Refracted Crystal: Diamonds and Desire (10 page)

After a while of giving himself to her oral pleasures he lifted her up gently by the arms. She stood there for a moment, feeling the heat of his body as he reached around her, unzipped her dress at the back. For a few seconds, they stood there, looking at each other, the air full and thick between them, his head bowed down, hers uplifted, her neck arched, proud and submissive.

Without warning, he bunched up the fabric of her dress in his hands and tore, two sudden motions to either side of her body. She heard the fabric rip, a scorching sound in the silence that had built up as they stared at each other, and the motion made her climax then. A moan escaped her lips as she felt herself flooding, the dress falling away past her stockinged thighs.

She did not move now, her flesh trembling, waiting for his touch. He unclasped her bra, letting it fall alongside the discarded dress. Her breasts shook as he bent his head to kiss them, his tongue flicking along her nipples, and her camisole knickers were soaking now. She had not even touched herself yet but she had climaxed twice simply at the thought of what he would do to her. Christ! she thought in a moment of almost delicious panic. What the hell is going to happen when he actually enters me? Again, a gasping moan escaped her as he bit her left breast tenderly, one hand reaching down into her underwear, feeling along her wet slit, glorying in the flood of her desires.

At last he stood up. Her knees were trembling again, her whole body shaking as his head rose above her. She was bare from the waist up, he naked from the waist down, and his length stretched between them, brushing against her belly as it bobbed up and down with each pulse, hot blood filling it. With an evil smile that only increased her palpitations, he lifted up one hand slowly to his shoulder, catching hold of one end of his tie and dragging it down in a determined gesture.

“Hold out your hands,” he said, very quietly.

She did as she was told, eagerly stretching her hands upwards in an attitude of prayer and supplication, wrists touching as he took one step back.

His movements were delicate, deliberate. He wrapped the tie around her wrists and between her hands, over and under, binding them together and expertly fixing them in a knot so that she would not be able to move them apart. He tugged on them and kissed her, dragging her towards him so that she could not resist.

Biting her neck, her ears, her shoulders, sweet flares of tenderness against her skin, he then brought his face back up in front of hers. His smile was so demonic that she thought she was about to faint.

That was the moment that, with the sweetest of kisses, he bent slightly, forcing his knee between her legs, kicking them apart with a gentle motion while, with his strong hands, he gave the tenderest push against her shoulders so that she fell backwards against the soft, enveloping folds of the bridal bed.

Anne and Andrew remained in San Francisco for two more days, although Kris was a little guilty that she saw less of them than she felt she should have. Not that Anne was particularly surprised. “I think Daniel was being incredibly generous,” she told her as they shared a drink in one of the hotel bars, just the two of them together. “I can’t think of many men who would invite someone else on their honeymoon—particularly as two weeks ago he didn’t know Andrew or me at all.”

Kris smiled at this. “That was... a surprise.” She paused for a moment. “I think he believes I’ve been spending too much time on my own, recently—you know, preparing for the exhibition.”

“A great success, so I hear. Daniel told me just before dinner last night that most of your paintings have already sold.”

“Ah,” Kris waved her hand. “I’m pretty sure Daniel arranged that with his business associates.” Felix Coltraine’s final harsh words to her echoed through her brain:
charity case
.

Anne slapped her firmly but gently on her arm. “Stop that! Stop it now, young lady.” Her friend’s eyes were bright and her face sympathetic as Anne tilted her head slightly to one side. “You were always good, Kris. Always. You could just never see it.”

Kris blushed at this and began to make some other self-deprecating remark, but Anne interrupted her before she could speak.

“He’s good for you. And, yes, I know how easy that is to say. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen you like this before—I mean, not
ever
.”

“Oh, and how do I look?”

Anne paused for a second, her eyes flickering towards the wide windows of the bar that looked across the grounds around the hotel and then out across the city. She returned her gaze back to Kris and smiled. “Radiant.”

“
Radiant
?”

“Yeah.” Her smile became a smirk now as she sipped her drink, but she refused to offer any more information. “You know,” she said at last, placing her glass on the table, “I didn’t think I’d like him.”

“Who, Daniel?”

Anne nodded. “I mean, I was happy for you—really happy. Jesus! You landed on your feet there—like I told you before, this is a bit of a fairy tale, isn’t it?”

Kris raised one eyebrow but said nothing, waiting for her friend to continue as she took a sip of her wine.

“To be honest, though... don’t tell him this.
Please
don’t tell him this, but I really expected him to be a jerk.”

At this, Kris spurted wine out of her mouth back into the glass as a sudden paroxysm of laughter burst from her lungs.

“Oh, sorry. Shit! Did I say something wrong? Don’t tell him I said that.
Please
.”

Kris shook her head, still struggling to suppress her laughter. “Don’t worry... I won’t... I won’t. It’s just... it’s just that you should have met him when I did. He
was
a jerk!”

She stopped for a moment and looked out towards the window thoughtfully, her mind wandering along the paths that had led her to this moment. “He was arrogant,” she said at last, serious now. “He was sometimes brusque, brutal even. He had to have his own way.”

“Sounds a keeper,” murmured Anne ironically.

Kris couldn’t help but smile at this. “And he was lost. So lost. I still haven’t got to the bottom of it yet. And when... when he touched me.” She remembered those first times in Comrie and, unbidden, a warmth began to spread through her crotch.

“Yes?” Anne was waiting impatiently. Kris looked at her blankly for a moment, being summoned back to reality from the fantasy of her memories, then she realised where she was and blushed even more.

“Great,” muttered Anne. “Here I am, waiting for some dirty details, and
now
you decide to go all coy on me.”

“I’ll tell you everything,” whispered Kris, leaning into her ear. “When we get back to London. I promise. Absolutely
everything
.”

For a second, a look close to jealousy filtered across Anne’s eyes, but then she shook her head and clutched Kris’s wrist. “I’ll hold you to that.” As she sat back upright, she surveyed her friend for a few moments and said: “Married life is going to suit you, you know.”

“I hope so,” Kris replied.

“It will, really. You look, I don’t know, really comfortable in yourself. You’ve gained a few pounds—”

“I see,” said Kris, scornfully. “So that’s what radiant means, does it? I’m getting fat.”

“No! You look good. Really. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you look so confident in yourself.” Without warning, Anne leaned back across and kissed Kris on the cheek, a warm, loving touch. “The best is yet to come,” she told her.

“I hope so,” Kris answered, smiling. “I hope so.”

Not that the best appeared to arrive the following morning. She and Daniel had driven themselves to exhaustion during the night, and when she entered the shower with him still dozing in bed, she seemed to be truly living in a fairy tale. It was with some regret she washed the scent of his body, her own sweat mingled with his, the traces of their sex, but that regret was mingled with the recognition that she was making herself anew: that each time he entered her, she would prepare herself afresh to return to him, again and again.

When she left the bathroom, however, prepared to wake her husband with a kiss and give herself up to him, with a twinge she realised that this particular fantasy was not to be.

Daniel was sitting up in bed, the covers thrown negligently across his waist. His chest, scratched and marked from her own nails, still glistened with perspiration, and the hollow of his neck rose and fell as he swallowed, tempting her as a sweet dip of bliss.

On his face, however, was a scowl. The reason for it was quite clear, as in one hand he held the TV remote, and a faint buzz was coming from the large screen that was set into the wall. Walking across to him naked, slightly unnerved in the change that had taken place since their hours of lovemaking, Kris sat silently on the bed and turned her attention to the television.

The channel was the local news, one of its interminable business magazine shows that she knew Daniel devoured assiduously but which she had largely ignored. No doubt some events were taking place in the world that affected Stone Enterprises, and she was wondering how best to ask Daniel as politely as possible to turn the programme off, to remind him that whatever the world wanted this was still their
honeymoon
after all. The presenter was droning on about falling share prices but, before she could speak, the next video clip surprised her.

The scene was the City Hall and, despite the slightly shaky footage, it was quite clear that the camera was moving towards a small knot of figures walking down the steps. With a sense of growing foreboding, Kris recognised herself and Daniel followed by their select group of wedding guests.

“Do you have any comments to make about the failed leverage bid on new Stone Enterprise acquisitions, and what this means for the future of the company?” the reporter asked, her voice sounding flattened out in contrast to how she had spoken to them on the steps of the Hall.

From this vantage point, Daniel’s face looked even more furious and bitter than Kris had realised at the time, his skin flushed and red, his scars made even more livid by the oversaturated footage. “I have no comment to make at this time,” he said harshly.

The camera remained on them as they walked towards the car, Kris looking utterly bemused by the event and Daniel being displayed as utterly charmless and un-photogenic as he walked.

Back in the studio, the presenter turned to another pundit who was sitting beside him. “And what do you make of that, Donald?” he asked, his face smug and knowing as he referred to the footage they had just seen.

“Out of touch is the first phrase that springs to mind. As far as I can see, Stone Enterprises is floundering—”

The screen went black as Daniel flicked a button on the remote.

“Now you understand why I’m so keen not to appear on television. It’s very hard for me
not
to appear as some kind of ogre.”

The comment was self-deprecating, but Kris could hear the pain in Daniel’s voice. Placing her head on his shoulder, she stroked his chest gently, the moist warmth of her own body seeping into him, the only comfort she could offer him at this time. After a while, his own hand came up to her head, softly caressing her still-damp hair.

“Is it that bad?” she asked after a while.

She could feel him shrug. “Perhaps, perhaps not. Only time will tell.” He sat in silence for a while and she did not interrupt him. He would speak when he was ready.

“You know,” he began at last, his voice slightly tentative. Kris kept her eyes on his chest, moving her fingers across his muscle and skin, tracing delicately the scratches and scars she had placed there the night before, temporary marks of love in contrast to the permanent, more harrowing marks on his face. She did not interrupt: he wanted to speak. He
needed
to speak. The words were not easy, however, and he gave a cough before continuing, clearing his throat.

“You know, when first we met, I had nearly given up.”

She nodded, but still said nothing, did not look at his face. For a moment she remembered when her father had taken her to confession when she was young, how the priest had sat with his face hidden by a grille and she had told him her sins, sins that were so trivial when she was seven years old. But not seeing, having an ear that would listen but no face to judge her—she remembered how important that had been.

“While I had something of a reputation as a playboy, one undeserved by the time you met me, to be honest, it would still be fairly unusual to say the least for the founder of a company the size of mine to just disappear for a month. Felix, however, was more than happy enough to cover.”

Though she had promised not to speak, as his own voice drifted away, she felt she had to help him. “He didn’t want you to come back, did he?”

Daniel did not reply immediately, but still she did not look up at him. Her own stomach felt queasy at the thought of what he must be going through—and she was surprised at just how distressing recent events were for her.

“No, he didn’t.” Another pause. “Perhaps I wouldn’t have, but then... but then I met you. I had something to...” The pause was a long one, him struggling to find the word to say, repressing others. “I had something to fight for.”