Pregnancy of Revenge(17)

With a throaty laugh Jake bent his head, and took her softly parted lips with a leashed hunger that quickly deepened into a hard, possessive kiss. 'I am not going to,' he rasped, and, with all pretence of washing gone, he lifted her bodily and placed her legs around his lean waist.

'No, I'll fall,' she squealed, and grabbed for his head, linking her arms around his neck. But she didn't fall as his strong hands cupped her hips and in one smooth thrust he filled her. Her eyes closed and her head fell back as her legs locked around him, his swift possession engulfing her quivering body in a wave of crazy excitement.

Jake growled low in his throat. Passion riding him, he drove hard and fast, and cried out her name as he climaxed with embarrassing speed. Her body shuddered in convulsive ecstasy around him, draining him to the core.

Gently he steadied her on her feet, his hands almost spanning her slender waist. She was looking up at him, her gorgeous blue eyes dilated with shock. 'I shouldn't have done that,' he murmured.

'In the shower,' Charlie breathed incredulously. 'I didn't know you could,' she added, dazed but happy.

'Apparently around you, anywhere will do,' Jake remarked, realizing she was nowhere near as experienced as he had thought if she had never shared a shower with a man. Suddenly he wondered just how much she had shared with other men as he recalled her pained gasp the first time they had sex. The uneasy feeling he might have just made a huge mistake made his hands tighten involuntarily around her waist, and he surveyed her with a frown. Her incredible blue eyes were sparkling cheekily up at him, and she had the sexiest body he had ever seen. No, it wasn't possible.

He shook his dark head, dismissing she notion. 'Actually, I came to tell you dinner had arrived, but I got distracted.'

'You and me both.' Charlie quipped, and reached up to press a kiss on his jaw. 'But now get out and let me get dried and dressed.' The fact that Jake could be overcome with passion for her made her proud, and fed her confidence in herself as a woman.

But her confidence took a severe nosedive ten minutes later when she padded barefoot back into the sitting room of the suite. Jake was fully dressed in a white shirt and dark blue pleated trousers, and somehow she felt at a disadvantage wearing the same sweater and trousers she had worn all day. He was seated on one of the two sofas with the dinner trolley set between them and he did not acknowledge her at all. It was only when she sat down on the sofa opposite him that he deigned to glance at her.

'This is probably not so hot now,' he said, but he might have been talking to a stranger, 'if you don't mind waiting, I can order something else before you leave.'

Leave. Her heart sank. But she told herself not to be so foolish. Think of the embarrassment if she did stay all night and had to walk through the hotel in the morning. Everyone would know what she had been doing. No, Jake was simply being a gentleman. But then she saw his dark eyes, which held no warmth or tenderness, none of the passion they had recently shared, only a cool reserve.

She shivered. 'This will do fine.' She gestured to the trolley, and wondered why she should suddenly feel such a chill. 'I'm not very hungry.'

'Good, but you must eat something.' He lifted the covers and portioned some kind of meat casserole and vegetables onto a plate and handed it to her. His mouth smiled but his eyes did not. 'Enjoy.'

Feeling worse by the minute, Charlie took the plate and stared down at it, sure it would choke her. But she forced herself to eat her mind searching for a reason for his cool behaviour. Perhaps he was just naturally subdued after making love, she tried to tell herself, but without much conviction as she recalled how several times over dinner last night he had behaved in much the same way, a certain remoteness in his dark gaze effectively masking his expression.

'You're very quiet,' she offered.

'I'm eating,' Jake said with a sardonic arch of an ebony brow in her direction, and she watched as he dug into the casserole with apparent enjoyment.

Turning back to her own plate, she swallowed a few more mouthfuls. But it tasted like sawdust in her mouth, and she placed it back on the trolley. It must be her fault Jake was so reserved, but what had she done wrong? Perhaps Jake had seen through her attempt to be sophisticated and was disappointed at her performance in bed. She had read men put great store on a woman's abilities in bed, and Jake was no boy; he must have slept with a lot of women.

'How old are you?' she blurted, and bit her lip wishing she could take the question back. But at least it got his full attention.

'Thirty-eight. Probably old enough to be your father.' His voice held a sharp edge of contempt that she could not fail to recognize.

Suddenly everything became clear and her heart lifted. Jake, her sophisticated, powerful Jake, was feeling guilty about the age difference between them. Impulsively she jumped to her feet and sat on the sofa beside him, resting her hand on his thigh, determined to reassure him. 'Not unless you started before you were a teenager," she said, glancing up at his superb profile. 'I'm twenty-six, hardly a girl-'