Kelly's Man (8 page)

Then the door was open. With unaccustomed politeness Nicholas waited for her to precede him into the cottage. Quite suddenly Kelly's mind cleared. With a show of outward docility and reluctance she walked slowly through the doorway, then she whirled around to close the door. She had moved very quickly, but Nicholas was even quicker. A foot was thrust through the opening, blocking the movement of the door. Still Kelly did not give up the struggle. With all her strength she pushed against the door. The struggle lasted no more than a moment, then a broad shoulder pushed the door easily back at her.

Very deliberately he closed the door. She stood quite still, watching him, her reactions numbed, her body stiff with fright. Too late she eyed the open bedroom. If she had acted more quickly she might have made the room and locked that door. But it was obvious that Nicholas had anticipated that route of escape, for the tough wall of his body had already moved to a point where she could not get past it.

He stepped closer to her. An unholy light gleamed in the dark eyes. The line of his jaw was long and rigid and with the hint of steel that seemed such an intrinsic part of the man. Above the formal shirt he had worn for dinner, his throat rose strong and bronzed. The cut of his expensive trousers was narrow, revealing long muscled legs. Transcending the cut and quality of his clothes was an aura of sensual virility, of power and strength and uncompromising ruthlessness.

Kelly opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. She was rendered totally speechless by the sheer primitiveness of the male figure towering so ominously above her. His eyes ravaged her face, taking in every detail of the wide green eyes, luminous and frightened, the trembling half-open lips, the little pulse beating too quickly at the base of the slender throat. Then, blatantly, insolently, they moved downwards, over the rapid rise and fall of her breasts occasioned by the unevenness of her breathing, and then further still to the gently rounded hips beneath the soft fabric of her dress.

'Please, Nicholas ..she managed to whisper at last, in an unconscious repetition of her earlier unheeded pleading.

'Please, Nicholas,' he mocked her. 'Please what? Are you asking me to make love to you, to show you what you've been missing in your milksop of a fianc£?'

She was so frightened now that she could only shake her head violently. The blood was pounding in her temples, and her legs were so weak that she could hardly stand.

There was no softness in the grey eyes that came up once more to hers. No understanding, no compassion. There was no tenderness in the hands that pulled her towards him, in the lips that closed on hers.

Just when she needed her strength the most, her limbs were weaker than they had ever been. But she did not give up the struggle easily. Later she would remember that she had pummelled his chest hard with her fists, that she had tried to twist her head away from his, and that, failing in her efforts to do so, she had bitten him and had had the satisfaction of tasting blood.

But with the memory came the knowledge that the struggle did not last long. For as his hands moved over her, moulding her body to his, and as the pressure of his lips increased, forcing hers open, the kiss deepening so that it tasted and probed and explored, treacherous flames of delight seared her body, and the effort to oppose him became even more an effort to oppose herself.

Nicholas raised his head once. 'Stop fighting me.'

'Never!' The word wrenched out on a sob.

'You want this as much as I do,' he said roughly. 'Stop kidding yourself, Kelly.'

She tried to answer, but his lips were on hers again, and the lean-fingered hands were sliding over her back to her hips, her thighs. And then he was lifting her in his arms, and as easily as if she was a doll he carried her into the bedroom.

She could not speak as he put her down on the bed. She could only stare at him with the tears welling in her eyes. She tried to sit up, but he held her down easily with one hand, while with the other he took off his shirt. Just as easily he slipped the dress from her body. He seemed to take her protests as nothing more than token resistance as he turned her sideways and slid down a zipper with an expertise which spoke of much practice.

Not a word passed between them as he undressed both her and himself. Kelly shuddered as he lowered himself on to the bed and she felt the weight of his body on hers. Dimly she knew that she must get away from him, that she must find a way to save herself before it was too late. But it was becoming increasingly hard to think as waves of sensation cascaded through her. Even while the last vestiges of rational thought rebelled against Nicholas's behaviour, her femininity responded with elation to the maleness which seemed to envelop her, to the strong beat of the heart against her breasts, to the roughness of his cheeks and the tautness of the long thighs against her own soft ones.

Nothing she had ever experienced had prepared her for the ecstasy which filled her senses and dulled her brain. A hand left her back and went to a breast, cupping its fullness, then the lips which had ravaged her face descended to her throat, and finally to the other breast. Quite involuntarily her arms went around his back, and her fingers knotted in his hair. She heard his swift intake of breath, and then he was lifting himself from her. She saw him unbuckle the belt of his trousers.

It was at that moment that sanity returned.

'Nicholas...' a sobbing gasp, 'I really am a virgin.'

His hand was still on his belt as he looked down at her. His breathing was ragged, but the eyes that studied hers were bleak and hard. If she was devastated by what had happened between them, there was nothing in his own expression to indicate that he felt anything at all.

'Nicholas...'

'I believe you.' His voice was harsh. 'Perhaps I'm a fool, but I believe you.'

'Then you won't... won't...' She could not finish the sentence.

'Rape you?' A short laugh. 'I get my fun whenever I want it, Kelly. Raping virgins doesn't happen to be my scene.'

He stood up. She was still lying on the bed. Her hands were on her breasts now, covering them from his sight, irrationally oblivious of the fact that he had touched them, that his lips had tasted them, oblivious of everything except an unaccountable feeling of bereftness and disappointment. Insanity it might be, but more than anything else she wanted to feel his arms around her again.

'Goodnight, Kelly.'

'Will you go back to the hotel?' she managed to ask.

'There isn't a room—you know that. But it just so happens that I prefer to bed down on the couch in the living-room.'

She should have been relieved, but perversely she was not. For there was insult in his words, and his meaning could not have been clearer. He had found her wanting. She had not come up to the standards of the women he knew. Serena de Jager ... In his eyes Kelly was not a woman.

'Sleep well, Kelly,' he said as he turned to the door.

Sleep well? She wondered if she would sleep at all. Long after Nicholas had closed the door, she lay quite still, just as he had left her. She heard him moving about the living-room. He was whistling softly, the sound of a man without a care in the world.

At last all was still. Very quietly Kelly lifted herself from the bed, walked to the door on bare feet and opened it just a crack. The room was in darkness, and she could hear the sound of slow steady breathing. She closed the door again and went to the mirror.

The face she saw there was quite unlike the one Kelly Stanwick normally presented to the world. Auburn curls were tangled and untidy. Her cheeks were flushed, and in her green eyes was a look of searing wildness. On her lips was a spot of dry blood—Nicholas's or her own? She remembered she had bitten him. Was it possible that he had retaliated? Gingerly she took a tissue and wiped away the blood. It was indeed Nicholas's. But she saw that her own lips were bruised.

Quietly, for she did not want to waken Nicholas, she took a shower and put on her nightie. Then she slid beneath the sheets of the double bed.

F
OR
hours, it seemed, Kelly lay sleepless. The curtains were open and so were the windows, for there was a netting-screen to keep out the insects of the night. The fragrance of the tropical shrubs wafted in from the garden, and the sky was studded with stars.

She lay very still. Looking out into the darkness of the African night, she relived all that had happened. Her body was bruised from the struggle with Nicholas. Her emotions were battered.

The rational part of her mind was still outraged with the manner in which Nicholas had forced himself on to her. It was this rational part which told her that she hated him now more than ever before; that the sooner she could leave Great Peaks Lodge and never see Nicholas Van Mijden again, the better it would be.

But there was another part of her which spoke differently. Paradoxically, this part was filled with a strange kind of elation. For Kelly knew that in all her life she had never felt quite so vital and alive, quite so feminine. And with this realisation came another. Lying alone in the stillness of the night, she could admit to herself that Nicholas had stirred her to such an extent that she had been fighting herself even more than she had been fighting him. There had come a moment in his love-making when her barriers of resistance had crumbled. At that moment there had been only the wish to surrender, to be as close to him as a woman can be to a man. She wondered what would have happened if Nicholas had not given in to her plea.

If this knowledge filled her with elation—for she had never known she could be so stirred by a man —it filled her as well with despair. In the society in which she moved there were many women who took their fun where they could get it. Kelly was different. She had always associated sex with love, and love with marriage. And here was the reason for her confusion. She did not love Nicholas—she
could not
love him. She was in love with Gary. And yet there was no denying that Nicholas had raised her to heights she had never dreamed existed, and in doing so he had turned her world upside down.

What would he say if he knew how she felt? Would the grey eyes light with the mockery she so detested, and the mobile lips curve in a cruel smile? But he would never know, she vowed. As soon as Mary Anderson returned, Kelly would be free to go back to Durban. She would not see Nicholas again. And she could only pray that his image would eventually cease to haunt her.

It was a long time before she closed her eyes. Finally she fell into a deep and exhausted sleep. She was awoken quite suddenly. Behind her closed lids there was darkness, but from somewhere near her came the aromatic smell of freshly-brewed coffee.

A little dazed, she sat up and rubbed her eyes. Only half awake, she was not yet fully conscious of her surroundings. And then her eyes opened, and she saw that she was in the double bed of the Andersons. Standing next to the bed was Nicholas, and in his hand was a cup of coffee.

Hastily she clutched at the sheet and drew it up to her neck. She stared up at him wide-eyed, disconcerted by his sudden grin of amusement.

'Such modesty,' he mocked her. 'I've seen you in less, remember?'

'Only too well,' she ground out. 'And if you had any decency you'd let me forget it. What are you doing in here?'

'It's time to get up.'

'I'm tired,' she protested. 'Nicholas, it's still dark.'

'It's almost six o'clock,' he said matter-of-factly. 'Time you got to work.'

His arrogance brought out the rebel in her. 'Get out of here I' she ordered.

'Not before I see you get up.'

The quiet authority in his tone had a sobering effect. Staring at him, she saw that he was quite serious. All at once she felt uncertain.

'I'm tired,' she pleaded. 'Yesterday was a long day.'

'And today will be even longer.' He did not speak unkindly, but neither was there any sympathy in his manner. 'Drink your coffee, Kelly. You'll feel better afterwards.'

'No.' Much as she longed for the taste of strong hot coffee, she would not give in to him. He would see it only as another victory. 'I will not have yourcoffee, and I intend to sleep for at least another hour. Now will you kindly clear out of here!'

A sardonic light gleamed in his eyes and a lazy smile tilted the corners of his mouth as he studied her. He looked tall and sleek and excitingly dangerous. He must have risen some time before, for he was dressed and shaved, and his whole bearing seemed fresh and alert. A navy knitted shirt hugged the contours of the muscled chest, and matching trousers moulded the long thighs. There was a sudden tightness in Kelly's chest as memory flooded too vividly back, and she could feel again the chest and thighs against her own soft body.

'So,' he said very softly, 'you like things the hard way. I wonder if Mr Gary Sloane knows quite what he's letting himself in for.'

With one swift movement he had torn the sheet from her clutching hands. Then he had scooped her into his arms, as effortlessly as if she was a doll.

Through the gossamer thinness of her nightgown Kelly felt the burning hardness of his chest. One arm was beneath her knee, the other was tight around her back. The smell of maleness filled her nostrils, so overpowering that she felt dizzy. And in her veins surged a flaming tongue of desire which made her weak.

'Put me down!' she managed to say.

'Did you think I had something else in mind?' he enquired outrageously. 'Sorry to disappoint you, Kelly, but there's work to do, and you and I are going to do it.' Without ceremony he dumped her on the bathroom floor. 'Have a shower,' he ordered. His eyes flicked the transparency of the nightgown.

'And then put on something a little more suitable for work.'

'You take pleasure in humiliating me, don't you?' she ground out bitterly.

'Is that how you see it?' He grinned, and for a moment there was a flicker of warmth in the grey eyes. 'Perhaps it's just the first time in your life that you've been treated as if you're an ordinary mortal.'

Certainly the first time that she had met anyone quite so arrogant and conceited I Also, whispered a voice deep inside her, the first time she had met someone who was her match. For the men she had known until now, with the exception of Gary, were people she had secretly despised. Men who flirted and flattered because they saw in Kelly Stanwick a chance to marry the daughter of a millionaire tycoon. Men who did not want to make their way in life by way of their own strengths as her father had done. As Nicholas Van Mijden would no doubt do—if he had not done so already. The revelation was sharp and lightning-swift. Nicholas would not bend to any woman for her worldly possessions. Gary was like him in that sense, Kelly told herself. He had made it so clear that he did not want her money. And yet while she loved her fiance for the laughter and vitality he had brought into her life, it came to her that she did not look up to him or respect him. The fact had never bothered her before. She wondered why it should do so now. Except perhaps that for the first time in her life she had met a man who forced her to respect him.