An All-Consuming Passion Read online

  ‘Oh, God! The twins!’ muttered Morgan, overriding her explanations. ‘You do realise they’ll tell Alison about this, don’t you? And she, of course, will find some way to drop it into conversation with your father, and then there really will be hell to pay!’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’ Morgan took another mouthful of his brandy. ‘You are joking, of course! Can you imagine how your father will react when he discovers you’ve been here? I just might have swung it, if Mrs Percy had told you I called. But if she didn’t …’

  ‘I haven’t been home,’ said Holly simply. ‘I—I left the house this morning, intending to call you at the office. But then I changed my mind. I spent most of the day in the British Museum. I came here when I thought you’d be home.’

  Morgan shook his head. ‘Well, I think you’d better leave right now. How did you get here? By taxi? If I call a mini-cab right away, you might just make it back before Alison has a chance to make something of it.’

  ‘No,’ Holly stood her ground. ‘And don’t call a taxi because I didn’t come that way. My old Mini was still in the garage. Tom keeps it in good working order, so I used that. It’s parked in Queen’s Gardens.’

  Morgan finished his drink and put the glass aside. ‘Then I suggest you go and collect it,’ he advised her harshly. ‘You can always make some excuse about getting stuck in a traffic jam. Your father may not even be home yet. He was still in the office when I left.’

  ‘No.’

  Morgan expelled his breath heavily. ‘Yes.’

  Holly was intimidated, but she resisted the urge to obey him. ‘Don’t you want to know why I came?’ she protested desperately. ‘Morgan, please! At least, tell me why you rang me. You must have had a reason.’

  ‘That can wait,’ said Morgan shortly, gesturing towards the door. ‘Come on, Holly, I’ve had a hard day. I’ll be in touch later in the week. I promise.’

  Holly shook her head. ‘You really dislike me, don’t you?’ she exclaimed, realising she had probably jeopardised any chance of an understanding between them by coming here, and Morgan allowed his breath to escape him on a weary sigh.

  ‘No,’ he said succinctly. ‘No, I don’t dislike you, Holly. I just think your coming here was ill-advised. Whatever you want to say to me could have just as easily been said at the office. Or whenever I called you, as I’ve just told you I did.’

  ‘But I didn’t know you were likely to call me, did I?’ she protested, taking a few involuntary steps towards him, as if to emphasise her point. ‘After—after what you said last night, I didn’t think there was any likelihood of you seeking me out.’

  Morgan’s mouth tightened. ‘After what was said last night, you should have had more sense than to come here,’ he retorted, grimly.

  Holly pursed her lips. ‘Why? I mean, aside from the fact that bumping into Jon and Jeff wasn’t exactly what I had in mind, what harm have I done?’

  ‘Holly, a girl of your age doesn’t usually visit a man of my age in his flat——’

  ‘Oh, age! That’s all you think about!’ she declared impatiently. ‘Why do you always bring up my age? I’m not a child! I’m an adult! We’re two adults—and I see no reason why we can’t have a civil conversation——’

  ‘Don’t you?’ Morgan’s mouth twisted, and her heart flipped a beat at the sudden aggression in his eyes.

  ‘No,’ she said, after a moment, still hoping to reason with him. ‘Morgan——’ She took the steps that brought her within arm’s length of his unyielding figure. ‘Morgan, won’t you at least tell me if what your—your—Alison said was true? You can’t be thinking of leaving Forsyth’s. I—well—my father wouldn’t let you.’

  ‘Your father couldn’t stop me,’ responded Morgan flatly.

  ‘But why? Why?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’ he demanded with some heat, but when she shook her head, all the anger seemed to drain out of him. ‘Then you should,’ he answered heavily, stretching out his hand and trailing his knuckles down the tender skin of her cheek. The bruise was finally fading and, as the swelling had gone down, make-up had almost disguised the injury. But it was incredibly sensitive, the more so because it was Morgan’s hand that was stroking her flesh. ‘Because of you,’ he added at last, allowing his hand to fall to his side. ‘Now will you get out of here?’

  Holly’s breathing had been suspended, but now she took several unsteady gulps of air. ‘You mean—you mean——’

  ‘I mean that this relationship isn’t healthy; for either of us,’ he muttered harshly. ‘It wasn’t healthy on the island, and it sure as hell isn’t healthy here! Just go home, will you? Your father will be wondering where you are.’

  Holly ignored his words, gazing at him as if she had never seen him before, and Morgan grew impatient. With a gesture of frustration, he abandoned any attempt to reason with her and, as if desperate for the relief alcohol could bring, he started towards the brandy.

  His action brought Holly to her senses and, without stopping to consider the wisdom of what she was about to do, she went after him, sliding her arms round him from behind, and pressing her face against his back.

  ‘Holly, for Christ’s sake!’

  The anger, which had been lying dormant since Morgan had succeeded in controlling his temper, erupted into violence. His hands clamped down on her wrists, tearing them away from his body, as he swung round to face her. His eyes were glittering dangerously, and his lean face was taut with emotion. But it was not the tender ardour she had anticipated. It was raw, naked passion, and her heart pounded wildly at the realisation that she had pushed him too far.

  Something of her feelings must have shown in her face for, as if unable to sustain his anger against her, Morgan’s hands gentled on her slender bones. Then, again with a gesture almost of defeat, he brought her wrists to his lips, and fired her with the probing caress of his tongue.

  ‘Morgan … she breathed, hardly daring to say even his name, and he lifted his head and looked at her.

  It was a devastating appraisal, an abrasive assault on her senses, and her whole body seemed suffused in heat as he drew her almost resistingly towards him. Then, as his hands slipped over her shoulders, sliding the leather jacket down her arms and from there to the floor, he lowered his mouth to the pulse palpitating at her nape.

  She trembled, and Morgan’s arms closed around her. With infinite skill, he moulded her quivering body to the supple strength of his own, and then, allowing his lips to trail up her neck, he found the yielding sweetness of her mouth.

  Holly’s lips parted instinctively beneath that searching pressure. She had desperately wanted him to kiss her, and the eager warmth of his tongue was a welcome invader. Her hands, which had lingered uncertainly at his waist when he released them, now slid up inside his jacket to his neck, and her fingers probed inside the collar of his shirt.

  The kiss deepened, and any hope Morgan might have had that by kissing her he might expunge the needs inside him was quickly dispelled. On the contrary, when he felt her fingers persuasively easing his jacket from his shoulders, he willingly facilitated her efforts, and the gentleness of his touch gave way to an urgent possession.

  Holly’s head was spinning, but when he tore his mouth away to seek the peachy softness of her cheeks and the delicate curve of her jawline, she soon became impatient. Twining her fingers in the hair at his nape, she brought his mouth back to hers, using her tongue to tease him now, so that presently he groaned in hungry protest.

  As if his strength was weakening, he sought the creamy suede sofa behind him and, lowering his weight on to its yielding softness, he pulled her down on top of him. The force of her willingness to comply drove him on to his back and, as her limbs tangled with his, she felt the swelling muscle between his legs.

  ‘Ah, Holly,’ he muttered, his hands on her buttocks, pressing her down on to his undoubted maleness. And then, with her skirt riding up to her hips, he turned her on to her back, covering her slender length with his lean bod
y.

  Just for a moment, as he looked down into her flushed face, Holly sensed he knew a brief compunction. His hands stilled and she felt the tension stiffening his body. But her frantic fingers at his throat, tugging his tie aside and parting the remaining buttons of his shirt, drew an almost involuntary response, and when she reached up and put her lips to his, he hadn’t the will to break even that tenuous union.

  With a groan of defeat, he let her pull him down to her again, and now his lips crushed hers with their vehemence, and his tongue in her mouth drove her far beyond the point of knowing what was right and what was wrong. Her legs, weak and tremulous from the force of the emotions he was evoking inside her, fell apart almost without her being aware of it, and she fretted at the barriers that still kept them apart. She wanted to be able to touch the rest of him, as she was able to touch the muscled strength of his chest, bared beneath her hands. She wanted them to be closer, much closer, and she twisted a little restlessly when his laboured breathing revealed he was still struggling to regain control.

  ‘I want you,’ she breathed unsteadily, though in all honesty she had no clear idea of what she was inviting. Nevertheless, she knew she had never felt this way before, and her instincts told her that this was right. It didn’t matter if he hurt her; she had suspected for years that she was not the type of girl who could find real pleasure in sex, believing, quite philosophically, that that was why she had remained a virgin when all her friends had not. But for the first time in her life that distinction was no longer desirable to her, and she desperately wanted to prove to Morgan she was not the child he thought her.

  ‘You don’t know what you want,’ Morgan groaned harshly and, as if her words had restored a measure of his sanity, he pushed himself up on his hands, so that only the unmistakable thrust of his arousal still pulsed against her thigh.

  ‘I do, I do,’ she protested fiercely and, with a sensuality she had not known she possessed, her hands went automatically to the studded fastenings of her shirt, tearing them apart and exposing the creamy fullness of her breasts to his tormented eyes. Swollen and pointed, they were scarcely contained by the lacy bra that held them, and with trembling fingers she unhooked the front fastening, so that the rosy pink nipples nudged his midriff.

  ‘Dear God, Holly!’ he muttered, unable to drag his eyes away, and with increasing confidence, her hands went to the belt of his trousers, loosening the buckle and reaching for the zip. But when she would have propelled it downwards, his fingers came to cover hers, and he sat back on his heels, pressing her hands against him.

  ‘Don’t you want me?’ she whispered, anxiously now, and Morgan tipped back his head in agony.

  ‘Yes, I want you,’ he grated roughly, his eyes drawn back to her uncertain face. ‘So long as you know what you’re doing.’

  Holly moistened her lips. ‘Why shouldn’t I?’ she countered. ‘I—you’re not the first man I’ve made love with.’

  A spasm of emotion crossed his face: relief; anger; distaste; she couldn’t be sure which. But beneath her hands, the throbbing hunger of his body demanded release and, with insistent fingers, she captured the metal tag of the zip.

  He groaned as his maleness spilled into her hands, but there was no further talk of the moral rights and wrongs of their need for one another. With lithe dexterity, Morgan divested himself of his shirt and trousers, and then, while her hands ran possessively over his lean muscular shoulders, he drew her skirt down over her hips. The sensuous brush of his lips against her navel as he slid off her tights was disturbing, but she managed not to show too much alarm when he followed the removal of her tights with his tongue. Even so, to feel those featherlight kisses skimming the inner curve of her thigh brought a wave of heat to moisten her skin, and she quivered a little anxiously when his fingers probed her sweetness.

  However, the sensations he evoked soon dispelled all but an urgent need to feel him in her. His size was daunting, but with his mouth devouring hers once again, and the delicious abrasion of the hair on his body sensitising her skin, she was in no state to probe her fears too deeply. Evidently the moistness of her skin was quite normal, she decided, as with increasing urgency Morgan covered her face and neck with kisses, and when his teeth took possession of one swollen nipple after the other, her hips rose towards him in unknowing invitation.

  The heat of his flesh as it sought her inner warmth was like a flame seeking to ignite her. But it was hard, too, and insistent, and she felt her muscles tensing, just when she wanted to relax. Morgan tensed, too, and her hands on his hips felt the sudden bunching of his muscles. But he did not withdraw. Although she knew a momentary sense of panic that he might have guessed her secret, his next action proved her wrong. With a sigh of satisfaction, he thrust himself into her, and her breath escaped on a squeaky cry.

  If she had allowed his mouth to go on possessing hers with its hungry intimacy, Morgan might never have suspected what had happened—or so she thought. But at the moment his flesh tore her tender membrane aside, she had jerked back from him, the sob rising in her throat. And in the aftermath of his invasion, she had been unable to prevent the involuntary betrayal.

  ‘I should choke you, do you know that?’ he muttered, burying his face in the hollow of her neck and breathing rather raggedly. ‘You lied to me. Didn’t you realise I would hurt you?’

  Now that the worst was over, Holly didn’t want him to talk. ‘You didn’t hurt me,’ she protested, winding her arms around his neck. ‘And it feels good, doesn’t it? You’re not sorry we’re together?’

  ‘Sorry?’ groaned Morgan roughly, lifting his head so that she could see his face. ‘I just think you’re crazy, that’s all!’

  ‘I love you,’ she breathed, pressing tentative little kisses all along his jawline and up to the curve of his harsh mouth. ‘I wanted to please you. And I have—haven’t I?’

  ‘To please me?’ he echoed, his breath catching in his throat. ‘Oh, God, Holly, you please me!’ he conceded, almost savagely, and then, as if unable to prevent himself, he began to move.

  Holly panicked, sure he was about to leave her after all, and her legs, coiling innocently around his back, caused him to plunge even more deeply into her silken web. ‘Holly, don’t make me do this,’ he muttered, his tongue darting ever more deeply into her mouth, but he was powerless to resist. Just as Holly was beginning to enjoy the sensuous thrust of his body, just as a strange, kindling fire dispelled the pain and began to build inside her, just as she began to believe that perhaps she had been wrong about herself all along, Morgan uttered a cry of anguish, and slumped on top of her. Disappointed and confused, Holly felt a flooding warmth between her legs, and then a depressing anticlimax as Morgan rolled over on to his back.

  So, she thought bleakly, she had been right. She was sexless, sterile, frigid—all the epithets young men had flung at her since she first started dating. That was why she had never been tempted to allow any man to make love to her. Why she had found it so easy to repel their fervent advances.

  And yet, it hadn’t been like that with Morgan. From the beginning, she had wanted him to kiss her, to touch her, to make love to her. She had welcomed his nearness, had revelled in the strength of his lean body and courted the sensuous possession of his mouth. She had actually seduced him into believing she was a woman, just to feel his flesh against hers. And now, she had proved that even with the man she loved she could not respond. She was an empty shell, a husk; a useless vacuum, incapable of giving anything but facile promises.

  With a suppressed sob, she turned her head and looked at him. This should have been the happiest moment of her life, she thought, and instead it was the most miserable. She loved him—dear God! there was no doubt about that. Even just looking at him lying there, his firm, muscled body exposed in unashamed beauty, she badly wanted to touch him, which seemed totally at variance with her inability to respond. The knowledge that they had been as close—physically, if not spiritually—as any man and woman could be was a tantal
ising perception, and she wondered, with an urgency born of desperation, whether she might not have expected too much.

  Morgan moved at that moment and turned his head, his eyes meeting Holly’s startled gaze before she could avoid it. She didn’t want him to look at her. She didn’t want him to remember how unresponsive she had been. But his grey eyes imprisoned hers with gripping penetration and, although she brought her hands up to cover her body, she could not look away.

  Morgan groaned then and, preventing the involuntary urge she had to scramble off the couch and away from him, he turned on to his side and put his mouth against her shoulder.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he breathed huskily, his words bringing a frown of worry to her troubled brow, and she blinked.

  ‘You’re—you’re sorry?’

  She didn’t understand, and with infinite gentleness Morgan removed her hands from her breasts and allowed his tongue to stroke the still taut nipples. ‘Yes, sorry,’ he said, tugging at the swollen peaks with warm insistence. ‘I know I should have been more gentle, but I wanted you too much. And you didn’t exactly help the situation by responding as you did.’

  Holly trembled. ‘I don’t understand——’

  ‘I know.’ Morgan’s mouth twisted slightly. ‘And I’m not explaining things very well. Let’s just say, you made me lose my head. I can’t remember that happening before. Which proves what you do to me.’

  Holly moved her head from side to side. ‘It was my fault.’

  ‘What was your fault?’ Morgan lifted his head.

  ‘Your—I mean—my lack of response.’ Holly flushed scarlet. ‘It’s me. I—I’m not the kind of girl who—well, who can enjoy—enjoy——’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘Making love,’ she appended firmly. ‘I’m—I’m cold; frigid——’

  ‘Like hell,’ muttered Morgan harshly, stopping her words with angry impatience. ‘What in God’s name are you telling me? I just blew the most perfect relationship I’ve ever had with any woman, and you make it some inane interpretation of your own deficiencies!’