Now, she felt boneless, and only one cloud dimmed the haze of pleasure bathing her. It worried at the corner of her mind, keeping just out of reach so that she couldn't quite grasp it. Something that hadn't been said … something wrong … but she was asleep before she could grasp what it was.
As she slipped into sleep Oliver studied her wryly. Things had got dangerously out of hand. All he had intended had been a little light lovemaking, a breaking down of the boundaries between them as a prelude to the relationship he wanted to have with her-a slow, gentle courtship.
That abrupt question she had asked him, demanding to know if he wanted to make love to her, had taken them both way, way beyond what he had intended. His body rejoiced in what they had shared, in the way she had responded to him, but his mind …
He sighed faintly, knowing that, in giving in to the desire that had been burning in him ever since he first met her, he had probably caused himself more problems than he had solved.
Why, when, after all the years of being alone and being content to be alone, he did meet the woman he loved, should she be this stubborn, defensive creature, who refused to believe just how very desirable a man might find her? Any man … not just himself.
He smiled mirthlessly to himself. Part of him wanted to open her eyes to reality, to show her that it was her own attitude that prevented his sex from making overtures towards her, not any innate lack of desirability; another part of him selfishly wanted to keep that knowledge from her, so that he could never lose her to someone else.
Brushing a small spider off her sleeping face, he wondered how long it would be before she realised the potential consequences of what they had done.
Unprotected sex … the very first rule that should have governed the kind of intimacy they had just shared had been ignored by both of them.
He found himself dangerously hoping that he might have made her pregnant. That way …
Fool, he chided himself, standing up, and then bending to lift her into his arms.
The evening breeze cooled his flesh, and he grinned to himself as he contemplated the picture they must make, both of them mother-naked, she in his arms, her body still bearing the faint betraying signs of his lovemaking … of his possession.
Something hot and primitive stirred in his stomach-a male possessiveness he hadn't realised until now he could feel. She was his now …
As he carried her into the house and upstairs, she stirred in her sleep, turning her head to nestle her face into his shoulder, her hand pressing against his chest; he wondered if he dared put her in his own bed. He wanted the pleasure of waking up beside her in the morning, the certainty of knowing …
But no, things were going to be difficult enough as it was. Ruefully he carried her into her own room, slipping her beneath the covers, before going back outside to retrieve their clothes and to clear away the remains of their picnic. As he picked up the empty champagne bottle, he grimaced to himself. It had not been his intention to make her tipsy. She had been the one to insist on having her glass refilled.
Was he fool to hope that, because she desired him, she must also love him as he loved her? Tomorrow would tell. He wished he had had the courage to tell her how he felt as they made love, but he had been terrified that if he did she would withdraw from him, and honesty compelled him to admit that in the urgency of his own arousal his physical desire had momentarily been stronger than his emotional need to tell her what he felt for her.
He had plucked himself a very thorny rose indeed, he reflected, as he headed back to the house. Perhaps a romantic breakfast, a room full of red roses … And then he remembered that the workmen were all too likely to arrive even before she had woken up, and he abandoned such a scheme.
CHAPTER NINE
CHARLOTTE overslept. Waking up was like clawing her way through sticky treacle, interspersed every now and again by sharp fragments of memory that lacerated and bruised her, so that by the time she eventually got her eyes open her skin was hot with the shocked acid self-disgust gnawing at her stomach.
How could she have done what she did? How could she have got drunk and then begged Oliver to make love to her? And not just once but …
Moaning, she rolled over on to her stomach, trying to blot out the visions tormenting her, but the unfamiliar ache in her lower body only reinforced what she was trying to ignore.
And then she saw her bedside clock, and realised that the noises she could hear were not just little men with hammers in her head, but were actually coming from downstairs.
She was out of bed before she realised she was naked, and worse, that she had no recollection of how she had got there. As she stood in the middle of her bedroom floor, trying to ignore the nauseous feeling in her stomach and the awful taste in her mouth, she heard someone knock on her bedroom door. She only just had time to dive back into bed and to pull the covers up to her chin before Oliver walked in.
Her mouth dropped open as she saw him. He looked so calm, so unaffected by what had happened.
'The plumber has deputed me to tell you that the water's off and likely to remain off for most of the day,' he told her cheerfully, before putting a mug of coffee beside the bed. 'I brought this as a peace offering.'
No water. But she had to get showered and dressed and off to work. She had several appointments, including one with Dan Pearce.
Watching the expressions haunting her face, Oliver silently cursed. He should have woken her earlier, talked to her, but he had wanted to create the right setting, the right mood in which she would listen to him.
'Charlotte, about last night.'
Charlotte's head came up. She glared at him, filled with self-contempt and loathing. Oh, God, what had she done? Now he was going to tell her that last night had been a mistake, that it was something they should both forget. Her stomach churned. She was going to be sick, she recognised helplessly.
'I don't want to talk about it,' she told him through tight lips. 'And, unless you get a kick out of watching people be sick, I'd rather you went away.'
'Sick? You feel sick? Wait.'
'I can't wait,' Charlotte told him grimly, frantically wrenching the sheet off the bed, and somehow managing to wrap it around herself as she almost fell out of bed and ran for the bathroom.
Of course there was no water, other than that already in the taps, and, grimacing to herself as she tried to clean her teeth with half a glass of water, she wondered what on earth this already doomed day could possibly have in store.
Back in her bedroom, the smell of the coffee nauseated her, but she forced herself to drink it, while she dressed in clean clothes, wondering desperately why on earth the expensive French scent Sheila had given her for Christmas did nothing to blot out the subtle smell of Oliver's body on her own.
She had half expected him to be waiting for her downstairs, wanting to reinforce the fact that last night had been some kind of mental aberration on both their parts and, as such, best forgotten.
Forgotten … She groaned to herself as she walked into the kitchen. How could she ever forget … when she had made such a fool of herself … ? How could she have ever been stupid enough to think that … ?
That what? That his desire had matched her own, that he had wanted her in all the ways she had wanted him, that he loved her in the way she loved him.
Fool indeed. And she had no one to blame for that folly but herself. She had been the one to initiate their intimacy, to let him see that she wanted him, to invite him virtually to make love to her …
As she walked into the kitchen, the plumber, whom she had not seen before, looked up and grunted. 'Your husband said to tell you he'd be back in half an hour, missus.'
Her husband … Hysterical laughter bubbled up inside her. Laughter or tears-neither of them would really relieve the pain inside her.
Ignoring the plumber and the other men, Charlotte opened the door and headed for her car. Heaven alone knew what Sheila must be thinking. She had already missed her first appointment this morning.
It was only after she had narrowly avoided a collision with another motorist that she realised how recklessly she was driving. As recklessly as she had behaved last night. What was it … this unfamiliar recklessness tormenting her? Was it caused by the knowledge that her love for Oliver would never be reciprocated, that he could never feel for her what she felt for him?
She wondered if, when she returned this evening, she would find that he had moved out, and laughed bitterly at her own thoughts. She was only surprised that he had still been there this morning.