‘I shouldn’t have done that.’ His voice was slow as though he had difficulty in forming the words. He raised his head and looked at her. ‘Did I hurt you?’
She ached, it was true...and there had been an edge of violence in their lovemaking but it had been a shared, wanted violence...a need in both of them perhaps to work out physically the tensions Chris had caused.
‘Only in the nicest possible way,’ she told him honestly, checking as she felt him tense.
‘You shouldn’t say things like that to me. They have a disastrous effect on my self-control...’ He picked her up, completely surprising her, and carried her over to the bed.
‘You lied to me,’ he told her pleasantly, watching her eyes.
‘I...’ She was confused and apprehensive, but he didn’t give her time to say anything.
‘You told me I wouldn’t enjoy possessing you...that I would find you disappointing.’
Incredibly in the fierce urgency of their coming together she had completely forgotten her old fears, and now her mouth fell open slightly. All at once she felt oddly light-headed—free, she realised giddily—for the first time since she reached womanhood, she was truly free of all fear and inhibition.
They were both sitting on the bed, but Jon got up and pulled off his shirt. While she was completely nude he was still almost fully dressed and she blushed to realise she had been so impatient for him she hadn’t even paused to consider that fact before...
‘What are you doing?’
He paused to smile at her as he pulled off his trousers. ‘I’m getting ready to make love to my wife,’ he told her with a smile.
Sophy stared indignantly at him. ‘I thought you just did...’
The humour died out of his eyes, and suddenly his mouth was grim. ‘That wasn’t so much making love as satisfying an intense physical need. This is making love.’ He turned to her, touching her with gentle fingers, stroking the velvet smoothness of her skin, pushing her down onto the bed and lying beside her, kissing her slowly and thoroughly, until she sighed languorously her body awash with the most deliciously sensual awareness.
Now that the frantic need for haste was gone, she could touch him as she had been longing to do for so long. With her hands...and with her lips, delighting in his husky moans of pleasure as she discovered how best she could please him.
He had no need to make such discoveries. He already knew how to please her, she thought shiveringly, as his mouth caressed the hard peaks of her breasts, teasing and stimulating them until she cried out and arched against him.
It was only when his mouth touched the moist heart of her femininity that she tensed, trying desperately to wriggle away from him but his hands slid up under her, holding her hips, pinning her to the bed.
He raised his head and demanded rawly, ‘Let me, Sophy. I want to pleasure you. I want to give you all that he never did. Trust me...’
She tried to relax, quivering under the slow assault of his tongue, gasping in shock at the sudden surge of pleasure invading her, her restraint completely swept away as Jon took advantage of her involuntary relaxation, his mouth moving delicately against the tender nub of flesh he had so unerringly found, ignoring her frantic protests for him to stop.
Then suddenly she was no longer capable of any form of protests; incapable of anything other than submitting to the waves of pleasure convulsing her body.
Some time later...she wasn’t capable of working out how much, she felt him move to take her in his arms and gently lick away her tears of pleasure. He took her hand and placed it on his body and under his guidance she felt the full male power of him.
It seemed impossible that her body should ache for him already but it did, as though simply by feeling his arousal she herself immediately shared it.
‘See,’ he murmured into her ear. ‘That’s what loving you does to me, Sophy.’
She shivered, immeasurably affected by the knowledge that he desired her; that she was capable of arousing such desire within him.
This time there was no urgency...no haste...and the slow, almost languorous way he filled her, made her sigh and murmur with delight, her body moving effortlessly to the rhythm he set.
She fell asleep in his arms, conscious of an overwhelming sense of well-being...of inner peace and a joy so intense, she felt it must radiate from her in a physical aura. She loved him...and she was already asleep before she remembered that he did not love her.
* * *
‘GOOD, I’M GLAD YOU’RE awake. Uncle Jon said we weren’t to wake you.’ Sophy opened her eyes slowly. What was she doing in Jon’s bed? And then she remembered.
To cover her embarrassment she asked Alex, ‘What time is it?’
‘Supper time,’ David told her gloomily. ‘I’m starving, and all Uncle Jon can cook is beans on toast.’
‘That’s a lie,’ Alex retorted hotly, immediately defending her idol. ‘He can do lots of things.’
‘Such as?’
Sophy let them argue, closing her eyes and slowly trying to come to terms with what had happened. She and Jon had made love. She shivered lightly and felt tiny beads of sweat spring up on her skin as she remembered exactly how they had made love.
The children’s quarreling suddenly pierced her thoughts and she sat up, clinging to the duvet as she realised that she was still naked.
‘Stop it, both of you,’ she said firmly. ‘I’ll get up and come down and make your supper.’
‘See what you’ve done now,’ Alex accused her brother, ‘Uncle Jon said—’
‘What Uncle Jon said was that neither of you were to come in here and wake Sophy up,’ that gentleman said drily from the doorway.
None of them had seen him come in. Sophy felt herself flush a brilliant scarlet as he looked at her. Alex, who was looking at her uncle rather guiltily, missed Sophy’s reaction but David did not. A little to her surprise he got up off the bed, and taking hold of Alex’s hand, said firmly to his sister. ‘Come on...we’re going downstairs.’
Sophy didn’t want them to leave. She didn’t want to be alone with Jon... She felt both embarrassed and apprehensive. What must he think of her? Had he guessed that she loved him?
‘David, it seems, is growing up,’ he murmured lightly as he took the place his nephew had vacated beside her on the bed, elucidating when she looked puzzled. ‘He obviously thought we wanted to be alone.’
He bent his head, so that she couldn’t see his expression and said slowly, ‘Sophy, we have to talk.’
He had said that before but this time the flare of panic inside her was far greater. ‘Not now, Jon.’ There was a note of pleading in her voice that made him look at her. ‘I feel so muzzy,’ she told him, fibbing a little. ‘Chris, the shock...’
‘Of course.’ His voice was completely even but she was conscious of a sudden coolness in his manner, a faint withdrawal from her which, because she was so acutely aware of everything about him, she recognised immediately and which defeated her tenuous self-control. This afternoon both of them had been acting out of character. She couldn’t blame him if now he was wishing none of it had ever happened, but at least nothing could ever take from her her memories of him as her lover...and as her lover he had been both demanding and tender. She had memories she would cherish for the rest of her life. But memories would not keep her warm at night when Jon was not there...
‘We’ll talk another time, then.’ He was getting up, and soon he would be gone.
She forced a brief smile.
‘I’ll be down shortly.’ She saw that he was about to protest and added, ‘I won’t sleep if I stay in bed...and besides I’d have to go back to my own room.’
She held her breath as she waited for him to contradict her statement and to tell her that she was sleeping with him from now on, but he didn’t, and at last she had to expel it and listen with an aching heart as he said mildly, ‘As you wish.’
No doubt he was relieved that she was going back to her own room, she thought bitterly as she showered and then dressed. After all, by making that statement she had saved him the embarrassment of asking her to go back.
* * *
WE MUST TALK, Jon had said, but they didn’t seem to get the opportunity to do so. It was now almost twenty-four hours since he had returned from London, and he had spent almost all of the morning shut in his study.
Sophy had gone in once with a cup of coffee. Jon had been on the phone, the conversation he was having abruptly cut short as she walked in, almost as though he did not want her to overhear what he was saying. After that she didn’t go in again.
What had happened to that easy friendship that once had existed between them? Did love automatically kill friendship, or was it that friendship was quite simply no longer enough?
She was just about to make lunch when Jon walked into the kitchen and announced that he was going out.
‘I’m meeting Harry in Cambridge,’ he told her, ‘I shan’t be very long.’
She offered to drive him in, but he shook his head. ‘It’s okay, I’ve already booked a taxi.’
Sophy turned away, hoping he would not see the hurt pain she knew was in her eyes, and she thought she had succeeded until she heard him say raggedly, ‘Sophy, I...’ She turned round and saw the hand he had extended towards her as though he wanted to touch her, fall back to his side, his expression grimly unreadable, as he left his sentence unfinished.