The Undoing of Daisy Edwards (A Time for Scandal) (2 page)

Chapter Two

Dominic

The first surprise was that I’d slept—and with no dreams that I remembered. In fact I’d slept deeply enough for it to take me a moment to remember what had happened. And even then I’d only just realised she was gone, the famous actress, when the door to my bedroom was flung open and there she was, looking none the worse for wear.

Quite the contrary. She stood there, framed in the doorway like some sort of exotic goddess. She didn’t walk across the floor towards me; she seemed to glide. Maybe it was the dress. You could see the outline of her legs through that shimmery gold. They were long legs. And her eyes, in the morning sunshine that filtered through the windows, really did look black. ‘Quite an entrance, Miss Edwards,’ I said, because that’s exactly what it was.

‘Thank you,’ she said, ‘but I think, in the circumstances, you might call me Daisy.’ That husky voice again. It gave me goose bumps. I liked that she didn’t try to pretend she wasn’t acting.

‘Dominic.’ I should have got off the bed, but I wanted to see what she would do. Something told me there was going to be a show, and maybe it was because I’d slept, or maybe it was the primitive in me, because I’d rescued her. Probably, though, it was because she was a sinfully attractive woman and she was here, in my bedroom, that my body was very much aware of her presence. And even though my body hadn’t been the slightest bit interested in any woman for so long, I waited, and I wasn’t disappointed.

‘Dominic,’ she said, making quite a meal of it. A slow drawl—it made my name curl like smoke. Then she produced a smile that was the exact same thing: a slow curl. ‘I take it you rescued me,’ she said. ‘Funny, but I don’t remember you being at the party.’

‘That would be because I wasn’t. I picked you up from a cell.’

The mask slipped when I said that. For a second she looked pretty horrified. Then it was back. Her reputation as one of London’s finest actresses had obviously been earned. She arched one of those perfectly shaped eyebrows. ‘So I’m a jail-bird,’ she said, with a whimsical little smile. ‘Tell me, Dominic, do you hang about the police stations on a white charger?’

‘No, I don’t saddle up until I get a telephone call.’

She laughed at that, and I got a glimpse of the woman behind the mask again, but the sound of her laughter seemed to startle her, and it was gone before I could decide whether or not I liked what I saw. ‘How charming,’ she said, sliding down onto the bed, sitting so that the curve of her behind just brushed my thigh. ‘Do our boys in blue call you every time a female is brought in?’

‘Oh, no, I’m very particular. They know only to call me under very specific circumstances.’

Her face froze. ‘You’re a reporter. How very naive of me.’

I caught her wrist as she made to go. ‘I’m Grace Harrington’s brother.’

She frowned over that, and then she smiled. Not a stagy smile, a more gentle thing, and more fleeting. It made her look younger. Relieved. Oddly vulnerable. ‘Oh. I see. Yes, Grace does rather have a habit of getting into scrapes, from what I’ve heard. You don’t look very like her.’

‘She takes after our mother.’ Which she did, in looks, if not in temperament. That she got from our sainted and now not-so-dearly departed father.

‘Thank you,’ Daisy said. ‘For not leaving me there, I mean. I suspect you’ve saved me from the embarrassment of a very unflattering picture in the paper.’

‘No one knew you were there.’

‘Save the policeman who called you. And let’s face it, it’s not likely that you’re the only one greasing his palm. If Grace hadn’t had him call you—as I presume she did—then he would have been on the telephone to the gentlemen of the press.’

She said it with a kind of world-weariness. I supposed that dealing with such things is part of being a famous actress. And that under that soft, vulnerable face, there must be quite a tough little nut. The contrast was—I don’t know, it was intriguing. ‘You didn’t have a handbag with you,’ I said. ‘I had no option but to bring you here. There’s a telephone in the hall if you want to call someone. If there’s anyone at home worrying, I mean.’

It had only just occurred to me. She wasn’t wearing a ring, though she wasn’t wearing any other jewellery either, which was a bit odd. But she simply shrugged. ‘There’s no one,’ she said. ‘I live alone.’

‘Me, too.’

There was a silence then, as we stared at each other. I hadn’t meant it to sound the way it did—or maybe I had, because my hand, which was still clasping that slim wrist, was already pulling her down towards me. I hadn’t been planning on kissing her, I hadn’t planned anything, but as she leaned in to me, and I smelt the faint trace of her perfume and the mint of my own tooth powder, and those big, big eyes seemed to look way too deep inside me, I couldn’t
not
have kissed her.

There was a split-second, as her lips touched mine, when I thought,
This is a mistake
, and I almost drew back. And then I didn’t. Her lips were soft, her skin cold. Her hands were icy through my shirt-sleeves, I remember. She kissed as if she wasn’t used to kissing, and I probably did the same, because I wasn’t.

Then something shifted. I don’t know if it was just me. It felt like both of us. We—we found it. Our mouths matched. Her eyes closed. Or mine did. And she sank against me, all soft curves through that dress, her breasts pressed against my chest. And she kissed me. Dear God,
how
she kissed. I felt as if she had reached inside me and twisted my guts with that kiss. When she tore her mouth away, I was struggling to breathe.

‘I don’t do this,’ she said.

I thought she meant she was going to leave. ‘I don’t, either,’ I said. ‘Not since—not now.’

She nodded. ‘No,’ she said, with a sad little smile, ‘not now.’ She sat up, pushing her hair back from her eyes. ‘I took cocaine last night. I never have before, but I was…’ She shrugged. ‘Anyway, that’s what happened.’

‘Did you enjoy it?’

‘I have no idea. No. I wanted—I just wanted to feel something.’

‘And did you?’

She shook her head, giving me another of those tragic smiles. ‘Nothing works any more.’

‘No.’

She touched my face, running her fingers over my forehead, my cheeks, my mouth, as if she was trying to read something from it. ‘That did. For a moment, that did.’

I touched her the way she had touched me. Forehead. Cheek. Mouth. ‘It did. Maybe we should give it more of a chance.’

She stared at me with those big eyes. Then she shrugged, and leaned back in to me. ‘Why not?’ she said. ‘I’ve tried everything else.’

Daisy

I couldn’t believe what I’d just said, but it
was
the one thing I hadn’t tried. It wouldn’t be the same. This man was nothing like Anthony. But that was the point, wasn’t it? I didn’t want gentle. I didn’t want loving. I wanted raw. I shuddered as I looked at him. That particular twisting, wrenching kind of shudder that comes from low inside you. Raw was exactly what I wanted, and I was pretty sure raw was what I would get from Dominic Harrington.

Maybe it was shameless of me. Calculating, even. Maybe I was still under the influence of that stuff. I don’t know. I didn’t think about it. It was as if something inside me had been caged and I’d opened the door just a tiny bit, but already it was pacing, anticipating. I could have shut it back up again at that point. I’m pretty sure I could have. But I didn’t. I wanted this. I
needed
it. But at the same, I was scared I wouldn’t have the courage to go through with it. So I did what I’ve always done—I played it. I imagined myself as Poppy’s friend Theda Bara, and quite deliberately I let out my own version of the Vamp.

I wriggled free of Dominic and got to my feet. The fastenings on my Lanvin gown were at the side. I undid them and let the whole thing slither to the ground. He was watching me. He couldn’t take his eyes off me. Daisy would have been blushing by now, but it wasn’t Daisy standing here in her stockings and her cream silk underwear. I leaned back over the bed to unfasten his shirt, but he caught me, rolling me down beside him onto my back. And then he kissed me again, and it was what I wanted. Exactly what I wanted. Raw. Rough. Hot.

He slid his leg between mine. I could feel the weight of his chest pressing against me. He still had his shirt and trousers on. I tore at the shirt, kissing him back just as roughly as he was kissing me. His tongue slid into my mouth. I touched mine to his. It was a shock. A good one. Like being jolted into life. Our mouths opened. Our kisses were wild. It was like fighting. Not anything like before. Not anything like
anything
, actually.

My Vamp would not just lie back or follow his lead as Daisy had done with Anthony, so I pushed Dominic over onto his back and ripped his shirt free of the buttons. He pulled me on top of him and kissed me again. I was astride him, my legs either side of him, and I felt his solid body, packed hard with muscle, under me. His chest, covered in a fuzz of dark brown hair, rose and fell fast, making his stomach ripple. He pulled the flimsy straps of my camisole down over my shoulders and my arms. My nipples were already hard when he cupped my breasts in his hands, already aching when he pulled me towards him and took one in his mouth and sucked.

Flooded. That’s how I felt. Flooded. But it wasn’t enough. ‘Harder,’ I said, and my voice sounded strange. Harsh. Guttural. He was circling my other nipple with his thumb. I felt as if he were tightening a wire inside me. ‘Harder,’ I said again. I don’t know why.

I didn’t want him to stop, but I didn’t want to surrender, either. I was—I was afraid. I wasn’t ready. I needed to take him with me. If I didn’t take him with me, it would be too—it wouldn’t be right. I had to fight. I think that was it. If I submitted, that’s all I’d be doing—submitting. Giving. Not taking. And I needed to take; I couldn’t give in. It sounds—I don’t care how it sounds, that’s how it was.

So I wriggled down, my mouth on his body. His throat. His chest. His belly. His skin was hot. He tasted salty. Up and down his chest went, in and out the muscles on his belly went, rippling like water on hard-packed sand. Down I went, kissing, licking, nipping, kissing, until I reached the top of his trousers. And then I fumbled with the fastenings. Just not used to them. He laughed, and his voice sounded strange, too. That guttural sound. Just like mine. And he undid his trousers and pulled them off, his underwear, too, and I couldn’t help staring, fascinated, though I tried to pretend I wasn’t. I wasn’t really so sure of myself here, because when Anthony and I had—but no, I wouldn’t think of Anthony.

Vamp. I was a Vamp. I would not lose control. Not yet. I would not hesitate, because that would show weakness, and I couldn’t be weak. That was the point of this. Strength. I was fighting for something. I was fighting for this wild thing inside me. I couldn’t be weak. I reached for Dominic, and I curled my fingers around that satin-smooth length, tightening them just enough so he throbbed in my hand. I could feel him tensing, all of him, tensing, and I felt such a surge of power. I’ve never felt anything like it. It made me want to watch him as I stroked, and watching him made me shiver and tighten inside, too.

He kept his eyes on me, my face, then my hand, and then my face again. His eyes were glittering, his expression strained, but still he watched me, and I could see him struggling for control with each slow slide of my hand up and down his cock. Just thinking that word, Daisy would have blushed. Actually, Daisy wouldn’t have thought that word. But when I thought it now, it made me heat, but not because I was blushing. Because I was thinking of him inside me, sliding in and out.

And I think he saw that, or maybe he couldn’t take any more, or maybe he was thinking like me, that this was a battle, because he rolled me onto my back again and his kiss was savage. I kissed him back like a savage, too. Then he worked his way down my body as I had his, kissing my throat, my breasts, licking and sucking huge waves of pleasure from my nipples down low to my belly and lower. Then down. He pulled my hand-stitched underwear from me as if it was nothing. I was lying there in just my stockings. He was between my legs, looking down at me, chest heaving. Then he smiled. Not a happy smile, but—I don’t know how to describe it, but I felt that smile reflected in mine, and he slid his fingers inside me, just as I’d imagined, watching me just as I’d watched him, and I curled tight inside with the effort not to let go. He stroked me slowly. Watching. We were both watching. I’d never watched before. Never wanted to be watched in this kind of secret moment. But there was something about the image of the two of us, not quite joined, my pale skin against his olive-coloured, and something about the way he touched me, watched me, that made me want to rip at him, to push myself at him, to have him deeper, to dig my fingers into him, not to hurt, but close to that.

It caught me by surprise. I couldn’t stop it then. The tensing, clutching. I tried to hold on. I struggled, but he wouldn’t let me, and then I didn’t want to hold on, all I wanted was for him to be inside me. He sensed it. Saw it. Heard it. I grabbed and clutched, and he pulled me against him, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, and he slid into me, hard and high, and dear God, but it was—it was like nothing. Everything.

I was already coming. I was shouting. ‘Harder. Again. Harder.’ I didn’t know what I meant. I just wanted, wanted, wanted. I couldn’t remember the last time I had wanted. It was so good just to want. And then it took me, as he pounded into me, and I grabbed onto the headboard and arched up so that he thrust higher, and I cried out over and over, over and over, barely conscious of him coming, pulling himself away from me just in time, and it was only then that I thought we should have used a preservative, but honestly, I didn’t care, not then. All I cared about was the tidal wave that caught me, wrenched me, turned me inside out, and cast me up, panting, under the hot, hard body of a man who was a total stranger.

Chapter Three

Dominic

She didn’t stay. I was glad at the time. I dimly remembered from before that afterwards was a time for holding, for tenderness, for gentle words and quiet murmurings. Honestly, I could barely imagine such things, let alone act them out. She probably could have—acted, if not remembered—but she didn’t want to. She was out of my bed as soon as it was over, pulling on that dress, refusing to catch my eye, and that suited me just fine. I gave her a coat. She wouldn’t let me give her money for a taxi-cab, or call one. She seemed as anxious to be gone as I was to be rid of her.