Past Passion

‘Leaving?’

Nicola frowned at the sharpness in his tone, her eyes clouded and puzzled as she looked at him.

‘Do you live very far out of the city?’ she asked him politely. ‘Only I do have to be at work in the morning, and...’

‘Nicola, why don’t you come and join me and Susie...?’

Her frown deepened as she realised that the music had stopped and that Jonathon was standing next to them. She hadn’t even seen him leave his table, never mind walk across the floor. Without even knowing she was doing it, as he reached out to touch her she drew back from him, instinctively pressing herself closer to her companion.

Since she was looking at Jonathon, she was unaware of the quick frown that touched the other man’s face as he watched the small tableau being played out in front of him.

A drunken teenager, offering him her body, was the very last thing he wanted right now. And, for all her make-up and that impossible hair, she looked as though she was little more than a baby. If he left her here in her present state, though, he’d be leaving her to the mercy of Jonathon or another of his type. His mouth twisted cynically. She might be a little idiot, but she definitely didn’t deserve that.

‘Too late, I’m afraid, Jonathon,’ he interrupted smoothly. ‘I’m afraid that Nicki and I were just about to leave...’

Nicola gave him a startled glance. He had called her Nicki... Only her family and friends at home did that—and saying that they were leaving... There was no need now—not now that Jonathon was here and wanted her—but, before she could say anything, those lean fingers were gripping her arm, and somehow or other she discovered that she had been turned around and had her back to Jonathon, and that she was being escorted very firmly across the floor.

‘Do you have a coat?’ she was asked when they reached the door.

She shook her head in bemusement.

‘Pity...’ she thought she heard him saying wryly as he glanced down at her dress.

‘Jonathon,’ she protested huskily, trying to turn round.

‘Forget him. He’s not the one for you,’ she was told firmly. ‘Now come on, let’s get out of here.’

A tiny shock of fear ran through her. He was obviously impatient to make love to her... Her body suddenly went very cold. What was she doing leaving with this strange man? What if...?

But if she went back now without him, Jonathon would know that he was right—that she was dull, and—and boring...and sexless.

Her captor took her down to the underground car park, still holding on to her arm as he unlocked the door to a sleek Jaguar convertible, almost bundling her into it, and then fastening the seatbelt around her and closing the door before going round to the driver’s side and getting in beside her.

The car smelled luxuriously of leather, and something else—something alien and exciting. It took her several seconds to realise that the smell was him... When she did, she flushed and shivered, causing him to frown at her and demand,

‘Look here, you’re not going to be sick are you? Because if you are...’

She shook her head.

It was true that she did feel slightly queasy, and that her head did ache dreadfully, but she was most certainly not going to be sick. What she really wanted to do, she acknowledged, as he drove out of the car park and into the dark city streets, was to go to sleep.

No sooner had the thought formed than she was leaning her head back against the head-rest and closing her eyes.

‘Right, now, if you just tell me where you live...’

Silence. Matt frowned and turned his attention from the road to his passenger, his frown deepening as he recognised that she was deeply and completely asleep. That she was, in fact, sleeping like the child she was. How much had she had to drink? Enough to make her a danger both to herself and to others. If he had had any sense he would have left her where she was. Someone there would have made sure she got home safely; or would they?

He had an early flight in the morning, and she really was an additional problem he didn’t need. The trouble was, though, that he had an over-developed sense of responsibility. He suspected it came of having three younger sisters.

Grimacing to himself, he acknowledged that it really was too late to turn the car round and dump her back at the party, especially with a wolf like Jonathon Hendry cruising around. The easiest thing he could do would be to take her home with him, put her to bed in the spare bedroom, and then evict her first thing in the morning before he left for New York, when hopefully she would have sobered up enough to realise how potentially self-destructive her behaviour had been.

He made one more attempt to wake her up, knowing before he did so that he was wasting his time. It was true, she did open her eyes and focus vaguely on him, but they closed again before he could even say one word, and he could tell from the way her body slumped against him that she was already deeply asleep once again.

CHAPTER THREE

NICOLA opened her eyes and stared anxiously around the unfamiliar bedroom.

It was decorated in shades of grey and white, with a plain Roman blind at the window. The bed she was in was large, the bedding white and crisp, the duvet grey and white striped. She knew immediately that this was not a woman’s bedroom, and panic shot through her; she struggled to sit up and then gasped in fresh shock as she realised that all she was wearing was her briefs.

She had no idea where she was or why. The last thing she could remember was being at Jonathon’s father’s birthday party. She had been dancing with someone... Someone. Her body stiffened, frantic stabs of enlightening memory piercing the grey fog that covered the previous evening’s events.

She remembered drinking the champagne cocktails, seeing Jonathon with Susie... seeing him—

She groaned out loud and then shuddered. What on earth had she done? What had he, the strange man she had left the party with, done?

She shuddered again. She wasn’t that naïve. There could have been only one reason she was here in his bed this morning. The facts were self-evident.

There was a terrible wrench of nausea in the pit of her stomach, an ache in her head that made her feel as though someone had kicked it; and yet surprisingly there was nothing else—no unfamiliar aches, no real awareness that last night she had crossed the final frontier that separated the child from the woman...no memories of the man who had been her lover, other than those she had of the events preceding their departure from the party.

As she sat tensely in the middle of the large bed, trying to overcome both her physical nausea and her mental and emotional self-disgust, the bedroom door suddenly opened.

In the daylight he seemed even larger than she remembered. He had obviously just had a shower, because his hair was slicked back and still wet, his skin still showing faint traces of moisture. He had a towel wrapped around his hips. His body was hard and muscular, a shockingly masculine dark arrowing of hair bisecting his torso.

He was, she saw, carrying a mug of something hot, but as soon as he approached the bed she instinctively shrank back from him, clutching at the bedclothes and watching him with terrified eyes.

‘So you’re awake... Just as well since I have to leave in half an hour. I’ll drop you off on my way to the airport. I’ve brought you some tea. If you want any aspirin, there are some in the bathroom cabinet.’

He was so matter of fact, so casual... She could feel her own face starting to burn as he sat down on the edge of the bed and it depressed beneath his weight.

She could smell the sharp lemon freshness of his soap, see the smooth sheen of his jaw where he had just shaved. His skin looked firm and tanned, the sight of his body making her tremble and then shudder as she tried not to think about last night, about how he must have—

‘If you want to be sick...’

She shook her head, biting her bottom lip in an agony of self-mortification. He was so obviously used to this sort of thing, while she...

There was a mirror on the wall opposite the bed. She caught sight of their reflections in it. No wonder he had thought she might be going to be sick, her face looked so pale, an unpleasant shade of greeny-white. She frowned, suddenly realising something, her fingers touching her bare face.

As though he realised what she was thinking, he told her drily, ‘I washed it off.’

She went from white to red and shuddered, all too conscious of everything else he must have done while she had been too drunk to be aware of it.

Revulsion rose up inside her, not just for herself but for him as well.

How could he...how could any man make love to a woman while she virtually had no awareness of what was going on? But then, men weren’t like women...men were different, dangerous, and if she was honest with herself she had encouraged him to think—to believe...

She had started to tremble. Out of the corner of her eye she saw him reaching towards her. Immediately she arched her back to avoid him, her eyes betraying her feelings.

Matt frowned. Surely the little idiot didn’t actually think he had...? He wasn’t sure whether to give her a good telling off or burst out laughing. Did she really honestly think...? He remembered how small she had felt when he’d carried her in from the car...how trustingly she had snuggled up against him. How vulnerable she had felt when he stripped off that appalling dress and then her tights, before washing her face clean of her make-up and tucking her up in his spare room. He had, in fact, treated her as matter-of-factly as though she had been one of his sisters, and now she was looking at him as though he was a potential rapist.