Free Unknown by Unknown Page B

you?’
    ‘Of course I do,’ she flared, her temper finally aroused. ‘I want to be free of you, and to run—’
    His hands dropped away from her, leaving her surprisingly chilled in the warmth of the night. She was trembling, uncontrollably shaking. ‘So?’ he laughed. ‘Run away! You’ll never have a better chance!’
    She knew it to be true. Run away, her brain commanded. If you stay here you may never be free again. Run away! But her legs refused the order. She stood not more than two inches from him, with some of her muscles dragging her away, and others holding her still. She shook until her teeth chattered but not from the cold.
    ‘You see,’ he whispered softly, insidiously. ‘You don’t even know what you want. Relax. Let go. Do what you really want to do.’
    Do what I really want to do? Here? All the years of her strict training were set immovably against what she really wanted to do! How could anything be so difficult to decide? Her trembling over-set her. She froze her muscles into rigid lines, stopped the tremors, and looked up at him. Do what you want to do! The silver moon, changing every colour to its own needs, seemed to have re-designed the world, changing it into a fairy wonderland completely removed from reality. Do what you want to do! She moved forward those tiny two inches, reached her hands up around his neck, and kissed him gently on one cheek. It was the first time in her life that she had ever instigated a kiss with an adult male. She giggled at herself, and as she laughed his head turned, and his lips were on hers, passively waiting. She took a deep breath, tilted her head slightly, and pressed against him with all her passionate strength.
    As if waiting for that signal, his arms came around her again, holding her gently, hands roving from the curve of her hip up to the small of her back. Fire struck her down, breaking her concentration into small splinters, surrounding her with a shower of emotional meteorites, until he swept her up in his arms and carried her over to the soft grass at the poolside.
    He laid her down gently in the welcome arms of the grass, and then dropped down beside her. His face shadowed hers, blocking out the moonlight, leaving her face in welcome darkness. He shifted his head as he trailed a line of kisses down her chin, her throat, and finally at the quivering peak of her breast.
    And only then did sanity regain control. ‘No!’ she whispered, and then louder, ‘No!’
    He drew back slightly, trying to search out her face, but the shadows saved her. ‘It’s what you want,’ he reminded her.
    ‘No!’ she replied, more strongly than before. ‘Let me go!’
    His head lowered towards her mouth again, but she intercepted it with both hands pressed between her lips and his. ‘No,’ she repeated, ‘I—I’m not—’
    ‘But it is what you want,’ he insisted. She could see the gleam of his teeth as he smiled down at her.
    ‘I—perhaps,’ she confessed honestly, ‘but I can’t. Not without love. I just can’t.’
    ‘Chicken,’ he laughed, drawing back from her. Somehow she managed to squirm out from under him, sitting up in the grass, using her hands to cover her breasts.
    ‘Laugh if you want to,’ she said bitterly. ‘I didn’t ask for any of this. I—what kind of a man are you, Harry King? You spend the whole weekend in Atlanta with Eloise, and then you come back here and molest me.’
    ‘Ah, that’s it,’ he chuckled. ‘It’s the “Eloise to Atlanta” bit that’s upset you. A little jealousy going here?’
    ‘No such thing!’ she fired back at him. ‘Although how in the world you can expect me to—and what about Eloise?’
    ‘What about Eloise?’
    ‘Your aunt said that you—you and Eloise would—’
    'Ah,’ he chuckled. ‘My aunt said!’
    ‘Yes, and so did Eloise. So why don’t you leave me alone and go relieve your male drives with her!’ Katie scrambled to her feet, poised like a fawn, ready to break and run, if