Merlyn's Magic (6 page)

Rand felt like velvet against her, and she knew her body
cried out for him, but the barrier of her virginity had to be overcome
first, and it was proving more difficult than she had imagined. The
books described it as a sharp pain and then, if your lover was
considerate enough, the pleasure began. She didn't remember any of them
saying it was like this.

Desperation had replaced passion as she once again lowered
herself on to Rand, frustration making her sob as the barrier once
again stopped his full entry. She wanted this man, needed him inside
her as much as he needed to be there, and yet—She bit into
her lip until she tasted her own blood in her mouth as Rand lost
patience with what he thought was her game and took matters into his
own hands, grasping her hips to guide her down on to him, filling her,
engorging her.

After the pain came the most incredible feelings, as if
Rand filled every space inside her. She felt overwhelmed, as if she
belonged to this man, as if she would always be a part of him now. The
tears that ran down her cheeks now were of happiness.

And then the pleasure began, Rand showing her how to move
above him to give them both the maximum fulfilment, his eyes gleaming
their satisfaction as she gasped weakly at this assault on her aroused
senses.

The pressure building within her made her feel like crying
and laughing simultaneously, the tumult rising inside her thrilling and
frightening her at the same time. What was it going to be like, this
physical satisfaction singing along her veins and clamouring for
release?

And then she knew. It was like nothing she had ever
experienced before.

Warmth, and aching, and fire burst free from the core of
their joined bodies, Rand's teeth rough against her breast as he lost
control in the river of her convulsions, his hands clenched into her
buttocks as he quivered again and again inside her in his own spasmodic
release.

They had reached their pleasure in unison, and even in her
ignorance Merlyn knew how unique that was in a relationship of
familiarity let alone during a first encounter.

Her lips were moistly open, her breathing ragged, as she
languorously kissed every inch of his face, from the dampness of his
forehead, the tautness of his cheeks, to the pliancy of his mouth. They
had shared something so beautiful Merlyn never wanted this moment of
closeness to end.

And then she realised that Rand no longer seemed aware of
her at all, that he wasn't even looking at her any more but at the
fireplace—at the half-burnt photograph of his dead wife.
There was a dull, lifeless expression in his eyes that told Merlyn none
of his thoughts.

But she didn't need to know them, had known when she
offered herself that she had just been fulfilling a need for him. It
wasn't his fault that she had broken the rules and felt as if she never
wanted to be parted from him again!

He turned back to her with darkened eyes, frowning
heavily. 'Did I do that to you?' He gently touched the swollen
tenderness of her bottom lip where she had bitten into it at the moment
of his possession.

She ran her tongue along the jagged soreness. The bleeding
seemed to have stopped now, most of the blood having fallen on Rand's
shoulder. 'No, I did,' she dismissed, wondering how on earth she was
supposed to untangle their bodies without embarrassing both of them.

Compassion softened the harshness of his face. 'I never
meant for that to happen, you know.'

Of course she knew! 'Neither did I,' she said huskily.
'But it's done now.'

'Yes,' he rasped.

She swallowed hard. 'I think I'd better go back to my
room.'

'Yes.'

Tears filled her eyes as he made no effort to release her.
'Now,' Merlyn urged desperately.

His gaze held hers as he slowly turned her on her side
away from the fire so that she lay beside him, darkness enfolding her
as his broad shoulders blocked out most of the glow given off by the
flames. 'I'm sorry,' he said suddenly.

She drew in a ragged breath, feeling bereft now that his
body was no longer joined to hers. '
I
came to
you,' she reminded him.

'Because you pitied me—'

'No!'

He swung away from her to stand up and cross the room to
once again stare broodingly into the fire. 'It's the usual reaction
when you find a man crying in front of you like a child!'

'Rand—'

'Go back to your room—please,' he encouraged
with a harshness that brooked no argument.

She hadn't been able to help him at all. All she had been
able to do was give him a few moments of forgetfulness in her arms and
then more pain. He felt as if he had betrayed his wife; he didn't need
to tell her that, she just knew.

Merlyn's bedroom looked just as she had left it, the
bedside lamp still on, the bedclothes thrown back where she had hurried
to see what was happening. But she had changed. Since her
disillusionment with Mark she had avoided any real closeness to men.
She went out with them, she had a good time, but at the end of the day
she always went home alone. God knows she had had her chances for it
not to be that way, Christopher Drake only the last in a long line of
men who wanted her to share their bed. But she had never found any
difficulty in resisting those physical entanglements that in the end
brought nothing but heartache.

Until Rand Carmichael. But she had felt no hesitation as
she went to him, had felt that it was meant to be, as if she had known
that from the moment she first saw him. Could it be that she had been
so deeply involved with her research of Suzie Forrester these past
months that for a brief time she had thought she
was
her? But that was ridiculous. Wasn't it…?

Merlyn was already in the lounge when Rand came downstairs
the next morning. She had found the broken glass gone from the hearth,
the room looking innocent of the stormy lovemaking it had witnessed the
evening before.

Merlyn wished she felt as innocent! Her body ached, the
slight soreness she was experiencing not alleviated by the lengthy soak
in the bath she had indulged in earlier. Her bottom lip was swollen and
painful, and she felt altogether irritable. The only good thing about
the day seemed to be that the rain had stopped falling some time in the
night and with luck the water level on the ford would have gone down
enough for her to get out of here. She was going to
walk
to the hotel if she still couldn't drive there; she certainly couldn't
stay on here when she and Rand were so embarrassed about last night.

It was after nine when she heard him coming down the
stairs, standing up to move nervously in front of one of the tall
windows, the bright daylight behind her giving a golden halo to the red
flame of her hair, her slender body warmed by fitting black denims and
a royal-blue coloured jumper.

She looked warily at Rand as he hesitated just inside the
doorway before fully entering the room, completing the task of tucking
the black shirt he wore into the waistband of fitted grey trousers as
he did so. Now that the confrontation had come, Merlyn didn't know what
to say to him. What does a woman say to the complete stranger she made
love with the night before! Although he hadn't seemed so much of a stranger then.

Rand was eyeing her just as warily. 'Has Mrs Sutton
arrived yet?' he asked abruptly.

'No one's arrived.' She shook her head. She had been going
to say they were still completely alone, but in the circumstances that
didn't sound right at all.

He frowned. 'I wonder—'

Both of them were startled when the telephone began to
ring, Rand striding across the room to answer it. Merlyn watched him
beneath lowered lashes, still finding it incredible that she knew his
body more intimately than she knew her own. Any magic that had taken
place last night had to have been instigated by Rand!

'Yes,' he was speaking to the caller now. 'Okay, we'll see
you soon.' He rang off, shrugging slightly as he met Merlyn's
questioning gaze. 'Anne,' he provided abruptly. 'She's driving over.'

Oh God, Merlyn thought shakily, how was she supposed to
face Suzie's sister after what had happened in this very room the night
before! Rand seemed to guess at her dismay.

'About last night—'

'Do we have to talk about it?' she cut in raggedly.

'Not if you don't want to.' He frowned in his effort to
read her expression with the daylight reflected behind her.
'But—'

'I don't,' she snapped, her hands moving together
nervously. If this was the way a woman felt the morning after going to
bed with a man she was glad she had avoided such encounters; she had
never felt so uncomfortably out of place in her life!

He ran a hand through his loosely curling black hair. 'I'd
been drinking—'

She had known that, had tasted the brandy on his lips and
tongue, colour flooding her cheeks as she vividly recalled their
insistent probing. 'If that's supposed to make me feel better, it
doesn't!' Her eyes flashed deeply green.

'I'm not trying to make you feel better—'

'That's good—because you weren't succeeding!'
She was so tense her usual control had gone. 'You see,
I
hadn't been drinking!'

Rand sighed. 'I'm out of practice with the niceties of
these bedroom games, and I'm sorry if all of this is coming out the
wrong way.' He didn't notice how pale Merlyn had become as he moved to
pour himself a cup of coffee from the pot Merlyn had made earlier.
'Believe it or not, I was faithful to my wife for the eight years of
our marriage—'

'Why shouldn't I believe it?' she snapped. 'You loved her.'

'Yes, I did,' he grated bleakly. 'But it isn't fashionable
in her world to be faithful to a spouse.'

What was he saying, that Suzie had been unfaithful to
him
?
Merlyn had seen too many show business marriages fall apart because of
the long separations and the loneliness their work often necessitated.
But she wouldn't believe that of Suzie Forrester.

'We were
both
faithful.' Rand seemed
to mock her indignation. 'And since her death—' He made an
impatient movement, as if it still hurt him to admit she
was
dead. 'I'm just trying to explain to you why the age-old platitudes of
"how good it was" and "you were wonderful" don't trip lightly off my
tongue—'

'It wasn't that good,' Merlyn cut in hardly, knowing that
as far as she was concerned she lied; it had been beautiful. 'And I
wasn't that wonderful,' she scorned self-derisively.

Rand's eyes had narrowed. 'You weren't that bad either.
Look, I'm not trying to give you a rating from one to ten, I just
wanted to make you understand that I don't usually extract that sort of
payment from unexpected guests, that last night was just—the
circumstances were—'

'Unreal,' Merlyn supplied softly. 'They were completely
unreal, as if they happened to two other people and not us at all.'

He blinked at her. 'Yes,' he confirmed in a puzzled voice.
'That's exactly the way it seems. I don't remember the last time I—' He turned
towards the front door as the bell rang, his expression grim. 'That
will be Anne.'

Merlyn swallowed hard, dreading her meeting with the other
woman now, feeling as if she had betrayed Anne's trust in her. 'Please
don't let her realise about last night—'

Rand glared at her. 'Do you think I want that any more
than you do?' he snapped. 'God knows we've had our disagreements in the
past, but making love to one of her friends would not be acceptable to
Anne at all.'

Merlyn released her breath raggedly as she waited for him
to admit the other woman. She wasn't a friend of Anne Benton's, but she
had wanted to be, and she knew that if Anne realised what had happened
in this room the night before that she, too, would wonder at Merlyn's
motives. She doubted anyone would believe her only 'motive' have been
to be with the man she had wanted so desperately from the first.
Mistaking this house for the hotel had been bad enough, but making love
with Rand had ruined any chance she might have had of convincing him to
let her appear in the film, especially as that chance had been slim to
start with.

The woman who entered the lounge at Rand's side wasn't at
all what Merlyn had been expecting. Anne was a short blonde woman of
about thirty who, if one were being generous, could be called cuddly,
and if one weren't, would be called plump. Suzie had been tall,
ethereally slim, and dark-haired, and her sister came as something of a
surprise.

Anne couldn't exactly be called beautiful either, with her
even features, but as she smiled Merlyn realised she had something much
more than mere surface beauty, that her warm blue eyes glowed with her
inner serenity and gave her a charm that couldn't be bought or applied
and would never fade.

'Merlyn!' she greeted warmly, crossing the room to hug
her, unzipping the anorak she wore over a powder-blue jumper and denims
as the heat in the room hit her. 'You're just as beautiful as I thought
you would be,' she complimented without envy. 'You really—'
The glow left her eyes as she frowned up at Merlyn. 'My God, what
happened to your mouth?' she gasped, moving Merlyn out of the light of
the window. 'You didn't mention anything yesterday about an
accident—'

'I wasn't in an accident,' Merlyn refuted reluctantly,
knowing Anne had seen what Rand hadn't; the black and purple bruising
about the cut she had made on her bottom lip.

'But you look as if someone punched you in the—
My God,' she breathed dazedly, turning slowly to look at Rand. 'You
didn't!' She shook her head disbelievingly. 'Brandon, you can't blame
Merlyn for any of this, it was my idea that she come up here. You
didn't have to do this.' She looked again with horror at the bruising
to Merlyn's lip.

'I didn't,' he dismissed abruptly. '
What
was your idea? And if Merlyn is a friend of yours how is it that you
didn't know how beautiful she is?' His eyes were narrowed with cold
suspicion.