Heather rushed towards him instinctively, catching him just as he fell heavily towards the bed. She was pinned beneath the full weight of his upper body, his chest crushing her, her face pressed into the hot arch of his throat.
She could feel a pulse beating erratically against her mouth. Her senses swam, reality as unwelcome as envisaging last night’s fairy-tale snow-covered branches denuded of their beautifying white blanket and left bare and stark.
Afterwards, she wasn’t sure which of them moved first; whether it was she who wrapped her arm tightly around Kyle’s neck, or he who groaned despairingly into her hair and cupped his hands against the back of her head, his lips moving to her ear as he demanded rawly, ‘Open your mouth, kiss me, Heather.’ His whole body surged against her as she complied mindlessly, filled with the pleasure of tasting his skin, of being free to explore the solid arch of his throat with all its tastes and textures, and with a hunger inside her so deep that there was no way she could block out the knowledge that she must have, with some part of her, wanted this intimacy for an aeon of time.
His hand cupped her breast, ruthlessly pushing aside both her robe and her nightgown, seeking the warmth of her flesh with a compulsion that echoed her own. Part of her knew and recognised it and responded to it as well, the sensation of his hands on her body making her arch up in eagerness as surge after surge of primitive delight washed through her.
‘You like me touching you like this…and like this?’
His voice, the hoarse passion of the words he muttered in her ear excited her senses, orchestrating her responses. Somehow she was free of her clothes. Free to run her hands over the hard velvet of his skin, free to revel in the exquisite sensation of flesh against flesh. Her body flowered, bloomed in his touch. His mouth caressed her. His weight pressed her to the bed, imprisoning her, and yet she knew she had no desire to escape. The heat of him, the hard pulsing urgency of his manhood, these were things she had never known before, and yet her body welcomed them as though they were long familiar to her. Even the scent of his arousal excited her, as though in some curious way it had an aphrodisiac effect long known to her and mourned in his absence.
Later she would be shocked, shattered, in fact, by her reaction to him, appalled that she had not fought to prevent it, and confused by how easily she had slipped out of her familiar mould and into one she herself could not recognise.
His tongue-tip stroked her skin, his whole body trembling with the need she could feel pulsing through him. Soon she would feel the heat of his mouth against her breast, soon he would…
The sharp sound of a vehicle outside cut through her rising desire for him. Both of them tensed.
‘Hartley,’ Kyle said thickly, pulling away from her. ‘I’d recognise that Land Rover of his anywhere.’
Cold air rushed over her skin as Kyle moved, and immediately she was as conscious of her nudity as Eve after she had taken that first bite at the apple. An apt simile, for like Eve she had wantonly tasted forbidden fruit!
She rushed to pick up her discarded things, while Kyle said laconically, ‘No need to rush, he’s only at the bottom of the drive.’
‘Kyle…’
He heard the anguish in her voice and laughed.
‘Oh, it’s all right, I’m not going to betray you to him, if that’s what worrying you. He’s not exactly pure as the driven snow himself, you know.’
She tried again. ‘Kyle!’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, stop acting like a Victorian virgin!’ he derided her. ‘It’s not the end of the world. We both knew it would happen some time.’ He looked wryly at her. ‘It’s always been there between us, after all. I don’t think there’s been a single woman I’ve taken to bed who I haven’t at one time or another mentally compared to you…’
Heather stared at him, appalled both by his cynicism and what he was revealing.
‘No…no…that’s not true!’
‘Oh, come on, Heather.’ Impatience deepened his voice. ‘OK, I admit that when you were a teenager you probably couldn’t recognise all that aggression between us for what it was, but you’re not a kid any more. You must be as able to recognise desire as I can myself. All right, I had an advantage. I knew then that I wanted you. I tried to tell myself it was because you were forbidden fruit, but you’ve haunted me for years, making me ache in a way that no one else can.’
‘But we don’t even like one another.’
He shrugged. ‘So what? You must know that it’s possible to be driven mad by a need of someone you don’t particularly like.’
She could sense a tension about him she hadn’t noticed earlier, and his eyes were shielded from her, almost as though there was something there he didn’t want her to read, but panic clawed at her and she was in no mood for rational analysis. She had to get out of his room, she had to get back to reality and sanity and to the safety of a world where Kyle was just a man whom she disliked, instead of the one man in the whole world who had the ability to make her feel that nothing else mattered other than being in his arms.
These were feelings she had always associated in her mind with the word ‘lover’, with the sort of relationship shared by her parents, but as Kyle had just cynically pointed out, they did not even like one another.
Appalled, almost horrified, Heather picked up her things and fled.
By the time she had pulled on a jumper and jeans she discovered why it had taken David so long to get up the drive. His Land Rover was towing a small snow-plough and he had cleared the drive for them.
If he hadn’t arrived when he had, by now she and Kyle… She swallowed hard, trying to banish the tormenting image.
‘Well, haven’t you got a reward for my hard endeavours?’ David Hartley demanded cheerfully as she opened the kitchen door to both him and Meg.
Forcing a smile, she invited him in. Behind her she heard Kyle enter the kitchen, and instantly she was so aware of him that the small hairs on her scalp stood up.
He came over to join them, menacing her somehow. Even David was aware of something, because he frowned and checked himself and gave them both a speculative look.