Sweet Surrender (The Dysarts) Read online

  ‘No. Embarrassment,’ she said gruffly.

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Suggesting something so idiotic.’

  Alasdair was quiet for some time. At last he turned her face up to his. ‘I know this is a long shot, but tell me the truth. If we did make love, Kate, would it be the first time for you? Is this why you’re choosing me for the experiment?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then what’s the problem?’

  ‘Me. I’m the problem.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ He ran caressing fingers through the long, silken strands of hair. ‘Because if some idiot’s said you’re frigid—’

  ‘Not frigid, exactly.’ A quiver of laughter ran through her. ‘But for your ears only, Alasdair, part of me sort of stands apart during the process, amazed I’m doing something so ridiculous.’

  He grinned involuntarily, then sobered. ‘And are you saying this is down to me?’

  ‘In the most peripheral of ways, I suppose it is.’ Kate removed herself from Alasdair’s sheltering arm and sat in the corner of the sofa, facing him. She secured her hair back behind her ears, hesitated, then took in a deep breath.

  ‘You really want to know what happened to me before you left Cambridge to take on the world?’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘You know damn well I do. So talk.’

  She turned her head to stare into the fire. ‘Once upon a time, as they say, you never even noticed that I was crazy about you, or if you did you never took it seriously.’

  And for the best part of two years Kate had managed to live with her unrequited passion, trying to be content with the few odd hours she spent in Alasdair’s company, firmly repelling all other male interest, and, unlike most of her peers, working too hard to leave much time for play. Then her world had fallen apart. The unthinkable had happened. Alasdair Drummond had acquired a woman in his life. And it had been obvious to Kate, and to everyone else in their vicinity, that the relationship had become sizzlingly physical from the moment Lisa Bryant moved into Alasdair’s orbit.

  ‘Lisa,’ he said blankly. ‘Good Lord, I’d forgotten about her.’

  Kate sniffed. ‘I wish I had. Her brother was on my course. She came to visit Jon one day, he took her to the pub, and you were there. With me. But you forgot I existed once the luscious Lisa arrived. Nor was yours the only tongue hanging out. But it was the only one she fancied.’

  ‘She was quite a girl,’ he said reminiscently. ‘No brain, but a shape to tempt a saint.’

  ‘And I hated her guts!’

  Alasdair frowned. ‘But it didn’t mean anything. It was just a fling, Kate, for both of us.’

  ‘Some fling. You spent most of it in bed, according to Jon.’

  ‘But surely Lisa wasn’t the reason you locked yourself away like that?’

  ‘No. But from a scientific point of view she was the catalyst.’ Kate sighed. ‘And this is where it gets really pathetic. I had a brainwave. I decided it was time you woke up to the fact that I was a woman, too. So I set out to make you jealous.’

  He stared, astonished. ‘Who with?’

  Her chin lifted. ‘Since you never even noticed, his identity hardly matters.’

  Alasdair’s eyes hardened. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Once you were distracted by the luscious Lisa one of my more persistent followers moved in on me, so I seized my chance. He was a charmer—clever to. I liked him a lot. Otherwise,’ she assured him, ‘even to make you jealous I couldn’t have done it.’

  ‘Done what?’ said Alasdair with foreboding.

  ‘For the best part of a week, hoping you would notice and burn with jealousy, I led my Romeo on shamelessly.’ Kate gave a bitter laugh. ‘And the end result was disaster.’

  Hardly able to believe his good fortune, the young man had armed himself with champagne when Kate invited him back to her room. And in sore need of Dutch courage Kate had let him fill her glass too often, so that when he’d begun to make love to her she’d been in too fuzzy a state to keep him at arm’s length.

  ‘In no time at all we were on my bed,’ she went on. ‘Odd the things one remembers. His hands were shaking, and he was sweating, and suddenly things really got out of hand.’

  ‘He raped you?’ said Alasdair through clenched teeth.

  Kate looked at him consideringly. ‘If you mean that I wasn’t willing to go that far, then I suppose technically you could say he did. And because I wasn’t—well—fired up for it in the way he was, it was a painful, humiliating experience that gave the poor lad no satisfaction at all.’

  Alasdair glared at her, incensed. ‘He raped you and you can call him a poor lad?’

  ‘I led him on, remember. He had every right to think I was willing. And, to be fair, he had no idea it was my first time. Though ultimately he was left in no doubt.’ She bit her lip, feeling her face grow hot. ‘At the time it was quite ghastly for both of us, but looking back I can see the funny side of it now.’

  ‘I fail to see the joke,’ snapped Alasdair.

  ‘It wasn’t much of a joke at the time,’ Kate admitted. ‘Nor is it easy to describe. Politely, anyway. The thing is, Alasdair, I was never a sporty type, in school or out of it. So when my Romeo finally got to first base with me, he came up against a barrier other girls lose simply by playing ballgames or riding horses, if they even had much of one in the first place. Mine was very firmly in place, alas. And, no matter how much I resisted, my would-be lover, who was in quite a state by this time, was determined to succeed. By the time I felt something tear inside at last I was exhausted and hysterical, and it was all over for him in a flash. And when I shoved him away at last poor Romeo was utterly appalled.’ Kate pulled a face, unable to look at Alasdair.

  ‘Why?’

  She drew a deep breath, and shrugged ruefully. ‘I don’t have to draw pictures, surely, Alasdair. Let’s just say my virginity was proved beyond all possible doubt, to Romeo’s horror. Mine, too.’

  There was silence between them for a while.

  ‘And that’s why you locked yourself away?’ Alasdair said at last.

  She nodded. ‘The only one who knew what happened was Romeo. I stayed immured in my room for the rest of term, other than lectures and exams. And the odd dash to the shops.’

  He stared at her in disbelief. ‘And you depended on this idiot never to tell anyone?’

  Kate smiled crookedly. ‘I told him that if he said he’d scored with me I’d broadcast every last gory detail.’

  Alasdair swore under his breath. ‘He must have kept his word, whoever he was, because I never had the least idea. I wish to God I had. I was hellish worried about you.’

  ‘Is that why you contacted me so often after you left?’

  ‘In some ways. But I would have done anyway.’ His hand tightened on hers. ‘I was very fond of you, Kate.’

  Kate scowled. ‘So why were you so utterly horrible to me when you came to Friars Wood that last time?’

  ‘You’d changed out of all recognition. Instead of the sweet little kid I’d been so fond of I found a cold, hostile young stranger, nothing like the Kate I’d known before. I felt so guilty, sure that I was to blame in some way for the change. Which it seems I was, indirectly,’ he added heavily.

  ‘It wasn’t your fault, Alasdair,’ she assured him, ‘only mine for being such a fool.’

  ‘Adam said you were in Italy for most of that summer afterwards. Why did you stay away so long?’

  She looked away. ‘I thought you might have worked that one out already.’

  Silence fell, and lengthened until the sudden crash of falling logs broke the spell. Alasdair got up to see to the fire, then turned to look down at her.

  ‘You mean you were pregnant?’ he said quietly.

  ‘No.’ She shrugged. ‘In the circumstances the scientist in me knew that was highly unlikely. Which didn’t stop me from feeling afraid I might be.’

  ‘Didn’t the idiot use protection?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ Kate looked away. ‘U
nfortunately it—it wasn’t equal to the occasion.’

  Alasdair swore softly and sat down again to put his arm round her. ‘Which must have resulted in weeks of purgatory for you.’

  ‘Not that long, actually. Lorenzo, my sister’s husband, called in his personal friend, Dr Bruno Tosti. Due to Bruno I knew straight away that I wasn’t pregnant, and the blood tests he took proved that I was suffering from nothing else more terrifying than mild anaemia.’ Kate leaned against him as she felt him relax. ‘Jess insisted I stay with her until I felt better. So I spent the summer taking iron pills, eating good food, playing with my nephew and lying in the sun.’

  ‘What happened when you got back to Cambridge? Did you meet up with Romeo again?’

  ‘No. He was a year ahead of me, thank heavens, so he’d left by then, which made things easier in some ways.’ She sighed. ‘But life was hard in others because there were two things missing from it. You, for one. The other was my enthusiasm for research. Which, dear reader, is how I come to be teaching little darlings of both sexes in Foychurch.’

  Alasdair pulled her closer. ‘So now I know the whole story. Or is there more I should know?’

  She twisted round to look up at him. ‘You don’t have to know anything about me, Alasdair Drummond. I wouldn’t have embarked on my life story tonight if I hadn’t had the silly idea of seducing you. I must remember not to do it again. It never turns out well for me.’

  ‘As an experiment,’ he reminded her sardonically. ‘I’ve had more flattering offers.’

  ‘I bet you have!’ Kate looked at her watch and stood up. ‘Time I was off. Which is a pity. This fire is too tempting to leave.’

  ‘Do you have to leave?’ he said, getting to his feet.

  ‘Are you offering me the use of your spare room?’

  ‘If you insist. But the bed’s more comfortable in mine.’ He smiled down at her. ‘Not that I have a hope of persuading you to join me in it, of course.’

  ‘You give up too easily,’ she said rashly, and found herself yanked hard against Alasdair’s chest.

  ‘Fighting talk,’ he muttered, and turned her face up to his.

  This time, her emotions running high after her revelations, Kate’s mouth responded so passionately to his that in seconds they were straining each other close until the inequality in their height threatened to overbalance them. With a smothered laugh Alasdair picked her up and sat down with her on the sofa again, still kissing her as he bore her back into the cushions. He slid his hands into her hair to look down into eyes which gleamed up at him, molten gold in the firelight.

  ‘Do you know,’ he said, in a tone that sent shivers down her spine, ‘what this seductive hair of yours does to me, Kate?’

  She stretched against him deliberately. ‘Do I have nothing else to recommend me, then?’

  ‘Your eyes. Your mouth—’ He backed up his statement with kisses, and went on kissing her until she was restless and breathless in his arms. ‘And these,’ he said hoarsely, as his hands slid up beneath her sweater. She clenched her teeth to stop them chattering as he released the catch which delivered her breasts naked into hands which cupped them so that he could kiss the satin-skinned slopes. Alasdair took such a long, savouring time over it that when his lips found her expectant nipples at last she gave a smothered gasp, and dug her nails into his back through his shirt. At the precise moment the exquisite torture became unbearable Alasdair moved his mouth back up hers, his tongue penetrating as he spread her hair out on the cushions. On fire from head to foot by this time, Kate thrust her hips against him, her body vibrating with need and anticipation against his.

  ‘Do you mean it?’ he demanded hoarsely.

  She nodded mutely, and he got up, bent to put a guard in front of the fire, then turned back to pull her to her feet and lead her from the room.

  To Kate it was an increasingly unreal experience to go hand in hand with Alasdair up into the darkness of the upper floor. So unreal that somewhere along the way she lost her urgency. She kept looking up at his tense profile to convince herself that this was really Alasdair, dream lover in the past, but now soon to be lover in fact. But when she stopped dead, in disbelief at the prospect, Alasdair picked her up and carried her the rest of the way. He sat down with her on his lap on the edge of the bed in his room, and Kate looked up at him, her eyes enormous in the semi-darkness.

  ‘Changed your mind?’ he whispered.

  Feeling it was too late now, even if she had, Kate shook her head.

  ‘Are you sure?’ he said huskily.

  ‘Oh, well, if you’re going to argue about it—’ She gave a smothered cry of protest as he tossed her onto the pillows and let himself down on top of her, taking her breath away.

  ‘I never argue with a lady,’ said Alasdair. And, giving her no time to recover, he undressed her with the speed and skill of someone familiar with the task, laughing indulgently when she turned her back as he stripped off his own clothes. Kate lay with her head buried in the pillow, no longer sure about this at all. This was Alasdair, she reminded herself. What if she disappointed him? It had happened before. Then she gasped as he flipped her round and held her against his naked, aroused body. At which point Kate discovered that her own body had turned into one great erogenous zone from head to foot. She shivered, and clutched at him with feverish hands, and Alasdair laid her flat and knelt over her, fighting for control.

  ‘Wait,’ he said breathlessly, and slid his hands into her hair to look down into her eyes. ‘I want this to be as beautiful for you as I can make it, Kate. And different. So lie still, darling—at least for a while. Let me love you as you should be loved.’

  Kate gave a deep sigh, and submitted herself to the bliss of the moment as he kissed her. It was a long time before his mouth left hers at last to make a slow, arousing journey downward to set her on fire again as his lips and fingertips caressed her sensitised, quivering nipples, sending streaks of fire down to the part of her which dissolved in anticipation as his mouth moved lower. She tensed, her breath tearing through her chest as his fingers probed to test her readiness, then her eyes opened wide as he found the hidden core of her response.

  Kate gave a hoarse, disbelieving little cry as waves of sensation coursed through her and Alasdair held her close, murmuring such gratifying things in her ear she opened dazed, disbelieving eyes at last, straight into the molten gleam in his.

  Quick to read her mind, he smiled in reassurance. ‘It is me. And this is you. And it did happen. Keep looking at me, Kate.’ and with one smooth, sure thrust he entered her and held her still.

  Kate lay unmoving for long, breathless moments, gazing up at Alasdair as her body adjusted to the throbbing reality of their union. Then her eyes widened in surprise as she felt her innermost muscles clench round him in response. Instantly he thrust deeper, and kissed her open, gasping mouth, his hands threading through her hair as he began to move in her and with her, coaxing her body to answer his, his patience so absolute that at last Kate lost hers, and arched against him in imperious demand. He responded fiercely, the rhythm of their loving mounting as it grew wilder and faster until she cried his name in disbelief as she climaxed, and he crushed her close as he surrendered to his own release.

  Almost at once Alasdair rolled over, taking her with him to hold her close in his arms, his cheek on her wildly dishevelled hair.

  ‘This,’ he whispered, pulling the covers over them, ‘is where I ask “how was it for you”?’

  Kate thought it over, waiting until her breathing was normal enough for her to answer. ‘Different,’ she said at last, pushing her hair back from her eyes. ‘So different that it’s hard to believe it was the same basic process as the other times.’

  ‘Times plural?’ he said sharply, and reached out to switch on a lamp so he could see her face.

  ‘Well, yes. It’s a long time since the anonymous Romeo.’

  Alasdair propped himself on an elbow to look down at her. ‘So you’d already made one experiment. O
ne that you’re telling me about, anyway.’

  ‘I didn’t think of it as an experiment. I met Julian when I was doing my teacher training.’

  ‘And?’ prompted Alasdair coldly.

  ‘For a whole term we got on very well. A fine romance, kind of thing. Not exactly no kisses, but certainly no bed.’ Kate sighed. ‘But when I got back to college after the Christmas break he asked me to marry him. When I said yes he required a more physical relationship.’

  Alasdair drew her close, his lips against her cheek. ‘Was it a repeat of the first time?’

  She shook her head. ‘It couldn’t be in one way, obviously. And at least Julian seemed to enjoy it.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘Not much. It seemed only polite to try to fake it. But that didn’t work. So by half-term the affair, if you could call it that, was over.’ Kate sighed. ‘Julian wasn’t interested in being just friends. Which was a pity, because I was fond of him. And after that I decided sex was just too much trouble to bother with.’

  Alasdair kissed her fleetingly. ‘And how do you feel about it now?’

  ‘Astonished.’ Her colour rose as her eyes met his. ‘As I’m sure you could tell, there was no faking involved this time.’

  He laughed, his eyes triumphant. ‘I know. And now, my dear Miss Dysart, I’m going to prove it was no fluke.’

  And to Kate’s surprise and ultimate rapture Alasdair did as he said, taking so long over the process she was driven to pleading with him by the time he engulfed her in such an overwhelming cataclysm of pleasure that she fell asleep in his arms afterwards.

  She woke to the touch of his caressing fingers in her hair.

  ‘Darling,’ he whispered. ‘It’s getting late, and its raining cats and dogs out there. Ring home and say you’re staying the night.’

  Kate shot upright, blinking and yawning as she looked at her watch. ‘Eleven!’ Conscious of her nudity, she scrambled out of bed in ungraceful haste. Alasdair watched with deep enjoyment. ‘I must go,’ she said, frantically searching for her clothes.

  Alasdair slid to his feet and pulled on a dressing gown. ‘You can’t drive home in this. Besides, we have things to talk about.’