Silver

She was none of these things now. She had a body now that was sleek and streamlined, her flesh smooth and silky.

She now had the kind of body that any man would want to touch.

As she registered the contact of Jake’s hand on her body, long, lean fingers splayed out across her satin pyjama jacket, radiating heat through the fabric and on to her skin, she wondered if she would ever totally manage to vanquish the past and the woman she had been then.

Against her ear Jake’s voice warned, ‘Remember, you’re supposed to want this. You’re supposed to be making me feel I’m driving you wild.’

Driving her wild. He was—wild with anger and tension and insecurity and a dozen or more other negative emotions she thought she had already put behind her.

There was no pressure in the touch of his hand, no more intimacy or awareness than if he had simply been touching her arm to help her across a street.

But she was aware of him; aware of the heat and alienness of him where his hand covered her; aware of the softness of her own body, of the curve of her breasts and the sensitivity of her nipples where the satin touched them.

She shuddered as she felt Jake’s chest expand with impatience.

‘Don’t think about me,’ he commanded her harshly, withdrawing his hand. ‘Don’t think about me… don’t think about anyone; think only of yourself, of what you’re projecting… of what you want to achieve. You’re so goal-orientated; think of this as a goal you have to achieve, let your senses monitor the degree of your success or lack of it… Let them tell you how the man touching you is feeling. Desire is a very sensitive emotion; only by understanding that will you be able to truly control and manipulate a man’s sexual reaction to you.’

Silver had stopped listening to him; he was pressing her too hard, demanding too much of her too soon, and she thought she knew the reason why. He was so anxious to be rid of her and get his money that he was trying to set a pace it was impossible for her to match.

‘Listen to me, damn you!’ he swore at her suddenly.

Suddenly her control snapped.

‘I’m not like you,’ she told him angrily. ‘I’m not so used to casual sexual intimacy that it doesn’t matter to me who…’

She gasped with pain as his fingers bit deeply into the soft flesh of her upper arms.

‘You know nothing about me,’ he told her tersely. ‘Nothing. If you’ve changed your mind and want to bring this whole thing to an end, then say so, and stop trying to manufacture an excuse.’ His mouth twisted and he released her, adding unexpectedly, ‘And, for your information, I do not use and never have used sex indiscriminately. Nor have I ever used it as a weapon,’ he told her devastatingly. ‘What is it you really want from this man, Silver? You told Annie you wanted revenge—–’

Her mouth tightening, Silver interrupted angrily, ‘She had no right to tell you that.’

‘She was concerned about you. Annie’s like that. She can’t stop herself from caring, from becoming involved. A human weakness I doubt you’d understand.’

Almost she told him, and then she stopped herself just in time, sensing the cleverly baited trap. It would be madness to allow this man to know too much about her… to witness her vulnerabilities.

‘Why?’ he probed, ignoring her tension. ‘Why all this…?’ His hand touched her face fleetingly.

‘I have my reasons,’ she told him freezingly.

‘A woman spurned,’ he mocked. ‘What really motivates you, do you know? Anger… hatred… love…?’

Silver shuddered, the fine hairs on her arms rising warningly. He was too aware, too sensitive in some way to her most private thoughts and feelings. It was almost as though he himself knew what it was to be driven… to be possessed… obsessed almost. And as for that last softly spoken challenge… Please God she no longer felt any love for Charles. Hatred, anger, yes… she needed them just as much as she needed her driving hunger for retribution…

‘What is it exactly you hope to achieve?’ Jake pressed, and then added, ‘Oh, I know what your physical goal is, but what satisfaction do you expect to gain from achieving it?’

Silver almost wished she hadn’t allowed him to see that shudder of sensation which had made him take his hands from her body. In its own way this was an almost equally painful form of torture—this probing into her mind, her feelings. Physically, at least most of the time, she could hide her reactions from him, but mentally, emotionally… he was far too good at finding her weak points and playing on them.

Holding up her head, she said coolly, ‘The Chinese have a saying: “There is nothing so amusing as to see an enemy fall from a high roof.” I intend to make sure Charles falls from a very high roof indeed.’

‘You intend to see that he falls… or do you mean that you intend to make sure he does, by giving him a push? Be careful,’ he warned her firmly. ‘The Chinese have another saying: “He who seeks revenge must dig two graves”…’ He paused deliberately, and Silver had the uncanny sensation of feeling her resolve waver. It was like discovering that what she had thought to be absolutely solid ground had suddenly turned to something treacherous, without substance, and she fought against it in panic almost as though she was in fact losing her balance and being sucked into something dangerous and unstable.

‘Oh, and by the way,’ Jake told her softly, ‘you got your quotation wrong. In actual fact it goes: “There is nothing so amusing as to see a friend fall from a high roof.” A very cynical race, the Chinese, but perhaps the mistake was Freudian in origin and you aren’t sure whether he is your enemy or your friend. Is it revenge you want, Silver, or is it something else?’

‘What are you trying to say?’ she demanded, fighting back her panic. This was worse, much worse than the physical intimacy which had sent her flying headlong down this perilous path.

‘I’m just trying to warn you about the pitfalls you’re going to encounter…’

She laughed then, a too high, too sharp sound that grated warningly against her own ears, betraying her panic and her fear; and if her laughter betrayed those emotions to her, how much more must it betray to Jake’s far more astute ears?

‘Why?’ she demanded acidly. ‘I’ve hired you to teach me about seduction, Jake, not morality. Anyway, what makes you such an expert? You don’t know how I feel or why…’

‘Wrong.’

He said it so blandly, so emotionlessly that it was a few seconds before she realised just what the word meant.

She blinked, and then focused on him. His face was stern in repose, unyielding, his mouth controlled, everything about him so diametrically opposed to all that the word cloaked that she thought for a moment that he was lying to her.

‘I know exactly what motivates you, Silver, exactly what you’re feeling, and I can tell you this: you’re going to have to be far more resolute, far more determined, far more single-minded if you want to succeed. Revenge, just like any other human emotion, is a two-edged sword, as dangerous to the person who wields it as the person it is wielded against. This man you’re so determined to destroy… do you really think he’s going to calmly allow you to destroy him… that he won’t try to destroy you in turn?’

‘I’m not a fool, Jake.’

‘No, you’re a spoilt and wealthy young woman, who obviously believes that her wealth can buy her anything and everything she wants,’ he responded equably.

The unfairness of his allegation momentarily robbed Silver of her ability to retaliate.

‘You’re wrong,’ she told him emotionally, forgetting the warnings she had already given herself about lowering her defences with him. ‘I may be rich, but as for being spoilt… Materially, perhaps, but emotionally… apart from my father, I doubt that anyone has ever given a thought to my emotional needs… love—–’

‘Love?’ Jake interrupted, taunting her. ‘I thought it was revenge you wanted.’

‘It is!’ She realised that her hands were balled into fists and that her temper was dangerously close to breaching her self-control. Taking a steadying breath, she demanded less emotively, ‘What are you trying to do, Jake?’

There was a small pause and then he said quietly, ‘What I’m trying to do is to make you face up to reality. You think you’re invulnerable, but you’re not… you’re far too easily swayed by your emotions.’

‘I’ve had enough of this,’ she told him abruptly. She turned away from him dismissively, but he forestalled her, taking hold of her in a grip she couldn’t break.

‘No,’ he told her quietly, ‘that isn’t the way it’s done, sulking like a child when things don’t go as you want them to. You’ve got to learn to make your own weaknesses work for you… to use them and to conceal them—and conceal them well—but first you’ve got to learn to recognise and acknowledge them. Now, if you’ve got over your little tantrum, we’ll start again.’

He felt the tiny shudder that rippled across her skin and was momentarily caught off guard by an unexpected twist of fellow feeling, of sympathy almost… sympathy for this woman…

Moralising, he taunted himself. Was what she was doing so very different from what he himself was doing? Both of them were motivated by the same need… but that was the only similarity between them. She wanted to hurt and destroy a man who had rejected her, while he… As he felt the floodgates to his memories tremble beneath the force of his own pain he clamped back on his thoughts…

He had come so close to achieving his goal, only to discover that while he turned his back his entire world had been destroyed. Now he sought vengeance against those who had wrought that destruction. One of the men was dead already, murdered by a rival drug baron, in a bomb blast before Jake could intervene. Two of the others were in American gaols, awaiting sentence. It was the fourth and so far unknown member of the quartet, who had been responsible for the destruction of the one person who had mattered to him, whom he now sought… All he knew was that the man was based in London, but where and who he was were things he still needed to discover, and the only way he was going to discover them was with Silver’s money, which was why…

Which was why he could not afford to allow himself the luxury of feeling anything for her… especially not sympathy.

‘Now, if you’re ready, we’ll start again,’ he told her curtly.

That betraying shudder had left her feeling cold and afraid.

It seemed to Silver that it was a long, long time before she heard Jake saying coolly, ‘That’s better, but there’s still a lot of mileage left for improvement. Remember, you’re seducing me while allowing me to think you’re out of your mind with wanting me. Try and co-ordinate everything now,’ he instructed her. ‘Here.’ He tapped her bottom briefly. ‘And here.’ He repeated the brief instructive gesture alongside her ribcage. ‘Another little theatrical shudder, a soft moan or two, and then we’ll call it quits for tonight.’

Silver wondered what he’d say if she told him the truth—that the shudder hadn’t been faked and that it hadn’t been caused by desire. She thanked God he couldn’t read minds.

She felt physically and mentally exhausted, drained of the desire to do anything other than match his exacting standards as quickly as she could so that she could be released from this purgatory to go back to bed.

She moved automatically, mentally registering surprise at how easy the rhythm was now becoming. He moved against her, helping her. He was probably as eager to get the whole thing over as she was herself. She didn’t kiss him; it was too much of an effort to concentrate on everything else. She wasn’t sure she could manage to fake a shudder, and tried thinking about walking barefoot on ice or something equally shiver-inducing, but Jake’s free hand touched the base of her spine, pressing her against his body and moving her so that as she automatically moved her hips in the rhythm he had taught her she felt his arousal, and the shudder she had been fighting for came naturally. Like a perfectly synchronised pattern of actions, his hand tightened fractionally on her breast, his thumb rubbing over the nipple so that her throat-muscles contracted in shock, and without even knowing she was doing it she produced the requisite moan… of protest, not desire… but that didn’t seem to matter because Jake turned his head and said into her ear, ‘Good, that’s better.’ And then to her shock he nipped ungently at her soft earlobe and transferred his hand from her spine to her nape, covering her mouth with his own. When she stiffened, he didn’t release her, but moved his hand from her breast to her hip, tapping the bone almost painfully smartly and then gripping it, reminding her that she had stopped moving. Holding her immobile, he moved his own body against her, forcing her to follow its movements and not letting go until he was satisfied with the way she matched its rhythm.

Against her mouth, he said grimly, ‘Now, this time, let’s try and get it all together, shall we?’

And then he bit sharply at her bottom lip so that she opened her mouth in protest.

His tongue thrust sinuously against her own, matching the movement of his body; his hand returned to her breast, cupping it and then stroking it, the intimacy catching her off guard so that for a moment she panicked and started to freeze, until her mind cancelled the warning signals from her body and told it that it had nothing to fear, and that this was simply a necessary part of what she must endure.

She tried to recapture the sense of power she had known earlier—the sense of her own infinite superiority as a woman, of being able to control and arouse this man—but the powerful movements of his body were beginning to intimidate her. She mustn’t let that happen. She must remember that she was the one in control. His thumb touched her nipple, his nail slowly drawing a circle against its satin-covered areola. She shuddered and remembered in time her instructions, dragging her mouth from his to press it against his throat as she made a whimpering sound into his skin.

The pressure of his hand increased, something she hadn’t expected. The movement of his thumb against the satin and the satin against her breast was abrasive in a way that made her skin tauten and swell. His hips lifted and thrust against her, his legs parting so that she slid between them. His hand slid down her back to the base of her spine, pressing her into his body.

Against her ear, he reminded her, ‘You haven’t finished yet. Tell me you want me, remember?’

For a moment her mind was blank. She couldn’t think for her awareness of his arousal, and then, when she did remember what she still had to do, her control faltered.

Think of him as Charles, she told herself fiercely. Think of Charles wanting you… Think of triumph. And before that image could fade she slid her hands over the strong column of his neck and into his hair, and arched her body upwards while she pushed his head down.

‘The words… remember the words…’

The words. I mustn’t forget the words, she thought frantically, otherwise it will all have to be done again, and as she moved she pressed her lips against his ear and said quickly, ‘T-t-touch me. I—I want to feel your mouth against my—my skin…’

She felt the heat of his breath in the V of her pyjama jacket and for a moment she thought he was actually going to prolong the lesson and take it a stage further, but to her relief he didn’t. He lifted his head as he eased her away from him so that she could sink on to the floor and gather her knees up protectively against her body, wrapping her arms round them as she waited for his verdict.

‘Not totally convincing,’ he told her drily, ‘but not a total disaster either. Now we both know just how much work we have to do, on a scale of nought to ten.

‘Tomorrow we’ll take a different look at what being seductive involves. A woman can be just as alluring fully dressed as she can in a situation like this evening’s, but that involves knowing a lot more about the male body and its responses than you know at the moment.

‘Starting from tomorrow, we’ll go through what turns a man on. As an example, just now, instead of asking me to touch you, you could have opened my shirt and teased my nipples with your mouth…’ He got up, stretching his body until Silver heard the bones crack, and then, as he walked towards the kitchen, added unemotionally, ‘Licking, sucking, even biting would have been an extremely seductive way of showing me exactly what you wanted, and of course it would have had the added benefit from your point of view of increasing my arousal.’

He stopped by the door to the kitchen and added, ‘I’m not going to offer you any supper. You’ve got some homework to do.’

He reached down to the wooden dresser set into the wall and removed a pile of books.

‘Sex manuals,’ he told her drily. ‘Read them.’

‘I already have,’ Silver told him flatly.

‘Well, now you can read them again,’ he told her inexorably. ‘You’ve got a week to read them in, and at the end of that week I’ll be giving you a set of questions to answer on them.’

‘What?’ Silver couldn’t believe it. ‘I’ve already told you, sex manuals can’t give me the expertise I need. If they could, I wouldn’t be here with you,’ she added bitterly.

‘Maybe not, but you’re still going to read them.’

Angrily Silver contemplated leaving the books where he had put them on the top of the dresser, but she owned that she was really too exhausted to get involved in a lengthy argument. She could take them upstairs; she need not actually read them… and if he thought she was going to answer his damned questions…

‘Amazing,’ he said quietly behind her when she turned her back on him. ‘I can feel your anger from here, and yet I can hold you against my body and feel nothing. Try projecting as much energy into feeling desire as you do into feeling rage,’ he instructed her. ‘It would be a far more worthwhile expenditure of energy.’

‘I don’t want to feel desire,’ she gritted at him. ‘I don’t need to feel it…’

‘If you honestly believe that, then nothing I can teach you will be of the slightest benefit to you,’ he told her coldly, ‘and you’re wasting my time as well as your own. Stop behaving like a petulant child, Silver. You’re the one who wanted this, and you’re paying me two million pounds to get it. If you’re not prepared to take this thing seriously, then you might as well walk out of here now and save us both a lot of aggravation.’

Biting her lip, Silver walked away from him without making any response.

Later, as she lay in bed, she acknowledged the point he had made. She must learn to adopt some of his own cool ability to distance himself emotionally. This time here with him was a chasm she had to cross, no matter how painful or frightening that crossing. There was no way she could just close her eyes and will herself over it, no matter how much she might ache to be safely on the other side.

CHAPTER FOUR

IT WASN’T easy, but then nothing in her life had been, apart from her early childhood relationship with her father. But this was different from any other obstacle Silver had ever had to overcome, and her nights became haunted by the savage bite of Jake’s voice, the acid-cool neutrality of his curt instructions, the calm indifference with which he blocked her every attempt to outmanoeuvre him, when, driven beyond caution, she pushed recklessly at his astounding self-control, waiting for the storm to break and his temper to overwhelm his mastery of his emotions.

It never did; she was always the one forced to back down from the confrontation. She was the one forced to withdraw and regroup… And on and on it went, instructions, criticism, cool, curt, matter-of-fact reminders of what she was trying to achieve, while all the time she felt she would go insane and break down completely beneath the unrelenting pressure.

Another woman would have done; but then another woman would never have taken the dangerous course she had chosen in the first place. She was as hard on herself as he was, grimly reminding herself that this was her own choice—a necessary means to a specific end—and that if she could not control her dislike and resentment of the man for long enough for him to teach her what she needed to know, then she had little or no chance of fulfilling her ultimate promise to herself. And all the time she clung on to the vision that drove her: the vision of Charles, awestruck, spellbound, held in total thrall to her beauty, trapped by his desire for her as she had been by hers for him. Nothing else would do… nothing less would satisfy what she felt inside… And it was for that vision that she endured when others would have given up.

There were times when Silver thought almost fancifully that it was only that granite-hard, stubborn mingling of English and Irish blood within her that made her go on where others, more sensible perhaps than she, would have backed down. She was beginning to recognise within herself a certain grim relentlessness that she had thought belonged exclusively to her father. It was like coming abruptly face to face with a stranger within herself—shockingly and heart-stoppingly terrifying, until she forced herself to accept that it was simply one facet of her own personality.

She had been with Jake almost a month and, although she herself didn’t realise it yet, she had already learned much.

He knew it, though, and he observed with a certain detached clinicality that already her voice had developed a subtle sensuality, that she moved differently, more voluptuously, with more awareness; and he knew these things without seeing them; felt them, heard them; sensed them growing within her while she herself remained oblivious to what was happening to her, too caught up in what had become a fierce personal battle to prove to him that she would succeed to notice the slow, progressive steps she was already taking along the road she had chosen for herself.

He told her as much one cold afternoon when a blizzard outside had turned the world grey-white, and Silver filled the sitting-room with the tension of her impatience… with her longing to break free of the constrictions he placed upon her, of her role as supplicator and pupil, which she constantly wanted to challenge, and overset.

‘You’re too impatient,’ he told her emotionlessly after she had flung herself away from him and gone to stand in front of the window. ‘The Chinese have a saying: “A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step”…’

Silver narrowed her eyes and turned round, glowering at him, and then she caught herself up. It still had the power to astonish her that she should be so intensely aware of him and antagonised by him in so many minute ways, and yet that she should almost totally forget so often that he was blind.

It was as though he possessed some power that enabled him to project himself past his blindness and render it completely unimportant.

‘Come back here, Silver, and we’ll go through it again. Unless, of course, you’ve changed your mind…’

Changed her mind… She swung back to the window. How many times had she longed to do so, but stubbornly refused to allow herself to give in? Sometimes she thought his clinical detachment was meant to be deliberately abrasive… that he wanted her to give in and back down… that he was secretly and deliberately torturing her by forcing her to go over and over every tiny caress, every inflection of the words he made her say, the things he made her do.

She had learned a lot from him since that first night, had been slowly and inexorably inculcated with the information and expertise she had wanted.

Now she knew exactly how to touch a man to arouse him in desire—and not just to touch him, but to look at him, smile at him, speak to him. And now, if she managed to get through today’s lesson without telling him to go to hell, she would know how to argue with him and still challenge him to desire.

The lessons… the supply of information seemed inexhaustible, like a ceaseless stream pouring relentlessly into her, so that there were times when she wanted to scream at him, ‘Stop… enough!’ Times when she felt as though her spirit would break in two beneath the weight of his accumulated cynicism and knowledge… when she wasn’t sure which of them despised the other the more… when for some odd, uncomfortable reason, instead of screaming defiance at him, she wanted to break down and cry, without having an atom of understanding of why she should feel that way.