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  Isabel spoke first, her voice several shades higher than it normally was, dragging his eyes away from her breasts and back to her face. 'No, Alex,' she got out chokily, but he could tell from the way she said his name that she was as aroused as he was.

  'Why not?' he demanded, the arm behind her drawing her inexorably nearer, his hand sliding beneath her arm to touch the warm swell of her breast.

  'Because we can't,' she articulated unevenly, but Alex was scarcely listening to her. The feel of her breast beneath his hand was so incredibly good, he couldn't think of anything else, and when her soft lips opened to rebuke him, his mouth took possession of hers.

  She fought him at first, trying to drag her lips away from his, and pushing at his chest with her hands. She would have used her legs, too, had the console not been in the way. But Alex was deaf and blind to her pleas, intent only on satisfying the insatiable urge he had to make her as aware of him as he was of her. And he succeeded, too. Or at least, he thought he did. When she stopped fighting him, when she stopped clenching her teeth together and allowed the hot wet thrust of his tongue to slide between, Alex felt a sense of pleasure he had never felt before. The seductive cavern of her mouth offered boundless sweetness, and when her tongue entwined with his, his senses swam.

  He forgot who she was, and why he was bringing her to Nazeby. The idea that she was his cousin's fiancee, and as such, forbidden fruit to him, didn't so much shame him as inflame him. She didn't love Chris, she couldn't love Chris, not and kiss him as she was doing. Her hands were no longer resisting him, they were curled quite confidingly against his neck. And when he let his hand trace the shape of her breast beneath the dress, she pressed herself closer, making him catch his breath.

  He wanted her. God, how he wanted her! The raw possession of his tongue was no substitute for the sensual delights of imagining her tight muscles closing about his taut manhood. He was aching for her already, and he longed to take her hand and let her feel his need.

  But he was very much afraid, if he did so, his control would slip completely. Time enough for that afterwards, he thought. Right now, he had other things on his mind. Thank God, it was getting dark at last. No one would observe them when they made love.

  His hand moved lower, caressing the tremulous curve of her stomach, before sliding down to the provocative hem of her skirt. Isabel's legs parted willingly when his hand slipped between them, and he stroked the inner skin of her thigh, as his fingers moved even closer to the moist, scented core of her being. She smelt delicious, all warm and soft and feminine. He had to steel himself not to rush her, and he groaned when her small teeth fastened on his ear . . .

  'Isabel . . .' he rasped huskily, burying his face in the hollow of her neck, hearing her beads chink together as his mouth sought the warmth of her flesh ...

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The sudden tapping on the window at his side of the car shocked them both. To his relief, as he lifted his head, Alex saw that the glass had misted over all round, so that anyone peering through it would have only a hazy impression of the two people inside. But then a torch was switched on that penetrated the condensation, and Alex swiftly turned to press the button that operated his window.

  'Is everything all right, sir?'

  Before he could voice a protest, a helmeted policeman bent to peer through the open window at them, eyeing the two occupants of the car with a jaundiced eye. Alex immediately felt about fifteen again, caught making love in the back of one of his uncle's Land Rovers. He had driven a Land Rover about the estate from the age of twelve onwards, and he clearly remembered his first experience of sex with the daughter of one of his uncle's tenants. She had been older than he was, eighteen or nineteen at least, but more than willing to initiate him into the arts of sexual pleasure. He had been a willing pupil, too, he remembered, as Isabel hurriedly straightened her clothes beside him; but he was not fifteen now, and Isabel was no easy conquest . . .

  'I—perfectly,' he said, realising it would be unwise to complain. They were parked in a prominent position, after all, and his car had always attracted attention. He just hoped the policeman hadn't recog­nised its registration. All the cars belonging to the members of the Seton family were licensed with private plates, and his own was instantly recognisable to anyone who knew him.

  'Are you all right, miss?' The policeman had now turned his torch on Isabel, and she shifted nervously.

  'I—of course,' she answered. 'Um—I was feeling rather sick, and—and I asked if we could stop. I'm feeling much better now, thank you.'

  'Good, good.' The policeman patted the roof of the car as he straightened, evidently satisfied that they were unlikely to corrupt the neighbourhood. 'OK, sir, I won't detain you any longer. Have a good evening, and remember, don't drink and drive.'

  'Thanks.'

  Alex's response was necessarily brief, but at least his identity was still intact, he reflected with some relief, as he started the car. And, the policeman's intervention had brought him to his senses. God! he thought incredulously. He had actually been consid­ering making love with Isabel in the car! He hadn't made love in a car since he was at university. He must have been temporarily deranged!

  Nevertheless, he was no less aware of her now than he had been before, and that knowledge ate him up. What was wrong with him? She was Chris's fiancee, for Christ's sake! Was he out of his mind?

  And what about Isabel? What was she thinking? he wondered. After all, he added, struggling to justify himself, she had been as much to blame as he was. She hadn't exactly had hysterics when he touched her. On the contrary, after that first perfunctory protest, she had encouraged him, inviting him to take liberties with her, and responding with a passion he would not have believed her capable of.

  His hands tightened on the wheel. Why the hell didn't she say something? She must know how he was feeling. Or was she more experienced in these matters than he was, he asked himself bitterly. Was that why he had overcome her protests so easily? Because he wasn't the first man she had played around with since her engagement?

  'Will you tell Chris?' she asked at last, and Alex's lips twisted at the implied anxiety.

  'Will you?' he countered, keeping his eyes on the stretch of road ahead, illuminated by his headlights.

  'Of course not,' she answered, twisting her hands together in her lap. 'I—it should never have happened.'

  'No.' He conceded the point, even though his senses rejected the calm summation. 'I guess it could be pretty inconvenient for you if it came out.'

  'And for you,' she countered hotly. Then, 'I didn't ask you to touch me.'

  'You didn't put up much resistance,' he retorted, despising himself for his inhumanity, even though he told himself he was within his rights. 'Well, don't worry. I shan't destroy Chris's perfect image of you. I'll let you do that for yourself.'

  'Thank you.'

  Her response was barely audible, and once again Alex felt a pig for accusing her. But what the hell, he argued silently, she deserved everything he could fling at her. She was beautiful, but she was faithless; alluring, but immoral; desirable, and totally without conscience.

  Yet, in spite of his professed contempt for her, that weekend at Nazeby was the worst weekend he had ever spent. Seeing her with Chris, watching as his cousin pawed and fondled her, tore him up, and going through the motions of the wedding service was the purest kind of torment. He didn't love her, he told himself through the long nights, when the thought of her married to Chris plagued his senses, but he did want her. He wanted her so badly, he was almost prepared to destroy his friendship with Chris for ever. He had the distinct suspicion that if he went to her room and took up where they had left off in the car, Isabel wouldn't exactly repulse him, and this knowl­edge did not make sleep any easier. He knew his uncle wouldn't blame him. On the contrary, Robert would have been delighted to have an excuse to cancel the wedding. Any inkling that Isabel might not be in love with his son would have caused an immediate confron­tation between the
m, and no amount of persuasion on her part would have saved the day.

  But Alex did nothing, and he said nothing, allowing the plans for the wedding to go ahead unchecked. He kept out of the way as much as possible, and eventu­ally the weekend passed. Chris took his fiancee back to London himself, and Alex stayed on an extra day to cool his heated blood. He knew his grandmother was concerned about him, but he couldn't tell Vinnie what was wrong. Instead, he let her draw her own conclusions, no doubt assuming that, like herself, her grandson still had reservations about the following weekend.

  Alex eventually went back to London on Tuesday afternoon, and spent the next three days fighting the urge to see Isabel again. But by Friday evening, the day before she was due to be married to his cousin, he had come to the end of his tether. After imbibing rather freely at the pub across the road from his office, he took a taxi to Stanton Street, and climbed the stairs to the second-floor studio flat she shared with two other girls. He was past the stage of caring who saw him, but as luck would have it, Isabel was alone, ironing the creases out of the dress she was to wear on the following day.

  She answered the door to his knock, evidently expecting someone other than the slightly inebriated male who was propped against the wall outside. 'Alex!' she exclaimed, and just for a moment he thought he saw a glimmer of relief in her smoky-grey gaze. But then she realised he had been drinking, and with an exclamation of disgust, she would have closed the door to him.

  But, in spite of his intoxication, Alex still had possession of his faculties and, discerning what she was about to do the moment before she did it, he moved to put his foot in the doorway, successfully blocking her attempt to shut him out.

  'Now—is that any way to greet your future cousin-in-law?' he protested, pressing the heel of his hand against the door as he spoke, and propelling it inward. 'Aren't you going to offer me a drink? In—cel—cele­bration, so to speak.'

  His tongue faltered over the word, but he could see she understood him well enough, and his lips twisted bitterly at the knowledge that even now, in shabby jeans and a loose smock, her fiery hair in wild disorder about her shoulders, she was devastatingly attractive. The tight jeans outlined the long, lovely shape of her and, remembering the warm skin beneath the denim, Alex felt a familiar quickening of his senses.

  'What do you want, Alex?' she demanded now, making no attempt to fight him over the door. She acknowledged that he was stronger than she was, and would therefore win in any physical confrontation. But her attitude towards him wasn't conciliatory; it was downright contemptuous.

  'What do you think I want, Isabel?' he asked, ignoring the scornful sparkle of her eyes. He closed the door behind him and leaned back against it. 'I want you, of course. And you can't deny that you want me.'

  'I? Want you? You have to be joking!'

  The derisive tone of her voice was a set-back, but Alex refused to believe she meant it. 'Am I?' he asked, moving purposefully away from the door, trapping her between a tapestry-covered couch, which had seen better days, and the ironing-board she had been using earlier. 'I don't think so. We both know what we want, and as we appear to be alone, now would seem as good a time as any.'

  Isabel summoned an incredulous laugh, but there was no humour in it. 'You're crazy!' she exclaimed. 'And drunk! Go home and take a shower. A cold one, preferably.'

  'Don't—make fun of me,' advised Alex harshly, swallowing back the taste of bile which had risen sickeningly into his throat. The awareness that he had drunk more than he should have done was only adding to his frustration, and he shook his head impatiently to clear his muddled brain.

  'Go home, Alex,' Isabel said again, trying to move the ironing-board without overturning the iron. 'Please! You don't know what you're doing. Isn't Chris expecting you? Aren't you and he supposed to be having an evening out together?'

  If she thought mentioning Chris's name would make him think again, she was mistaken, thought Alex bitterly, his hands reaching for her shoulders. Even the idea of Chris having the right to touch her as he was touching her, fired him with jealousy, and imag­ining them making love, filled him with disgust.

  'Take your hands off me!' she exclaimed, flinching away from his fingers as they moved caressingly over her shoulders. 'Alex, for God's sake! Are you mad?' But he wasn't even listening to her.

  Her bones were so narrow and delicate, so close to the surface of her skin that he could feel every hollow between. Her skin itself was soft and supple, like the thickest cream beneath his hands; and her hair brushing his fingers was fine and vital, so full of life and electricity, that he almost expected to feel a shock when he buried his face in its glory.

  Oh, God! It was good to be touching her again, so good to feel her warmth against him, and the more she twisted against him, the more aroused he got. His hands slid over her shoulders and down her back, lingering in the curve of her waist before cupping her rounded bottom, and moulding her softness to him.

  He lifted his head then, eager to find her mouth with his, eager to taste the sweetness of her tongue with his own. He couldn't ever remember being so excited, not even as a youth, and his growing sense of urgency was only equalled by his desire to prolong the pleasure.

  The searing heat of the weight that swung against the side of his neck was devastating. Aside from the fact that it almost knocked him unconscious, the exquisite pain of the burning metal caused him to yell in agony. He didn't remember releasing Isabel, he didn't remember knocking over the ironing-board, as he clapped a protective hand over the burn and staggered back against the door. The first coherent memory he had was of Isabel staring at him in horror, while the tears poured down her face, and then her rushing towards him, desperate to tend his injury.

  But Alex was sober now, stone-cold sober, his brain washed clean of any emotion but outrage by the crippling blow of the iron. For that was what it had been. He recognised that fact now; even while his subconscious protested that it really couldn't have been Isabel's hand that lifted it.

  But it had been her hand. There was no one else there and, as if to certify his belief, she was still holding the offending article as she rushed towards him. She realised what she was doing before she reached him, of course, throwing the erstwhile weapon aside before reaching out to him with trembling hands. She was evidently as shocked by what had happened as he; though not as afflicted, reflected Alex bitterly, gritting his teeth against the pain in his neck; not as afflicted at all.

  'Alex—I'm sorry!'

  Her distress was palpable, but Alex had no sympathy for her. Indeed, he was wondering how he could have been so stupid as to come here in the first place. Without her air of confidence she was quite a pathetic figure, he reflected contemptuously, and unlike some women who could cry gracefully, Isabel's tears were causing her lids to swell, and the skin around her eyes to become puffy.

  'Spare me!' he muttered, wincing as he took his hand away from his neck and a sliver of skin came with it. 'You knew what you were doing, and I guess I should be grateful for it. You were right. I was drunk, bloody drunk, as it happens, or I wouldn't be here in the first place. However------' he turned towards the door, '—you certainly brought me to my senses. Put it down to experience. When a woman comes on to me, I usually try to oblige her.'

  After that, the wedding was an anticlimax. Alex remembered going through the motions, as he had done at the rehearsal, without allowing any part of his emotions to become involved. The band-aid on his neck had aroused some comment from his uncle, but a dismissive remark about the razor slipping while he was shaving had successfully balked further enquiries. It was easy enough to let Robert, and Chris, think that he had not been entirely sober when he did it. And Kerry O'Flynn, who had just joined him at his apartment in London, and who had actually attended to the burn when he got home, would never have dreamed of questioning its origins. He was too well versed in diplomacy for that.

  If only that had been the end of it, thought Alex now, reaching the building that housed his offi
ce with some relief, and pushing open the swing-doors. It should have been the end of it and certainly, so far as he was concerned, her marriage to his cousin had severed any connection between them. He might have been willing to cheat on Chris, so long as he and Isabel were not actually joined in wedlock, but stealing his cousin's wife was quite a different matter.

  None the less, when they came back from honey­moon, his good intentions had been stretched beyond measure. Far from looking tanned and relaxed, contented after four weeks of sunning herself in the Caribbean, Isabel appeared pale and nervous, and thinner than he remembered. She hardly ever looked him in the eye and, instead of gaining in confidence, if anything she had become tense and withdrawn.

  Chris, however, seemed much the same as usual. Alex's first, treacherous suspicion, that he might be to blame for Isabel's apparent unhappiness was quickly dispelled. If anything, Chris was even more attentive to her as his wife, than he had been as her fiance, and it was obvious that if anything was wrong with their marriage, Isabel must be to blame.

  Even so, he was outraged when his uncle confided in him a few months later that Isabel had suggested to him privately that the marriage should be dissolved. Her reasons, Robert said, were that she found life at Nazeby excessively boring after living in London, and Chris couldn't please her, no matter how he tried.

  'Imagine coming to me!' his uncle had exclaimed savagely, when he told Alex what had happened. 'The boy's own father! As if she could expect me to take sides against my own son!'

  But later, when Alex had suggested that perhaps a separation might be the best thing for all concerned, his uncle had been adamant that that was not feasible. 'I don't want the girl going back to London, telling all her friends that Chris is to blame,' he averred strongly. 'No, that's not the way, Alex. We'll have to think of something else.'