Charlotte Lamb: Compulsion

Lissa moaned, her eyes clouding with answering passion, and Luc's mouth bruised and demanded, the heavy pace of his heart matching the wild tattoo of her own.

'I want you so badly, Liss,' he breathed into her mouth. Lifting his head he looked almost dazedly at her, his face set in that mask of unveiled desire. 'I've never felt like this in my life before. The morning we met on that beach you knocked me right off my feet and I've never managed to get back up again since. Every time I look at you I burn to touch you,'

Her mouth was dry. 'Take me to bed,' she whispered through her trembling lips. 'Now, Luc'

She saw the feverish flare of his blue eyes and for a second she thought he was going to pick her up and carry her upstairs. Then he swallowed, the muscles of the strong throat moving painfully. He shook his head, his mouth wry.

'A week ago I'd have been up the stairs so fast I'd have fallen on my face.' he said grimly. 'I meant to seduce you, Liss. I knew I could if I tried.'

Her face flushed even more deeply, her eyes half angry, and he grimaced.

I'm sorry for how that sounds, but your responses made it obvious right from the start. I saw you with Brandon and I knew he wasn't doing a thing to you, but when I started kissing you, I felt the response coming at me in waves. You're very inexperienced, darling, but I'm not.'

She winced and he gave her a faint sighing smile. 'I wish I was, believe me. I wish I could match you on that level, but I can't. I've had affairs before. What else could you expect? At my age I thought affairs were all I was ever going to have. I'd never met a woman who made me feel I could bear to live with her for life. And when I did meet her I had to fall headlong for a girl of twenty!' -

Lissa watched him, anxiety in her eyes. The age gap between them had never bothered her as much as it obviously bothered him. The only gulf she had felt was the gulf of experience which gave him such an advantage over her.

'When I managed to get you away from Brandon, I intended to seduce you into an affair,' Luc admitted flatly. 'I refused to look too far into the future at that stage because I was already sick at the thought that one day you'd be tired of me, but I had to have you, Lissa. I was ready to take whatever I could get you to give me.'

'How can you think I would tire of you?' she asked huskily, touching his face with one hand, gently following: the line of cheek and jaw.

She felt his bones tighten under her fingers. 'You don't know what you're saying,' Luc muttered.

'I know that I refused to have an affair with you because I knew it would kill me if you got tired of me,' she whispered.

He turned his head to kiss her palm, his eyes closing. 'Never. Never in this life, darling.'

'You said you wanted me to trust you,' Lissa murmured. 'Can't you trust me? Can't you believe I love you and will go on loving you for ever?'

His mouth twisted in that movement of pain. 'I've got to-I can't face the alternative. My father used to say that when you can't face looking too far ahead, the only way to live is from day to day, putting one foot in front of another without thinking about tomorrow.

That's what I'm going to have to do, Lissa. I'm going to live each day as it comes along, and forget about the future. If I'm going to lose you one day, I prefer not to think about it.'

'You won't lose me,' she promised.

'If you ever do want to go,' he began, and she put her fingers over his mouth.

'I never shall.'

He kissed the fingers, then lifted them away to ask huskily: 'When will you marry me?'

'When do you want me?' she asked, teasing him gently with a little smile.

'My God-now,' he groaned, then said thickly, 'But I'm going to wait because when I do take you I want to be sure you're mine. I've got a superstitious streak- most gamblers have. If I don't marry you before I take you to bed, I'm afraid I'll lose you even sooner. We'll start life together properly or not at all.'

'Will your family object to you marrying someone without a family or money?' she asked, frowning.

'My family depend on me, not the other way around,' he said drily. 'I shan't be asking their permission or even their approval. Bon't worry. There aren't many of them, and they'll smile from ear to ear, because if any one of them offended you I'd make him regret it to his dying day.'

She surveyed him, noting the change in his face and the hard note in his voice. 'You're ruthless, aren't you?'

He grinned briefly. 'Lissa, I control the money in the family. Believe me, they'll welcome you with open arms.'

'And cynical,' she added thoughtfully.

He laughed. 'The tougher they are, the harder they fall,' he mocked lightly, but the blue eyes were brilliant with passion as he watched her.

'Even if I'd seduced you on the boat I suspect I'd have ended up on my knees begging you to marry me,' he said drily. 'When it came to the point I'd have done anything in my power to keep you.'

'All you have to do to keep me, is love me,' Lissa told him.

'My God, Lissa, I can't begin to tell you how much I love you,' he groaned.

'You can try,' she said softly,

'Oh, I intend to,' said Luc as he bent his head to kiss her again.

Sheila Ann Mary Coates was born on 1937 in Essex, England, just before the Second World War in the East End of London. As a child, she was moved from relative to relative to escape the bombings of World War II.

Sheila attended the Ursuline Convent for Girls. On leaving school at 16, the convent-educated author worked for the Bank of England as a clerk. Sheila continued her education by taking advantage of the B of E's enormous library during her lunch breaks and after work. She later worked as a secretary for the BBC. While there, she met and married Richard Holland, a political reporter.

A voracious reader of romance novels, she began writing at her husband's suggestion. She wrote her first book in three days with three children underfoot! In between raising her five children (including a set of twins), Charlotte wrote several more novels. She used both her married and maiden names, Sheila Holland and Sheila Coates, before her first novel as Charlotte Lamb, Follow a Stranger, was published by Mills & Boon in 1973. She also used the pennames: Sheila Lancaster, Victoria Wolf and Laura Hardy.

Sheila was a true revolutionary in the field of romance writing. One of the first writers to explore the boundaries of sexual desire, her novels often reflected the forefront of the "sexual revolution" of the 1970s. Her books touched on then-taboo subjects such as child abuse and rape, and she created sexually confident – even dominant – heroines. She was also one of the first to create a modern romantic heroine: independent, imperfect, and perfectly capable of initiating a sexual or romantic relationship.

A prolific author, Sheila penned more than 160 novels, most of them for Mills & Boon. Known for her swiftness as well as for her skill in writing, Sheila typically wrote a minimum of two thousand words per day, working from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. While she once finished a full-length novel in four days, she herself pegged her average speed at two weeks to complete a full novel.

Since 1977, Sheila had been living on the Isle of Man as a tax exile with her husband and four of their five children: Michael Holland, Sarah Holland, Jane Holland, Charlotte Holland and David Holland. Sheila passed away on October 8, 2000 in her baronial-style home 'Crogga' on the Island. She is greatly missed by her many fans, and by the romance writing community.