Читать книгу In the Australian's Bed: The Passion Price / The Australian's Convenient Bride / The Australian's Marriage Demand - Miranda Lee, Lindsay Armstrong - Страница 15

CHAPTER TEN

ANGELINA knew she was in trouble the next morning. Deep, deep trouble.

It was not long after sunrise, Jake was still fast asleep in the bedroom and she was curled up on the red leather sofa, her naked body wrapped in Jake’s bathrobe, her hands cradling a not-too-hot mug of coffee, her eyes taking in the sun-drenched terrace, and the bridge beyond. The traffic on it was only light at this early hour, she noted.

But not for long. The day promised to be as bright and warm as yesterday.

Yesterday…

She took the mug away from her lips and sighed. Dear heaven, what had she done?

A small, dry laugh escaped her lips. What hadn’t she done? more like it. Her behaviour in bed was bad enough, but it hadn’t been confined to Jake’s bed, had it? She’d been bad in the spa bath as well, and in the kitchen whilst he’d been microwaving them a meal. And here in this very room, on the rug, in front of the television.

It was as though Jake’s making love to her that second time had released something in her, and suddenly she was hungry for it all. Every experience possible with Jake.

He hadn’t minded, of course. Though she’d had the impression he was a bit surprised at one stage. Not with what she did. Perhaps he was just surprised that she would what she did, and with such avidness.

But as much as Angelina was worried sick by where this would all end, she could find no real regrets in her heart for the actual events of last night. How could you regret something that made you feel the way she felt this morning? Like a real woman for a change. A desired and desirable woman who had been made love to very, very well.

At least now she knew what Wilomena meant by having fun. It had been fun. At least, it had been with Jake. The man was the very devil with women all right. If she’d shocked him once, he’d shocked her a dozen times. Thrillingly, though.

The memories made her quiver with remembered pleasure.

‘What are you doing up this early?’

Angelina almost spilt her coffee again, her whole body jumping at Jake’s sudden appearance behind her.

As she glanced up over the back of the sofa at him, he bent to kiss her, one of his hands sliding down the front opening of the robe at the same time.

Angelina didn’t know how she didn’t spill the coffee this time.

‘Mmm,’ he murmured by the time he’d straightened. ‘I know what I’m going to have for breakfast. Fancy a shower together?’

‘Not till I’ve finished my coffee,’ she replied with creditable control, considering. Angelina had already decided that, whilst yesterday had been marvellous, today was another day entirely. Today, she had to start getting some control back over herself.

Watching Jake walk over to the nearby open-plan kitchen didn’t exactly help that resolve, given that he was stark naked. She told herself not to look, but look she did. By the time he’d made his coffee and returned to sprawl in an adjacent chair, sipping his coffee with apparent nonchalance, her control was definitely at risk.

Gulping down the rest of her coffee, she uncurled her legs and made some excuse about seeing to her clothes, which Jake had actually popped into the washer and dryer at some stage last night. She was just hanging her fortunately crush-free dress on a coat hanger in the beautifully appointed laundry when Jake’s arms went round her waist from behind.

‘Methinks the lady is suffering morning-after syndrome,’ he whispered as he started unsashing her robe.

‘Not at all,’ she lied coolly. ‘I’m just a bit concerned about today, that’s all. I really need to go over to the hotel this morning, change into some casual clothes and check out. Then I have to drop in at the expo and see how we’re doing.’ She really couldn’t go home without knowing if this venture had been a success. Arnold would ask, and so would Alex.

‘When’s check-out time?’ Jake asked, those busy hands of his not missing a beat as they drew erotic circles around her stiffening nipples.

Angelina swallowed. She really couldn’t allow him to seduce her again so easily. But of course that was his talent, wasn’t it? Seduction. And sex. Tender sex. Rough sex. Imaginative sex. Whatever was required. But still just sex. She had to remember she wasn’t anything so special. Just more of a challenge than his usual chicky babe.

Or she had been.

‘Ten-thirty,’ she told him, swallowing again. Why didn’t he stop that? On the other hand, why didn’t she stop him? She was just so weak where he was concerned.

Was it love making her weak? Or could she take some comfort in hoping this was just sex for her as well? In a way, this made some sense. She’d lived a celibate life for so long that surely it was only natural that she’d go mad for sex, now that she’d discovered it. Maybe she wasn’t madly in love with him, after all.

‘We have plenty of time yet,’ Jake said throatily, cupping her breasts and pulling her back hard against him.

She could feel his hardness through his bathrobe.

‘I’ll drive you over to the hotel around ten,’ he murmured as he pulled the robe further open and nuzzled at her neck. ‘And take you personally to the expo. Then we can go have lunch and do some shopping.’

‘Shopping?’ she echoed somewhat blankly, having reached that point when intelligent thought was nigh-on impossible.

‘Didn’t you say you wanted to go shopping?’

‘Did I?’ The robe slipped off one shoulder, then the other, before dropping to the floor. Suddenly, she felt more naked than she ever had been with him. And more vulnerable.

He was smiling when he turned her round in his arms.

‘I dare say you’ve changed your mind, like a typical woman. But I have a fancy to buy you something really sexy to wear. Something…naughty.” She stared up into his eyes, which were gleaming hotly down at her.

‘You’re still a very bad boy, aren’t you, Jake?’ she choked out.

‘I haven’t noticed you objecting,’ he replied with a devilishly charming grin. ‘Now, come have that shower with me, gorgeous.’

She went.

‘Sydney really is a beautiful city,’ Angelina said as they walked, hand in hand, through Hyde Park.

Jake glanced across at her, thinking how beautiful she looked today. Beautiful and sexy. Those jeans hugged her curvy body like a second skin. Too bad about that loose white shirt she was wearing over them. Though perhaps it was as well she wasn’t wearing anything too revealing on top. Jake’s possessiveness of her had increased overnight, along with his desire. He only had to touch her and he wanted to make love to her again.

Jake thought of what was in the plastic shopping bag he was holding. The sexiest black corset he’d ever seen. Angelina had refused to try it on in the shop, but he knew there would be no such objections once he got her home.

‘Sydney always looks great in the summer,’ he agreed, very pleased with the way things were going.

‘I guess the good weather is one of the reasons the expo has gone so well,’ she remarked.

‘Perhaps. But it always pays to have a good product. Your wines are going to be a big hit down here in Sydney, by the sound of things. Wayne was over the moon with the orders they’d already taken and the interest shown.’

‘Men like Wayne are exaggerators,’ Angelina said drily. ‘But it does look promising.’

Jake had to admire the way Angelina’s feet were firmly on the ground when it came to her business. She was no pushover, in lots of ways.

Sexually, however, she was putty in his hands. Jake couldn’t wait to get her alone again.

‘I work not far from here,’ he pointed out. ‘My office is in that tall bluish building over there. If the sun’s out, I come over to the park and eat my lunch here. Right here, in fact.’ And he pulled her down onto a seat under a huge tree that provided almost an acre of shade.

His arm wound round her shoulders and his lips pressed into her hair. ‘Want to make out?’ he whispered.

‘Jake Winters, behave yourself. I don’t think we need to make out in public, do you? We’ve been at it like rabbits. A breather is definitely called for.’

‘Not rabbits,’ he said. ‘Lovers. Once is never enough for lovers.’

‘Once! How about one times twenty? I didn’t know it was possible to have so much sex in one weekend.’

‘Amazing, isn’t it?’

Angelina glanced up into Jake’s grinning face and took a mental photo of it for her memory bank. He looked so handsome today. And so happy.

She doubted he’d look quite so happy once he found out about Alex.

‘What?’ he said, his grin fading.

It constantly surprised Angelina, the way he seemed to pick up on her inner feelings, without her having to say a word. It was almost as though he could read her mind sometimes. He certainly knew whenever she wanted him again.

Unfortunately, this was almost continuously. She simply could not get enough of him. Even now, she wanted him to take her home. She wanted him to strip her off and lace her into that decadent-looking corset and do whatever it was he had in mind to do to her whilst she was wearing it.

Hopefully, he couldn’t read her thoughts. She seriously needed this breather so she could think.

‘What is it?’ he repeated. ‘Tell me true.’

‘Nothing much. I was thinking how handsome you were. And how much I like you with short hair.’

‘And I like you with long.’

She flushed as she thought of what he had done with her hair on one occasion last night. He really was a wicked man.

No, not truly wicked, Angelina conceded. But seriously naughty. A very good lover, though. Very knowledgeable about women’s bodies, and totally uninhibited when it came to using that knowledge. How on earth was she going to find the strength to tell Jake about Alex, when it meant she would have to give up his lovemaking?

Because it was all going to end once the truth came out. If there was one thing the last twenty-four hours had proved to Angelina, it was that Jake only had one need for a woman, and that was as his sexual partner. His plaything. Even his calling her his lover just now was telling. Why not girlfriend? Lover had that for-sex-only connotation about it.

No, Jake hadn’t changed in that regard. His aim had been to sleep with her. And now that he had, any complications would have him running a mile.

And Alex, let’s face it, she thought, was one big complication.

‘What a shame today has to end,’ she said with a sigh.

‘Does it have to?’

‘Time marches on. Nothing can change that.’

‘You could always stay the night with me, go home tomorrow.’

She was seriously tempted. If she’d been in bed with him at this moment, with his hands on her naked body, she probably would have said yes.

‘Sorry,’ she said crisply. ‘No can do. I have to get back home tonight. Work tomorrow.’

‘Yeah. Same here. I’m due in court first thing in the morning.’

‘On that case you told me about?’ Angelina asked, grateful for the opportunity to get her mind off sex. ‘The lady who’s dying of lung cancer?’

‘That’s the one. I have to deliver my closing address.’

‘Are you ready?’

‘I should hope so. I’ve been living and breathing that case for months.’

‘Do you memorise your speeches?’

‘Not really. I do write my ideas down. But I never try to remember them word for word. That’s the sure way to go blank and stuff it up. No, I prepare well and then I talk from the heart. You do make the occasional stumble over words that way, but the jury never minds that, if they know you’re being sincere.’

‘I hope you win,’ she said with feeling.

‘Don’t worry,’ Jake returned with a little squeeze of her shoulders. ‘We will.’

Angelina abruptly jumped to her feet. ‘Come on, let’s walk some more. I want to go see St Mary’s Cathedral.’ And she yanked a groaning Jake to his feet.

‘More walking? Can’t we just sit here and cuddle?’

‘You’ve had more than enough cuddling for one weekend. Up!’

‘Wow. I like it when you’re bossy. Would you like to be on top when we get back to my place?’

‘Get that bag and come on!’ She was already off, walking in the direction of the cathedral, not giving him the opportunity to take her hand again.

‘Oh, look!’ she exclaimed when they emerged from the park directly across from the main cathedral steps. ‘There’s a wedding car just arriving. Let’s go over and watch, Jake. I love watching weddings.’ Anything but going back to his place yet.

‘Why?’

‘Because!’

‘That’s no reason from a girl who says she doesn’t want to get married.’

‘I don’t want to be an astronaut, either,’ she argued, ‘but I like watching their exploits.’

‘I suppose you could compare marriage to flying into space.’

‘It’s certainly a risky venture.’

‘But risk can be exciting.’

Angelina arched her eyebrows. ‘This, from a man who said he never wanted to get married?’

‘Maybe I’ve changed my mind.’

Jake saw the shock reverberate in her eyes. ‘You…you don’t mean that,’ she said stiffly.

Jake immediately regretted his possibly ill-judged words. If he rushed her, he might lose what he wanted most. After all, this was just their first weekend together. Best stick to sex for now.

‘Never say never about anything,’ he remarked nonchalantly. ‘That’s my motto.’

‘For the record, I never actually said I would never get married. I just said it wasn’t a priority of mine.’

Jake felt heartened by the carefulness in her wording.

‘That’s good,’ he said with a smile. ‘I like a girl who keeps her options open.”

Her hitting him playfully on the arm broke the tension he’d foolishly created.

‘I’m just a sex object to you, aren’t I?’ she accused.

‘Absolutely. So, do you want to go look at this wedding, or do you want to go home? Don’t forget, we’ve only got four hours before I drive you home. We’ll have to set off by eight if I want to be back in Sydney by midnight. I’m a Cinderella kind of guy when I have to be in court in the morning.’

‘Decisions. Decisions.’

‘Yeah, life’s a bitch, isn’t it? So what do you reckon? Which is it to be?’

Angelina knew he thought she’d opt to go home. And she wanted to. She wanted to so much it was criminal.

All the more reason not to.

‘I think it would do you good to see that there is more to a relationship than just sex. That couple in there are about to promise to love and cherish each other till death them do part.’

‘Until divorce them do part, don’t you mean?’

‘You’re a cynic, do you know that?’

‘Takes one to know one.’

‘Point taken. But I still want to see the wedding,’ she said firmly, and walked over to press the button that would change the traffic lights. ‘Despite the fact that the bride has already gone inside.’

‘Fine by me. I not only like to watch sometimes, but also to wait. Waiting whets the appetite further.’

‘You have a one-track mind.’

‘Where you’re concerned, I have.’

‘You’d better behave yourself in this church.’

‘I’ll be an angel.’

‘Don’t be facetious.’

The lights changed and Angelina launched herself across the road, Jake hot on her heels. She could hear the organ blaring out the Wedding March even from that distance.

‘No wandering hands during the ceremony,’ she warned him as they skipped up the steps.

‘Definitely not. I know you. You won’t be able to control yourself.”

‘I will!’ she countered, but blushingly.

‘No? Pity. Well, let’s hope this isn’t one of those long ceremonies. I’m not sure I’ll be able to sit on a hard pew for more than twenty minutes, max.” She laughed, not a good idea since they’d just entered the vaulted interior of the cathedral, right at the moment when the organ stopped. Her laughter echoed up into the cavernous and unfortunately silent ceiling. Several heads whipped round to glare.

‘Sorry,’ Jake apologised to them. ‘I can’t take her anywhere.’

‘Stop it,’ Angelina hissed. ‘Just shut up and watch.’

He shut up. But not for long.

‘Hard to see much from this far back. Want to get closer?’

‘No! I can’t trust you to behave.’

‘True. I’ve always been a bad boy in churches. Can’t stand all the hush-hush nonsense. Makes me want to break out.’

‘If you embarrass me,’ she whispered, ‘I won’t go to your place with you afterwards at all. I’ll make you drive me straight home to the Hunter Valley.’

‘Don’t think so,’ he returned just as softly. ‘You left that pretty handbag behind, remember? We’ll have to go collect it. Although, perhaps not. You could always collect it next weekend.’

Angelique frowned. She’d been trying not to think about tomorrow, let alone next weekend. ‘I…I have to have lunch with Alex next weekend.’

‘You don’t have to do anything of the kind. Call him. Tell him it’s over by phone.’

‘No.’

‘I knew you’d say that,’ he muttered. ‘OK, go to lunch with him if you have to. But that’s just on the Saturday during the day. As soon as you’re finished with him…permanently this time…I will expect you at my place. Shall we say four? Five?’

‘Make it six.’ The swimming carnival wouldn’t finish till five.

‘That’s one hell of a long lunch. I sure hope it’s going to be somewhere public. All right, all right, so I’m acting like a jealous fool. Six, it is. I’ll book us a table for dinner at eight. You can stay over till Sunday night, can’t you?’

Angelina swallowed. She really shouldn’t let this fiasco continue. It wasn’t right. She should tell him the truth.

But she just couldn’t.

‘All right,’ she said with a sigh. ‘Now hush up.’

He hushed up, but a small boy several rows up from them didn’t. He started whinging and whining about wanting to go outside. Several warnings from both his parents to be quiet and to sit still had no effect. Finally, the father lost his patience, swooped the child up in his arms and headed with swift strides back down the aisle, past Angelina and Jake.

Angelina smiled a wry smile. She remembered full well the trials and tribulations of taking a small boy to church.

Jake’s suddenly leaping to his feet startled her. ‘Be back in a minute,’ he said. ‘Got to check on something.’ And he was off, bolting down the aisle after the man and child.

Angelina jumped up as well, and hurried after the three of them, catching up with Jake on the cathedral steps. He was standing there, staring, an odd confusion in his eyes.

Her hand on his tensely held arm was gentle. ‘You see?’ she said quietly as her gaze followed Jake’s to where the father was happily lighting up a cigarette whilst he watched his son enjoying himself immensely jumping up and down the steps. ‘No need to worry.’

‘I thought…’

‘Yes, I know what you thought,’ she said softly.

She actually felt the shudder run all through Jake.

‘Can we get away from here?’ he said, glancing around at all the onlookers who were gathering to see the bride emerge.

‘All right.’ She tucked her arm through his and they just walked in silence for a while, finding their way across the road and back into the park at the next intersection.

‘Is that what your father did to you, Jake?’ she asked gently at last. ‘Hit you?’

‘No, not my father. I never knew my father. He did a flit before I was born. It was my mother who did the honours. Man, she had a punch on her, that woman. Not a day went by that she didn’t lay into me for some reason. Just about anything would set her off, especially when she’d been drinking. Sometimes it was just the way I looked at her. I can still remember how scared I was to go home after school, right from the time I was in kindergarten. Although weekends were the worst. No school to escape to those days.’

Angelina was both horrified and saddened by his story. What kind of a mother would do that to her son? ‘But didn’t the teachers notice?’ she asked. ‘I mean…there must have been bruises.’

He shrugged. ‘I’m a boy. Boys get bruises all the time. If they did notice, they just looked the other way. Teachers weren’t always as conscientious in reporting such matters back then as they are now.’

‘But what about you grandparents? Your aunts and uncles? Neighbours? Wasn’t there anyone who cared?’

‘Not that I knew of. Mum was estranged from her family. And the neighbours we had were just as bad. It was not a salubrious street.’

‘So what happened in the end? Did you run away?’

‘I put up with it as long as I could. By the time I was in high school, I didn’t go home much so I didn’t get hit as often. I spent more and more time on the streets after school. Got into a gang. God knows how I didn’t get arrested for shoplifting. I thought I was smart but I was just lucky. Anyway, one day when I was around fifteen, I came home late and Mum started swinging at me with this frying pan. Great heavy thing it was. Collected me a beauty. I’m not sure what happened next but it was Mum who ended up on the floor. Made me feel sick afterwards, I can tell you. But then…aggression breeds aggression. That was when I walked out and never went back.’

‘But where did you live?’

‘On the streets, of course.’

‘But…’

‘Look, I survived, OK, thanks to Edward and Dorothy. Let’s not get into this. It’s all dead and gone, even the lady herself. I looked her up last year when Edward died and found out she’d passed away years ago. Hepatitis. I didn’t grieve, but I needed to know what had happened to her. Closure, I guess.’

Closure? The man who’d started shaking at the sight of a father showing even a small amount of impatience with his son was a long way from closure. Angelina was so glad that she had never used corporal punishment on her son. She’d never allowed her father to hit Alex either, no matter what.

Poor Jake. All of a sudden, she wanted to hold him and love him, to make up to him for everything he’d suffered as a child.

‘Let’s go home, Jake,’ she suggested softly.

He stopped walking to throw her a speculative glance. ‘Home, as in your home or my home?’

‘Your home.’

‘Now you’re talking.’

But she didn’t do much talking on the way home. She kept thinking of everything Jake had suffered as a child.

It explained why he didn’t want to have children himself. Clearly, he was afraid he’d be a bad father, that the cycle of physical abuse would continue. Angelina didn’t believe that it would for a moment. Not with Jake.

Still, it was what Jake thought that counted.

It was going to come as a terrible shock when she told him about Alex. Perhaps it was as well, Angelina realised, that their son was a teenager and not a baby.

‘You’ve gone rather quiet,’ Jake said as he unlocked his front door and ushered her inside. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘Wrong? No, no, nothing wrong.’

‘It’s Alex, isn’t it? You’re worried about him.’

‘Alex will be fine,’ she said. And he would be, too. He was going to be thrilled to have a father like Jake. It was Jake’s reaction that worried her.

‘So what is it?’

‘I’m worried that I might be getting addicted to this.’

‘To what?’

‘To being with you.’

He dropped the shopping bag, kicked the door shut behind them and drew her into his arms once more. ‘There are worse addictions, you know,’ he murmured as he bent his mouth to hers.

Angelina wasn’t so sure. Already it was responsible for her changing her mind about telling Jake the truth. And possibly for longer than a couple of weekends.

‘This is one addiction which I would happily subscribe to,’ Jake muttered against her lips. ‘Come on, gorgeous,’ he said, taking her hand and scooping up the shopping bag at the same time. ‘Your breather is up.’