Ryman, Rebecca (51 page)

The
commitment
you
have made . . .? Was it not shared? A question trembled
on the tip of her tongue but she swallowed it; to ask it would be to break
faith with herself. "Whatever the commitment, I have made it voluntarily.
I do love you so very much, Jai."

He
sighed and ruffled her hair but he did not smile. "It is not a love that
will bring you worthwhile compensation."

"It
already has," she said bravely. "If it brings nothing else, there
will always be this."

"I
am the wrong man for you, Olivia—you have chosen to love the wrong man."
His inner storms would not subside.

"You
are the only man for me, Jai," she explained patiently, despairing of ever
breaking the vicious circle but not wanting to tempt the fates again with a
futile argument. "Don't spoil my moment of happiness, Jai," she
implored. "I refuse to let you." She hugged him close and, caressing
his chest, deftly changed the subject. "How did you get this scar?"

With
a sigh he surrendered. "In a fight."

She
followed the livid line from shoulder to hip with a finger-tip. "From a
sword?"

"No."
He hesitated. "From a whip."

With
a small cry of horror she bent down and kissed the scar from one end to the
other. "Oh, how I wish I could erase all your scars with my kisses!"

He
looked amused. "You think love is a universal panacea, do you?"

"Yes.
If one allows oneself to be loved." She scanned his face for hints of his
private thoughts. "Why don't you, Jai? Why are you afraid to be
loved?"

He
laid his head back and stared at the ceiling. "Because love such as you
give me humbles me. It reduces me to something despicable in my own eyes. It
diverts me. I feel threatened." He gave a hollow laugh. "Perhaps I am
not used to being humbled."

"Then
humble me too!" she whispered, hating the subtly increasing distance
between them. "Reduce me too, divert me, threaten me, do with me as you
wish—but don't stop me from loving you!"

His
eyes liquefied, their corners suddenly bright. He pulled her close to him and
rocked her back and forth like a child and his voice became thick with feeling.
"Yours is an extraordinary
love, Olivia, pure and undemanding, unselfish and,
alas, unrewarding. I have never known anything like it; it baffles me, strikes
wonder in me, decimates me." Lifting her hand, he kissed it almost with
reverence. "Yes, I lied to you. What you have come into my life as is ...
a miracle. You have washed away so much of its ugliness, so much. In return you
have asked for nothing, and I have given you even less than that." He
lowered his head onto hers and his arms tightened. "You can never know
what you have meant to me."

She
squeezed her eyes shut. "Then tell me."

"I
don't have the words. Perhaps there are none."

"There
are, oh there are!" Every little muscle in her body tensed as she waited.
"Just tell me once, only once, that you love me . . ."

He
seemed astonished. "You still need it to be said?"

"Yes.
I still need it to be said."

"To
prove that you have won your challenge?" he teased but with involuntary
annoyance. "To ensure that you have indeed made me eat my words?"

"No.
The challenge was won even before I threw it!" She sat back smugly and
defied him to deny it.

"In
that case, why? They would be only words, what would you do with them after I
have said them?"

A
moist film removed him briefly from her vision. Why was he mocking her? "I
will let them console and comfort me when I am not with you. They will sustain
me, nourish me, keep me alive and breathing until I am again where I am now.
Why else?"

"No.
That is what you must not let them do. You must merely listen and forget
them." There were strange shadows in the depths of his eyes, still unhappy
and profoundly troubled. "You have a death wish, Olivia. And you are
naive, exasperating, incorrigible, persistent and outrageously wilful." He
paused to lay the back of his hand on her cheek and there was in the gesture
entrancing tenderness. "But yes, I do love you . . ."

He
had said it. At last it was hers,
at last!

The
words dropped, one by one, into the stunned quiet of her mind to take root, to
grow, to flower like the waxen orchids that clung to the acacia tree in her
uncle's garden. In time, like the orchids, the words now echoing endlessly through
the silence of her mind would blossom further, remain perennially radiant and
fresh. Olivia had never known a moment of such unadulterated happiness. In just
a single instant her life seemed enriched beyond measure. She wanted to cry.

He
did not break the silence between them. Instead, he filled it with unspoken
things, sharing with her the joy he had evoked with such an effortless
triviality. With his eyes, full of softness and unfettered love, he touched and
caressed her body still flushed pink with the residual effects of love-making.
The swell of her breasts, nipples once more taut and engorged; the dip of her
waist as it curved and flared into rounded hips; the shapely legs threaded
through his; the perfectly fashioned toes that idly stroked the side of his
calf. He left nothing untouched. Olivia's amber eyes, mellow with happiness and
the aches of love given and received, watched him as he watched her, the
communion between them as perfect as a rainbow, a summer rose, a drop of dew.
He took her face in his hands and kissed the corners of her tranquil smile.
Pulled up close against him, she felt the stir of renewed yearnings.

"Teach
me how to love you, Jai," she whispered. "Teach me everything."
With the tip of her tongue she reached up to remove the tiny dot of dried blood
that still clung to his cheek. He shivered with pleasure. Without fear or
inhibition, she ran the flat of her hand down the expanse of his skin in a
caress that brought a gasp of delight to his lips. He had given her the right
to love him; to exercise it she now knew there was no bound she would be
unwilling to break.

He
made love to her again, with passion but with a tenderness that went far, far
beyond the demands of mere physical hunger. Dictated by love, his whispered
commands were still hesitant; intoxicated with success, Olivia hastened to obey
them. An apt pupil, a swift learner, she abandoned restraint without qualms.
Coached by a masterly lover, she teased and tantalised and tasted him as fully
as he had done her, eager to give as much pleasure as she had been given.
Startled but enchanted by her unlimited offerings, he tutored her shyly,
guiding her hands when they faltered, wincing in savage rapture when they
didn't, increasingly enflamed when she surprised him with some erotic
innovation of her own. Her success in rousing him to such extreme pitches of
pleasure flushed her with triumph. She matched him kiss for kiss, caress for
caress, exploiting at random the wonderful freedom he gave her of his body. He
took her again, with gentleness, and this time his rhythms were leisured and
languid, a celebration that was mutual, a revelation that was to be savoured
slowly. So skillfully and unerringly did he guide her and with such compelling
subtlety that when she reached the crest, Olivia's senses deserted her. She
flailed the air, cried out his
name and clawed at his flesh in a crescendo of
sensation. In her ear he laughed, even more abandoned. Ruthless now in his
perpetration of delicious torment, he captured her mouth to silence her; within
her head a galaxy of suns exploded, blinding her with their dazzle. The
cataracts of sensation became impossible and, driven beyond the pale of
tolerance, she burst into tears.

He
was frantic with anxiety. "What did I do? Did I hurt you? Was I rough,
brutal? Oh God, I am an animal!" Maddened with remorse, he showered her
with kisses, wrapped her in his arms and rocked her. "Don't cry, for
pity's sake, don't cry. I can't bear it."

Weakly,
drenched in sweat, exhausted, Olivia shook her head. Still muttering
self-imprecations, he crushed her to him and cocooned her in his love, unspoken
but oh so eloquent! Gradually her breath quietened; peace returned to her body
and with it an enormous contentment. Her life was now truly complete; she
wanted nothing more from it, nothing. Wordlessly she rested her head on his
shoulder. A moment of silence expanded into an eternity of jewelled perfection.
Then he released her to lie back, lace his fingers beneath his head and close
his eyes. Cushioned against the gleaming damp of his shoulder, watching the
once-again calm rise and fall of his chest, Olivia drew languorous patterns
above his heart, smiling to herself. Suddenly, her hazy thoughts crystallised
into a tangible question. She frowned but did not speak.

"Ask
it."

She
started. "I forgot that you see with your eyes closed," she
complained, piqued at having been caught.

"I
don't need eyes to read your mind."

The
finger-tip doodling across his heart stopped. Her gaze dropped and she blushed.
"How many others have lain with you on this bed?"

"Why?
Does it bother you?"

Animated
again, her finger-tip drummed a grim tattoo. "Yes, it bothers me."

He
laughed, slid up against the bank of pillows and took her up with him. "I
warned you, I am not exactly a
brahmachari."

"What
is a
brahmachari?"

"What
you said I could never be even if I tried." He cupped a breast in his palm
and kissed its tip. "Hasn't it pleased you that I am not?"

Blushing
deeper, she hid her face from him, suddenly shy. "Then why have you sent
Sujata away?"

"Is
there no stone of my life you would leave unturned? I sent her away because I
no longer needed her."

Olivia
recoiled. "And is that what you will do when you no longer need me?"

He
became motionless, staring through her as if she was suddenly no longer there.
"It is you who will cease to need me, Olivia," he said quietly.
Taking off his silver pendant threaded through a fine chain, he slipped it over
her head. "I have never given you anything because I cannot give you what
I don't value myself, and I value nothing. Except this." His face was
again haunted. "It belonged to my . . . mother."

A
hard knot formed in Olivia's stomach. He had never before spoken of his mother!
The significance of the gift, the enormity of his sacrifice in making it, the
subsumed sanctity of the moment reduced her to silence. Lifting the pendant,
she kissed it and then held it against her cheek, too moved to speak. It was in
the shape of a box, heavy but obviously hollow. Along three sides was a
hair-line crack. She started to run a finger-nail in it but, with a quick
gesture, he stopped her.

"It
was my mother's. It must not be opened, not even by you." He spoke with
great agitation in short, gasping phrases. "Promise me that."

She
nodded. Questions flocked to her mind but she did not ask them. What she had
received from him tonight was a treasure chest of joy; she would not be greedy
for more. She craned her neck to kiss both his eyes, his nose, the curve of his
mouth, still too full for words. He had allowed her a glimpse into his private
world; for the moment, it would suffice. And she had his love. Sweet Lord, how
much
she had of his love!

He
swung his legs off the bed and stood up. One by one he picked up his scattered
clothes and slipped into them carelessly. Then, with care, he gathered her
garments, shook each one out and folded it, then laid them in a neat pile
beside her. For a moment longer he stood feasting his eyes on the unashamed
length of her body. Something flickered in the greyness, a momentary ache, a
rippling sorrow. He bent down to brush his lips over the flatness of her
stomach within which, somewhere— everywhere!—she held the cherished proof of
his love. He turned away to stand at a window, looking out, one hand absently
stroking the back of his neck.

Whoever
and whatever Jai Raventhorne was in his innermost self, Olivia knew their
communion was over. Once more he had carried himself away and beyond her reach.

With
a sigh, she stretched her limbs and yawned, her body throbbing with the
sweetest pain she had ever known. Humming under her breath, she got up and
dressed herself. In a nearby drawer of a mirrored dresser, she found a comb and
ran it through her disarrayed hair. The dark patch at the window through which
he stared with such intensity was starting to tinge with an icy blue. Olivia
was surprised—had any night ever flown by on such lightning wings? Watching the
rigid back turned on her as if in denial of the intimacy they had shared only a
few moments ago, Olivia coiled her hair into a chignon. Inadvertently, her
thoughts began to race again and, as always, he sensed them.

"You
are still concerned about my defence." It was not a question but a
statement, uninflected and matter of fact.

She
saw no point in denying it. "Yes."

He
walked to his desk, picked up a sheaf of papers and tossed them in her
direction. They fell onto the bed. "Read them. You might find what they
say of interest." He returned to his abstractions near the window. For all
his impersonality indicated, they might never have shared a glance let alone a
bed of such consuming passion.