Reading Online Novel

Conveniently His Omnibus(14)



His mouth moved on hers with unerring instinct, caressing, arousing...seducing her own, she recognised in stunned bewilderment as it parted eagerly responding to the warm exploration of his lips like the thirsty earth soaking up rain. The bruises Chris had inflicted were forgotten, her whole body felt hollow and light, empty of everything but the sensation of Jon’s mouth on her own. He was kissing her in a way she had always dreamed of being kissed, she acknowledged hazily, with an expertise and knowledge she had never imagined he would own. Immediately she tensed but Jon wouldn’t let her go.

‘Oh, no,’ he whispered, transferring his mouth from her lips to her ear. ‘You don’t get out of this so easily, Sophy.’ One hand left her body to cup her face, firmly but without the pain Chris had inflicted on her.

He had removed his glasses and this close to, his eyes were an unbelievable blue...not sapphire and not navy but something in between, she thought hazily, unable to tear her own away from them. Jon was still speaking and it took several seconds for her to register the words.

‘After all,’ he said silkily, ‘wasn’t it this you wanted when you lashed out at me earlier?’

Instantly she felt sick and shaken. Did he honestly believe that of her; that she had deliberately tried to incite him to...to this?

She shook her head, the bitter denial bursting from her throat before she could silence it.

For a second he said nothing, then she felt his hold slacken slightly, his eyes shuttered as he released her and stepped slightly away. Immediately she shivered, feeling bereft...aching for the warmth of his arms around her once more.

‘Forgive me.’ His voice was harsher than she had ever known it. ‘I obviously mistook anger for frustration.’

Frustration? Slowly his meaning dawned and a scarlet wave of anger scalded its way over her skin. Did he actually think she had deliberately tried to incite him to...to make love to her...because she was suffering from frustration because he had interrupted her with Chris? That she wanted him to finish what Chris had started? The thought made her feel acutely sick and for the second time that day she was bitterly angry with him.

Tears stung her eyes but she refused to let them fall.

‘You couldn’t be more wrong,’ she told him thickly. ‘I wasn’t lying to you when I said Chris attacked me, and as for thinking I wanted you to...to finish what he had started....’ She swallowed hard on the nausea clutching her stomach. ‘You’re doing both of us an injustice. I can’t think why you married me, Jon, if that’s the sort of woman you think I am. I’m tired, Jon,’ she told him listlessly as the surge of anger drained away, leaving her feeling exhausted both emotionally and physically. ‘I think it must be this hot weather that’s making everyone so on edge. I’m going to bed.’

She hesitated by the door, consumed by a totally crazy desire to turn round and go back, to beg him to take her back in his arms and kiss her again but somehow she found the strength to resist it.

Upstairs she was too tired even to start undressing. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in her mirror and stared at her swollen mouth touching it tentatively with her fingertips. When Jon had kissed her she had experienced sensations so totally alien and yet so totally known that she was still shocked by them. But not as shocked as she had been by Jon’s assured experience. When she had thought about him kissing her she had imagined his touch would be hesitant, unsure and perhaps rather clumsy but his mouth had moved on hers with wholly masculine authority, subtly demanding, revealing a wealth of experience she had never expected him to have. For a man who openly expressed a lack of interest in sex, Jon had revealed a totally unexpected degree of expertise. And she wasn’t sure she liked it. Where and with whom had he gained that expertise? Had he once perhaps been deeply in love? So deeply in love that it had made him eschew all further emotional or physical involvement? She shivered slightly, faintly disturbed by the discovery than Jon was not what she had thought him to be...that there was obviously much of himself that he kept hidden. But why had he kissed her?

That was a question to which she could not find an answer other than perhaps out of male pride because she had verbally challenged his sexuality.

Yes...she decided finally, that must be it. Yet didn’t that explanation too, indicate that Jon was not the totally non-sexual, mild man she had always believed him to be? Had she simply deceived herself or had he deliberately deceived her and if so, why? Why present an image to her that was, at least partially, false? That was something she was too tired to even try and analyse. Tomorrow, she told herself sleepily, as she prepared for bed, she would try to unravel these mysteries tomorrow.

* * *

IN THE MORNING Sophy overslept slightly and, much to the children’s disappointment, opted not to use the new car to take them to school. After explaining that she needed to drive it by herself to get used to it first, she managed to placate them.

She had promised to drive Jon into Cambridge when she had dropped the children off and had decided to combine it with a shopping trip.

‘We could meet for lunch.’ Jon suggested, as she was parking. ‘Unless of course you won’t have time.’

Sophy had been dreading being alone with him after what had happened the previous evening but he was his normal mild, calm self, and she had even been able to persuade herself that most of last night’s heart searchings had been prompted by nothing more than her own imagination. After all, it was not perhaps surprising that she should enjoy his kiss. She had wanted him to touch her for long enough.

‘Er...no. Lunch would be lovely,’ she stammered, realising that Jon was waiting for her response.

‘Good.’

The smile he gave her made her heart lurch drunkenly and, for some stupid reason, she simply sat in the car and watched him walk away, unable to take her eyes off his lean, lithe body. He was wearing his new clothes as though he had always worn them and watching the way more than one woman turned to observe his long legged progress down the street, Sophy found herself wishing she had left him to his baggy cords and shapeless shirts. She didn’t want other women looking at him, she realised with a sharp pang. She didn’t want them admiring the masculine lines of his body, the breadth of his shoulders beneath the fine cotton of his shirt...

Like someone moving slowly in a dream, she shook her head, trying to disperse it, forcing herself to get out of the car and lock it.

Her shopping didn’t take her long, and she was finished in plenty of time to get to the office where she had arranged to meet Jon. So much time in fact that when she found herself studying an attractive lemon sundress in a shop window, she gave in to the temptation to go inside and try it on.

It fitted her perfectly, enhancing the golden gleam of her skin and bringing out the red highlights in her hair. Tiny shoe-string straps tied on her shoulders in provocative bows, a broad stiffened belt emphasising the narrowness of her waist, before the skirt flared out over a slightly stiffened underskirt.

‘It might have been made for you,’ the assistant said, truthfully.

‘I’ll take it...’ Sophy took a deep breath, ‘and I’ll keep it on...’

The other girl’s eyes twinkled. ‘Mmm...well I certainly think he’ll appreciate it, whoever he is.’

‘My husband.’ The admission was made almost before she was aware of it and angry colour flooded her skin. Of course she wasn’t buying this dress for Jon’s benefit! She was buying it because it was cool and she was hot...and besides it was time she had some pretty things and...

Impatiently she waited for the girl to take her cheque and put her things into a bag, regretting now her impulsive decision to wear the dress but too embarrassed to do anything about it.

She found Jon waiting for her when she got to the office. He opened the door for her and, as the strong midday sunlight fell on his face, she realised he looked tired. Lines of strain harshened the shape of his mouth and for some reason he looked almost unfamiliar; harder, more male. As though she were seeing him properly for the first time Sophy stared at him, confused. He in turn was studying her, looking at her with such an air of open appraisal that the sundress, so pretty and cool in the shop, now seemed somehow provocative and dangerous.

‘It’s such a hot day I thought we’d eat at the Mill.’

The restaurant he named was on the river and very popular. Sophy doubted that they would be able to get a table but she was anxious to escape the tense atmosphere of the small office. It seemed to be stifling her. It must be the heat, she thought dizzily as they went outside but even in the fresh air the tension remained.

In the narrow streets the heat was like a thick blanket, clogging her throat when she tried to breathe. Far too acutely conscious of Jon at her side, she started to walk faster, arriving at the car hot and out of breath. In contrast Jon looked cool and lazily at ease. But was he? Some sixth sense made her study him more closely. A tiny pulse flickered unevenly under his skin. This constraint between them was a new thing, and one she did not know how to handle. Almost overnight Jon had turned from a kind, unthreatening man whom she liked very much and was fond of in a sisterly fashion, into a stranger, for whom her feelings were anything but sisterly.