Second Chance with the Millionaire(17)

He looked at her bleakly and then demanded, 'Why?'

'Because I love you.'

It took all her courage to say it, but she sensed that her words had got  through to him. He watched for several minutes, studying her as though  weighing up one set of facts against another. She could understand him  feeling angry and betrayed if he had only caught the tail part of her  conversation with Neville-as he must have done; and what had happened in  the past must have only reinforced that feeling of betrayal, but surely  he must realise how she felt about him. It hurt her that he should so  easily believe her capable of deceit and she was forced to recognise how  little they really knew of one another as people.

'Tell me exactly what Neville said,' he demanded at last.

Slowly, almost hesitantly at first, her voice still betraying the shock  his accusation had given her, she did so, conscious that all the time he  was watching her, almost broodingly. Thinking what?

She longed to cry out to him to believe her but pride prevented her.  Something extremely precious and fragile had been shattered by his harsh  words and she wasn't sure if it could ever be replaced, and then  suddenly his expression changed, his voice faintly husky as he muttered,

'Lucy, for God's sake, don't look at me like that. I apologise for what I  said to you. Please try to understand; seeing the two of you together,  listening to him talking to you, took me back twelve years. I was  jealous,' he told her simply, the words half muffled as his lips moved  against her hair. 'So jealous that I didn't stop to think beyond what  I'd heard. So jealous, in' fact, that I drove away again and took solace  in the village pub-at least until I saw Neville's car drive past the  window.

'Say you forgive me?' He was kissing her now, fever-hungry kisses that burned into her face and throat.

Reluctantly she pushed him away.

'I came here to have dinner,' she reminded him.

'I don't want dinner-I just want you.'

The controlled man of the previous evening was gone, she realised as she  looked into his eyes, spears of mingled fear and joy shafting through  her body as she realised what he meant.

'I want you Lucy,' he reinforced, murmuring the words against her mouth. 'Now.'

Caution warred with desire. She remembered the glass of whisky he had  hurled against the fireplace. How many had there been before that? Was  his desire fuelled by love or something darker? And most important of  all, did he really believe what she had told him? He had accepted her  explanation readily enough-too readily perhaps in view of his earlier  almost frenzied rage.

'Don't you want me?'

His voice whispered tormentingly against her ear, making her shiver with  delight. Of course she wanted him. His hand cupped her face, lifting it  so that he could look into her eyes.

'You know I do.' Her voice shook slightly.

'Then come with me now.'

Taking her hand he led her slowly out of the room and towards the  stairs. They climbed them side by side in silence, all the time her  heart thudding heavily against her breastbone. Last night she had  tormented her fevered brain with the erotic imaginings of this moment,  never dreaming that when it came she would feel more frightened than  aroused.                       
       
           



       

At the top of the stairs Saul stopped to look at her, his eyes dark and  shuttered. What did he see when he looked at her? What was he really  thinking behind that shuttered exterior? She reached out towards him,  suddenly nervous and uncertain, her fingers brushing his arm. The  sombreness in his eyes shattered, melting in the heat that sprang to  life within them, his arms came round her, lifting her, his mouth hot as  it touched her throat.

'Forget about this afternoon,' he muttered thickly against her skin as  he carried her into his bedroom. 'Forget everything but how you feel  about me and how I feel about you.'

He lowered her on to the bed, the mattress depressing slightly beneath  her weight. He was using the room which had belonged to her parents, but  no ghosts intruded on them as Saul slowly removed her clothes and then,  without taking his eyes from her, his own.

The movement of his hands against her skin was music translated into  feelings. Her mouth parted eagerly to the gently insistent pressure of  his, her arms locking round him as gentleness gave way to passion.

His hand cupped her breast, his lips trailing most, tender kisses down  towards it, delicately caressing the deeply pink tip until he felt her  tense beneath him as she fought to subdue the fierce clamour of need  within her that demanded more, much more from him than mere tenderness.

As though he knew how his delicacy was tormenting her his mouth opened  over the hardened centre of her breast, his tongue arousingly abrasive  as it stroked her sensitive skin. The tiny cries of pleasure she could  no longer hold inside her chest seemed to fuel his passion as his mouth  moved with fierce need from one aroused nipple to the other and then to  the moist valley in between, trailing a line of hungry kisses from her  breastbone down to where the delicate swell of her womanhood was covered  in fine, silky hairs.

There he stopped, registering the shudder rippling through her, the  thumb of the hand he had curled possessively round her thigh softly  stroking against her skin as he raised his head to look into her eyes.

She wanted to tell him that he was rushing into intimacy too fast but  the soft movement of his thumb against her flesh was sending conflicting  signals to her brain, overwhelming shyness and shock, making her  breathe with odd, jerky little movements that mirrored the hurriedly  uneven rise and fall of his chest.

He moved, releasing her abruptly, only to pull her down into his arms,  his mouth moving urgently against hers, as he muttered thickly, 'Make  love to me, Lucy. Show me that you want me as much as I want you.'

In his thick, almost incoherent plea she recognised the insecure boy he  had been that summer twelve years ago, fearing rejection and mockery,  and her arms tightened convulsively around him, all her love for him  welling up inside her as she touched her lips adoringly to the side of  his throat and then more wantonly as she felt his uncontrolled response.

He possessed a sensuality she had never dreamed existed, never even  known before, teaching her the pleasure that came from the movement of  his tongue against her skin, and the pleasure she herself could take  from caressing his in the same way, feeling the hard muscles contract  beneath his flesh as she touched the warm skin of his chest.

'Torment me, would you?'

His voice was thick with pleasure as he growled the words  mock-threateningly, his hands sliding possessively over her back until  they cupped the rounded fullness of her bottom, pulling her against and  into the hardness of his thighs.

The sensation of his aroused body moving seductively against her skin  while she herself was not allowed to move was tormentingly erotic, and  although Saul pretended that the frantic wriggling of her upper half as  she fought to break free was angering him, it wasn't anger that gleamed  out of his eyes as his head bent and his mouth captured the peak of one  soft breast.

Feeling the drag of his teeth against her supersensitive skin, Lucy  moaned, throwing her head back and arching her spine so that her body  moved eagerly against his, her head thrashing wildly from side to side  as she fought to subdue the aching need burning through her.

She felt Saul's hand against her thigh and then shuddered convulsively  as he stroked her moist, eager flesh with tenderness and skill. A fierce  spasm of pleasure gripped her, and she cried out despairingly to Saul,  gripping his shoulders in her frantic need to feel him deep inside her.                       
       
           



       

Her eyes tightly closed, her body rigid with the aching need she was  fighting to control, Lucy felt him move, cool air shafting momentarily  against her skin and she shuddered with relief, anticipating the heated  weight of him between her thighs, his body joining hers, filling it.

Only it wasn't the male weight of Saul's body she felt moving against  her, but the skilled and delicate stroke of his tongue as it adored her  body in that most intimate of all lovers' embraces.

She cried out against this intimacy-her mind shocked by it even while  her body voluptuously enjoyed it. Her hands reached down to push him  away, and then curled protestingly into the dark thickness of his hair.  But it was too late to push him away, too late to do anything other than  give in to her body's shameless response to the pleasure he was giving  her.

She was still trembling when he took her back in his arms, tucking her  head beneath his chin and rocking her gently as he soothed her shaky  limbs.

'I wanted to feel you inside me,' she protested tearfully, her voice thick with remembered delight.