Australian Outback Kings / The Cattle King's Mistress / The Playboy King's Wife / The Pleasure King's Bride (41 page)

His gaze swung back, fastening on hers with compelling intensity. “None of us know the day or the hour, Christabel. I believe people should make the most of the time they have, while they still can.”

Certainly her husband hadn't expected to die, not before his father. Laurens had been counting on inheriting all the money and all the power, having fulfilled Bernhard's demand that he marry and beget at least one child. Nevertheless, he had more than made the most of the time he had with every woman he fancied and every bit of fast living he could pack in. It was not an attitude Christabel admired. It carried no caring for others.

She wasn't aware that her face had tightened over the bitter memories until Jared asked, “What are you thinking?”

She lowered her lashes, veiling her expression as she answered, “My husband died in an accident, too. It was a speedboat crash. Human error. Not caused by a storm.”

She sipped the wine, deliberately discouraging any pursuit of that topic, wishing she hadn't brought it up. It was a mistake to talk about her marriage, except in the vaguest terms. The speedboat accident had been world news. It was a connection to all she wanted to escape from.

“How long ago did this happen?”

Jared's tone was sympathetic, stirring a savage irony. She didn't mourn Laurens. He'd lost his taste for her when she'd turned into an undesirable lump and he'd killed any shred of feeling she'd had for him with his subsequent behaviour.

“I was eight months pregnant with Alicia,” she said flatly, careful not to give an actual date.

He seemed to weigh that statement before slowly commenting, “So Alicia never knew her father.”

“I don't believe she feels any empty place on that score, Jared,” she replied tersely, her chin lifting in defiant challenge.

“You're
all
she needs?” he queried.

“We manage well together.”

“And is she all
you
need, Christabel?”

“She's all I've got,” she answered quickly, trying to ignore the searing look that burrowed under her skin, finding and knowing the empty places he'd talked about and promising they didn't have to stay empty.

He was here, ready, willing and able to satisfy at least some needs. Tonight, if she gave her consent. And Christabel was once again riven by the strong temptation to do just that, to take what she could while she could. It was what he'd been offering, wasn't it, with his talk of not counting on an afterwards?

This dangerous train of thought was broken by the return of Vikki Chan, wheeling a traymobile onto the veranda, calling Alicia to her chair and switching on a lantern above the table to light the meal she was about to serve. She then proceeded to set out a platter of honey prawns and a bowl of steaming rice.

“I cooked more than enough for the little one,” she informed Christabel, “so you and Jared can have some as a first course if you like.”

“Thank you. They look very tasty.”

The old woman smiled benevolently at them all. “Help yourselves,” she invited, and left them to it.

There was no doubting that Vikki Chan was a superb cook. The honey prawns were the best Christabel had ever tasted, and Alicia even forgot the storm as she consumed her share with uninhibited pleasure, picking them up with her fingers, arguing they tasted better that way, and Jared agreeing with her.

Since finger bowls were set on the table, Christabel didn't fuss. Her mind was busily sorting through the impression that Vikki Chan had not been making any judgment of her this time. She hadn't exactly sensed approval coming from the old Chinese woman, yet there had been a definite acceptance of her being with Jared like this and a warm indulgence towards her daughter.

In between feeding herself, Alicia chatted away with Jared, enjoying his good-humoured attention, and Christabel couldn't help thinking he would be a good father, kind and caring, making any child of his feel special and loved.

Laurens would have turned their daughter over to an army of nannies, conveniently forgetting she even existed.

The means to an end…that was all his child had meant to her husband…all his wife had meant to him, too.

Special and loved
…the words kept drumming through her mind, evoking a fierce surge of need to have Jared make her feel special, make her feel loved.

He instantly turned his gaze to her, as though he was instinctively attuned to her feelings and he'd caught this one right at its crest. Whatever he saw in her eyes, his suddenly blazed with a heat that scorched any denial of what flowed between them.

Her breasts started to prickle with excitement, and a sweet, melting sensation spread towards her thighs. Despite the danger signals her body was sending, she could not wrench her gaze from the hot promise of satisfaction in his. She wanted him to prove that promise, to deliver all she craved from him, making reality of the persistent fantasy that he could and would be the one to make her feel what Laurens had never made her feel, not even on their honeymoon.

Yes
…

Jared didn't say the word out loud but she felt him saying it, heard it throbbing in her mind, running through her bloodstream, zinging along every nerve in her body, building a wild exultant demand that went beyond sanity or common sense.

From behind her came a sudden swirl of wind, ruffling her hair, feathering her skin, and a clap of thunder directly above them made her heart leap, yet still that look from Jared held her, burning with an elemental force that defied other elements.

Vikki Chan reappeared. Alicia kept the old woman busy with conversation. The table was cleared. Alicia had sticky hands and she was invited to the kitchen to clean them properly. Advice was tossed back as they departed.

“Better close the shutters on the south side, Jared. The rain will come in with that wind.”

It all washed over Christabel.

Jared stood up, so tall and handsome and quintessentially male, he was like a magnet, drawing on all her female instincts, forcing the recognition that some things couldn't be stopped. They were as inevitable as the rain, falling now in heavy drops on the tin roof. The wind caught the loose sides of his white shirt, billowing them out. His tanned skin gleamed under the lantern light.

“The shutters,” he murmured, but he didn't move and she knew that he, too, was caught in this thrall of compelling attraction, not wanting to break it.

“I'll help you.” The words spilled from her lips, unbidden, and her legs pushed up from the chair so that she was standing, matching up to him.

“Come
with
me,” he said.

And she did, her heart pumping wildly as they moved into action together, sharing the task, keenly aware of the mutual feelings driving them.

The shutters were held open by metal rods. These had to be unhooked, lowered, and bolts shot home to secure closure. The wind blew fat splattering raindrops at them as they worked down the southern veranda in tandem—six shutters in all—with Jared, faster than she was, helping her with the last one.

He was so close, close enough for her to smell him, touch him, and she couldn't bring herself to step away. Her breathing was fast, shallow, out of control. Jared pulled the shutter down and they were enveloped in darkness, a warm, steamy, intimate darkness—the wind and rain shut out, beating at the house but unable to reach them.

She heard the metallic scrape of the last bolt being pushed into place. Everything was fastened down now, safe, except for all the feelings she'd tried to suppress running rampant, urging that the darkness be used to find out what she wanted to know, ached to know.

She heard Jared's breath whoosh out and knew it carried unbearable, pent-up tension. Then he was turning to face her and every nerve in her body was taut with anticipation, waiting for the first touch, the first proof that it was right for this to happen. It had to be right. It had to be worth breaking all the rules she'd set. It had to be what she'd yearned for in the darkness of other nights, countless other nights that had been filled with endless loneliness.

Take me
, she begged in her feverish mind.
Take me
.…

And he did, his arm sweeping around her waist and scooping her against him, plastering her against him as his other hand thrust through her hair, entwining tresses around strong, determined fingers. His chest heaved against the soft squash of her breasts. His thighs felt rock-hard. Then his mouth took hers, pleasuring it with a passion that excited her beyond anything she had known.

He aroused and kept stirring explosive sensations, kiss after kiss, feeding a deep, seemingly bottomless hunger that demanded a feast, not just a taste but an intense savouring of every taste there was. It was so absorbingly wonderful, Christabel revelled in every moment of it, consumed by the sheer power of the greed that seized her, the greed to experience everything there was to be felt with this man.

Her hands were in his hair, clinging to his head, urging the intoxicating intimacy to go on and on. Her body exulted in the hard heat of his, and when he grasped her bottom to lift her into fitting closer to him, it felt so right, so good, knowing how excited he was, wanting the ultimate connection with her, yearning for it every bit as much as she was.

“Stay with me tonight.”

He breathed the words over her tingling lips, words that throbbed their passionate need past the fuzzed edges of her mind, stirring a momentary confusion at the interruption to the silent flow of more immediate needs.

“Stay…” he repeated with raw urgency. “Alicia can be put to bed here.”

Alicia! Where…? Her mind worked sluggishly. Gone with Vikki Chan to clean her hands.

“You want this, too, Christabel.”

His hand on her bottom, pressing recognition of how aroused they both were. There could be no denying what was so self-evident. They both knew it. She wished he hadn't spoken, wished they had just gone on to…but there wasn't time now. That was what he meant. Alicia…Vikki Chan bringing the next course of their dinner…How long had she and Jared been locked together like this?

He lifted his head back from hers. “Look at me!”

His eyes were like black coals, glowing at her. He slid his hand from its enmeshment in her hair and gently cupped her cheek. He spoke slowly, softly, using his words like seductive tentacles, winding around her, binding her to him.

“We want each other. There's nothing wrong in that so just let it be, Christabel. Time to ourselves, doing whatever pleases us, being free of everything else, taking the night and making it our night.”

Being free…Just for one night…

“Say yes, Christabel. Say you'll stay with me.”

“Yes,” she said, impelled by more than Jared would ever know to snatch this time from the life she had to lead, the life that was forever burdened by her blindly naive decision to marry Laurens Kruger. “I want this night with you, Jared.”

One stolen night.

What harm could there be in it?

No harm…Just pleasure…with the pleasure King.

And he kissed her again to show her how it would be.

CHAPTER FIVE

W
HAT THEY HAD
started had to be put on hold until later. They were not alone yet, not in any practical sense, but Christabel felt oddly disconnected to being a mother or a guest in the aftermath of losing her long-held guard against the desires Jared King stirred in her.

It seemed strange, sitting at the table again as though nothing momentous had happened, secretly harbouring the excitement that continued to buzz through her body while Vikki Chan wheeled out the traymobile, reloaded with the next course for dinner. Alicia followed her, holding a cone of chocolate chip ice-cream, and she skipped over to Jared to thank him for the special treat.

Christabel couldn't stop looking at Jared, imagining what they might do when they were absolutely alone together. Was
he
still aroused? Impossible to know with him sitting on the opposite side of the table. He had felt…big. She wondered what he would look like with no clothes on, how he would feel to her then. Magnificently male and completely self-assured about his sexuality, she decided, not having to prove anything, just being himself. And letting her be herself.

“That looks superb, Vikki, as usual,” he complimented as the old Chinese woman served them portions of steamed fish and braised vegetables and spooned sauce over them.

“Vikki has a Chinese dish with bamboo sticks in it for cooking the fish, Mummy,” Alicia informed her importantly. “She showed me lots of special things. This house has got a really big kitchen. Bigger than our whole caravan.”

“That's nice,” Christabel answered vaguely, watching Alicia's tongue wrapping itself around the generous scoop of ice-cream, catching the melting drops before they dribbled down the cone.

She thought of Jared's tongue, electrifying her lips, invading her mouth, the exciting intimacy it had generated. Would he kiss her breasts like that, licking in a swirl around her nipples…

“And Vikki's got a shell collection, too,” Alicia rattled on. “She said she'd show me when she finished cooking.”

“That's nice,” Christabel heard herself say again before forcing her mind to really register what her daughter was telling her. She turned to Vikki Chan, who was still spooning sauce. “Thank you for giving Alicia your time.”

“No problem. It is a joy to see her delight in things. So it should be with a child.”

“Yes,” Christabel agreed, happy there was no problem with Alicia. She needed to be free of problems tonight, free to revel in the joy of her own body meeting Jared King's…making love…delighting in every pleasure he promised.

“Your mother will be staying longer than your bedtime, Alicia,” Jared smoothly announced, smiling at her daughter. “When you've finished looking at the shell collection, I'm sure Vikki can find a bedroom for you to sleep in.”