Part 13 (1/2)

It didn't take long.

With a sigh that seemed to tremble through her whole body, Rosalind sank back so that the kiss could deepen. And deepen it did, until all he could see behind his eyelids were swirls of red and black, deep, desolate darkness with no end in sight.

She snuck a soft hand behind his neck, lifted herself from her seat and melted against him. The world of sensation inside his mind lit up until he felt as hot and bright as the surface of the sun.

He held her tighter, fisting a hand into the back of her T-s.h.i.+rt, running another over her bottom, the exquisite softness of old denim making his fingers clench, pulling her closer still. His eyes were shut tight, head spinning, and he was kissing her for all he was worth until he couldn't remember ever doing anything else.

As do all good things, it came to an end.

Rosalind pulled away first, her lips slowly sliding away from his, as though it took every effort she could muster. Her head dropped and she rested her forehead against his chest, her hands splayed over his abdomen.

Cameron opened his eyes, the bright, sharp light of reality slamming him back to earth-the reality of what he'd done and what he'd been about to do.

He laid a gentle kiss on her soft hair as his eyes focussed hard on the perfect precision and crisp, true angles of the floating staircase in the distance, looking for his centre as a builder looks to a spirit level.

But all he could think of was lifting her into his arms, carrying her to his bedroom and making love to her all night long. h.e.l.l, once there he knew he'd be happy not to come up for air for days.

This woman was giving him a lesson in the lure of temptation, of the lengths a man might go to in order to satiate the want of the one thing his reason and sense and experience and moral centre told him he shouldn't want.

That pull of dangerously destructive desire, a dimension he'd always feared he might be genetically predisposed to possess, was ultimately why he tucked a finger beneath her chin and lifted her head, and waited until her soft dilated eyes were focussed on his.

And in a firm voice he said, 'Might I suggest after tonight we slow things down?'

There, he'd done it, on the back of the kind of kiss that made a guy unable to think sensibly for hours after. That way she'd know it wasn't as merciless as it had sounded.

Her skin paled and went blotchy all at once. She looked at him as though she'd just been slapped. And the shock in her eyes...

His fingers recoiled guiltily into his palm, then uncurled to touch her face. But she'd already disentangled herself to bolt into the lounge, frantically searching for something in her handbag. Whatever it was he could see by the tension in her neck that it wasn't coming to the surface quick enough.

'Rosalind.'

She held out a hand, which as good as told him to shut the h.e.l.l up.

Ignoring it, he tried reasoning with her, 'Three dates in three days was pure overindulgence on my part. And you can't tell me you're not exhausted. I saw you trying to hide a yawn not ten minutes ago.'

When she lifted her eyes to his, he was fairly sure all she saw was red. She held her mobile phone to her ear and said, 'Which is why I think now is the perfect time to call a cab.'

'Don't be ridiculous. I was always going to take you home.'

'Really? Was it diarised? Kiss Rosie at nine. Dump her at nine-fifteen. Drive her home by ten. In bed by eleven.'

She turned her back, put in the order for the taxi, then threw the phone into her bag.

'Rosalind. Come on. n.o.body's dumping anybody. All I'm saying is that we be sensible and look at where we are going here with open eyes.'

She closed her eyes, took a breath and her shoulders relaxed. Somewhat. But that warm, husky voice that he'd become so used to turned as cold as the river at night as she said, 'You want me to be sensible? Well, you obviously haven't been paying close enough attention. If I'd been sensible I would never have agreed to go out with the guy I had a crush on through high school. That is obviously one fantasy best left unfulfilled.'

Cameron's heart slammed hard and fast against his ribs. She'd had a crush on him? And fantasized about him? His voice was deep and dark when he said, 'Come back, sit down and talk to me.'

She waved a frantic hand across her eyes. 'Please. You were right. I'm just overtired. I get it; we've both monopolised one another's time so much these past days. You're busy and I'm busy, and neither of us ever meant for this to be more than it has to this point been. It's fine.'

In the end all she could do was shrug.

If he wanted out for good, this was the moment. He had no doubt she was just waiting for the word-goodbye. It was a simple enough word. Benign, unambiguous, final.

But he couldn't do it. He couldn't be that cool with her. Unlike every other woman he'd ever dated, she'd never been cool with him. She'd given him nothing but the complete truth, and she deserved the same.

'Rosalind, it's not you.'

'Where the h.e.l.l's the d.a.m.n cab?' She paced to the bottom of the stairs. He followed.

'Rosalind, I need you to hear me out.' He knew it was manipulative, but in order for her not to leave feeling hurt and angry he needed her to hear what he had to say, so he said it anyway. 'Please.'

At the 'please', she turned back to him. Her jaw was tight, her eyes wild with emotion. But at least she stopped walking away.

Having to ground himself if he was really going to say this, Cameron parked his backside against a corner of the lounge and looked out across the city view.

'I was in the eleventh grade when I saw my father come out of a city hotel with a woman who wasn't my mother. As I stood on the opposite side of the street, on my way to meet him at his office after school, he kissed her. Right there on the footpath, in front of peak-hour traffic-my father, who the whole city knew by sight. No thought for discretion or propriety or the woman the world thought he'd been blissfully married to for the previous thirty years...or anyone but himself.'

He blinked, dragged his eyes from the city view and looked to her. She stood still as a statue, those grey eyes simply giving him the s.p.a.ce to keep going. Deeper. To places he'd never let himself go before.

'My mother...She had to put up with a lot, being married to a man like my father. The long hours, the ego, having to raise his four headstrong children in public. She did so with grace, humility, and love. So the fact that he could show such contempt towards her, to all of us...'

His fingernails bit into his palms as he fought down the same old desire to take a swing at his father the next time he laid eyes on the man.

'Why I am telling you this, what I'd like like you to take from this,' he said, 'Is that I won't be like him. I'd rather see you walk away now-right at the very moment I can barely think straight for how much I want to continue what we started back there in the kitchen-if that means not hurting you by giving you false hope that I might one day offer you anything more. I can't. Not when I know that even the most solid relations.h.i.+ps ultimately fail beneath the weight of secrets and lies.' you to take from this,' he said, 'Is that I won't be like him. I'd rather see you walk away now-right at the very moment I can barely think straight for how much I want to continue what we started back there in the kitchen-if that means not hurting you by giving you false hope that I might one day offer you anything more. I can't. Not when I know that even the most solid relations.h.i.+ps ultimately fail beneath the weight of secrets and lies.'

He came to an end and needed to breathe deep to press out the sudden tightness in his lungs. His eyes locked onto hers, her strength keeping him amazingly steady.

'Cameron,' she said on a release of breath, 'You expect far far too much of people.' too much of people.'

'Only what I expect of myself.'

'I was including you too.'

He s.h.i.+fted on his seat. 'You think loyalty and good faith are too much to expect, even after how your father treated you and your mother?'

A muscle in her cheek twitched but her steady gaze didn't falter. 'For some people they are too much.'

He shook his head hard. 'I'm sorry, but I can't accept that.'

'Then that's a real shame.'

Cameron shot to his feet and ran a hard hand across the back of his neck. This wasn't how this had been meant to go. He'd hoped that by being forthright and upfront with her he'd feel justified in slowing things down, like he'd done right by her. Instead she was somehow making him feel like he hadn't done right by himself.

She tugged her poncho over her head, flicking her hair out at the end and running fingers through it until it fell in messy waves over her shoulders.