Out Of The Night. PENNY JORDAN
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It was ironic to remember that once she had daydreamed about just such an encounter, just such a stranger coming into her life and stirring her to immediate and reckless need and desire. Then it had seemed an idyllic romantic daydream; a thrilling fantasy of instant mutual awareness and responsiveness. Now that she was actually faced with the reality of experiencing urgent and extremely wanton physical yearning for a man who was a complete stranger, she was terrified by the implications of that desire, unable to understand why she was experiencing it.
It was just proximity, she told herself frantically…just a dangerous trick that her body was playing on her; but, as she felt the warmth of Matt’s body reach out to engulf her, she held herself rigid with tension, genuinely appalled by the reactions of her own body, terrified of going to sleep in case in doing so she somehow or other betrayed what she was experiencing.
Matt didn’t need his already low opinion of her sex reinforced by having to wake her up and point out to her that he did not find her sexually desirable. She could just imagine his reaction, were she in her sleep to give in to the lustful impulses that were filling her with such extraordinary and unfamiliar sensations.
She, who had never once in her life felt the slightest desire to make sexual advances to a man, and yet who was now unbelievably struggling not to give in to the mental temptation of allowing herself to imagine how it would feel to run her fingers over that dark wedge of body hair, to press her lips to that strong male throat…to…
‘For God’s sake, relax. I’m not going to touch you.’
The harsh command made her jump guiltily. No, he wasn’t going to touch her, but she—she dared not make any response to him. It was safer to pretend that she was already asleep.
On his side of the sleeping-bag, Matt groaned and told himself that the discomfort in his body was caused by the fact that he hardly dared to breathe, never mind move. He could almost feel the tension emanating from the slim feminine body lying so close to his own.
What in hell’s name did she think he was going to do? Did she really think he had so little control, so little respect for her as a fellow human being? But then, perhaps she had after all been aware of that far too lingering attention he had given the sight of her half-naked body. He closed his eyes and then opened them again as he was tormented by a mental image of his hands reaching out to close on the warm curves of her hips, to draw her back against his own body and turn her round and…
What the devil was the matter with him? Here he was, indulging in the most erotic kind of mental fantasies over a woman he knew absolutely nothing about, who probably already had a whole string of lovers, and who had made it more than plain that she had absolutely no desire to include him in their number.
No. Honesty compelled him to admit that his own extraordinary responsiveness to her had in no way been caused by any overt or covert sensual invitation on her part.
He only prayed that he did not turn over in his sleep and put his erotic fantasies into action. If he did, he had no doubt at all that his sleeping partner would be very caustic and acerbic in her denunciation of him—and quite rightly so.
Half an hour later, still wide awake and no closer to subduing his unruly body, Matt knew what he was going to have to do.
Emily felt him move beside her and tensed as she realised he was getting out of the sleeping-bag. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked him woodenly. Had she somehow or other communicated her feelings to him? She had been so careful not to touch him…not to allow her flesh to even brush against his, and yet humiliatingly it seemed he must be aware of what she was feeling.
‘It just occurred to me that perhaps I ought to try and stay awake,’ he lied. ‘Someone might be trying to get through with the snow plough.’
Emily knew that he was lying. There was no way that they would attempt to clear the road until daylight. Outside the temperature was still dropping, and it was still snowing. She sat up, too emotionally disturbed for caution as she said shakily, ‘You’re lying. You know no one is going to attempt to clear this road tonight, and so do I.’
There was a small silence, and then he agreed almost curtly, ‘All right, so I’m lying. If you must have the truth, dammit, you might as well have it—but I warn you, you won’t like it. If I stay in here with you one more minute, I doubt that I’ll be able to keep my hands off you.’
It was said so abruptly, so reluctantly, and with so much self-dislike that it was several seconds before what he was saying actually sank in. When it did, Emily felt her skin flush with brilliant colour, her voice as dazed as her brain as she whispered huskily, ‘You can’t mean that.’
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t mean it, but I’m afraid it’s the truth. I want you in my arms, under my body—in the most intimate way it is possible for a man to want a woman,’ he underlined almost savagely. ‘And believe me, you can’t be any more contemptuous of me than I am of myself. I assure you, I’m not—’
He broke off, leaving Emily to wonder what he had been about to say. He wasn’t going to pretend he loved her…how could he? He wasn’t going to apologise for wanting her? He wasn’t going to actually put his physical desire into actions? Why not, when every sense she possessed was telling her how much she wanted that same intimacy with him which he had just described so brusquely. Wanted it…ached for it…yearned for it…She took one shaky breath and then another. This had to stop, and right now.
She opened her mouth to tell him so and instead, shockingly, incredibly, heard herself asking breathlessly, pleadingly almost, ‘Do you really want to make love to me?’ What was she saying? Where was she going? What was she doing, embarking down a road which could only go one way?
It seemed a long time before she heard his bleak, clipped, ‘Yes…why?’
She took a deep breath, not allowing herself to think about what she was doing, holding fast to a deeper, more primitive instinct, like someone clutching a lifeline in heavy seas.
‘I…I feel the same way.’ When he was silent, she added, ‘I want to make love with you.’
It was said…the need voiced. She had opened herself to him to accept—or reject—whichever he chose, and she could not begin to understand why she had done so. Only that she had responded to something within him that had struck an answering chord within her.
As she waited she said hesitantly, ‘I can’t pretend to understand why. I know I’ve probably shocked you. If you’d prefer not to…’
Opposite her, Matt tried to probe what lay behind the cool, well-mannered words—if she was simply playing a joke on him, trying to make a fool of him, or if she actually meant it. He tried to tell himself that there was no way he could feel this urgent, clamouring desire for a woman about whom he knew nothing at all other than that he wanted her, but his body refused to listen to such logic. His body was reinforcing what he already knew—his body…
Emily heard him mutter something under his breath and tensed, waiting for his rejection, her back held rigidly towards him.
And then, unbelievably, she felt his hands on her shoulders turning her towards him, his voice low and ragged as he said rawly, ‘We shouldn’t be doing this, you know…’ He held her roughly as though pleading with her to deny him.
‘No…I know…’ Emily responded breathlessly, knowing even as she spoke that there was no power on earth that could stop this extraordinary mutual need that was driving them both.
And most extraordinary of all, she marvelled dizzily as she felt his arms close around her and draw her down against him, was the feeling she had of being so safe with him…so free to express herself and her desires, so free from restraint and shyness, so in tune with him that it was as though she had known him all her life, rather than a space of time that could be counted in minutes and hours instead of days and years.
‘If you should change your mind…’ The words whispered against her lips, tantalising their soft flesh.
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