Sinful Nights(23)

He walked back to the bedroom door, calmly locking it and pocketing the  key while Sapphire watched him in stupid disbelief. Blake couldn't  really believe that she was carrying Alan's child, could he? If that had  been the case she would never had consented to this ridiculous  remarriage. Allan would have married her and willingly. Anger swept  aside pain. How dare he accuse her of behaving so selfishly? She opened  her mouth to tell him the truth and then closed it, her eyes rounding in  surprise as he stripped off his sweater and shirt. His hands were on  the buckle of his belt before Sapphire realised what was happening, her  voice croaky and unsteady as she whispered, Blake, just what do you  think you're doing?'    

 



 

If you're going to foist the responsibility for this child off on me, I  might as well have some of the pleasure of fathering it,' he snarled  furiously at her. It might not be my child, Sapphire, but you are my  wife, and since it looks like this time I'm stuck with you, I might as  well get whatever I can get out of it  … '

I thought all you wanted was my father's land,' Sapphire gritted back  at him. I won't make love with you, Blake,' she warned him. I  … ' Her  breath was trapped in her throat as he stepped out of his jeans,  flinging them on to the floor. Clad only in dark briefs his body was  that of a man used to an active life. Unwillingly Sapphire felt her  glance slide helplessly over his broad shoulders, and down across the  width of his chest. Dark hair arrowed downwards across the flat tautness  of his stomach, and a mad desire to reach out and trace its erotic path  rose up inside her. Quelling it, she tore her gaze away, shaken by the  force of her reaction.

Two strides brought Blake to the edge of the bed. Leaning down he  grasped the lapels of the cotton blouse she was wearing and Sapphire  tensed, blue eyes meeting gold. Her breath stifled in her throat as  Blake's fingers curled into the fabric, the glitter in his eyes one of  dark menace as he jerked forcefully at the cotton. Buttons flew in all  directions as the blouse tore, unable to withstand the violence he was  doing it. Sapphire knew she ought to have felt fear; terror even, but  what she did feel was a wild surging excitement; a primaeval emotion  that seemed to spring from her innermost being and burst into life,  fuelled by the dark determination she could read in Blake's eyes.

He found the waistband of her denim skirt, unsnapping it and sliding  down the zip. She tried to push him away, tensing as she heard the  almost feral snarl of anger he gave as he removed her clutching fingers  and tossed aside her skirt.

Wearing only her bra and briefs she stared up at him as he loomed over  her, willing her body not to communicate to his her unwilling arousal.  Despite the rage she could feel emanating from him, she couldn't forget  that this was the man she loved; and that the mere sight of his body was  enough to bring leaping pulses to life inside her, fuelling a burning  ache that instinct told her only his possession could assuage. She  remembered how he had deliberately aroused her only that morning and her  eyes darkened unknowingly, her tongue touching the dry outline of her  lips. Above her Blake growled menacingly, and her eyes met his, reading  the eternal message of rage and desire that glinted there.

Thinking about him, were you? Pity you fainted so unpropitiously this  morning,' he taunted, otherwise I'd never have suspected you could be  pregnant. Despite it all you still have a look of  …  almost innocence  about you.'

His eyes darkened over the last few words, almost as though they caused  him pain, and mingled with her own resentment that he could so easily  think so little of her Sapphire felt a thread of aching response. She  wanted to be in his arms, she acknowledged wistfully; she wanted the  warm heat of his body against hers; his hands caressing her, his lips  …  A  shudder seemed to tear through her, visible in the brief convulsion of  her body, escaping in a faint sigh that was lost as Blake gripped her  hair, tangling his fingers in it, forcing her face up so that he could  look into her eyes as he muttered thickly, Forget him,' and then bent  to silence her protest with the fierce possession of his mouth.

This was no tentative, explorative kiss, but an explosion of raw  emotions, too strong to be confined in neat pigeonholes labelled anger'  or desire', but instinctively Sapphire recognised and responded to  them, unaware that her fingers were digging into the muscled smoothness  of his shoulder, until Blake released her abruptly.

No wonder he wanted you,' he told her hoarsely, his fingers stroking  lightly down her shoulder and then erotically over the taut outline of  her breast, his warm breath fanning her bruised lips. If you always  react like that I'm only surprised that he didn't want to keep you-or  was it the thought of the child that put him off? Is that why you were  so quick to accept my offer, Sapphire? Because you knew he didn't want  to marry you?'

Anger flared hotly inside her. You already seem to know all the  answers, Blake,' she responded brittly, so why ask the questions?'

Perhaps because I'm hoping I don't.' His thumb was rubbing lightly over  the thin silk covering her nipple and Sapphire squirmed slightly  beneath the tormenting caress, trying to clamp down on the feelings he  was arousing inside her.    

 



 

What's the matter? Doesn't my touch appeal to you as much as his? I can make you want me, Sapphire.'

No!' Her denial was meant as a plea for him not to carry out his threat, but Blake chose to ignore it.

You think not?' he muttered into her throat, searching for and finding  the fast-beating pulse that gave the lie to her denial. She could smell  the warm musky scent of his body-inflaming her own with a subtle sexual  chemistry that made her languorous and weak. The rough hair on his chest  rubbed abrasively against her skin as he moved, biting delicately into  her skin, making her shiver almost deliriously with pleasure. The fine  silk of her bra and briefs was a barrier between them that tormented  her, denying her the intimate contact of skin against skin that she now  craved and when Blake's hands slid round her back to remove her bra she  expelled her breath in a pent-up sigh of relief he couldn't fail to  understand. Soft colour filmed her cheeks as he looked down at her, his  smile tormentingly cruel.

Still expect me to believe you don't want me, Sapphire?'

What could she say? That he had misunderstood her initial remark? She  turned her head aside, not wanting him to see the betraying sheen of  tears she knew wasn't far away and then gasped out loud as she felt the  stinging nip of his teeth against the swollen curve of her breast. Hard  on the heels on the initial burst of pain came a pleasure so intense  that her eyes widened in acknowledgment of it.

Don't expect me to believe you haven't been touched like that before,' Blake told her thickly, watching her, or like this.'

Ripples of pleasure spread shiveringly through her body as his tongue  stroked and teased the aching fullness of her breasts, making her tense  and arch in a mindless frenzy of need she hadn't known herself capable  of feeling. She dimly heard Blake's suddenly harsh breathing in  counterpoint to her own quick shallow breaths, and then his hands slid  to her waist, gripping its slenderness until his mouth opened over first  one nipple and then the other, tasting, sucking, tugging, while  Sapphire felt she would explode with the intensity of pleasure building  up inside her.

Unable to stop herself, she moaned Blake's name, reaching up to stroke  the hard contours of his back with hands suddenly desperately eager for  the feel of his skin against them, scattering wild, impassioned kisses  over his shoulder, using her teeth to deliver delicate little nips that  drew a hoarse groan of satisfaction from his throat.

All sense of restraint and commonsense abandoned, Sapphire didn't allow  herself to think or reason. This was Blake who she still loved as  desperately now as she had done when they first married; and if he had  accused her so unfairly, well what did it matter now that she was in his  arms and he was touching and kissing her with a hunger that her body  recognised even if her mind could not. It was a hunger that fed and  matched her own, his body whispering to hers that it too had starved and  ached for this tumultuous pleasure they were now sharing. Despite the  fact that they had never before made love, there was nothing tentative  or exploratory in their embraces. Sapphire responded to the intimacy of  Blake's touch as intuitively as though they had been lovers for years.  Her lips brushed the flat hardness of his nipple and she registered the  surprised shock of pleasure jolting through him. His eyes closed, his  mouth warm against the indentation of her waist, as she lay half-pinned  beneath him, indolently admiring the sculptured perfection of his body.

She ran her fingers lightly down the dark arrowing of hair, stopping  when she reached his briefs. He tensed, and then demanded thickly,  Touch me, Sapphire.'

She let her fingers stray exploratively over the thin cotton of his  briefs, her touch slightly hesitant and unsure, her heart thudding  violently in response to the small, liquid sound of pleasure emerging  from Blake's throat. Heated, muttered words of praise and encouragement  overwhelmed all her shyness and reserve. When Blake tugged off his  briefs her breath caught in her throat, her eyes unknowingly widening  slightly.