Savage Interlude Read online

  ‘At Matt’s?’ he asked sharply.

  Kate pouted up at him, admiring his lean tough body in the close-fitting shirt and trousers. ‘Mm,’ her tongue slowly moistened her lips. ‘Is it important?’

  He groaned in his throat, burying his face in her hair. ‘Not right at this moment. God, you’re lovely!’ He looked down at her. ‘I wish you wouldn’t do that.’ His eyes were tortured.

  She looked up at him innocently. ‘Do what, Damien?’

  ‘Lick your lips like that.’ His mouth briefly covered hers. ‘It’s very provocative.’

  ‘She smiled happily. ‘Is it?’

  He smiled too. ‘You’ve definitely had too much to drink. And I’m not sure I’m up to this sudden change. A little while ago you would have fought like a she-cat not to be in my arms.’

  Her look was one of pure challenge. ‘What’s the matter, aren’t you interested now that I’m no longer fighting you? Are you one of these men who enjoy the chase but not the capture?’

  ‘You silly child, I want you, whether you fight me or not. I must say I prefer you soft and pliant in my arms, but if it has to be a fight then a fight it will be. Victory can be very sweet.’

  ‘You’re sure you’ll win then?’

  ‘Oh, undoubtedly,’ he confirmed softly.

  Kate laughed slightly. ‘You’re very arrogant, Damien. A veritable devil, in fact.’

  ‘Mm, are you complaining?’

  ‘I—’ her voice faltered, her head began to swim. ‘I feel strange, Damien.’ Her voice sounded faint to her ears. What on earth was wrong with her?

  He raised his head to look down at her suddenly pale face. ‘Oh no,’ he swore angrily, shaking her roughly. ‘Those drinks, what were they?’ He sat up, looking down at her anxiously.

  Her mind didn’t seem to be functioning. She ran a hand over her aching temple. ‘I—er—I can’t remember.’ Her eyes were wide with distress.

  His grip tightened on her forearms. ‘Come on, Kate, think. Answer me!’

  ‘I—It—Martini and lemonade—I think,’ she added lamely, starting to feel sick now.

  ‘Oh, hell!’ His mouth tightened. ‘And was Jerry Saunders in charge of the bar? A stocky man with long dark hair and wearing glasses,’ he explained at her puzzled look.

  ‘I—I think so.’ Her eyes just wouldn’t focus, Damien’s features were taking on a hazy shape that didn’t seem to make sense.

  ‘God, I could kill him! The stupid—! Just wait until I see him again, I’m likely to do him some physical damage.’

  ‘I don’t understand, Damien. I—I want to go home. I feel ill.’

  ‘But you aren’t going home, especially not in this state.’ His hand smoothed back her hair. ‘You’re staying here tonight, with me.’

  She shook her head. ‘No—no, I have to go home. I mustn’t stay here, Damien, I mustn’t.’ She swung her legs to the ground, attempting to stand up and falling back down again. ‘Damien, I think I’m going to …’ she collapsed back against the silk cushions in a dead faint.

  Damien shook her, but to no avail, his face contorted with rage. ‘Damn and blast Jerry to hell!’ He picked her up and carried her to the bedroom.

  * * *

  Kate awoke with a feeling of well-being, the bedclothes pulled right up to her chin. She moved her head slowly, not quite sure where she was. Then it all came back to her—Matt Strange’s party, coming back to Damien’s apartment. She even vaguely remembered what had taken place on the sofa. And then nothing.

  Her face flushed a fiery red. What had happened after that? What had she done? More to the point, where was she? This bedroom didn’t look familiar, in fact it wasn’t even the one with the fourposter bed that Damien had shown her into yesterday. No, this was a much more masculine looking room, the decor in subdued green and cream. It was a man’s room. It had to be Damien Savage’s bedroom!

  But what was she doing in here— That was a stupid question! It must be obvious to anyone what she was doing in here, what must have taken place in this very room the night before. Oh God, no! Surely he hadn’t— But what other explanation was there? If only she could remember, if only everything hadn’t seemed in such a haze.

  She sat up, forcing herself to think calmly and not to panic. It wasn’t easy, especially as her sitting up revealed that she seemed to be wearing a black silk pyjama jacket, a man’s pyjama jacket that was much too big for her. It reached almost down to her knees as she stepped out of bed, obviously meant for a much larger person than herself. Damien…?

  ‘Good morning, angel,’ he drawled, walking into the bedroom, a cup of coffee in one hand and some buttered toast on a plate in the other. And he was wearing the pyjama trousers that belonged to the jacket she had on! Nothing else, just the trousers. ‘Your breakfast,’ he smiled at her.

  Kate looked away, ashamed of her instantaneous response to his bare muscled chest, her breath suddenly feeling constricted in her throat. ‘I don’t want it,’ she mumbled.

  He tilted up her chin, smiling with taunting humour. ‘What’s the matter, Kate? You weren’t sulky like this last night.’

  ‘Last night!’ she hissed. ‘You tricked me, let me get drunk so that I couldn’t think straight, and then you—’ she broke off in embarrassment.

  Damien quirked a mocking eyebrow. ‘Then I what?’

  ‘I don’t know what you did next,’ she said impatiently, glaring at him accusingly, ‘but I’m sure you didn’t just put me to bed in your room and then meekly sleep somewhere else.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he nodded. She followed his gaze to the rumpled bed, her eyes taking in the twin indentations in the pillows placed side by side. ‘We both slept in that bed,’ he confirmed.

  ‘Oh no!’ She put up a hand to her flushed cheeks, unable even to look at him.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he told her lightly. ‘And you can blame Jerry Saunders for getting you drunk. Your Martini and lemonades were liberally laced with vodka. It’s a famous party trick of Jerry’s. You went out like a light.’

  ‘Then you—’ she looked confused. ‘You didn’t—’

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ Damien answered shortly. ‘I’m not in the habit of making love to unconscious women.’

  Her confusion deepened. ‘But you—I was in your bed, and you did say you slept there too.’

  ‘That’s right, and slept is the right word. You’re really quite affectionate when you’re asleep. You snuggled up to me like a baby.’ He smiled, as if the memory of it pleased him.

  It didn’t please Kate one little bit, she still wanted to know what had or had not happened the night before. She looked down at the pyjama jacket. ‘This,’ she pulled at the pocket. ‘How did I get into this?’

  ‘How do you think?’ He laughed at her shocked face. ‘Don’t worry, honey, you aren’t the first female I’ve undressed and taken to my bed. Although they haven’t usually passed out on me,’ he added in that mocking voice she hated, his glittering green eyes openly laughing at her.

  ‘But did you have to put me in this?’ Her anger was all the stronger at the thought of him removing her clothes.

  His smile deepened. ‘Would you rather I’d left you naked? I must say that the idea did appeal to me, but even I have a limit to my control. As it is you’ve nearly driven me insane with wanting you, squirming about in my arms all night. It was only the trusting smile on your face that held me back.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have put me in my own nightclothes?’ She remembered the sheer baby-doll pyjamas she had packed and blushed at the picture that conjured into her mind.

  ‘Quite,’ he grinned as he read her thoughts, then picked up a piece of her toast and walked to the door. ‘Believe me, you were safer in that. Wait for me here—I’m just going to shave. You see how thoughtful I am, I wouldn’t like to scratch your delectable skin with my night’s stubble.’ He ran a rueful hand over his darkened skin.

  ‘Scratch my skin?’ she repeated dazedly.

  ‘Mm, when I come back and make love
to you.’

  ‘You—you aren’t going to do that!’ She backed away from him, angry with herself for revealing her fear of him.

  He halted his exit, the burning passion in his brooding eyes belying her words. ‘I’m not?’ he asked softly.

  Kate clutched the pyjama jacket to her, cursing its inadequacy. She must look perfectly ridiculous, verbally denying him and yet here in his bedroom, wearing his clothing. The very air between them was full of intimacy, making a mockery of her and her denials. ‘No, you’re not,’ she said crossly. ‘As soon as you get out of here I’m getting dressed and leaving as soon as I possibly can.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘I am,’ she told him firmly.

  Slowly he reclosed the door, his lean body as taut as a bow. ‘Then you’ll just have to suffer the stubble on my chin. I’m not giving you the chance to walk out on me. You cheated on me last night, I’m not giving you the opportunity to do it again.’

  All the time he was moving closer to her, the black silk pyjama trousers resting on the arrogant swagger of his hips. She seemed to be mesmerised by the male beauty of him, the completely male aura he emitted, an aura as dangerous to women as a jungle cat to its prey. The only trouble was that Damien had his sights set on something much more prized than food.

  ‘I—I didn’t cheat,’ she denied desperately. ‘I had no intention of going to bed with you, either now or last night.’

  He was standing so close to her now their thighs almost touched. His hard strong fingers moved up to part and caress her lips. ‘Such a kissable mouth.’ His eyes were half-closed with feeling. ‘And you’ve already been to bed with me, the only difference this time will be that I intend taking what you’ve clearly been offering all night. The only reason I haven’t already taken advantage of your offer is that I happen to like my women sober and responsive when I make love to them. And last night you weren’t either of those things.’

  ‘You aren’t going to make love to me! I—I don’t want you to.’

  ‘That wasn’t what you were saying to me last night before you passed out,’ he murmured caressingly, his slight nudge to her shoulder knocking her off balance so that she fell backwards on to the rumpled sheets. He lay down beside her, his legs pinning her to the bed. ‘Your lips were telling quite another story then. Let’s see if it’s still the same one.’

  Her protests were swallowed up by the savagery of his mouth on hers, by the way his hands took possession of her body, moulding her to him until she could feel the hardness of him against her. She knew that she shouldn’t respond, but her body seemed to have a will of its own as she pressed against him, her arms clasped firmly about his neck as she played with the hair at his nape.

  He bent to kiss each closed eyelid, moving her hands to his firm muscled back, groaning his pleasure at her caresses. He nibbled her ear-lobe, one hand inside the open neckline of the jacket she wore. She tensed as his hand travelled down to cup her breast, the nipple rising tautly to his touch. She made a half-hearted movement to stop him, but his hand remained adamantly in place, his fingers firmly clasping her soft smooth skin.

  Kate felt herself lost in a wonderment of strange new feelings. She felt wonderfully relaxed in his arms, a complete freedom of inhibition, and yet there was also a searing sense of tension rising swiftly within her, feelings that threatened to overflow and explode when she wasn’t ready for them.

  He slowly slid down her body, his lips raining fevered kisses wherever they touched, his fingers swiftly tackling the restrictive buttons to push aside the silky material and expose the taut flesh beneath. His eyes turned almost black in colour at the naked sight of her.

  ‘God, you’re beautiful,’ he groaned. ‘Like a marble sculpture—but with much more warmth.’ He cupped her naked breast, smoothing the soft firm flesh. ‘You’ll never know the effort it cost me not to take you a hundred times during the night,’ he told her huskily, kissing each breast hungrily. ‘A hundred, a thousand times!’ he moaned his torment.

  ‘Oh, Damien …’ she quivered her uncertainty. ‘I—’

  ‘No,’ he put a gentle hand over her mouth. ‘Don’t talk, honey. Just let go. Relax.’

  She was already relaxed, too relaxed, her heated pleasure almost out of control. She had never known, never dreamt it could be like this, this complete surrender to the senses. If she had imagined love between two people at all she had thought of it as a coming together of two people who shared the same interests and gradually grew to love each other to the extent of wanting to give themselves to each other. But this wasn’t like that at all, and yet she couldn’t think of not giving herself to Damien, wanted to share with him the one thing she had given no other man.

  Damien raised his dark head to look at her with glazed eyes. ‘You know I want you, Kate. You aren’t going to refuse me, are you?’

  Silently she shook her head, already past the point of caring that Damien Savage, the man about to make love to her in the fullest sense of the word, was someone she had met for the first time yesterday, someone she had disliked until today, despised even. None of these things seemed important here and now, only the closeness of their two bodies and the sure touch of his hands were important to her at this moment.

  ‘Help me off with these.’ He leant on his elbow as she made an effort to release the single fastening to his trousers, glancing up as she winced. ‘What’s the matter?’ he looked concerned. ‘Did I hurt you?’

  She was beginning to feel embarrassed at the intensity of his gaze on her nakedness, of the glazed look in his eyes. ‘It was your chin. It’s rough,’ she explained huskily.

  ‘Oh damn!’ He touched his chin impatiently, his eyes darkening as he looked down at her. ‘God, look what I’ve done to your skin!’ He touched one sensitive breast. ‘That must have hurt like hell.’ He soothed the hot reddened skin. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  Kate wished he would shut up and kiss her. She didn’t want him to talk to her, it only reminded her of who he was and what he was doing to her. She looked away. ‘It didn’t hurt at the time.’

  His smile gently mocked. ‘I guess I’d better have that shave after all.’ He got up from the bed. ‘Don’t move, I won’t be long.’ With a last lingering look at her he went into the adjoining bathroom.

  Kate lay dazed by her own emotions. What was she doing here? More to the point, what was Damien doing in here with her? Already she had allowed him to spend the night in the same bed as herself—perhaps allowed wasn’t quite the right word to use, she had had little choice in the matter.

  But she did have a choice about letting him make love to her! And she wasn’t going to wait here like a wanton. She might have been momentarily carried away by the mastery and expertise of the man, but not any more.

  She had to get out of here before she disgraced herself completely. Anyway, he had said that virginity didn’t interest him, and she was certainly that. Her inexperience would soon bore a man of his reputation, and she didn’t intend just being another scalp added to the belt of any man.

  She could hear Damien humming to himself in the bathroom as she hurriedly dressed herself, and the sound of his self-assurance only made her all the more determined to leave. She was no more to him than a diversion, someone to go to bed with during his stay in England. Well, he would find that here was one girl he wasn’t going to win so easily!

  She slipped quietly out of the room, collecting her overnight case from the other bedroom on her way out. She sighed with relief as the lift doors closed behind her; at least she had managed to get out of the apartment without detection.

  The man Damien had addressed as Barry the night before was sitting at the reception desk. He looked up and smiled at her. ‘Good morning,’ he said, standing up politely.

  Kate blushed. There was no familiarity in the man’s voice and yet she knew she must look odd leaving the building at nine o’clock in the morning dressed in an evening gown. She could have gone to the other bedroom and put on her trouser su
it, but this would have only wasted precious time, time she didn’t have. ‘Good morning,’ she returned, her words stilted in her embarrassment.

  ‘Would you like me to call you a taxi?’ he enquired.

  It was a good idea, but it would perhaps be safer to flag one down once she had got away from this apartment block, safer because she had no doubt Damien Savage would be furiously angry once he realised she had cheated on him once again. He really did have a cheek, believing she would let him make love to her after only one evening spent together. The conceit of the man!

  She gave the man a bright smile. ‘No, thank you. I don’t have far to go.’ She left before he could say any more, unwilling to be drawn into a conversation with him. She just wanted to get away from here as quickly as possible.

  James’ apartment wasn’t too far away and it didn’t take long to get there in the taxi she had managed to acquire. She would have a quick bath and change before finding some way of transporting herself back to James’ country home. Perhaps she could ring him and ask him to come and fetch her. But if she did that he would want to know what had gone wrong—and she had no intention of telling him what had taken place the night before, or this morning for that matter.

  The bath was so relaxing and luxurious that she spent more time over it than she had intended, lazing under the soft scented bubbles. It was so nice to just let herself relax after the terrible day she had spent yesterday, and she lay back, her head resting on the back of this large sunken bath, her hair secured on top of her head with a black velvet ribbon.

  She smiled slightly at the size of the bathroom. James certainly liked to live in style, and the luxury of this sunken bath, fitted carpet, and completely mirrored walls all added to that.

  ‘I wouldn’t fall asleep in there.’

  Her eyes flew open and she gasped as she saw Damien Savage lounging just inside the room, his reflection thrown back at her from the four corners of the room. She sank further below the bubbles. ‘How did you get in here?’

  He walked casually over to stand on the bath’s edge, his leather-clad feet only inches away from her head. ‘You left these in the door,’ he held up the keys. ‘Very careless of you.’ He dropped them uncaringly into the water at her feet.