Dangerous Nights

Whatever he’d been about to say was abruptly cut short. A car had turned the corner and was roaring along the road towards them. With a speed which took her breath away and left her mentally reeling, she found herself half lifted, half pushed to the far pavement, and then pinned against the low stone wall enclosing the river gardens.

The car shot blindly past. The engine noise faded. It disappeared. Shaking all over, she struggled to free herself from Jed’s vice-like hold.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes,’ she said crossly. ‘Of course I’m all right. For goodness’ sake, I’m not stupid—I saw the car…’

‘He didn’t seem to have seen you,’ Jed said drily, releasing her, and dusting her down with an unreadable gleam in his eyes. ‘You’re trembling. Are you prone to near accidents like that, Anastasia?’

‘No! And I’m quite capable of looking after myself! But…thanks anyway.’ It took an effort to say it. He was right, the near miss seemed to have shaken her up more than she’d realised.

‘No problem. Do you usually cut through these gardens late at night?’

‘Yes. Normally I…I walk with a friend from the theatre. And Stratford is really quite a nice little town, you know. It has very few muggers and perverts lurking in the bushes…’

‘No town is free of those.’

‘Well, maybe I’m not familiar with whatever sordid world you inhabit.’

‘No,’ he agreed, ‘maybe you’re not.’

They’d reached the terraced house she shared with three other members of the company. Searching for her key in her shoulder-bag, she paused uncertainly. Jed showed no signs of bidding her a polite goodnight and vanishing. His deadpan presence at her side implied a definite expectation of being invited in.

‘I suppose I should be polite and ask you in for—for coffee,’ she said shortly, ‘but it’s late and I’m tired, so…’

As she pushed the key into the lock, the door swung open, unlocked. One of the others must have left in on the latch, for some reason, earlier on. The telephone was ringing.

‘Excuse me…’ Darting inside, she picked up the receiver. The caller rang off. Replacing the phone on its hook, she was just glaring at it in frustration, when she realised that Jed had followed her inside. Her heart began to thud painfully in her chest. He looked unnervingly large and intimidating in the narrow hall.

‘Jed, I’m sorry…I really have to get to bed.’

‘Yeah, I know. I’m just curious about where you live.’ He spoke with easy confidence, ‘Who was that on the phone?’

‘No one. They rang off as I answered…’

‘Do you share this house with someone else?’

‘Three others. They’re either all out, or all asleep.’

‘Who left the door unlocked?’

Didn’t the wretched man miss anything?

‘I haven’t a clue. And right now I couldn’t care less!’

‘I’ll see you up to your room.’ There was an air of bleak authority about him suddenly.

She stared at him in mounting bewilderment. What kind of insidious game was he playing, knowing how she must feel about the past? Turning up tonight out of the blue. Following her home. Barging in, uninvited…

‘Look, I don’t know what you want,’ she began hotly, ‘but frankly I’d like you to go away and leave me alone, Jed—’

‘Ana—’

‘Just get out…!’

She trailed off abruptly as he took a step closer. He grabbed her shoulders, then hesitated, uncharacteristically. His fingers dug into her, hard and powerful, through the velvet jacket. He had an air of silently calculating the situation. Then, with a soft, four-letter expletive, he slowly closed the gap between then and lowered his head, as if to kiss her.

Ana caught her breath. She couldn’t breathe at all. But he didn’t kiss her. Maybe her fierce intake of breath had made him think twice? He stopped, within an inch of her mouth, then lifted his head again, his eyes dark with an emotion she didn’t recognise.

The shock of his nearness stunned her into terrified confusion—the clean, male smell of him, the remembered shape and feel of his body, a scant half inch from hers, so overpoweringly large, and male, and close. She could remember how it had felt to be moulded with brazen intimacy all the way down, every inch of their contrasting sexuality fused into one…It triggered a wild response. The response was unexpected in its intensity, and yet only too familiar. Humiliatingly familiar. The way he held her, that crucial few millimetres apart from him, had a fierce constraint which transmitted itself to her. There was a subtle hint of violence. As if he was suppressing a potentially dangerous depth of feeling.

He released her. The green eyes were a shade darker. Her heart seemed to expand and swell in her ribcage, her stomach was contorted with anger and fear and, to her eternal humiliation, a contrary and unwelcome shiver of pleasure. ‘This is not playing fair…!’

‘Back to games again, Ana? But I’m not playing at all,’ he assured her. The thick rasp made every tiny hair prickle on her body. ‘Let’s go upstairs.’ He sounded grimly angry. With her? Or with himself? But why should he be angry?

‘Go upstairs? Look, are you crazy? You expect to be asked to…to sleep the night here or something? With me? Just…just to finish off whatever was left in the air four years ago?’

‘You’re over-reacting. As usual. I said I’d see you up to your room.’ The put-down was coldly ruthless.

Hot and furious, shuddering with emotion, she glared up at him. The notion of physically attacking him was tempting, but swiftly dismissed. No amount of kicks and punches would dent that six-foot wall of masculine arrogance…

Turning stiffly on her heel, she marched up the staircase towards her bedroom. Her legs felt like rubber. Flinging open her door, she snapped on the light and made a dramatic gesture with her arms.

‘Voilà!’ she announced icily. ‘My bedroom. Satisfied?’

Jed strolled in, and looked bleakly around. The terraced house was early Edwardian, and the high-ceilinged, deep-corniced room was spacious, with cream walls and a green patterned carpet. His cool gaze took in the brass and wrought-iron bed, the rumpled crimson duvet, the battered old one-legged teddy-bear sprawled on the pillow, the posters of Hollywood greats plastered on the walls, the shelves of books, the pile of clothes on the armchair by the window.

‘Tidiness was never your strong point, I recall,’ he murmured, unforgivably.

‘If the only reason you’ve barged your way up here is to criticise my tidiness…!’ With a degree of defiance she dragged off her jacket and hat and threw them to land on top of the clothes pile. She stood, breathing rather raggedly, a petite, willowy figure in the floppy white sweatshirt and black leggings.

Jed ignored her. He’d crossed to the window, twitched back the heavy red velvet curtains. Impatiently, she marched over to stand beside him.

‘It overlooks the church,’ she pointed out unnecessarily, suppressing her temper with difficulty. ‘Jed, will you please go?’

There was a long silence. She couldn’t read his eyes. She couldn’t tune in to his thoughts. She’d never felt more at sea, more bewildered, in her life.

‘Do you want me to go?’ The question was softly abrupt. The steady gaze had locked with hers. When he let his eyes slide smoothly to the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, the nipples visible as tight little points through the soft fabric of her top, a deep, disturbing confusion began rippling, like invisible waves, right through her.

‘What sort of question is that supposed to be?’ she shot at him angrily. ‘I don’t believe this! I should admire your nerve, I suppose. Do you honestly think that because I was…panting for you to take my virginity four years ago you can just stroll back into my life and haul me into bed with you? After one glass of white wine and half an hour of your famous non-conversation?’

‘Maybe we don’t always know what we want,’ he hazarded quietly.

The blatant arrogance took her breath away. ‘Oh, no!’ she breathed furiously. ‘You’re the one who didn’t know what he wanted, as I recall—!’

A door slammed. Voices on the stairs heralded the return of the others. The tension between Jed and herself was so taut, she felt herself sag with relief.

‘Ana? Ana? Are you back?’ her friend’s voice called along the landing, footsteps coming closer. ‘Who was that dishy male you were with in the pub…?’ Camilla froze on the threshold of the bedroom, and had the grace to look slightly embarrassed.