Emma Darcy - The Ultimate Choice

As he bent his head purposefully towards hers, the look of startled vulnerability in her eyes gave Justin St John a moment's anguished pause, and he cursed himself for a fool. He had wanted to kiss her roughly, hurt and intimidate her, so that she would cease this mad confrontation and leave him alone in his world of pain. Give to her some of what she had made him feel.

But she was innocent of any wrong to him. It had been his choice. His! She didn't know- couldn't know-what hell she wrought, simply with her presence. She had been too young. She would always be too young. Her lips were quivering.

Just this once. Just this once, he promised himself. I'll give in to the temptation to kiss her just this once, and I swear I'll never touch her again. I'll send her away and make sure she stays away. But just this once…

Kelly's heart was thumping chaotically. She was barely aware of his hold on her gentling. He was going to kiss her. She felt his lips seal lightly against her own. Surprise and relief swept away the fear that had gripped her stomach. It wasn't a hostile kiss. For some inexplicable reason his intention had changed, and Kelly sensed she had won a major victory.

A warm pleasure rippled through her. The beguiling sensuality of his lips brushing over hers, the tantalising changes of pressure, the heightened awareness of the feel of his body against hers- Kelly surrendered without a moment's thought to what he was doing to her, and felt a heady glow of something wonderful, super-charged, an infinity of dazzling possibilities.

He stirred slightly, as if to pull away. She felt the hardening of his body, knew she was exciting him, and revelled in it. She moved one of her hands up to curl around his head and hold him still so she could keep savouring the tingling sensuality of his kiss. But it changed with her willing encouragement, grew more demanding with her eager response, passionate, hungry for all she would give him.

She pressed closer, excitingly aware of the growing sensitivity in her breasts as they softened against the unyielding wall of his chest. His arms tightened around her, pulling her even closer. She felt every muscle in his body tighten in need, and was deliciously relaxed herself, giving, melting into him.

In sheer wanton bliss she opened her mouth to his, and exulted in the wildly erotic invasion of his tongue, her senses aflame with a desire she had never experienced before, a need for more and more sensation, intimacy, knowledge, power…all of him!

His mouth wrenched away from hers with shocking abruptness. A guttural expression of repugnance was expelled on a long, ragged breath. He grasped her upper arms and pushed her from him, forcibly holding her away from any contact with his body. And, while she was still dazed and quivering from the needs that he had aroused, he shocked her even further with the cold, deliberate savagery of a verbal rejection.

'That's where it ends! You've been taught a lesson. Now go home, little girl. You're out of your depth with me. And always will be.'

He moved back to arm's length before he finally released her, and the look on his face was that of a condemned man who was seeing the world for the last time.

As shaken as she was, Kelly defiantly stood her ground. No way was she going to turn tail and run at his command! Nor was he going to frighten her with his assumed violence, or browbeat her in any way. He could not deny what had just passed between them. And it had been the same for him as it had for her. She knew it!

A film of tears lent a piercing brilliance to her green eyes, stabbing him with wounded but unremitting pride. 'I've just proved I'm not a little girl. And I'm not a child. If you can't handle the fact that I'm a woman, that's OK with me. But let's not get the insults the wrong way around. Are you man enough for me?'

She paused, taking the time to place her hands aggressively on her hips, stubbornly striking a pose that denied the churning distress that was making jelly of her insides. She could feel her lips trembling and bit them, fighting for more composure before she continued.

'Why do you have to run away from me?' she taunted.

His grimace was all bitter irony.

'Let me make you whole again. Let me help you to walk properly,' she shot at him, desperately seeking to get under his skin. 'I'm not interested in your self-pity! It's the person inside that's important!'

A bleak weariness dragged over Justin St John's face. He was as unshiftable as granite. 'No more, Kelly. Please go. I trust you don't need me to show you to the door,' he said with tired finality.

Kelly's chin lifted in determined defiance. 'There is one last piece of unfinished business left between us.'

The weariness cracked back into ferocity. 'What, for pete's sake? What more can there be between us?' He seemed at the end of his tether and he glowered at her with furious impatience.

The situation couldn't have been worse, Kelly thought despairingly. But he left her no option. This was the bottom line. No loopholes for bargaining. No room to manoeuvre. Not the slightest chance of any softening-up process, or sliding amicably into the subject.

She heaved a resigned sigh and spelled it out. 'The horses that you stopped me from riding are more mine than yours. I can't deny that Henry Lloyd bought them, but he bought them especially for me. I chose them, and worked them, and trained…’

'It was you? You taking the black stallion over the jumps?' His voice sounded half strangled, and all colour drained from his face, leaving it stark with shock.

Kelly hesitated, uncertain what his reaction meant and hopelessly unsettled by it. 'If you saw anyone riding Rasputin over the practice jumps, it would have been me,' she replied tentatively. 'He doesn't respond to anyone else. But that was before you cut me off from having any more to do with the horses. And that was totally unfair. I tried to see you, to talk to you. But then you were trying to get Grandpa off his land and we had to fight that first…'

Justin St John's eyes had closed tight and he was shaking his head as though punch-drunk. 'No,' he groaned. 'I can't… I won't…'

'If you'll please just listen to me…' Kelly begged,

'No!'

The harsh negative rattled in her ears, but Kelly couldn't accept it. 'I promise you I won't get in your way. You won't even see me if you don't want to. I'll take--'

'No! Never!' he yelled at her, angry colour rushing back into his face. His eyes were glazed, fixed with maniacal determination.

'It's not fair on me. Or the horses,' she cried frantically. 'You can't keep them penned up in the stables. They need…'

He banged his hands together in violent rejection. 'They can rot there forever for all I care. If I don't shoot them first!'

The venomous hatred in his voice was like a fist- blow to Kelly's heart. 'You couldn't!' she gasped. 'You wouldn't do that! Those horses are beautiful…truly beautiful!'

Her stricken look seemed to touch him. He appeared totally distracted for a moment. Then he jerked his body into action and started limping towards the doors that led into the foyer.

'Go home, Kelly Hanrahan!' he ordered harshly, and the back that was turned to her was rigid and unyielding. 'There is nothing you can say-no words, no sentiments, no pleading that you can think of-that can persuade me to change my mind. As long as those horses are in my keeping, you will never ride them again!'

Desperation drove Kelly after him. She grabbed his arm, halting his progress. He tried to tear it out of her grasp, but she clung on, forcing him to listen to her. 'You can't mean that!' she begged. 'I've been jumping them for years. It's my life…'

'It was Noni Lloyd's death!' he retorted, his eyes blazing at her in wild, impassioned accusation. 'Doesn't that mean anything to you?'