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Goodbye, Yvonne.'
And then the most amazing thing: she screamed his name in agony
and despair from the bottom of her soul, and lost her heart forever,
and did not break. She bent at the middle and would have fallen to the
ground, would have gone to the lowest point she could possibly go in
utter, complete supplication to the winter king, except that he had
warned, but he had lied, and he had not moved one single step away
from her.
And he caught her before she could tumble too far. He was the safety
net over the gaping hole. The impact of his hard arms closing around
her body made her shudder and gasp, and twist around to cling to his
neck.
He cradled her as close to his long body as he could, and it was not
close enough. He jerked back, not gently, and unbuttoned his suit
jacket and pulled her into the gap, and that was better. It was better for
now; it was enough to hear both their hearts racing in united concert,
to stroke the dampened hair at her temple, to know a secretive
triumph at the trembling of her body, and the fierce exultation at how
she had reduced herself to such a point, which only he could save her
from.
'Woman, you're a hard learner,' he growled, nuzzling her face.
'I'm a hard learner, because it's forever when I learn it,' she groaned,
pushing him back with her nose, urging him to something. 'Adam, I
love you. There I've said it now, and I'll not say it again.'
He hesitated. 'You'll not?'
He'd stolen away every gauntlet she had ever thrown down, and she
had cast down so many that she was in danger of running out of them.
A hard learner could also be a quick study. She said very fast, 'I'll say
it every day, thousands of times a day. You'll get sick of hearing it, I'll
say it so much, and then you'll tell me to shut up. I just know you will.'
He convulsed against her, laughing so hard he had to lay his head on
her shoulder; at least she thought he was laughing, hoped he was. She
was worried, in fact, that he might not be, for the racking shudders
were an awful struggle. She pulled back to search his face, poised to
soothe, to castigate herself for driving them both to such a level, and
saw that his lovely grey eyes were filled with tears and dancing with
merriment.
He was so vividly alive with expression and emotion, such a startling
and complete contrast to the deadened winter from before that the last
of her lingering fear blew away, never to return again, for the learner
gained a new lesson as she realised that if she had reduced him she
had exalted him as well. She brought him beyond his limits, she
extended his endurance, and she made him more of a man than he was
before.
It was a glorious power she held. She tested it, whispering, 'I love
you.'
She watched him ignite with sheerest joy. He whispered back, 'Every
time you tell me will be a priceless gift. Every time I hear it will be
like new. I will never tire of hearing it, and never stop telling you how
much I love you.'
'You'd better not,' she told him with a new-found composure that
disintegrated as his face flushed dark, and he ran his hands down the
length of her back to grasp at her hips and pull her tight to his.
'Feel what you do to me when you say that you love me,' he said
hoarsely, his eyes glittering with fever. 'Be niggardly with your trust,
my love, put me to the test. Say it, and reach out with your beautiful
hands and feel me.'
It was a hard evidence that he offered her, hard, urgent, pulsing
through the constricting material of their clothing. She was frozen
against his rampant aggression, her eyes locked with his in startled
enquiry.
He groaned and threw a wild glance around the deserted
neighbourhood street, then he grasped her hand and pivoted on one
heel to stride with escalating speed back around the street corner. Her
long legs flashed as she worked to keep up with him; she stumbled on
the uneven pavement, and he grimaced, and caught her, and urged her
into a run, muttering, 'Hurry, damn it.'
'Adam!' she gasped, in protest at his manhandling.
He stopped for a whirling instant, hauled her to him, and kissed her
with unsteady, uncalculated, unskilled ferocity, piercing her smooth
chignon with destructive fingers, dragging her hair out of the
confinement until it flowed all around her head and shoulders in a
dusky, untamed cloud.
He gritted against her parted lips, 'It's been seven long, hard, dry,
suspenseful days, and I'm so famished for you that I'll probably take
you here in the street if you don't expend a little more effort and start
hustling, woman.'
She got the point, and nodded, and hustled. Since his flat was so close
by, he hadn't driven to the restaurant, and by the time he dragged her
up the garden path and unlocked the door of his ground floor flat she
was gasping and dishevelled. She would have laughed if she hadn't
caught his urgent need and become a willing accomplice to the
seriousness of the intent.
Yvonne wanted to scream at the unexpected intrusion as a matronly
figure hurried into the shadowed hall in response to the grating of his
key in the lock. 'Mr Ruarke!' puffed the middle-aged woman. 'I'm so
sorry Ms Trent called just as you hoped she would, and I did
manage to tell her where you were, but she wouldn't leave a
message --'
The housekeeper hadn't caught sight of her yet. Yvonne hung back
slyly. 'Thank you for minding the phone, Mrs McFaddan,' said Adam
in a serene voice, as his fingers crushed hers to a numb bloodlessness.
'And well done. You did just exactly what you should have done, and
now you may go home.'
'Hello, Mrs McFaddan,' said Yvonne as she peeped around the bulk
of Adam's shoulder, startling the other woman into a gasp of delight.
'We spoke earlier. How nice to meet you; goodnight.'
'Ms Trent! You're actually here in Britain?' The housekeeper's eyes
glowed. 'Oh, it's such a pleasure to meet you! I love your films...'
Adam exploded. He forcibly hustled the housekeeper to the front [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]