal.

I like to win. Only last night he had told her that. She got stiffly

to her feet and walked over to the table. That was what she'd seen in her drawing, heaven help her, but in her excitement she had failed to realise its significance.

How pathetically easy she'd been to manipulate!

She undipped the drawing from the board and tore it again and

again until it was utterly destroyed. Then she gathered up the

fragments, took them to the stove and watched them burn.

She was burning too—with humiliation, and regret. Dear God,

hadn't she had enough warnings?

And now she would have to leave too. She couldn't stay here in

the house in the clouds. Not with these memories. She would have to

move on, find somewhere else to rent, put her life back together