After the Affair(18)

CHAPTER SEVEN


The door shut with the force of an earth tremor.

Cassie's stricken gaze swung to Dan. But his eyes were squeezed tight, his face twisted in a type of anguish. He shuddered and expelled a long-held breath. 'God,' he muttered.

Cassie groaned as she thought of the picture they must have presented to their unexpected visitor. Another couple of seconds and Dan would have been...

Embarrassment brought a blast of heat into her cheeks. Upset and flustered, she tried to move.

Dan's hands whipped up to her shoulders and pinned her to the carpet. 'No!' he ground out, wild black eyes flying open.

She shook her head frantically and kept trying to escape, but her wriggling movements were futile. And their effect disastrous. Her swollen breasts accidentally rubbed against Dan's chest, rekindling the smouldering fire in his eyes. Seeing his reaction, she stupidly struggled harder, trying to slide away from under his hands, this tactic only serving to make her tight skirt ride dangerously high. He swore under his breath, hot eyes fixed on the tips of her breasts jutting provocatively against the thin woollen material. His breathing grew disconcertingly rapid, his chest rising and falling in a ragged rhythm.

'Dan...please...let me up,' she gasped.

His eyes snapped up to her face. 'Damn it all, Cassie, ignore that! He won't come back. He wouldn't dare! You can't want me to stop now...'

Cassie tried to speak, to object, but when his lips descended to devour the soft flesh of her throat her voice died. And when they moved down to a single swollen breast she could no longer even breathe.

His mouth opened and closed around its prey, the moist heat within quickly saturating the layers of material covering the nipple. She could feel his teeth against the sensitised peak, nipping it into even further arousal. More and more it responded to him, growing harder and larger, till the sensations became unbearable.

'No...' she objected. But feebly, without conviction.

'Yes,' he grated back.

Her wide blue eyes were drawn to the library door. She imagined that man, standing outside, listening, smiling, sniggering. 'No!' she screamed, and slapped Dan hard on the side of the head.

Glazed black eyes jerked up to stare at her.

'I said no!' she repeated, with gritted teeth this time.

Gradually, the almost incoherent quality in Dan's gaze faded, to be replaced by a brooding, barely controlled fury. He was still breathing hard and his hands were brutal in their hold around her hips.

For one terrifying moment Cassie feared that he would continue. And the horrible thing was, she knew that it would not be rape. Her body still wanted him, quite desperately. He only had to push the issue and she was his.

'Let me up,' she demanded. And held her breath.

After an excruciating couple of seconds, Dan shrugged and rolled away, a scornful smile curling his lips. 'It's a lady's privilege to change her mind,' he drawled as he got up. 'But you do realise, Cassie, that you're only delaying the inevitable.'

Cassie struggled to her feet. She was fiercely aware of the clammy material pressed against her breast, still wet where his mouth had been. Shame curled in her stomach. She had been so easy...

And while Dan's words had a ghastly ring of truth about them, they evoked a proud and defiant anger in her.

Her chin tilted upwards. 'Don't count your chickens, Dan. You're not dealing with the same silly naive girl you seduced nine years ago.'

His face tightened. 'That much is obvious, my dear. If I remember correctly, we had known each other. . ten days, wasn't it?...before we became lovers. By your response tonight I think we'll be a lot quicker this time, don't you?'

His mocking disdain cut Cassie to the quick. Her only wish was to strike back, to hurt him as he was hurting her. 'Aren't you forgetting one small matter, Dan? I already have a lover—a lover who's waiting for me at this very moment, only too willing to meet my physical needs. I certainly don't need you!'

Cassie shrank back from the frightening force of his glare.

'You are not to go to this man tonight. Do you hear me, Cassie? Or any other night. I forbid it!'

Her laughter was almost hysterical. 'You forbid it? You forbid it? And who do you think you are, Dan McKay, forbidding me to do anything?'

He smiled.

Cassie rocked back. Never had she encountered a smile like it. Thin and cruel; edged in pure steel.

He turned and walked slowly round behind the desk, seating himself again and leaning back in the chair, looking up at her with cynically cold eyes. Cassie found his silence more threatening than the loudest tirade.

'I'll tell you who I am, Cassie Palmer,' he said at last. 'I am the father of your son. I am also an extremely rich man. But more than either of those things, I am a man who has had a gutful of sacrifices and compromises and considerations. I want my son. And, strange as it may seem, I still want you...'the corners of his mouth lifted in a dry, ironic smile '...even if you aren't the same girl I fell in love with. Nevertheless, you are a very desirable woman—a woman I have a mind to possess. Or should I say repossess? And before you tell me so, I'm well aware that you despise me now. Nevertheless, I am quite capable of living with that, as long as you give me what I want.'