A Whirlwind Marriage Page 13

  Oh, great. She glanced at the shutter window of the charity shop and sighed. Wonderful start. She hadn’t given the keys a thought, not even when she had asked Mrs Polinkski to keep an eye open for Zeke and to send him along.

  There was just the merest chance someone from the charity shop might be sorting stock in the spare room on the landing, although she doubted it. Nevertheless, she rang the bell on the off chance, and then gasped out loud a moment later when Zeke’s voice said, ‘Yes, who is it?’

  ‘Me.’ And then she added hastily, ‘Marianne. It’s Marianne, Zeke. But what are you doing here at this time?’

  ‘I could say the same to you,’ the rich dark voice said back. ‘It isn’t four yet, is it? Not by my watch anyway.’

  ‘I left early.’

  This was ridiculous—standing in the freezing cold on her own doorstep talking to the occupant of her bedsit!

  The same thought must have occurred to Zeke, because in the next moment the door whirred and clicked open and then she was running up the stairs, quite unaware of the brightness of her eyes.

  He was standing in the bedsit doorway as she reached the landing and she noticed he was dressed casually in an open-necked charcoal-grey shirt and trousers. She would have liked to pretend she was oblivious to the dark, virile masculinity, but the wild racing of her blood said otherwise. Nevertheless, she managed a fairly composed, ‘Hallo, Zeke,’ as he smiled at her.

  The surprise of finding him there coupled with the excitement she was trying to hide made her work on automatic as he waved her past him into the room beyond, but she had taken no more than two or three steps when she came to an abrupt halt, her eyes widening and a sense of unreality taking hold.

  The dingy little room was transformed. A small Christmas tree complete with tinsel and baubles and twinkling lights stood on the table, the battered tabletop hidden by the gaily wrapped parcels covering it. And that wasn’t the least of it.

  In one corner of the room a TV was relaying an afternoon carol concert at some cathedral or other, the strains of ‘While Shepherds Watched their Flocks by Night’ filling the air waves. Marianne stared at it incredulously, too amazed to speak or move.

  In the limited kitchen area boxes of groceries stood waiting to be unpacked, along with several bottles of wine, a small turkey, two enormous one-inch thick steaks, and cartons of mushrooms, tomatoes and other fresh produce.

  A large bowl of fruit and another of mixed nuts stood either side of the little gas fire, which was casting a warm glow into the room, and with the fading light outside the small bedsit had gained a cosy cheerfulness it could never aspire to in the harsh, searching light of day.

  ‘Zeke?’ She turned to face him, utterly bemused, and as her eyes met his she could find nothing to say, not even thank you. She just couldn’t believe that he had done all this for her; taken time away from his precious work schedule and the thousand and one things which claimed his attention to be here.

  ‘The TV’s your Christmas present, before you object,’ he said softly. ‘That’s not breaking any conditions of the separation, is it?’

  His eyes were almost black in the dim light, with tiny dancing flames from the reflection of the fire, and his hard mouth was twisting in a smile that was very self-deprecating. He looked big and dark and all male, and the force of her desire frightened Marianne to death.

  She dropped her lids and fought to gain control of her feelings. ‘I don’t suppose so,’ she said carefully, her voice trembling a little. ‘But I haven’t got anything to give you.’

  He didn’t reply, and then, as she lifted her gaze to his dark face and saw the look in his eyes, she knew the heat which had begun in the core of her was staining her cheeks deep pink.

  It was Zeke who broke the moment, which had become electric, as he turned towards the food, saying, ‘I couldn’t get all I would have liked to without a fridge, but I dare say we can survive on that lot for a couple of days.’

  ‘A couple of days?’ she queried warily.

  ‘You wouldn’t deny a starving man Christmas lunch?’

  ‘You don’t look starving.’ He looked, well, he looked sensational, she thought weakly.

  ‘No?’ The hunger she had seen in his eyes a few moments before was even stronger as he turned to face her fully again. ‘Looks can be deceptive,’ he said with wry dark humour, a strange little smile playing about his hard mouth.

  Their eyes met and held, and Marianne felt her heart begin to beat faster and faster. ‘Zeke—’

  ‘No, don’t say anything,’ he said softly, moving swiftly to her side as she stood looking at him uncertainly. His hands cupped her face gently before his fingers stroked some errant strands of silky curls back from her temples. ‘Don’t say a word, Marianne. Can’t we take the next two days as something apart from real life? We won’t talk about the past or the future, just live hour by hour in the present and pretend we’re the only two people in the world.’

  She stared at him, her hands resting against his broad chest, and she could feel the rapid beat of his heart beneath her fingers. The twinkling lights from the little Christmas tree and the warm rosy glow from the fire brought the magic of Christmas into the room, and she knew she wasn’t going to resist him. Mrs Perry had said she’d made the most of each day with her Harry and that she had no regrets, that she’d packed a lifetime of loving into just a few months.

  She had two days, and she was going to make the most of them. It might be crazy—it was almost certainly crazy, considering he hadn’t made any promises and nothing between them was resolved—but she was going to do it anyway.

  She drew a long, shaky breath, and then lifted her hand to his mouth, tracing the firm lines of his lips with one finger. ‘Kiss me, Zeke.’ It was an answer in itself.

  ‘The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.’ She had read that somewhere recently, and as Zeke’s mouth took hers she embraced the thought. She loved him; nothing else mattered.

  He was kissing her deeply and passionately, and as she wound her slim arms round his neck and kissed him back, fiercely, he growled low in his throat, causing her to arch further into the taut hardness of him.

  They undressed each other with feverish, frantic haste, and then they were naked in the dim light of the shadowed room, her slender body pale against the darkness of his tanned male flesh. He was unashamedly aroused, and as his hands roamed her body she gloried in the power she had over this big, ruthless, powerful man. He wanted her and she wanted him, wanted to feel the silky hardness of him inside her and know that she was joined to him in an act as old as time itself.

  He was breathing hard, his broad, hair-roughened chest rising and falling as he fought for control, and then he moved her to arm’s length, in order to drink in the sight of her. She stood in front of him proudly, her head uplifted to his gaze as his hungry eyes moved down the pure line of her throat, the full, rich ripeness of her breasts with their jutting peaks, the flatness of her smooth stomach and long shapely lines of her legs.

  ‘Beautiful. So, so beautiful,’ he murmured thickly, his voice shaking. ‘I want you so much…’

  She stepped forward and rubbed herself against him with a brazenness she had never displayed before, and, inflamed by her boldness, he picked her up in his arms, carrying her over to the sofa and laying her gently on the coverlet. She lay stretched out before him, loose-limbed and pliant, and he knelt down on the rug and took the hardened tip of one breast into his mouth as his hands caressed her flesh.

  The pleasure was so piercing as to be unbearable, and as she writhed and moaned his hands and mouth continued to caress and kiss every inch of her until she was trembling uncontrollably, her head moving frantically from side to side in a vain effort to combat the exquisite sensations he was drawing forth.

  When he joined her on the sofa she was more than ready for him, utterly surrendered to the raging passion that had taken him over. He drove himself deeper and deeper into the moist, delicate sheath, and
the contractions that had had her panting beneath his lips and hands exploded into a glorious, tumultuous release for them both, the world shattering into a million pieces.

  They lay quietly afterwards, Marianne circled close in his arms as the flickering firelight played over their entwined bodies, and as a deep lassitude swept over her Marianne let herself slip into it. She was aware of the steady beat of his heart, the intoxicating, familiar feel of hair-roughened flesh against her smoothness and the sweet murmur of carols from the TV in the background, but it was all like a warm blanket covering her senses.

  How long she slept she didn’t know, but when at last she roused herself it was to the knowledge that the curtains were drawn against the dark sky outside and she was wrapped round with her duvet.

  ‘Zeke?’

  ‘I’m here.’ He answered immediately, and when in the next moment he stepped into her vision she saw—with a touch of wryness—that he had come expecting to stay. Although the short towelling robe could hardly be called clothing, it was more than she was wearing beneath the duvet, and she suddenly felt unaccountably shy.

  ‘Don’t move; I’ll be right back.’ He grinned at her as he ducked away, reappearing almost immediately with an opened bottle of wine and two glasses, which he placed on the floor next to the sofa. ‘Move over.’

  He discarded the robe with magnificent unconcern for his nakedness and joined her beneath the duvet before reaching down and pouring two glasses of the deeply coloured and fruity red wine, which smelt of damsons and spices. ‘I vote we spend Christmas just like this,’ he said huskily, the lightly rough friction of male skin against female arousing them both. ‘With brief visits across there for food and drink, of course, which we can then eat here too. What say you?’

  With his arm about her shoulders and her head resting against his chest she could only nod her agreement; words were quite beyond her at that point. If this wasn’t heaven on earth she didn’t know what was.

  Later, after they had loved some more, Marianne cooked the steaks while Zeke prepared and tossed the salad, as naked as the day he was born, and then they snuggled under the duvet again and ate the meal watching the classic film Scrooge on TV, with another bottle of wine.

  It was an enchanted Christmas.

  Marianne was conscious, as each hour slipped by, that she was in a stolen bubble of time. The joy of waking on Christmas morning and seeing his dark head next to hers on the lumpy old sofa bed was the best gift she could have had, but he had bought her numerous presents, which they opened together over toast and tea which Zeke made.

  They loved and ate and drank, and loved some more, almost rendering the turkey into a burnt crisp as they lost themselves in each other’s bodies. Zeke’s loving was urgent and hungry, as though he couldn’t get enough of her, but she didn’t let herself think that it might be because he was sensing time was short. As always when they touched each other the need was overpowering, taking control, doing away with the need to talk or communicate beyond the moment.

  Even the weather conspired to make the time more chimerical and dreamlike, the snowstorms which had been forecast arriving with a vengeance early Christmas morning and turning the outside world into a blurred white cloud beyond the window.

  It couldn’t last, of course.

  Marianne had known that all along, but the end came with an abruptness that catapulted them both back into the real world with shocking suddenness.

  It was late Boxing Day afternoon, and Marianne had been lying drowsily in Zeke’s arms watching a silly cartoon on TV, when he nuzzled her head with his chin. ‘I’ve another present for you,’ he said softly.

  ‘Another present?’ She watched him in surprise as he rose and padded across to his coat, appreciating the way his long, lean body moved with powerful male grace. ‘Zeke, you shouldn’t have. You’ve already given me so much.’

  ‘This is different.’

  His eyes were narrowed and very smoky as he handed her the envelope—she remembered that afterwards. Almost as though he was already concealing his thoughts from her. As he might have been.

  ‘I don’t understand. What’s this?’ She stared at the envelope as he resumed his place beside her, his face hidden from her gaze as he pulled her comfortably against his chest, her head resting in the hollow of his throat.

  ‘Open it and see,’ he said lazily. ‘It won’t bite.’

  ‘The Bedlows property?’ She stared at the wad of documents in her hands. ‘You’ve bought the Bedlows property?’

  ‘You wanted it, didn’t you?’ he said softly. ‘Now I’ve got it for you.’

  ‘When? How?’ She twisted in his arms, her eyes bright and her face radiant. ‘Oh, Zeke, Zeke!’

  ‘We should have moved out of the apartment as soon as we were married; I realise that now,’ he said quietly as he looked into her excited face. ‘It was unfair of me to expect you to live there.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter!’ She flung her arms around his neck, her voice animated and high. ‘Oh, Zeke, Zeke, I can’t believe this. You’ve bought it! It’s ours.’

  ‘You’re pleased?’ He was watching her very closely.

  ‘Of course I am.’ She beamed up at him, careless of the way the duvet had slipped down to her waist, exposing the firm high peaks of her breasts. ‘When did you buy it?’

  ‘A few days after you had been to see it.’

  That should have warned her. If she had been in her right mind that should have warned her, she told herself afterwards, but as it was she didn’t understand the portent of the statement. Not when she was held in Zeke’s arms and he had just given her a sign that he was going to meet her halfway.

  But it wasn’t halfway. It wasn’t even a tenth of the way.

  ‘I can’t believe this.’ She felt as giddy as a schoolgirl. ‘It’s so beautiful and we’ll be so happy there; I know it. Of course I shall have to find out which colleges are within commuting distance; I don’t want to leave you for days on end, do I?’

  And then, even before he said, ‘Leave me?’ in a flat tone of voice, she knew. Something in his face told her.

  ‘Marianne, this is going to be our home,’ he said softly, his eyes holding hers as she shrank back against the sofa. ‘It will be a new start, a new beginning.’

  ‘And that doesn’t include me furthering my education or getting a job or anything like that?’ she said very carefully, her heart thudding and the bile rising in her throat.

  ‘You’re my wife,’ he said roughly, his voice terse. ‘I’m giving you the house of your dreams—’

  ‘I don’t want a doll’s house, Zeke.’ She didn’t have to think about the words; they came straight from her heart. ‘Neither do I want to go back to the way things were. I’m a person, I’m real, I’m me; not a wife doll you can keep in a little compartment in your life. I love this house, of course I do, it’s the perfect home, but we are more important. Things have got to be right between us.’

  ‘So it’s got to be just as you see it, no compromise,’ he said accusingly, biting out the words.

  This was so unfair. She stared at him, her eyes huge in the shocked whiteness of her face. And then she slid from beneath the covers, pulling on her dressing gown as she rose to her feet and stood looking down at him with tortured eyes. ‘I want to do something with my life, Zeke,’ she said painfully. ‘That doesn’t mean I don’t want to be your wife and have a family, of course I do, but that might not happen for years and years. And what about when the children are at school? Do you expect me to sit at home twiddling my thumbs and just living for the moment when you all come home?’

  ‘You’re painting it in the blackest way possible,’ he ground out between clenched teeth.

  ‘No, I am not,’ she said evenly, her mind racing but crystal-clear. ‘You still don’t trust me, do you? You still think I might be attracted to someone else if you can’t lock me up in an artificial world of your own making. You said, when we talked before, that something died in you when you were a child.
I don’t believe that. It might have become stifled, buried, but it’s there, Zeke, and it’s essential for our marriage.’

  ‘You’re saying that unless I give you exactly what you want you will end our marriage.’ His vice was icy cold. She could hardly credit that it was the same man who had been loving her for the last forty-eight hours.

  ‘Don’t twist my words like that.’ She was angry and bitterly disappointed. ‘I’m saying that I have to be able to breathe and be me, just like you do. I want to go into medical laboratory work; it fascinates me and I know I’d be good at it. You and any children we might have would come first, of course you would, just as I’d expect that same degree of commitment from you. Your empire—this wonderful “thing” that you have created—actually isn’t what life is all about, believe it or not! You don’t have to prove yourself, Zeke. Not with me.’

  She hadn’t meant to say that last bit, it had just popped out of its own volition, but now the impact of her words whitened his face and he rose savagely from the sofa, walking across the room and beginning to pull on his clothes as he said, his voice harsh, ‘You’ve never really loved me, have you? It’s been a sham, all of it.’

  ‘Don’t you dare say that!’ She had never before been in the grip of a rage that made a red mist rise before her eyes, but she was experiencing the phenomenon now. She must have walked across to him—she couldn’t have flown—but she had no memory of it. ‘Don’t you dare. I love you. I’ll never love anyone but you, if you want to know, but that doesn’t mean I’ll let myself be submerged. I want to be loved for myself. I want you to be proud of anything I achieve, not threatened by it. I want you to support me, for any children we might have to be our joint responsibility, not a means of tying me to the house.’

  ‘Oh, so you actually remember the house now?’ he snarled sarcastically as he finished dressing and turned fully to face her. ‘This wonderful house that you wanted above anything else?’

  ‘It’s only bricks and mortar, Zeke.’ His cold eyes had brought a devastating emptiness into her heart that was reflected in her bleak face. ‘You are more important—our relationship is more important—than any house.’