Free Uncaged by Lucy Gordon

in my arms in the evening. No, not melts. Scorches is more like it. You sent me up in flames and you came on as if you were in flames yourself, but why? Is that how Tiger Lady gets her kicks?”
    “Don’t call me that,” she cried desperately. “It’s not me. ”
    “So I nearly thought, until you showed your claws. But they were a little too sharp. I’m a plain man, Megan. I don’t play sophisticated games, and I don’t like them. So what’s going on?”
    “Nothing,” she said desperately. “It was a mistake. Forget it.”
    She tried to pass him but he took her arm and forced her to face him. “Was it for the pleasure of making a fool of me, or was there an even more devious plan? Was I to be something more than a fool...an instrument, maybe?” This came so close to the truth that she flushed. He saw it and his hand tightened. “So that’s it. I have my uses, don’t I? I’ll bet you never even realized that you could use me until last night, but then Tiger Lady’s brain started working. Get the poor sap in a lather for you and he’ll do anything...like clearing your name. Very clever. Very cunning. Very calculated. And to think I was beginning to feel sorry for you.”
    “Let me go,” she cried.
    “I’ll let you go all right. Tomorrow morning you are out of this house for good. Got that?”
    Megan didn’t answer. She wrenched herself out of his grasp and flew upstairs, away from his condemning eyes.

Five
    T he darkness was dreadful, like the blacking out of her last hope. It pressed in on Megan as the hours of the night passed, revealing with merciless clarity that she was facing a blank. She’d taken a desperate gamble and it had failed, leaving her with no cards left to play.
    The revelation of her own sexuality had shattered her, throwing her off balance when she most needed a clear head. She’d never thought of herself as a sensual woman. Her youthful passion for Brian had died quickly under the discovery of his true nature, and the publicists’ projection of her as an erotic fantasy had merely amused her. In the year following their separation, all her attention had been claimed by her son and her work, and during her incarceration her rage and bitterness had blotted out any need of physical satisfaction.
    Yet all the time the truth had been crouching like a tigress, ready to spring out of the darkness. And the truth was terrible. Her body, so alluring on the surface, so cool inside, could be awakened to flaming life by the touch of just one man. And by a dreadful twist of fate, that one man had turned out to be the one she hated.
    She didn’t weep. She was past that. But the ache in her breast, that never left her night or day, grew heavier. All that mattered was Tommy and finding a way of getting him back. For that she’d been prepared to pay any price. But she’d fumbled it and lost her chance.
    Tommy was with her this minute, as he always was. She closed her eyes and her thoughts dwelled on him lovingly: how it would be when they were together again, what he might look like now; how much they would have to tell each other. But thoughts weren’t enough. She needed his physical presence, his smile and the feeling of his arms around her neck. The lack of those things was a never-ending pain, and tonight the pain was greater than ever, for he had never seemed so far away.
    Suddenly she opened her eyes, wondering if she was going mad, because for a moment she’d been sure she heard him calling. She sat up in the dark, straining her ears, and heard him again, seeming to come from a long way off. She threw off the bedclothes and hurried out of the room without putting on a robe.
    “Mommy. Mommy, where are you?” He sounded lost and frightened, as he’d sometimes done when he had nightmares.
    “I’m coming,” she called. “Don’t be frightened. Mommy’s here.”
    She stumbled down the hallway, seeking him in room after room, until finally she came to a room fitted out for a little