Love Play by Rosemary Rogers (36 page)

'Ah, yes . . . we all have mothers, don't we? And at least yours named
her love child rightly. Delight. Diletta mia . .. "O moon of my delight. .
." ' He made of the quotation a taunting travesty, rolling his body over
hers to lie between her thighs in spite of her belated moves to reject him.
Propped up on one elbow above her, he kept that hand in her hair while the
other moved up and down her sweat-damp side, lingering over hip and thigh,
brushing between Their bodies before moving with maddeningly slow deliberation
up to the curve of her breasts.

'Stop . . .!' She pushed against his shoulders uselessly. ' I ... I ...
there's no need — '

'For Christ's sake, be quiet!' His voice lashed at her as savagely and
abruptly as a blow across the face. 'There is a need and you understand it
well, hypocrite that you are, Dilettal'

'I . . . wish . . . you wouldn't call me that!'

' Not by your name? But I can think of other names to call you, describing
what you are and how you are, if you prefer. Perhaps that kind of thing excites
you?'

'Even less so than rape!'

'I have never had to rape you yet!' He laughed suddenly and
unpleasantly, sliding his hands up the length of her arrns until he held her
wrists pinioned. 'I don't think any man would have too hard a time getting you
ready and eager for him. Shall I show you how?'

He didn't have to, Sara thought despairingly, even beore he had begun.
Already, perverted masochist that she had become, her body wanted his, making
her arch up against him.

' Abbracciami, Diletta! Kiss me the way you would kiss a lover of your
choice ... a man who didn't know you for what you are and might be entrapped by
your soft, sensual lips . . .'

She wanted to kiss him! Why fight a perfectly normal, natural urge?
There might be a time later on when she would hate and despise herself for
becoming what he expected - what he wanted. For the moment she seemed to be
capable only of reaction that was completely instinctive and thoughtless, as
she put her arms up to catch against herself the threat and the tautness of his
body at the same time that she set her mouth against his in the kiss he had
demanded.

Chapter 33

Whole days disappeared at a time - and it was a time when Sara deliberately
and consciously did not reason with herself, nor attempt to rationalise. She
was the complete hedonist - the pampered odalisque to whom the seraglio was not
prison but pleasure. Why not? Most insidiously corrupting question of all!

Giving in (to what was certainly pure lust and nothing else), Sara spent
hours naked under the sun on her private terrace, thinking of nothing in
particular while she soaked in the heat and the colour that the sun lent her
skin. None of the servants, not even Serafina, approached to disturb her during
these times; but occasionally she would feel, like a physical thing, the sudden
coolness of his shadow fall across her body, just before he joined her to lie
over and in her out there under the sun and the limitless harsh blue of the
sky.

Some times he would come to her when she was soaking in her bath and
some times he would carry her there himself. And now, instead of dining in
formal state, he would have meals brought to her rooms and eat with her there some
times insisting on conversation and some times only looking at her without
saying more than a few curt words before he lifted her up out of her chair and
tumbled her into bed. At those times he seemed to delight in tearing away from
her body whatever she had on, leaving on her only his gifts to her - a fine
gold chain that encircled her hips with a pendant ruby that barely fitted her
navel, and an ankle bracelet of tiny rubies caught in thin gold mesh. Symbols
of slavery? She had suggested as much to him with a spurt of anger that made
her eyes blaze as she tried to push him away from her. Mesmerised by lust or
not, she still retained enough sanity not to want to become his little
giocattolo — his plaything.

'But you are exactly that!' he had mocked her, laughing at her sudden
fury as he turned her over on to her stomach, holding her down with the weight
of his body while he casually went about fastening the catch of her ruby-hung
chain. 'Why shouldn't I too join the others who have
 
played with you for a while? Do you have an
answer for that?'

Helplessly she had felt his hand on her ankle, fingers
 
encircling strongly as he pulled her foot up
and back.

'Stop that! You're a bloody brute, you know. Pulling me about -forcing
me. I hate you!'

'Do you? Then you don't hate hard enough, bimba!'

His 'little girl-child' had a contemptuous harshness to it that made
Sara wince, in spite of the fact that during her long,sun-drenched hours when
she had been stern with herself she had mentally sworn to stay cool. Accept the
fact that
 
her body seemed to want this
impossible, hateful,arrogant man. There was no emotional involvement of course.
How could there be? And she did, hate him - black¬hearted, unscrupulous bastard
that he was! Not hate hard enough
 
indeed! Why, she . . . she . . .

It was unfair that he could do this to her, reducing her to this, the
waiting and the anticipation and the craving for the promise and the wildness
and the satiation his body offered her.
 
She could sit outside herself in her thoughts and point out all the risks
and the dangers and the illusions and the damn weakness that kept her ensnared
in a finely wrought spiderweb of deceit and indecision; and yet none of it
counted, not even the thought of Delight and what had happened to her, or Daddy
or Uncle Theo . . . Her mind became like a freshly cleaned slate or a sponge
that could , absorb only feeling and nothing else. If she looked at it
pragmatically . . .

But there was nothing pragmatic or even logical about her actions — or
lack of action — to date. Why did she continue to stay here under the
humiliating conditions he had forced upon her when she could, at any time, have
freed herself easily by merely telling the truth? He might blow up at her - he
would almost certainly strike her in his rage, as he had done before. But in
the end he would surely let her go, and it would all be over; nothing more,
when reduced
 
to perspective, than an
amusing
 
if rather risque story to tell
to a few close friends or include in her memoirs.

Now, Sara! You know he's going to find out sooner or
 
! later, so why not spare yourself the
suffering and confess everything now? Before he comes again with his animal
stride that can bring him across the room far too quickly ... and before he
touches you, and demolishes you and you're defenceless. And by now, how she
hated that jeering, scolding voice in her mind, Sara thought with
annoyance.
 
Why couldn't she control her
thoughts?

The sun had become almost unbearably hot, prodding at her, moving her
unwillingly to shade - darkness and coolness. Entering her room again, Sara had
to pause there on the threshold until her eyes could see again. The first'
thing she saw was herself, mirrored against a wall and looking... looking like
some wild Polynesian princess with her hair that had grown into a thick mane
and her sun-darkened skin that was almost as dark as his, by now. She saw
something that was both knowing and primitive in herself that she had never
discovered before; standing here naked in the half-light with the sunlight
burning against her
 
back and flowing
past her to reflect off the wall with almost dazzling brilliance.

She was here because she wanted to be. Because she wanted . . . Sara's
mind wanted to erase the thought instantly. Forget about wanting. Even if it
seemed to merge into needing. Temporary aberration --ignore! Frowning back at
herself Sara played at taking inventory critically. She probably could lose
some weight. About the hips, perhaps, but nowhere else, certainly not the
breasts. She had a body, thank God, that was firm and limber and strong. An
athletic body, whereas Delight had always been - well, more voluptuous. It had
been Delight's body and Delight's face on that larger-than-life screen . . .
and no one, not even Marco, had noticed or remarked on a difference. But then
—a smile that was both secret and sensual and didn't even seem to belong to her
curved her mouth upwards, and she lazily stretched both arms above her head,
catlike. But then . . . her mind murmured with deeply female satisfaction as
She continued to make a languid survey of her body in the mirror, it's my body
he wants and can't help wanting. No matter what he calls me or who he thinks I
am, I've been mostly myself with him; and it's really Sara he's made his
amante, my mind that keeps him intrigued.
 
Sara blinked
 
her eyes
 
,
 
running
 
nervously impatient
 
fingers through her hair as she crossed the
room quickly to snach up a silky robe from the foot of her bed, where serafina
had left it. Mirrors! The way she had suddenly started thinking - with her body
and her senses rather than her
 
head .
Forgetting real thinking, as a matter of fact.

Because she wanted
 
not to think
for a change, and wanted to let go and feel. Because she was crazy!

There was a refrigerator in her living-room now, holding white wine and
ice and Evian water — courtesy of II Duca, who else? For his current mistress —
current occupant of his mother's rooms. Had she been kept a virtual prisoner
too? had often wondered that, as she did now, reaching in the refrigerator for
a chilled glass, filling it with ice, pouring over that the cold liquid her dry
throat craved at this moment. Cool. Something she wasn't being while she stayed
on here. Almost viciously, Sara tied the belt of her thin silk robe about her
waist before she began to pace - this time avoiding her reflection in the
mirrors. She was aware, in the background, of the sound of softly running
water. Her bath ... of course Serafina knew that it was always at about this
time that she came in to escape from the sun and wanted a bath before she
slept. And when, and how, had all of this become a routine?

I've got to get away! her mind screamed accusingly, and she had already
begun to move towards the door with no locks, walking quickly and instinctively
on her bare feet, when it was pushed open.

'You're actually dressed! Well . . . almost. Were you coming to look for
me, desiderio mia?'

He stood nonchalantly with his back to the massive wooden door, in his
riding clothes that made him look almost all animal, with the gold and emerald of
his wolf, insignia lying against the dark hair of his chest and his booted feet
slightly astride as he looked her up and down with a caustic slant to his
eyebrows.

Damn him, damn him! Why did just his presence, just looking at him, turn
her weak at the knees? Reaching back automatically with one hand, Sara felt her
fingers tighten over the back of a chair; the feeling of clutching at something
solidly real straightening her back.

'As a matter of fact, I was hoping not to run into you, darling. I was
thinking... of a swim, perhaps. Or riding off somewhere and feeling the wind
against my face. Of freedom, if you know the meaning of the word . . .?'

'You have always been free, Diletta!' His hands that she had come to
know so well bent the riding crop impatiently between them while his narrowing
eyes studied her face. 'Free to make your choices — and to take your chances as
well. What kind of riding did you have in mind? As long as your desires do not
include a powerful new Honda or a ten-carat diamond, perhaps I might be
persuaded to indulge them!'

Persuaded... indulged...! If she hadn't kept some control over herself,
Sara thought furiously, she might have - have sputtered! As it was, she had to
draw several deep breaths before she managed to say, with a cold edge to her
voice: 'Don't you think the party's over by now? I mean . . . I'm sure you've
already proved whatever it was you wanted to prove in the first place - and you
must be quite as bored as I am! So can't we call it quits . . .?'

Of course, while her frigidly detached voice was saying all the right,
logical things, she could feel herself tighten inside while she fought to
control the erratic jump-beat of her heart. Why did he just keep looking at
her? Why hadn't he said something or done something that would snap her back to
reality and rationality?

Although his voice was quiet enough - rough edges under silk - it was
the way the riding whip almost broke under the unconscious pressure of his
sun-dark hands that really kept her rooted in place. 'So you're bored, povera
piccina? Bored so soon with just one man? Lost in an unfamiliar setting with no
wild disco music and no bright night lights and no sympathetic director or
co-star to feed you the correct lines - and the correct reactions!'
 
Although he
 
hadn't yet moved she could almost imagine the bite of the whip he held
across her breasts and she must have shrunk from him involuntarily, because his
lips curled mockingly in a travesty of a smile. 'It's a good thing I know you
for the liar you are — or you might have succeeded in annoying me. But the way
you're looking at me, standing there clothed in pale-green silk that clings and
reveals at the same time ... what do I see in those lying jade eyes of yours,
Diletta mia? Are you afraid of this little riding whip that I hold, and of the
marks it could leave on your soft, sun-gold skin? Or do you challenge me?'

While she stood frozen, both hands behind her now clutching so fiercely
to the arm of the chair that she felt as if her fingers might snap from the strain,
Sara found herself watching with horrified fascination the way he ran the
braided leather between his fingers before he let it trail with an almost
contemptuous gentleness across her shoulders and between her breasts.