Price of Passion (13 page)

She sighed with a strange contentment. ‘Steve said the three of you don’t get together very often any more,’ she said, unlocking the front door. A lot of Oyster Beach people didn’t bother to lock their doors, at least in the off-season, she had been told, but Kate’s cautionary habits were too deeply ingrained.

‘No, but when we do it’s always as if we only saw each other yesterday. The group dynamics are such we can just pick up where we left off. Some friendships are like that.’

‘That’s what we do, too, isn’t it? Pick up where we left off,’ she said, turning in the doorway. But not any more, she thought wistfully.

‘Aren’t you going to ask me in?’ he suggested softly as she switched on the light and blinked at him like an owl, her silver eyes still hazed with dreams. ‘Offer me a nightcap?’

‘I don’t have any alcohol in the house,’ she said, hypnotised by his slow smile.

‘A coffee, then.’ He reached out and stroked her hair behind her ear, his thumb briefly brushing the lobe. ‘Isn’t that the way the two of us usually end a night out?’

No. They usually ended it in bed, making love. Her eyes dilated with betraying speed, her pink lips parting, her breasts rising and falling against the white cotton shirt.

‘Coffee keeps me awake,’ she croaked.

‘That’s good. Awake is good,’ he murmured, slowly lowering his head, his thighs bumping against hers as he shuffled her back against the wooden panels of the open door. ‘I wouldn’t like you to be asleep when I did this…’

His kiss was warm, soft, sweet and sensuous…a delicate tasting of her resistance, with no aggression to trigger her alarm, just a gentle teasing of her lips, a whisper-soft stroke of his firm, velvety mouth.

It was so sweet and so soft it left her wanting, and as he began to draw back her arms slid around his waist and folded across his strong back, holding him secure while she went on tiptoe to try and increase the pressure against her yearning mouth.

He didn’t make the mistake of swooping inside with his tongue, instead he withheld himself, luring her to seek her own pleasure and move ever deeper into danger.

His legs shifted, his knee bending as his denim thigh eased between hers, rising up to fit snugly into the notch of her body, his hands on her hips tilting her pelvis into the cradle of his and then stroking around to trace the outline of her panties through the thin fabric of her silk trousers. When he began to softly knead the rounded cheeks of her bottom, moving her rhythmically against the rigid muscles of his thigh, she uttered a tiny, shivery cry that broke on the still night.

‘Ask me inside…take me to your bed,’ he whispered, sipping the cry from her bee-stung lips. A clever glide of his fingers slipped a few of the pearl buttons on her shirt and she felt the delicate swirl of his fingertips on the silky swell of her tightening breast. ‘You know you want to, Kate. You won’t even have to ask, you just have to want me…I’m yours for the taking…all of me is yours…’He moved his hips in a slow rotation that rubbed the thick bulge between his legs against her feminine mound, teasing her with the memory of the turbulent ecstasy his heat and hardness could provide.

For a moment they both thought the faint squeak was her whimper of surrender, but then Kate groaned and turned her cheek to the door, her arms dropping away. She could feel Drake’s rigid body drawn so tight it was trembling, then he uttered a harsh sound and let his forehead rap on the door behind her averted head, leaning it there while he said thickly:

‘I can’t take much more of this. I thought we were lovers, Kate. What’s happening? Why can’t we make love?’ He lifted his head, temper seeking a safer outlet. ‘And what the hell is that infernal noise?’

Now the enchanted spell was well and truly broken. ‘A rat, I think,’ she said. ‘I told you about it, remember.’

‘You’ve told me so many things…except, apparently, the one thing that really matters.’ He pushed himself away from the door, breathing deeply, half turning away to hide the painful state of his body. ‘Just tell me this, at least: have you fallen in love with someone else, Kate? Someone who makes it impossible for you to be with me?’

‘No!’ She fumbled with the buttons on her blouse. ‘I—No—There’s only ever been you these past two years. Please, just give me a little more time,’ she begged.

‘You haven’t been raped, have you?’ he rasped.

‘What?
No!
’ she said, her eyes rounded in shock. ‘You’re letting your imagination run away with you.’

‘That’s what I’m paid for,’ he growled. ‘You still want what we have, Kate. Stop fighting it. Whatever it is that’s bugging you you’d better sort it out soon. Or I will.

‘And first thing tomorrow I’m going to sort out that damned rat of yours!’

W
HEN
Kate walked into the house the next afternoon her heart jumped to find Drake standing barefoot in the middle of her kitchen, looking rumpled and gorgeously surly in the same shirt and jeans he had worn the previous night.

‘I thought I locked up when I left; how did you get in?’ she said breathlessly, setting down the cardboard box and large plastic bag she was carrying by the leg of the table.

‘The rental agent gave me a spare key for emergencies,’ he admitted, eyeing her grumpily.

‘You mean you could have come in here any time you wanted?’ she said faintly, thinking of
1000 Tips For A Healthy Pregnancy,
which she thought she might have left open in the bathroom.

‘I could but I haven’t—
I
respect people’s personal privacy,’ he said pointedly, as if reading her mind. ‘I haven’t been pawing through your secrets. But I told you I’d be over to help you with your pest problem, and when you didn’t answer your door I thought something might be wrong…’

‘What—like something out of
Curse Of The Rat People
? Did you think I might be lying chewed up on the floor?’ she said sceptically, hugging herself with the knowledge that he worried about her in her absence. So it wasn’t entirely a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind’…

‘Besides, you said you’d be here
first thing
. It’s now after lunch.’ She toned down her sarcasm as she took in his slightly bloodshot eyes, and dissipated expression. ‘Are you all right? You don’t look so great.’ Which was a lie—Drake always looked terrific, whatever his physical state. And she had never known him to be ill. He either had the constitution of an ox or, more likely, he downplayed and concealed his illnesses the way he did the rest of his vulnerabilities.

He ran a hand through his hair and scratched his grainy chin. ‘I was up all night writing.’ He glared at her with a mixture of accusation and bewilderment. ‘I didn’t crash out until six a.m. I’ve only just woken up.’

Oh, so maybe she
had
been out of sight and mind for a while…

‘That’s not my fault,’ she defended herself from his look. ‘I didn’t order you to go home and write yourself into a coma.’

‘No, you just wound me up, pumped me full of adrenalin and kicked me loose. What else did you expect me to do?’

She looked quickly away, smoothing back her hair and composing her face into a cool expression. Not quickly enough, however, for he suddenly chuckled knowingly.

‘Why, Kate, is that what
you
did last night? Go to bed and dream a little wet dream of me?’ he taunted. ‘What a waste, when the real thing was right there for the asking.’

‘But then you wouldn’t have got all those pages written,’ she told him stoutly, fighting to keep the heat that suffused her body out of her face.

‘Maybe I wouldn’t have minded the sacrifice,’ he said silkily.

‘Well,
I
would—I don’t want you to
sacrifice
anything for me,’ she said with haughty pride. ‘People who feel forced to surrender something they value for the sake of someone else generally tend to get bitter and twisted if things don’t work out the way they planned. My mother says she sacrificed her valuable time and money to give me a good education, which I’ve wasted, and she never lets me forget it. So, no, thanks, don’t make any grand gestures on my behalf…’

‘Wow, I did hit a sore point, didn’t I?’ he murmured. ‘I was only kidding. Once I’m in the grip of writing fever I just have to keep going until it runs its course. It’s a very anti-social tendency so it’s actually quite useful when inspiration strikes in the middle of the night.’

‘I saw a light on up in your office when I got up for a glass of water some time around three,’ she confessed, revealing her own somewhat restless night. ‘I thought you had probably just forgotten to turn it off.’

He had shown her his office the night of their scallop dinner—a large, book-lined, high-ceilinged room upstairs in the back corner of the house, with folding doors that opened onto a balcony shared with his bedroom, facing directly out to the beach. There was also a window on the other external wall, which overlooked Kate’s holiday haven and the northeastern end of the beach, but it was fitted with reflector glass and motorised tilting shutters, which he usually kept closed. He didn’t like to feel claustrophobically shut in when he was working, he said, but he needed the security of walls and at least the illusion of total privacy.

‘It’s probably still on now. When I get in the zone I don’t even think about practicalities like light, heat, food, sleep. I work and drop. It can make me a bit of a bastard the next day, though.’

Crudely, but aptly put. ‘Is that an apology?’

‘No, an explanation. Which is more than you’ve given me.’ He left her to digest the wider implications of his comment as his eyes fell to the carry-box by her feet, which had begun to shudder and squeak.

‘What in the—?’ His eyes shot back to her face. ‘You caught the rat yourself!’ His surprise had a tiny suggestion of chagrin—St George deprived of his dragon.

She smiled wryly. ‘Sort of.’ She bent down to unfold the handles and reef open the top.

‘You’re not going to let it go after all that—?’ Drake lapsed into silence as he noticed the Vet Clinic’s stamp on the flap of the box in the same moment that a ball of furiously squeaking fur bounced out onto the faded floor and resolved itself into a small, glossy black kitten with a white breast and underbelly, and four white paws that immediately scampered into motion.

‘A kitten? You went and got
that
little thing from Ken to catch a rat?’ said Drake incredulously as he watched the creature skitter around a table leg. ‘I hate to tell you this, sweetheart, but you’ve been suckered—it’ll be eaten alive.’ The kitten turned in response to the deep rumble of his voice, approaching his bare feet with the little black tail held high, wagging eagerly back and forth, and the squeaking redoubling in volume.

‘That
is
my rat,’ Kate told him with a rueful look at her night-time nemesis. ‘I didn’t get it
from
Ken; I took it
to
him.’

It had been a very uncomfortable trip, too, with the kitten squeaking in protest at being cooped up in the semi-dark again, poking a pathetic white paw through the tiny ventilating gap she had created in one of her suitcases by loosely tying the two zip fasteners together.

She watched the black tail start to wag even faster as Drake scooped up the kitten in one big hand, and cupped it level with his face, inspecting the small, triangular face with the yellow eyes and tiny white moustache angled crookedly under a black nose.

‘When I opened the door under the house to shine the torch in, she came rushing out, squeaking to beat the band. Ken said she’s not as young as she looks—several months at least—but she must have been hiding under the house and coming out at night scavenging for food, and then got trapped under there somehow in the last few days. He says she’s lost a little bit of body weight, so he’s given me some supplements to add to her food.’ She nudged the plastic bag with her sneakered foot.

The kitten suddenly lunged forward and began swiping her piquant little face back and forth against Drake’s nose, nuzzling his mouth in between squeaks.

‘I think she likes you.’ Kate laughed as Drake emerged from the flurry of friendliness spitting strands of black fur and hastily set the kitten back down on the floor to resume her exploration of the kitchen.

‘Why can’t she miaow like other cats?’ he mumbled critically, still picking fur off his tongue. ‘You’d have rescued her much sooner if she’d had the decency to behave like a proper feline.’

‘I don’t know, but I think it’s cute,’ she said defensively. ‘Ken says not all cats vocalise in the same way—he said it could be physiological, or because she hasn’t been around other cats who miaow. He said she must have been in good condition when she got trapped under the house or she wouldn’t still have fat stores left in her body, so she’s either a very good hunter or someone’s pet, but no one had been asking about missing kittens.’ She smiled as the animal made a daring pounce on a patch of sunlight.

‘Ken seems to have said an awful lot,’ he remarked, eyes narrowing on her softened face as he crossed his arms across his chest. Her gaze jumped to his. ‘So how come
you
still have the cat and not him?’ he pressed. ‘Didn’t you take it to the clinic to hand it in?’

Kate’s gaze slid away from his and she busied herself unpacking the plastic bag. ‘Well, yes…but Ken gave Koshka a thorough check-over and all the tests, and there’s nothing actually wrong with her—the nurse gave her a good brushing and she doesn’t even have fleas!’ She darted him a triumphant look that was met with lowered brows.

‘Koshka? You’ve given her a name already?’

‘It’s Russian for cat. Ken was calling her Kitty—I had to give her something prettier than that!’ she insisted.

‘Oh, yes, he knows all the right triggers.’ His voice dripped with sarcasm as he shook his head. ‘Don’t tell me he persuaded you to adopt it?’ he growled. ‘What’s going to happen when you go home? You’re not allowed pets in your town house.’

‘I know that. I’m not keeping her—just fostering for a few weeks, until I leave, or Ken can find her a home…’

Drake rolled his eyes. ‘Where have I heard
that
one before?’

‘He said she’d be kept alone in a cage if she stayed at the clinic, whereas here she can prowl and play, and we’ll be good company for each other,’ she hastened to add.

‘You already have company—me. Not to mention my faithful hound.’ His mouth took on a malicious curl. ‘I guess the problem will be solved soon enough. Koshka won’t be more than a single gulp for Prince.’

Kate gasped, and even though she knew he was joking she protectively snatched up her little charge, cuddling the warm, squirming body into the curve of her neck, laughing softly when a raspy tongue began to lap at the side of her jaw. She didn’t notice the bloodshot brown eyes darken with a moody bleakness as Drake watched the tender byplay.

‘We won’t let that big goof get you, will we, Koshka?’ she crooned, tickling a white chin and letting small, sharp teeth gnaw at her scratching finger, the wagging tail beating a light tattoo against her breast. ‘Mummy will look after you.’

‘Foster-mummy,’ corrected Drake. ‘You’ll get attached—how are you going to feel when you have to give her back?’

‘I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,’ said Kate, letting the cat scamper free to investigate the hall, jogged by his abrupt tone into remembering that he, too, had been fostered. She hoped that after the horror of his mother’s suicide, he had passed into loving hands, but the indications were unfortunately otherwise. He obviously had no trust in maternal figures.

‘What do you know about caring for a cat?’

‘Not much, but I bought a book at the clinic, and I’m sure it’s largely a matter of practical common sense. I have plenty of that,’ she reminded him.

‘She’ll shed all over your clothes. You’ll hate that. You’re very fastidious.’

‘I’m not compulsive about it, and cats are fastidious creatures, too—they’re always cleaning themselves. Anyway, who cares about a bit of stray fluff when they’re on holiday?’

‘It’ll get on the furniture, too. The landlord might object.’

‘She’s a short-hair so it shouldn’t be too much of a problem, but I did buy one of those sticky rollers from Ken’s receptionist just in case,’ she admitted.

‘Boy, they really saw you coming, didn’t they? How many cat toys did you buy?’ he said, moving over to peer into the top of the bag.

‘A few,’ she said, batting away his hands and scrunching it closed to hide the embarrassing profusion of balls, catnip treats and clockwork mice. She gave him a very cool look. ‘They’re educational.’

‘She’s a cat; you’re not going to turn her into Einstein in a few weeks. She might wag her tail like a dog, but the similarity ends there. You can’t train cats the way you can train dogs.’

‘You mean
some
dogs. Your dog doesn’t seem to be very well trained.’

‘Oh, so we’re reduced to insulting each other’s pets now, are we? Prince is a supreme individualist—he knows what he’s supposed to do, he just doesn’t want to do it.’

‘Like master, like pet,’ she told him cattily.

‘So, I guess that makes you cute and soft and cuddly, then,’ he said, with an insinuating smile. She tossed her head at him and he laughed, banishing the last of the brooding shadows that had hung around him. ‘You bristle just like a cat, too. I always thought of you as a cool, sinuous, haughty Siamese and now I’m finding out that you’re a cosy little bundle of mixed-breed mischief. You even squeak when you’re excited. You know, that little sound you make when you—’

‘Oh, go write a novel, why don’t you?’ Kate said, shoving him towards the door. She had never blushed so much in her life as she had this last week. It had to be the over-excited hormones running riot in her bloodstream, upsetting her normal levels of biological self-containment.

‘Thanks, I think I will.’ He grinned, his eyes briefly shifting to focus on something in the middle distance, in a familiar sign of mental abstraction.