The Unexpected Baby(35)

With boneless grace he joined her, taking her hands and winding them around his neck, groaning deeply as her fingers stroked his nape. Lovingly, they feathered down his throat, down to the hectic pulse-beat at the base.

She loved him, always would. Her body craved him with a hunger that was out of control. With a tiny mew of rapture she wriggled closer, pressing her breasts against his naked chest, feeling the race of his heartbeats as he slid one tiny strap away from her shoulder and then the other.

Yes! She needed skin to skin, flesh to burning flesh. And, as ever, he knew what she wanted because that was what he wanted, too.

He closed the tiny gap between their mouths and she opened for him, inviting the raging hunger of his kiss, shuddering all over. Her fingers were digging into his back as he slid a hand up the length of her thigh and tugged impatiently at the waist of her panty-hose, sliding the silk away from her body, his breath catching as his touch revealed she was wearing nothing else beneath her dress.

She hadn’t dressed for seduction. The lines of a bra and panties showing beneath the clinging satin would have spoiled the svelte impression. Yet seduction was happening here, she thought muzzily. But who was seducing whom?

It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now but this, this togetherness. He reached behind her to find the concealed zipper of her dress, turned her over and stripped the fabric from her heated body.

She endured the slow stroke of his hands as they moulded her from her shoulders down to her thighs for as long as she could bear the deliriously rising excitement inside her, then turned with a sign of frustrated need, arching her body into his.

He kissed her slowly, her mouth, her eyelids, the hollow of her neck, taking his time, making her take hers, just as he had done so many times before, not rushing things in spite of the urgency of his body’s response.

A wild coupling to assuage an urgent need had never been his way with her. He was finding the most circuitous route to heaven, making sure the arrival would be as sublime for her as it was for him, just as he had done in the days when he had loved her.

‘Sweetheart,’ he murmured throatily as he lifted his head from her breasts, his eyes hazed with desire. ‘This is so unbelievable. What you do to me...’

Even the words were the same, almost incoherent endearments, words that told her of the depth of his love. Only this wasn’t love.

A tiny icy shiver froze her veins. It congealed her blood, shocked her into recognition of what was actually happening here.

She still loved him, couldn’t stop no matter how she tried. Physically and emotionally she would always be his. But he hated her—not enough to wish her harm, he’d said—but implacably, eternally.

This, this happening, was simply sex. Perhaps, right now, he believed they could use each other and survive the encounter unscathed.

But she knew differently. Tonight, for all sorts of reasons, she’d pushed him beyond endurance. Lots of men lost sight of their scruples as soon as they dropped their trousers. But not Jed. He would despise himself. And she would despise herself for letting it happen, actively encouraging him.

They would despise each other and fatally spoil the memories that were left of how they had loved each other once.

As his fingers found the sweet moistness that told him she was more than ready for him she knew she had to stop this, for both their sakes.

Wriggling away from him was the hardest thing she’d ever do, but she had to do it. Pushing herself back against the heaped pillows, reaching for her discarded dress, she held the satin against her breasts and lied recklessly, ‘If you want sex, just go ahead. I won’t stop you. But I’m warning you, there’ll be a difference. You see, I don’t love you any more. How can I love a man who thinks I’m a liar? It will be just like scratching an itch.’

Being cruel to be kind just wasn’t in it, she conceded bleakly as she watched his features display at first blank incredulity, followed by black anger, then cold contempt.

And then he swung himself to his feet, and she watched him walk away and ached to call him back, retract those hateful, hateful words, and pushed her knuckles against her teeth to stop the anguished cry escaping.





CHAPTER EIGHT

GETTING out of bed the following morning took a monumental effort of will. After what had happened last night Elena didn’t know how she was going to face Jed; she only knew she had to.

They couldn’t go on like this. Somehow she had to make him understand that she couldn’t and wouldn’t play her part in the painful charade he had so arbitrarily decided on, and this morning, before they set out for Netherhaye, was the perfect opportunity.

She dressed in the cotton trousers and top she’d travelled down in, stuffed the award trophy and the satin designer gown any old how into her overnight bag, and forced herself to walk through into the sitting room.