Читать книгу Modern Romance February 2020 Books 1-4 - Линн Грэхем, Louise Fuller - Страница 16

WILLOW QUIVERED AND shook as Jai worked his sensual path down over her squirming body.

She was back in that sensual world where her heart hammered and her body burned with hunger. Her nipples were stiff little points begging for his attention and he dallied there a long time, driving her insane with frustration as her hips rocked on the mattress because she wanted more, needed more. ‘Jai, please…’ she gasped, the burning ache throbbing between her thighs more than she could bear.

‘This time, we’re going to do this right,’ he ground out, his bright gaze glittering with resolve.

‘But there is no right or wrong here…only what we want,’ Willow protested, running an exploring hand down over a long, lean expanse of his torso and delving lower, finding him, stroking him, revelling in the satin-smooth hardness of his thrusting manhood, which every cell in her body craved.

Above her, Jai groaned, pushed her hand away, determined not to be deflected by his hunger. But her fingers slid up into his hair to drag him down to her so that she could have his mouth, the deep delve of his tongue, the awesome nip of his teeth along her sensitive lower lip until she was panting for breath and straining up to him, slender thighs wrapping round his narrow hips to hold him there.

Anticipation was licking through Willow in a raging storm of electrifying impulses as she tangled with his tongue, arched her back so that the hard wall of his chest abraded the straining tips of her breasts and ran her hands down his long, lean flanks. Her hunger was racing out of control, the way it always seemed to be with Jai, and she knew she would be mortified later, but just then she couldn’t prevent herself from urging him on by every means within her power.

And with a raw expletive, Jai suddenly surrendered without warning. He reached for a condom, dealing with it fast before pushing her back and plunging into her so hard and deep that her neck extended, and her head fell back. Her hair tumbled like rumpled silk across the pillows as she cried out at the raw sweet force of that invasion. He rode her like a runaway horse and she angled up to him in feverish yearning, the wild excitement he fired in her shock-waving through her in a storm of response. It was everything she remembered from that first night, the naked, burning, demanding heat of the violent passion that had brought her alive. There was nothing cool about it, nothing scheduled or controlled. It took over, wiped everything else from her brain and it was, she dimly registered, incredibly addictive.

All the lean power that was Jai drove her to an explosive orgasm that went splintering through her and lit up every nerve ending in her trembling body. In the aftermath of what had felt like a hurricane striking and devastating every sense, she was weak.

‘Epic,’ Jai breathed with driven honesty, yet still furious with himself for having failed to meet his own standards yet again and for having fallen on her like an animal. Once again he questioned what it was about her that made everything go wrong when it should have been going right this time around, and that only put him in mind of something else he was keen to discuss. No time like the present, he decided, tugging her into the shelter of his arms and dropping a kiss on her smooth brow.

‘I wish I’d been around when you were carrying Hari,’ he admitted.

Surprise winged through Willow and she was so taken aback she sat up to look down at him while simultaneously thinking how very beautiful he was in the sunlight filtering in through the screen. A five o’clock shadow accentuating his superb bone structure, his extraordinarily light black-fringed eyes intent on her. She swallowed hard. ‘Yes, well, it’s not something we can do much about now.’

‘No?’ Jai pressed. ‘But surely you regret the decisions you made back then.’

Willow stiffened. ‘I’m not sure that I do. I did the best I could at the time, and I believed I was doing what was best for both of us.’

Jai sat up with a jerk, his lean, powerful bronzed body tense. ‘But you were wrong and I missed out on you being pregnant and on Hari’s arrival, not to mention every little change in him during the first seven months of his life!’ he shot back at her with unexpected ire.

Willow breathed in deep. ‘Well, I’m sorry about that,’ she muttered uncomfortably, wondering why on earth he was in such a dark mood.

Jai sprang out of bed. ‘I don’t think you’re one bit sorry for having denied me knowledge of my own child!’ he fired back at her accusingly.

‘Obviously I’m sorry that it upset you but be fair,’ Willow urged, disconcerted by that sudden anger of his. ‘I honestly didn’t realise how much Hari would mean to you or that you would feel so committed to our child once you found out about him.’

‘Had it been left to you I would never have found out about him!’ Jai intoned grimly. ‘And I still don’t understand what I did or said to deserve that treatment.’

Hugging the sheet round her, Willow had turned very pale, registering that she was finally catching a glimpse of the kind of feelings that Jai had, for whatever reason, concealed from her. He was still furious that she had not told him that she was pregnant. ‘It was the way you treated me the morning after that night we spent together,’ she told him honestly, for that was the truth of how she had felt at the time.

‘Nothing I said justifies your silence when you were carrying my child and in need of my support!’ Jai launched back at her without hesitation.

‘I managed perfectly well without your support,’ Willow snapped back defensively. ‘But that morning you condemned me for not telling you that I was a virgin, insisting that you would never have touched me had you known.’

‘That was the truth!’ Jai sliced in ruthlessly.

‘You also said that what we had done was wrong,’ she reminded him stubbornly. ‘And you accused me of still having a teenaged crush on you. I don’t know many women who would’ve wanted to contact a bloke who said stuff like that afterwards.’

‘It was your duty to contact me!’ Jai interposed icily.

But Willow was only warming up, a keen memory of her feelings back then awakened by his censure. In a sudden movement she bodily yanked the sheet from the bed and left it, but only after wrapping it securely round her, and her colour was high. ‘Oh, forget your stupid duty, Jai…it was how you made me feel that ruled how I behaved!’ she slammed back at him. ‘You made it sound like sleeping with me was the biggest mistake you had ever made.’

Jai flung his proud dark head back, his sensual mouth flattening into a thin hard line. ‘It was…’

‘Well then, don’t be surprised that I didn’t get in touch because if that night was such a mistake for you, I was in no mood to tell you that, to add to that mistake, I had also conceived a child that you obviously would not want.’

‘Those are two separate issues,’ Jai objected. ‘My night with you was ill-advised but my child could never be a mistake.’

‘You see how you’re simply changing your wording to make yourself sound better?’ Willow condemned angrily and, although she was always slow to anger, she was very, very angry just at that moment because, once again, Jai was making her feel bad. ‘Why is it so hard for you to accept that you are not the only one of us to have pride? And you humiliated me that morning and made me feel awful. You spent more time talking about my father’s books than you did on what had happened between us!’

‘That is untrue.’

‘No, it is true!’ Willow hissed back at him, green eyes blazing. ‘I disagreed with what you said about that night and, because I dared to disagree, that was the end of the discussion. You didn’t care about how you were making me feel.’

Jai registered that a huge argument had blossomed and decided to walk away rather than continue it, continuing it being beneath his dignity in his own mind. He flung open the concealed door in the panelling to the en suite bathroom and closed it firmly behind him, shaken by the fire in his bride and forced to consider her explanation by the essential streak of fairness that he had been raised to respect.

He had not humiliated her, he told himself fiercely as he stepped into his luxury rainforest shower, and then he recalled an image of her standing, small and pale and stiff, that morning. Well, if he had humiliated her, he had certainly not intended to do so. All he had done was express his feelings concerning their sexual encounter. But he had done so to a former virgin, who could understandably have felt very rejected by such a negative attitude, his conscience slung in with unwelcome timing. He had consciously been trying to distance himself from a chain of events that shamed him, he acknowledged grimly. And she had vehemently disagreed with him and he hadn’t known how to handle that, he conceded in grudging addition.

The door of the en suite bathroom opened, Willow finally having realised that the panelling effectively concealed doors into dressing rooms and other facilities only obvious to someone who actually saw a door being used.

‘And now you’re doing it to me again!’ Willow declared angrily from the doorway, incensed by his departure. ‘Walking away because I disagree with you!’

In the spacious shower cubicle Jai grimaced. ‘I’ll join you in a few minutes and we’ll talk.’

‘Oh, don’t bother on my account!’ his bride said sharply. ‘It’s probably jet lag but I’m exhausted and I’m going back to bed for a nap!’

Tears lashing her hurt eyes and angrily blinked back, Willow clambered back into the comfortable bed and curled up into a brooding ball of resentment. Some people didn’t like conflict and maybe he was one of them. Obviously, she needed to brush up on her communication skills and stop her temper jumping in first because she was willing to admit that nobody had ever made her as angry as Jai could. He was the very first person she had ever shouted at and in retrospect she was full of chagrin and regret because even she knew that that was not the way to persuade anyone round to a new point of view.

But she just felt so wounded by his outlook because those months pregnant and alone but for Shelley had been very tough. And she truly hadn’t appreciated that Jai was still so bone-deep outraged at her failure to tell him that she had conceived. No, he had managed to hide that reaction very effectively until he’d got her to the altar, she reflected bitterly, and only now was she seeing that, for all his appearance of frankness, Jai was much more complex below that surface façade of cool than he seemed and quite capable of nourishing reactions that she’d not even begun to detect.

But then, shouldn’t she have expected a few surprises when they were only really getting to know each other now? When it was only a practical marriage rather than one based on love and caring? Well, he definitely had all the caring genes when it came to their son, Willow conceded reluctantly, he just didn’t have them for her. She felt hollow inside, as if she had been gutted, and a quiver of self-loathing ran through her that she could still be so sensitive to Jai’s opinions.

He thought she had let Hari and him down by not informing him that she was pregnant. He would hold it against her to the grave, she thought morosely, suspecting that Jai was as proverbially unforgiving and hard as that vast sandstone fortress above Chandrapur. He expected, he wanted perfection and she had a whole pile of flaws. Jai had flaws too but, unlike her, seemed supremely unaware of them. Of course, she rather suspected that his father had been of a very different nature from hers, not the type to linger on his child’s every failing. On that deflating note, Willow fell asleep.

A smiling, dark-skinned face above hers wakened her with a gentle touch on her shoulder.

‘I am your maid, Alisha,’ the young woman informed her, bobbing her head. ‘His Royal Highness the Maharaja will be dining in an hour.’

Dimly, Willow registered that daylight had gone and wondered in dismay how long she had slept, before glancing at her watch and discovering that she had slept for far longer than she had planned.

‘I have run a bath for you…but there is a shower…it is your choice,’ Alisha added with yet another huge good-natured smile. ‘I have also laid out clothes for you.’

Willow was bemused by being awarded that amount of personal attention until it occurred to her that she was receiving it purely as a mark of respect towards Jai’s wife, a sort of reflected glory she felt ill-prepared to handle. But she would have to learn to handle it, she told herself urgently, because she was living in a formal household crammed with servants and she was always going to be the Maharani of Chandrapur within these walls even if she didn’t feel as though she had any true right to such high status and esteem.

‘A bath would be great,’ she agreed, since it had already been run for her, and she sat up to slide her arms into the silky robe being extended for her use, thinking that Shelley would adore hearing about such luxuries because that kind of personal attention was non-existent in the world in which she and her friend had grown up in. Not so much a world, she ruminated wryly, as the school of hard knocks, which had formed them both from childhood.

Her bathroom was separate from Jai’s, Willow realised with a guilty grimace as she sat in her bath surrounded by floating rose petals and some sort of scented oil. No wonder he had seemed startled by her following him in there to confront him yet again, she conceded, heat flushing her cheeks in sudden mortification. No, arguments when she was overtired and cross were not to be recommended, she conceded ruefully, although she had said nothing that even now, calmer and cooler, she would have been willing to retract.

Her maid had laid out a long dress for her and Willow winced, getting a hint of what her life was expected to be like in the Lake Palace. She was supposed to dress up simply to dine with her bridegroom. Had she been a more conventional new bride, she would’ve been doing that automatically though, she reflected ironically, an arrow of remorse piercing her that that was not the case between her and Jai. On the surface their marriage might seem normal but underneath it was a sham, bereft of the understanding, love and knowledge that what he had termed ‘a normal marriage’ would need to thrive.

Alisha directed her downstairs, where Ranjit guided her across the echoing main hallway into yet another splendid room furnished with a formal dining table and chairs. Coloured glass panels portraying a fanciful forest full of fantasy animals decorated the walls and it was wonderfully cool and air-conditioned.

‘So, some of this place is air-conditioned,’ Willow remarked as Jai strode in, and in stark comparison to her moreover, barefoot and clad with almost laughable informality in an open-necked red shirt and well-fitted designer jeans that outlined his lean hips and long, powerful thighs. As always, he looked amazing and her breath shortened in her throat as involuntarily she relived the feel of his hot skin below her stroking fingers, the springy softness of his black hair and, ultimately, the crashing intoxicating surge of his mouth on hers.

Burning up with chagrin inside her own skin, Willow dropped hastily into a chair.

‘Yes, those rooms where it was possible without seriously damaging the décor. If you find our bedroom too warm, just tell me. I will make it possible there too, but I do not expect us to spend much time here during the hottest months of the year,’ he imparted smoothly, his dark low-pitched voice, richer than velvet, brushing against skin suddenly pebbling with goose bumps. ‘The summer heat can be unbearable.’

Willow nodded as a wide selection of little bites was brought in to serve as a first course and Ranjit carefully indicated the spicy items lest they not be to her taste, while Jai talked about the local sights he intended to show her. She tried a sample of flavours while wondering if Jai intended merely to act as though that argument had not taken place, but, once the staff had melted away with delivery of their main course, Jai fell suddenly silent and she glanced up from her plate anxiously to find those wolfish ice-blue eyes locked hard to her.

‘There is something I must say,’ he began, uncharacteristically hesitant in tone. ‘There are times when we will perceive events in a dissimilar light because of the different cultures in which we grew up…’

‘Obviously,’ Willow breathed tightly.

‘The morning after we spent that first night together is one of those events. For me, it was inexcusably wrong to take a woman’s virginity when I was not in a serious relationship with her. I could not treat that as though it was something of no consequence, but I was equally guilty of having made the assumption that you would not be so innocent, living in your more liberal society,’ he completed levelly.

‘Jai, I—’ Willow began awkwardly, not having foreseen quite how much of an issue that had genuinely been for him.

‘Let me finish,’ he urged, topping up her wine glass with a lithe and elegant hand. ‘I felt very guilty that day. I was deeply ashamed of my behaviour. I took advantage of you when you were grieving and alone and in need of support.’

‘It didn’t feel that way to me,’ Willow protested, breaking in.

‘We are talking about how it felt to be me that morning,’ Jai reminded her drily. ‘I felt like a total bastard, who had seduced an innocent young woman, and clearly how I felt fed into making you feel rejected and insulted…but that result was not intentional. I remained sincerely concerned for your well-being, which is why I attempted to see you again a couple of months later, by which time you must’ve known you were pregnant.’

At the reminder, Willow flushed a discomfited brick red. ‘And Shelley lied for me and said she didn’t know where I was because she knew I didn’t want to see you again,’ she filled in for him uneasily. ‘I’m sorry but that was just how I felt back then. I was a bit naive. I was feeling well and I thought I would manage fine without you. Before I forget, can I ask you something off-topic?’

His winged ebony brows drew together in a frown at that query. ‘You can ask me anything although I cannot always guarantee an answer.’

‘Why did I have to get all dressed up in a long fancy gown when you’re wearing jeans and no shoes?’

And the tension still thick round the table just evaporated then and there as Jai flung his handsome dark head back and laughed with disconcerting appreciation of that simple question. Raking a long-fingered brown hand through his silky black hair, he surveyed her with amusement still glittering like stardust in his bright black-lashed eyes. ‘I can only assume that it was my mother’s practice or my grandmother’s practice to get “all dressed up” for dinner because that is how long it has been since this palace had a mistress. Your maid will have been given advice on what you would want to wear for such an occasion and, since you are English, it may well date back to the years of the British Raj,’ he warned her with a wide smile. ‘And be generations out of date. You don’t need to dress up for dinner for my benefit. You can wear whatever you like, soniyaa.’

That smile of his and the endearment on top of the explanation he had carefully outlined melted that hard little knot that had formed in Willow’s chest earlier that day. Jai was trying and she recognised that, respected him for it, liked him for it. But at the other end of the scale she was wondering what other misunderstandings would crop up when there were such basic differences between their outlooks on life. Even so, stifling that anxious thought, she smiled back at him, shaken to discover how fast she wanted him again, as if that afternoon of passion had only been a dream.

‘This evening I will show you around what remains of your new home and tomorrow we will go out and explore,’ Jai promised her lazily.

And the week that followed was full of enjoyment, occasional challenges and surprises and the beginning of a fascination with her surroundings that rooted deep. There was the ancient old gardener who brought her flowers every day, and the cook who had a burning desire to know what her favourite foods were, and the sharing of playtimes with Hari and his father, so that a lifestyle that at first had seemed strange became her new normal. Hari was always surrounded by loving carers and it was not unusual to hear his chuckles as he was rocked in a solid-silver nursery swing that had rocked his ancestors for generations and which really should have been in a museum.

Willow visited the Hindu temple and the white marble park of elaborate ancestral tombs that overlooked the holy lake. She accepted garlands and blessings and small gifts for Hari as well as her share of the awe that Jai’s mere presence inspired amongst the locals. She posed for photos for the local journalists, who were much more respectful than those they had encountered at the airport.

She learned that English was widely spoken and became less intimidated by strangers, her confidence growing at the warm welcome she received everywhere. She explored the massive old fortress on the cliffs above the city, bowled over by its magnificent décor and huge rooms, with Jai by her side sharing funny stories about his heritage, which no guide could ever have equalled. And she saw a tiger in the wild for the first time, ironically not on the mini safari in an open-topped SUV that Jai had taken her on, but from the shaded dining terrace she watched the animal slink in his glorious orange and black striped coat out of the jungle to pad down at his leisure to drink at the edge of the lake.

By day they explored the sights but by night, mostly, they explored each other, she reflected with a wanton and slightly self-conscious little wriggle of recollection. She couldn’t keep her hands off Jai, and it seemed to be a case of a mutual chemical reaction. Jai electrified her every time he touched her, but when he had pressed her down in one of those reading nooks in the library that day, and possessed her with uninhibited passion in one of their most exciting encounters to date, she had realised afterwards, by his faint but perceptible discomfiture, that Jai wasn’t in control either.

Jai was pondering that problem for himself in his office. He had been spending too much time with his wife and not enough time working, he censured himself, well aware that he was sidestepping the real issue nagging at him. He had married her for his son’s sake, he reminded himself impatiently. He had planned on a perfectly civilised but essentially detached and sophisticated partnership in marriage, in which both of them nourished their own interests and friendships. He had never planned on hot, sweaty, wildly exciting naked encounters in every secluded corner of his home. He had never planned to keep her awake half the night in the marital bed to the extent that she regularly fell asleep in the afternoon heat, exhausted by his demands. Nobody needed to warn Jai that he was already in the grip of the overpowering lust that he had been warned against many times.

And that acknowledgement disturbed Jai on every level. He didn’t do love; he flatly refused to do love. He was a great believer in moderation in all things. He had, after all, grown up with the tragic evidence of what love could do to a man, not to mention his own disillusionment at the hands of his former fiancée, Cecilia. Love, however, had totally broken his father, a strong man, a good man, an intelligent man, yet none of those strengths had saved him from the consequences of losing the wife he had adored. His father’s depressions, loneliness, bitterness, his inability to replace that lost wife with even a female friend, had taught Jai how dangerously harmful those softer emotions could be for a man when it came to a woman.

He didn’t want the stress of that complication with Willow: he was determined not to need her, to look for her when she wasn’t there or to allow her to sink so deeply into the fabric of his everyday life that she became more important than she should be. Liking, kindness and respect were absolutely all that were required from him as a husband and anything beyond that would be madness…a madness that he wouldn’t touch.