Dark Nights (4 page)

They both staggered off the fairground ride, amused that the people around them suspected the speed and the height had made them unsteady on their feet, whereas they knew they shared their own dirty little secret.

‘Dinner now, I am starving.’ Seb pronounced. He chose Brighton’s best restaurant, drank its most expensive bottle of champagne. He wanted to keep her, didn’t want to let her go, wanted to spend the entire night with her, see her naked, feel her warm under his fingers, know all of her. They approached the steps of the Grand Hotel facing the front, the one that had the most desirable views over the beach. They would wake up late, make love and breakfast like kings. ‘Let’s choose the best suite, the penthouse, they’re bound to have one.’

‘I can’t.’ She turned away. 

‘You can’t?’ He was wrong footed and that was an experience he didn’t often have. No woman had ever refused him. 

‘No. Not tonight.’ Her green orbs were impenetrable. He was too proud to ask when, when she would sleep with him properly? ‘I … I’ll see you next week. Next Saturday. Like we planned. That was the deal, wasn’t it?’ 

Despite himself, he felt bereft, let down, deflated. This had felt like the start of something. And yet here she was turning away from him. Yes, that was the deal but ... ‘Why do you have to go? It’s so late? We could share the same suite.’ He looked down; this wasn’t a role he had ever played. ‘We wouldn’t have to share the same bed.’ He turned his eyes to meet hers again. Need ached somewhere within him. But not just a sexual need. Was that the sound of him almost begging? Would this be the one time in his life he had hankered for something and hadn’t won? The words had formed in his head and come out without him planning them. And yet they were real. For once, he found himself being sincere. The man who never gave himself away, the man who never let anyone see his true colours was here in this lonely seaside town asking for her company.

‘I can’t.’ She smiled. It was a genuine smile, simple, open, it was at odds with the aggressive blonde. ‘I ... I have things back home I have to attend to. I’ll phone you Saturday. As agreed.’

‘No wait,’ he stood in front of her as she turned to go. ‘Then we’ll drive back, I’ll hail a taxi to take us to London.’

‘No way,’ she held up her hand, ‘that’ll cost a fortune.’

He laughed hollowly. ‘A fortune? I’ve got one of those. Don’t refuse me, Breeze.’ She was silent and the resentment he had seen when he’d first accused her of stealing, closed over her face like a mask. They were strangers again, and as strangers they rode back to London with her sleeping curled away next to him on the back seat, a woman who he desperately wanted to reach out and touch, but who might have been sitting a million miles away she was further from him than ever.

Chapter Five

BREEZE TRIED TO OPEN the front door silently. The big old town house creaked at the best of times, and most of all now that she didn’t want to be discovered. A light shone down the passageway from the cosy kitchen. She was pleased when she entered it that it wasn’t her mother but her sister, Summer, who had waited up for her. 

‘Is everything OK?’ Summer’s speech was slurred as always, sounding as if she was drunk. When in truth it was the cerebral palsy that had been with her since birth that hampered her body although her mind was as quick as a fox. She was so brave though, she kept the house clean and bright for Breeze and their mother. There were fresh flowers in a vase and the smell of bread she had baked that afternoon wafted through the kitchen. Summer had made this her kingdom, her bit of the world where she wasn’t judged or laughed at for not being normal.

‘It’s fine thanks.’ Breeze wore a different mask here at home. But it was still a mask. She had never told her mother and sister how she afforded to keep them in the faded grandeur of their Edwardian house. They just thought she had a fantastically well paid job and worked hard. They weren’t to know that the repairs had long ago stripped her wages and that she’d had to scheme and commit wrongdoing to preserve their sanctuary. The house had been built by Breeze and Summer’s great grandfather. Their father, who had gambled, had nearly lost it all before he left their mother for a young girl. Breeze had worked hard at her studies to become a professional woman, all so she could preserve her family’s home. Keep the one thing that ensured they were safe and secure, that bound them together. Every time she came through the door she thanked heaven they were still here. 

Sebastian Dark threatened all that but at least tonight she had not only managed to hook him, but to keep him. He hadn’t phoned the Police. Yet. She was still where she belonged. She kissed Summer goodnight and made her way upstairs. On her bed lay open the dictionary she had taken from their small library to study the story of the Arabian nights and Scheherazade. The humble vizier’s daughter who risked death every night at the hand of the king unless she told him a story to save her life. Each night though Scheherazade stopped in the middle of the story in order to keep the king coming back for more and so save her own life. 

As Breeze fell into bed, with thoughts of what it might be like to spend a night with Seb Dark she knew she must be wary of letting that happen and most of all must never give herself entirely to him. For then, he would discover that she was a virgin, that the Ice Queen had never fully given herself to any of her lovers. Surely, once he had gained that prize, he would discard her and lose interest and she would then end up in some jail and this house, their sanctuary would be lost, her family broken up.

Breeze turned on her side and tossed the book angrily to the floor. She must never let Seb or any man get close. Her mother had been right when she’d thrown her father’s photo in the bin forever, “Stand on your own two feet, Breeze. Be independent; make your own way in life, live like an island and you’ll never be disappointed.”

Seb clunked the door of the high performance aerobatic aeroplane shut and fastened the safety harness over his chest. He often flew when he had a problem. It helped him to focus, brought him back to his business. In business he was a one hundred per cent success. In his private life he wasn’t so sure. He pulled the plane upwards, over the bright sunshine-lit city sky and looped into a turn. It was Saturday; it had taken an age to come. He’d never known a week to go this slow. He’d leapt out of his skin when Breeze phoned this morning. For seven long days he’d wanted to speak to her, see how she was. But he had been too proud. No woman was going to bring him to his knees. Besides, theirs was a business arrangement, wasn’t it?

He snaked the nippy aeroplane along the Thames which sparkled like a stainless steel ribbon. The gherkin building stood proud and quirky, the Shard reaching up sharply into the London skyline like a dagger was nearly finished. His business had helped finance all of the landmark buildings he loved. He’d helped to build this city and yet how much of it had he really seen? Only places where he’d had meetings. And even when he’d been invited to sports events or the opera there’d always been the corporate boxes where he could chat sotto voce and do business. Business – the be all and end all. Breeze had told him in her phone call to meet her outside the Albert Hall this evening and he’d felt oddly elated. He’d been there with a business client but had remembered nothing apart from the deal he’d struck, had ignored the music.

Were his life’s memories destined to be nothing but a series of deals? At the end of this month he would be 30 and would face something momentous, a benchmark in life. He’d had the first third of his life. Had he fought and battled for the right things? He looked at the tiny matchstick figures of people rushing over London Bridge. What drove those men? Wives, children? Aspirations that Seb had always seen as a weakness, ties he had actively avoided. And yet for other men that was what life was all about. Suddenly he felt cavernously empty. Then, a freak gust of wind careered across his wings, buffeting the plane, sending it off its axis. He yanked the controls, struggling, fighting to keep it in check, another buffet pushed him to the left, the plane careered madly, frighteningly. For a second he thought he’d lose it, his chest constricted, his hands gripped the controls so tightly his fingernails dug into his flesh until finally, he righted it. Turned it quickly and headed back down the Thames towards the airfield and safety. It had been close; he’d lost concentration, something he rarely did. He’d been thinking of Breeze. His whole life could have ended then and there. As he stepped out of the plane and towards the clubhouse and his chauffeur he wondered who would mourn him if he had lost control and plummeted. Breeze. Would she care? She would probably be pleased – after all, it would free her. He smiled wryly to himself, she’d probably even come to his funeral. Knowing her, she’d be dressed in red.

She’d told him it was a gala performance tonight, with black tie and evening dresses. As he stepped out of his car, he saw her instantly, head and shoulders more beautiful than any of the other women flitting like butterflies, trying to be noticed. 

He stood for a moment as he got out of the car. ‘Is something wrong, sir?’ George, his chauffeur enquired.

Seb realised he had been staring, drinking Breeze in. ‘No, no, you can go now, thank you. Collect us at 11.’ She stood out like an ethereal moth among the other garish women. She wore palest lilac silk, a sheath so simple, it draped around the curves of her figure like petals unfurling around a blossom. The back of the dress dripped downwards leaving her shoulder blades, and the curve of her waist exposed and the moment he saw it he wanted to stroke his fingers down the track of her spine. As he made to walk over, another man approached her with an open smile and immediately, Seb wanted to push him to the ground. He walked faster. ‘Breeze …’ He took possession and steered her away. ‘You look absolutely ....’ Fabulous, gorgeous, beautiful? No word he could find summed her up, ‘Perfect,’ he settled on. It would do. 

‘Thank you.’ Her eyes, sea green, lingered on his tall figure, the hand-stitched suit with its satin lapels, the neat black bow tie. ‘You’re looking pretty good yourself. The perfect English gentleman.’ 

‘With perfect manners?’ His mouth twisted, his clear eyes alert to the irony in her voice.

‘I hope not,’ she challenged. As he steered her through the crowd, passing each door of the imposing round red brick building, he felt wisps of the few curls that had escaped her tumbling up-do and floated along the line of her bare back. Her hair was softer today, more natural; he stroked it down-like underneath his fingers.

People stared at the stunning couple as she led him up the red carpeted stairs, past the glowing chandeliers. Hundreds of people filled the building. ‘I trust we’re going to get some privacy here somewhere.’

‘Don’t worry.’ She turned back and he saw colour creep into her cheeks like the first tinges of bronze on autumn leaves. ‘I have a very good friend who works here. She manages all the props; she’s staged something very special for us. You won’t be disappointed.’ When they reached the floor where the stairs ran out, the crowd finally thinned to nothing. There was a sign proclaiming, “Gallery, CLOSED for this performance”. She looked around quickly to make sure they weren’t being observed and pushed the door. He had only ever seen the Albert Hall from a private box where he had been in the centre of the crowd, right down there with the performers. Up here felt different, hidden. The cool stone floors empty, the black ironwork stark, the crowd buzzing with expectancy way below as they took their seats for the performance, not a single one of them were aware of the two people sneaking into the top floor, high above them. There, in the middle of the deserted balcony, stood a four poster bed. Like something out of the Palace of Versailles, its base and elaborately carved head was glistening with gold leaf. The blood red curtains around the bed were tied back with sumptuous gold chord, the velvet counterpane pulled back to reveal white Egyptian cotton sheets. A pleasure dome, especially and secretly placed. 

Seb felt his mouth go dry. Surely she wasn’t brazen enough to want him to take her here; it would almost feel like a public performance with all those snooty, concert-goers in their penguin suits concentrating on the highbrow classical performance below. Breeze beckoned him over. He stood before her. The entire auditorium which had been buzzing had now gone quiet, the orchestra was about to start. A clamour of applause arose as the conductor took to the podium. Breeze’s curves were a work of art, her shoulder and back like the rounded body of a violin. The subdued light shone on her, making her skin as smooth as a swan’s breast. Seb swallowed, the hairs on the back of his neck bristling with expectancy. This was his chance to possess the woman who had been tormenting his thoughts, the woman he had to admit who had plagued his waking hours and many of his dreams for months. As the first echoing strings of the violins started their melody his blood stirred. 

Seb wanted to unwrap her slowly, like the best present at Christmas time. He reached out and ran his fingers up her hand. She flexed it at his touch and he denoted a shiver of pleasure run through her. Her skin glowed, he could scent exotic bath oil, cinnamon, cloves, lilies and he realised she must have spent the entire day getting ready for him. Imagining her preparations, soap running down her body, her hands creaming the soft skin of her breasts began to fire his loins. As he stared and stroked, the peaks of her breasts hardened under the silk of her dress. He stood closer and leaned in, breathing her as if he were drawing in the essence of a bottle of the finest chateau d’yquem wine. He placed his lips on her collarbone and kissed along its line. Her skin was divine. Seeing her nipples in sharp relief under the sheer material made his cock spring to attention. He wanted her to desire him as much as he desired her. A pulse at her neck ticked, first slowly, then faster as he ran his kisses up her neck, over the sultry mounds of her breasts. She tilted sideways and as she did so, the heart-searing notes of the violins and cellos below echoed the mounting beat of her heart, shuddering against her dress.