‘Sophy.’ He said her name roughly, warningly, but she was past heeding him, her own voice taut with longing as she moaned softly. ‘Jon, please...’
‘Please what?’ His voice was thick and slurred as though the words were unfamiliar to him, one hand cupping her breast, the other drawing her down against his mouth as he muttered against her skin, ‘Please this?’ and his mouth moved back to her breast.
For long, long moments, the only noise in the room was the tortured sound of her breathing and the moist movement of his mouth caressing her breast, his tongue moving roughly over the aroused peak of it until she was moaning in wild pleasure.
She ached when he released her but not because he had hurt her.
‘Don’t be afraid, I’m not going to do anything you don’t want.’
She closed her eyes as she felt him move. Couldn’t he see that what she was afraid of now was that she would want it...that in wanting him she would be vulnerable to him and that, like Chris, he would find her lacking and reject her? And that was something she could not endure.
She moved away from him and knew he had registered her withdrawal as he said her name sharply.
‘It’s late, Jon,’ she told him huskily. ‘I must go back to my own room.’
For a moment she thought he was going to stop her, and then she heard him sigh.
‘Sophy, you know I want you,’ he told her tiredly. ‘I want you to want me in return, not to be frightened of me. Is it me you’re frightened of, or sex in general?’
‘A little of both,’ she admitted huskily. ‘I don’t want you to look at me the way Chris looked at me, Jon,’ she told him tormentedly. ‘Believe me, it’s better if I go now. If I stayed I promise you you’d only be disappointed.’
‘Is that what he told you?’ he asked her roughly. ‘That all men would find you disappointing because he did?’
She managed a wry smile. ‘I’m not a complete fool, Jon. There have been other men...oh, none of them were ever physically intimate with me because sooner or later our relationship always reached the point where it became obvious that I was disappointing them.’
‘Are you sure you’re not just saying all this because you find me a turn-off?’
‘No!’ Her denial rang with truth. She reached out and touched his face hesitantly, trying to smile at him. ‘Believe it or not, Jon, I find you extremely desirable. But can’t you see that just makes it so much harder? Because of that, I’m frightened of disappointing you.’
She got off the bed before he could say anything and picked up her dress, hurrying out into the corridor and into her own room.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHE WOKE UP during the night, not knowing what had disturbed her, conscious only of some sound alien to those she normally heard.
Her bedroom door opened inwards and she sat up in bed, her eyes widening as she saw Jon walk into her room.
He was wearing pyjama bottoms, dark silk ones, and she tensed as he came over to the bed, wanting him and yet afraid of what that wanting might lead to when he too discovered how useless she was as a woman.
As he reached for the bedclothes, she wriggled away, smothering a tiny gasp of surprise as he slid into bed beside her.
‘Jon!’
Her protest was silenced by the warm brush of his fingers against her mouth. ‘I can’t sleep without you, Sophy,’ she heard him saying huskily, as his arms went round her. ‘I only want to sleep with you in my arms, that’s all.’
Unbelievably he was already falling asleep as his arm drew her back against the warmth of his body. She knew she ought to wake him up and send him back to his own bed but it was good having him lie beside her, his body against her own. Instinctively she snuggled back against him, sighing faintly as his arm curved round her body just under her breasts.
They were married, after all, she reminded herself as she fell asleep; and there was nothing immoral in them being here together like this. Apart, of course, from the fact that he did not love her, while she...
He wanted her though, she thought defiantly. He had told her so and there had been no reason for him to lie. What on earth was it that she had that Lorraine and Louise did not seem to possess? Perhaps he just wasn’t keen on blondes, she thought wryly, suppressing a self-mocking smile as sleep stole over her.
* * *
SHE WOKE UP EARLY conscious that something was different, but not sure what it was until she felt the weight of Jon’s arm across her body. It was just gone five in the morning. She really ought to wake him and send him back to his own bed. If Alex should wake early and come in for an early morning cuddle as she sometimes did...
She tried to wriggle out from under his arm so that she could shake him but instantly it tightened around her, threatening to crush her ribs. She heard him mutter something in his sleep and then move slightly taking her with him so that somehow her legs became tangled up in his.
She knew immediately that he had woken up, even before he murmured her name in husky surprise, the tone of his voice subtly changing as he repeated her name.
‘Lovely, Sophy,’ he murmured against her ear. ‘Who would ever have dreamed that I would wake up with you in my arms?’ His hand skimmed the shape of her body and she felt him shake slightly as he asked, ‘What on earth is this? It feels like something my grandmother might have worn.’
It was in fact a long cotton nightdress which was slightly Victorian in design. Normally she only wore it in winter but last night, for some reason, despite the heat, she had decided to put it on.
‘Jon, you really ought to go back to your own bed.’ She tried to turn round so that she could look at him, and found she wished she had not as she saw the lazy blue warmth in his eyes as he looked back at her. His jaw was dark and she touched it lightly, her eyes widening at the harsh rasp of his beard against her fingertips.
‘You must have to shave twice a day.’ Even as she spoke she was conscious of the banality of her comment.
Jon’s mouth twitched slightly but his voice was quite grave as he whispered back, ‘At least.’ His fingers curled round her wrist, transferring hers from his jaw to his mouth. The sensation of his mouth moving against her fingertips was oddly erotic. She could feel herself starting to tremble, a low ache spreading through her stomach as he gently sucked her fingers into his mouth, his free hand stroking down her body to caress her breast.
‘Jon...’
He released her fingers and pressed his own against her mouth. ‘No, don’t speak,’ he told her softly. ‘Don’t say anything, Sophy. Not now.’ And because suddenly she seemed to have been transported to a dream world where anything was possible and only Jon existed, she found it easy to acquiesce, to simply let herself follow where he led and give herself over completely to the voluptuosity of his lovemaking.
She had discovered so much she had not known before about him already and here it seemed was something else she had not known, her body recognising instantly that his touch was that of a man who had once learned and never forgotten how to give the utmost pleasure.
Sighing beneath the seductive stroke of his fingers she let him remove her nightdress, crying out softly when the heat of his body touched her own but not with pain, or fear, unless it was the pain of being so close to him and yet not part of him and the fear of losing this pleasure he was giving her almost before it was begun. His pyjamas followed her nightdress on to the floor, his hands drawing her against his body.
‘I want you, Sophy.’ He murmured the words into her throat, sliding his hands to her hips, holding her bones almost as though he might crush them. She shivered and reached out to touch him, tracing the hard slope of his shoulder, pressing her mouth to his warm skin, gently biting the satin firmness of it until she felt the husky groan move his chest. He had thrown off the duvet and it was light enough for her to see his body. Strong and fully aroused, making her shiver faintly with awareness and desire. It was not the sexual act of possession she feared but her own inability to respond to it; the crushing sense of anticlimax and rejection she knew must surely come when Jon discovered...
‘What is it?’ His voice was gentle, teasing her slightly as he murmured against her ear. ‘Surely you have seen a naked man before?’
She hadn’t really—at least not as openly as she was seeing him—but it wasn’t that that held her spellbound in some sort of motionless trance. She swallowed and turned to meet his eyes. ‘Never one as male as you, Jon,’ she told him tremulously...and truthfully, watching his eyes darken and his mouth curl, as his finger traced the shape of her mouth.
‘That was a highly inflammatory remark, wouldn’t you say?’
She couldn’t respond because his mouth was touching hers, caressing her lips with tormenting slowness, until she was forced to wind her arms round his neck and arch her body into his with an impatient moan of need.
She was aware of his fingers biting deeply into her upper arms as he held her against him, just as she was aware of the hard arousal of his body moving against her own, but it was the fiercely draining pressure of his mouth she was aware of the most, the heated movement of his tongue as it sought her own. Desire, sharp and tormenting twisted in her stomach and she pulled her mouth free to whisper his name as she drew painful gasps of air into her lungs.