Robyn Donald - Prince Of Lies

So he had met Saul. Stephanie’s suspicions fell from her like an ugly, discarded shroud. Bewitched by the new and unusual responses of her body, pulses jumping, she waited until he moved away to turn on the shower before shrugging off the shirt and stepping out of her jeans. A quick flick of her wrist hooked a towel from the rail to wrap around herself.

She stumbled, and he caught her, pulling her against the solid length of his body. Stephanie flinched, that insidious, unwanted awareness reinforced by his nearness. Although she was tall and not slightly built, against him she felt tiny, delicately fragile, an experience intensified by the unexpected burgeoning of a languorous femininity.

Her rescuer’s austere face was intent as he juggled with the shower controls, but that concentrated attention was not bent on her; he showed no signs of a reciprocal response.

You’re mad, she told herself as steam began to fill the shower stall. Look in the mirror—your bones stick out, you’re filthy, and you smell. The sort of first impression no one ever overcomes. Who in their right mind would be anything but casual and very, very detached?

‘There, that should be right,’ he said, urging her into the big, tiled, warm shower with its glass doors now tactfully obscured by steam. He didn’t move away from the door, but at least he couldn’t see much through the hazy mist.

A singing, surging relief persuaded her to release the bonds of the obstinacy that had held her together for so long. Only for a few hours, she thought as with eyes tightly shut she tried to wash herself. She could give up for a few hours and use some of this man’s strength until she regained her own.

The water was like nectar over her skin, but its heat drained her waning energy, and her hands shook so much that she couldn’t get soap on to the flannel. As tears squeezed their way beneath her lashes she continued grimly on, aware of the man who stood so close, a large, dim figure through the glass doors.

The cake of soap plummeted between her fingers and landed on her foot. Unable to prevent a soft cry of pain, she cut it short and crouched to pick up the wretched thing. It took a vast effort to push herself upright, and when she got there she could feel her legs trembling. Refusing to look at the man who watched, hating him for not leaving her alone, she gripped the flannel and passed it over the cake of soap.

He asked tonelessly, ‘Do you want me to wash you?’

Lethargy enmeshed her, but she said, ‘No, I can do it.’

Only she couldn’t. Her arms ached, and her fingers wouldn’t obey her, and her legs felt as though the bones had been replaced by sponge rubber.

He waited until she dropped the soap again, then said curtly, ‘Here, give me that flannel. When you’ve as much strength as a cooked noodle courage and determination will only get you so far.’

Stephanie turned her face away, saying stiffly, ‘I’m all right—’

‘Shut up,’ he said, interrupting her by taking the cloth from her lax fingers.

HOSTILITY flared brightly inside Stephanie, matched by a crackle of antagonism from him. A searing glance from those colourless eyes warned her that she wasn’t going to win this one. Squeezing her eyelids shut, she stood mutinously while the flannel slipped slowly, gently over skin that was stretched and too sensitive.

Her blood gathered thickly in her veins. No matter how much she tried to concentrate on relief at being safe, all she could feel was the elemental nearness of the man who had brought her out of hell. His presence was a sensuous abrasion on her skin, electric, tingling, charging the shower stall with a fierce, primal vitality, setting acutely responsive nerves alight. Dazed, she set herself to endure what she couldn’t change.

He didn’t hurry. The flannel laved her body in subtle, diligent torture. He even shampooed her hair, working suds through the rust-coloured strands, seeming to understand that she needed it rinsed over and over until it was glowing against her head. Luxuriating in the purifying spray of water, she thought that he was surprisingly patient. She suspected that it wasn’t an inherent part of his character, but had been hard-won by the exercise of will. Whatever, she was grateful for it.

Sudden exhaustion robbed her bones of strength, and she swayed, her hands whipping up to grab his forearm as she fell. Unwillingly her eyes popped open. A wide, bare chest filled her vision, fine wet hair slicked in a tree-of-life pattern over olive skin clearly in the best of health, a shocking contrast to her own sunless pallor.

Without her volition her gaze travelled down; she realised he still had his trousers on.

‘You’re getting wet,’ she said foolishly, trying to curb a harsh, unbidden response, elemental and unwanted.

‘I didn’t think you’d like it if I came in without any clothes on,’ he returned, a satirical note edging his tone.

Blood stung her cheeks and throat. Feeling much younger than her eighteen years, she stammered, ‘No—well, no, I wouldn’t.’

She had wanted to stay beneath the water until her skin was wrinkled and pale, washing off the results of being locked in a coffin for three days, scrubbing herself free from the taint and the terror and the evilness of it. But now she needed to get out of there.

Quickly, she said the first words that came into her head. ‘I’m cold.’

‘All right.’ He turned off the spray.

Swallowing a lump that obstructed her throat, and apparently her thought processes too, Stephanie watched through lashes beaded with drops of water as he pushed open the glass door and stepped out on to the mat. Muscles moved in his back—not the smooth, sculptured works of art nurtured in a gym, but tautly corded, with the flowing vigour and hard, tensile power of rigorous work.

‘Here,’ he said, handing her a large, warm white towel.

Battling the treacherous feelings that surged through her, she accepted it and began to dry herself. He pulled another towel from the holder and started to wipe the glistening water from his arms.

Her last vestiges of energy evaporated as fast as the water on his skin. Stumbling once more, Stephanie would have fallen if he hadn’t sensed her predicament and whirled around to catch her, moving with a speed and accuracy that obscurely frightened her. For the second time in as many minutes, she was supported against a taut male body.

‘My legs won’t hold me up,’ she muttered, unable now to hide her panic with anger. Sensation bludgeoned her; acutely aware of the heated, silky dampness of his skin, the potency barely leashed in the tall body that supported her, she swallowed.

‘Stand still,’ he said in a cool, crisp voice, and began to blot the water from her shoulders.

Beneath the white towel his hands were careful yet completely impersonal. By the time she was dry Stephanie was shivering, engulfed by a fatigue that was only partly caused by her ordeal. Dimly she realised that she was being put into a huge T-shirt, thick and soft and enveloping, before being lifted and carried and lowered into a bed, and then sheets were pulled over her and she sank gratefully into the sleep that claimed her...

Until the nightmares came like evil wraiths, tormenting with the terrors she hadn’t allowed herself to feel while imprisoned, slyly sneaking through the unguarded gates of her unconscious mind and into her brain, vivid, horrifying, so real that she could feel herself screaming.

‘Stop that right now,’ a masculine voice ordered, compounding her fear.

A reflex action filled her lungs with air. Opening her mouth to scream again, she flung herself on to the other side of the bed. The sound was cut off instantly by a hand clamping across her mouth. Bucking with terror, she lashed her tired limbs to greater efforts, wrenching at iron fingers, trying to bite, to claw, to scratch.