Bandit Love Part 18

"I won't! I won't! I'd rather die! I hate you, hate you!" stormed Myra gaspingly, still struggling. "Let me go, you brute. You are hurting me."

Don Carlos relaxed his hold, but restrained Myra when she would have risen from the couch.

"Myra, darling, why do you persist in resisting me and refusing to listen to the call of love?" he asked gently. "Do you realise that your resistance is but adding fuel to the fires of my pa.s.sion? You drove me almost mad when you coquetted with me aboard the yacht, made me crazy with desire, then laughed at me. I am but human, and my longing for you is not to be denied. I vowed I would make you mine if I had to break every law of G.o.d and man. You are mine now, my lovely, adorable Myra, my heart's delight, mine to do with as I will, to take or break."

The quietly spoken words struck dread into Myra's heart. It seemed to her that a remorseless gleam had crept into the bright eyes of Don Carlos. Intuitively she knew that he was determined to impose his will upon her, and mingled with her dread there was resentment.

"Is it useless to appeal to your better nature, to your chivalry?" she asked quickly, her voice tremulous.

"Is it useless to appeal to you again to surrender to the call of love?" countered Don Carlos. "Myra, mia cara, every fibre of my being is pulsing with love for you, and my heart is craving for the joy and rapture that you alone can give. Look into my eyes, mia cara, and whisper that you love me."

He laid his hands on Myra's shoulders as he spoke, compelling her to meet his burning glance, and Myra felt as if she were being hypnotised.

"You love me, Myra darling, and it is only pride that prevents you from confessing yourself conquered," went on the caressing voice. "When you are mine, you will whisper you are glad that I conquered you. You are lovely, my dear, seductive, adorable prisoner, and the beauty of you sets me aching with longing."

His hands slid caressingly from Myra's shoulders down her arms to her hands, which he raised to his lips and then drew round his neck. Myra was trembling, and her breath was coming and going unsteadily, and she felt as if she had lost all powers of resistance, felt as if she had been drugged. She closed her eyes, and a gasping sigh broke from her lips as Don Carlos strained her close to his breast again, murmuring endearments.

"Let me set your heart afire with burning kisses," he murmured. "I will kiss the heart out of you, sweet one, and kiss it back again white hot with my own love and ardour. Give me back kiss for kiss, beloved."

Again he was kissing her, hungrily, pa.s.sionately, yet tenderly withal.

Myra's senses were reeling. He did seem to be drawing the very heart out of her with his lips, and drugging her senses. She felt as if she were suffocating, and again she began to struggle involuntarily after a few minutes as he drew her down with him on to the couch.

"You are stifling me," she panted. "Let me go."

Don Carlos released her at once, and she rose to her feet, pressing her hands instinctively to her heaving bosom, as if to try to still the wild throbbing of her heart. Her lovely face was flushed, her breath was coming and going in sobbing gasps, her eyes, dark with emotion, were feverishly bright, and her whole body seemed afire.

"Let me go now, please," she added gaspingly. "I can bear no more.

I--I think I am going to faint."

She swayed as she spoke, and Don Carlos was on his feet in an instant, and had thrown his arm around her lest she should collapse.

"Lie down again for a few minutes, beloved, until you recover," he said quickly.

He settled Myra back again among the cushions on the couch, and insisted upon her drinking a gla.s.s of aguardiente, which made her feel more feverish than ever but revived her and dispelled the faintness.

"Did I kiss you too hungrily, darling, and feast myself too long on your sweet lips without pausing for breath?" asked Don Carlos, after a pause, when he saw that Myra was recovering. He, too, was flushed and rather breathless, and his long, sinewy hands were trembling slightly.

"Myra, beloved, have my kisses fired your heart?"

"You have hurt me," equivocated Myra, avoiding his glowing eyes. "I feel faint and exhausted. Oh, surely I have suffered enough to-night!

My strength is spent. Oh, surely you won't be so cruel as to take further advantage of my helplessness?"

Don Carlos sighed heavily, and ran his fingers through his hair.

"I did not mean to hurt you, and had forgotten that you must be weary,"

he said, after a moment of hesitation. "I will put you to bed, beloved, and to-morrow you will tell me that you love me."

He bent down and picked Myra up as if she were a baby, cradling her in his arms and smiling down into her startled blue eyes.

"Always, since our first meeting, I have longed to hold you in my arms like this and to feel that you were wholly and completely mine," he murmured, as he caressed Myra's cheek with his lips. "You are very beautiful, my sweet love. The sweetness and loveliness of you entrances and enraptures my heart. I shall spend my life admiring and adoring and worshipping, exploring and delighting in the loveliness of you, my heart's delight. Do you not feel, Myra mia, that here in your lover's arms and on my breast you have found the home of your heart?"

Yet again Myra felt he was sapping her powers of resistance, casting a spell over her, and she lay pa.s.sive in his strong arms, breathing gaspingly.

"Let me go," she pleaded brokenly. "Please let me go!"

"As you wish," said Don Carlos. "I shall put my sweet baby to bed."

He carried Myra through the winding, rocky pa.s.sages to her room, at the door of which Madre Dolores was waiting. The old woman cackled with laughter at sight of them, and rubbed her skinny hands together delightedly.

"Io! I see I shall not be wanted, master!" she chuckled, and scuffled away, her skinny shoulders shaking a half-suppressed merriment which betrayed her thoughts more than words could have done.

Dread gripped Myra's heart as Don Carlos carried her into the bedroom and set her down gently on the side of the bed. Every vestige of colour had drained out of her lovely face and she was trembling violently.

"Do not be afraid, Myra darling," Don Carlos murmured caressingly. "I can be gentle as any woman, and would not harm my precious treasure.

Are you afraid that the sight of you will be so enticing to your lover when he takes off your dressing-gown that he will not be able to tear himself away from you?"

"Don Carlos, it isn't fair!" burst out Myra tremulously. "Please go!"

"Not until I have put my sweet baby to bed, tucked her in, and kissed her good-night," said Don Carlos, and Myra knew that further protest would be useless.

So she had, perforce, to submit to his taking off her dressing-gown, and the glowing ardour and admiration in his dark eyes when she stood before him clad only in her filmy, sleeveless "nightie" brought the hot colour flooding back to her fair face again.

"Once before, Myra mia, I have seen you like this--on that night in Scotland when I put my letter on your pillow," breathed Don Carlos.

"Surely you are the loveliest and most seductive woman in the world!"

He swept Myra into his arms again and kissed her repeatedly before at last laying her down on the bed. In a sort of panic Myra slid herself under the bedclothes and begged him breathlessly to leave her, but he paid no heed. He bent over her, his dark eyes glowing like twin flames, and laid his cheek against her own.

"Bid me stay, beloved," he whispered. "Give me the love for which my whole being is craving. Bid me stay."

CHAPTER XIV

Drowsily, Myra opened her eyes, awakened by the clatter made by Madre Dolores as she set down a tray on which was a breakfast of coffee and rolls by her bedside.

"Buenos dias, senorita," said Dolores, as Myra, unable to realise for a few moments where she was, blinked at her sleepily and dazedly.

"Buenos dias," repeated Myra mechanically. "Let me see, that is Spanish for 'good morning,'" she added to herself, stretching luxuriously and yawning. "I wonder where the maid is who speaks English?"

And then the mists of sleep lifted suddenly as she sat up in bed and she remembered everything vividly. Dolores, eyeing her curiously, wondered why the English senorita blushed furiously, wondered what she could have said to cause the fair senorita such obvious embarra.s.sment.

"Possibly it is not anything I have said which caused her to blush,"

reflected the old woman. "Maybe she is thinking of last night, remembering that I saw the master carrying her to bed, or perhaps she is thinking of something that happened afterwards."

Dolores was not so wide of the mark. It was recollection of the events of the preceding night that had brought the burning blush to Myra's cheeks, and the thought of the interpretation the old woman might have put on what she had seen and heard.

"Just as well, perhaps, that she does not understand English, as she was probably eavesdropping all the time," thought Myra.

She was amazed that she should have been able to sleep soundly after her emotional ordeal, until she remembered that when at last Don Carlos had desisted in his attempt to make her surrender herself voluntarily and had left her, Madre Dolores had reappeared and insisted upon her drinking something out of a gla.s.s. The "something" was a sweet and pungent cordial, which probably contained some soporific drug.