When Lissa nodded he added. I'm sorry I missed the girls' bedtime tonight. I'll be glad when I've got the responsibility for the factory off my hands. I've been neglecting my own work recently … and I don't intend to be just a figurehead in the girls' lives-someone they hear about but rarely see. As my own father was to me,' he added, surprising her with this information about his childhood.
Oh yes,' he told her obviously reading her mind. Like you, I was very much second best as far as my father was concerned. He and I never hit it off the way he and John did, although my childhood was nothing like as traumatic as yours.'
Mine was bad because I reacted too emotionally,' Lissa told him. I was too sensitive … too easily hurt and confused.' She got up to pick up the sweater she was knitting for Louise, and as she did so, stumbled against Joel's chair.
Instantly his hand shot out to steady her, his arm supporting her as she fell, so that somehow she ended up in his lap feeling both stupidly clumsy and flustered, but strangely enough with no desire to shrink away from him; with none of the tension she would have expected to feel.
Lissa?'
She looked at him automatically, smiling herself when she saw the amusement lightening his eyes and curling his mouth. Do you suppose Louise is going to expect me to kiss you goodbye every morning?' he asked her in a lazy drawl.
The teasing amusement in his voice was familiar to her and she responded to it relaxing in the half circle of his arm, shrugging easily.
Umm … well I suspect that she is,' he continued softly, and that being the case I definitely feel our technique could do with a little polishing.'
I … ' Whatever objection she had been about to make slid from her mind forever when Joel slid his fingers into her hair, their warmth spread across the back of her scalp, heating her skin, preventing her from moving; from avoiding the sensually slow downward movement of his head, as his lips feathered softly across her skin. First her temple, then the corner of her eye; the vulnerable hollow of her cheekbone where his breath against her ear, coupled with the slowly gentle movement of his fingers against her scalp, made her shiver with pleasure. With pleasure! Lissa acknowledged numbly, hearing him murmur her name and responding automatically to the sound of his voice so that she turned towards him unwittingly facilitating the warm glide of his mouth against her own.
She had been kissed before; and had even enjoyed those kisses, before she discovered the truth about herself, but this somehow was different. For a start no one had ever kissed her with such gentle thoroughness; such innate tenderness and yet somehow at the same time conveying that there was a potential within that tenderness for something deeper and far more dangerous. There was nothing intimidating or frightening about the way Joel's mouth moved on hers, and yet her body was aware with a deep nerve-tingling frisson of awareness that if she were to signal that she desired it there could be much, much more.
And she did desire it, Lissa acknowledged inwardly … Unbelievably she was tempted to slide her arms round Joel's neck and hold him closer, to press her body against his and feel it harden with masculine desire.
She wanted him to make love to her! Immediately she tensed and he let her go. Instinctively she veiled her eyes from him, frightened of what he might see in them; that he might guess what she was feeling. And what? she asked herself. Take advantage of it? Feel sorry for her? She scarcely knew which she disliked the most. Somehow she managed to scramble off his knee, and outside the inner turmoil of her thoughts she was aware of the sound of her own voice, high and tense, gabbling inanities about the time, desperately trying to provide a smokescreen for her to hide behind.
She knew that Joel was studying her, watching her with unnerving narrow eyed scrutiny. What was he thinking? Why had he kissed her? If it had just been a game then it had been a cruel one, and somehow unlike the man she knew him to be.
Lissa, sometimes I'll have to kiss you,' he said quietly at last. It's expected occasionally of married couples, even in these enlightened times.'
That drew a shaky smile from her, and he smiled too. Surely it wasn't so bad?' There was a whimsical quality to his smile that relaxed her.
No, of course not.' So that was it. Joel was just trying to accustom her to the social kisses they might have to exchange, but there had been a warm persuasiveness in the movement of his mouth against hers that had reminded her that he was a powerfully virile man and so she said awkwardly, Joel … what will you do … what will happen … ? You can't live the rest of your life in celibacy,' she managed at last.
Lissa, I've got so much on my mind at the moment that there just isn't room for sexual frustration,' he told her drily. When there is … ' He shrugged and then said tight-lipped, Well let's just say I won't burden you with it.'
THE NEXT MORNING Louise didn't have to remind Joel to kiss her. He bent automatically and dropped a light caress on Lissa's cheek as he got up from the table, and she told herself that it couldn't possibly be disappointment that coursed through her at the lightness of that brief, preoccupied touch.
Joel was late coming home again. Louise pouted a little when she discovered that he wouldn't be there to read her bedtime story, but eventually settled down. In fact Lissa was delighted with the way both little girls had adapted to their new environment. Whenever Louise mentioned her parents Lissa made a point of talking to her about them, encouraging her to keep their memory alive without touching on the tragedy of their death. Louise seemed to have accepted the fact that they were gone from her life in the physical sense, although sometimes she betrayed a tendency to cling to either Joel or herself, Lissa acknowledged.
At eight o'clock Joel rang to say that he was on his way home. He sounded tired and yet good humoured. I've settled on someone for the Managing Directorship,' he told her. He starts next week.'
Louise will be pleased,' Lissa told him. She was complaining tonight because you weren't here to read her story.'
Anyone listening to them would think them a long married couple, Lissa reflected when she replaced the receiver. But they were not married. Not in the real sense. What would Joel be like as a lover? Considerate, skilled, passionate … ? Stop it she warned herself. Why was she continually exhibiting this desire to dance with danger … to flirt, even if it was only in the privacy of her own mind, with the idea of Joel as a lover?
Perhaps it was because the thought that he never would be piqued her interest. But it wasn't pique alone that was responsible for the surge of physical awareness she felt whenever he was in the room.
She heard his car draw up as she was putting the final touches to their meal. He walked into the kitchen, surprising her with a brief kiss on her exposed nape, the way in which her bones turned to melting heat surprising her even more.
Champagne,' he told her with a grin, showing her the bottle. I thought we'd celebrate the end of my career with Hargreaves International.'
Lissa laughed, catching his mood, banishing him from the kitchen while she finished what she was doing.
They had the champagne before dinner-and after it, and although Lissa demurred Joel insisted on her drinking some wine with her meal.
By the time she got up from the table she felt distinctly light-headed, but in such a relaxed carefree way that she couldn't refuse when Joel refilled her champagne glass. We've got to finish it,' he told her, otherwise it will go flat.'
The golden bubbles tickled her throat, sliding smoothly down it inducing a sensation of relaxed light-heartedness inside her. Even her blood seemed to be fizzing slightly. They talked, or at least Joel did, while she listened in a hazy cotton wool, other-worldly cloud of relaxation. Occasionally she had the impression that he was watching her … waiting for something … but she dismissed it as imagination. At ten o'clock she started yawning and when Joel suggested she go to bed she didn't demur.
I'll clear these away,' he told her, indicating the empty glasses. Sure you can manage?' He grinned as she stood up and promptly wobbled slightly.
If you're suggesting that I'm tipsy, then you're quite right,' she told him, and what's more it's all your fault.'
Want me to carry you upstairs, or can you manage on your own two feet?' He said it teasingly, and yet when he looked at her Lissa felt the most unexpected surge of desire kick upwards along her nervous system. She giggled nervously to conceal it and shook her head.
Once upstairs, she showered languidly, studying the smooth slickness of her wet skin as she stepped out and reached for a towel. Her body was something she rarely looked at as a rule, but tonight she found herself studying it, aware of a certain sensuality to it that she had never noticed before. Fleetingly she wondered if Joel still found her desirable, trying to dismiss the thought as she towelled herself dry and then slipped on her cotton nightie, but unable to do so. She was like a child, excited by the thought of playing with fire, even while she knew that parental rule protected her from doing so she thought, angry with herself, trying to shake off the languorous indolence of her movements.