Читать книгу Reclaiming His Wife - Susan Fox P. - Страница 11

CHAPTER SIX

HIS body was hard and warm as he turned her into him, its merciful heat enveloping her, seeping through into every last shivering cell.

If he had been wearing a T-shirt when he had come in, then he must have pulled it off to give her the maximum benefit of his body temperature, Taylor thought with a violent shudder, crushed against the crisp dark hair that furred the deep contours of his chest.

He was wearing shorts in some soft, stretchy fabric that left no mystery about his potent manhood, and she could feel the roughness of his hair-covered legs as they entwined with the smooth cool silk of hers.

‘That better?’ he asked hoarsely.

It was. She couldn’t tell him how much, and all she could do was groan her gratitude from within his powerful embrace.

His broad back felt like warm velvet beneath her clinging fingers, and she could feel the play of powerful muscle beneath the smooth skin. He smelt good too, of cedar and a familiar underlying musk that had her nostrils dilating, greedy for as much of his warm scent as they could hold.

‘You shouldn’t have got that cold.’ His tone was lightly abrasive. ‘You should have come in and told me.’

‘You were asleep,’ she argued by means of a feeble excuse. Already she was feeling better. His body was like a furnace and the bed was becoming nicely warm at last.

‘No, I wasn’t.’

Wasn’t he? Against the warm satin of his shoulder, her brow puckered. Why not? What had kept him awake? ‘I didn’t want to disturb you.’

She felt the deep wall of his chest expand slightly. ‘Evidently not,’ he scolded, releasing a curiously ragged breath.

A small satisfied sigh escaped Taylor. She had stopped shivering at last. In fact, she was virtually glowing now.

‘Warmer?’ His voice was a lilting caress against her hair.

She murmured an affirmation, and suddenly realised that it wasn’t just his proximity that was warming her blood. Inside her something stirred, something born out of hunger and denial that her body recognised, and to which it was responding, seemingly with a will of its own.

From somewhere in the depths of her consciousness a little voice was struggling to be heard, but her ears were deaf to its futile warning.

She caught the shuddering breath that Jared drew and at the same time became aware of her own shallow breathing, knew that he had to have noticed it too.

Way down in the centre of her abdomen she felt the deep throb of desire, felt its molten message pierce her loins, her aching flesh, the tightening aureoles of her small breasts.

Pulled by something beyond her own volition, she moved restlessly against him, her legs unconsciously massaging the coarse length of his, her body thrilling to the full exciting knowledge of his arousal.

‘Taylor…’ It sounded like a growl, or a hopeless plea, she wasn’t sure which. She only knew that whatever she was feeling, he was feeling it too.

She could almost touch the leashed power of his aggressive virility, the tight-wire tension that packed every nerve and sinew of his body.

For a fraction of a second, her self-preservation shrieked at her to draw back, but it was already too late.

As he groaned, then pushed her on to her back, her senses were already leaping to meet their own destruction and when his mouth came down over hers she arched towards him with a stifled cry, lost in a conflagration of her own need.

Oh, dear heaven! How had she lived without this!

The stubble of his jaw was abrasive on her skin, rough and unbearably arousing, while their mouths blended, breathless and devouring, demanding a deeper knowledge of the other that each knew could only be reached in the most elemental way.

Shudders racked her body as his hard hands slid under the soft fabric of her tunic, seeking, claiming, kneading the slender curves of her eager hips. His massaging fingers moved to splay across the small span of her waist, and Taylor caught her breath as they slid along her ribcage to trace, with tantalising skill, the outer edges of her breasts.

He was and always had been a consummate lover, knowing exactly when to make her wait and when to grant her pleasure. But now she sucked in a breath, moving convulsively against him. How could he deny her when she wanted him so much!

‘Oh God…’ he breathed as though she strained his self-control, and slid his hands over her breasts now as reverently as if he were fondling priceless treasures.

‘Jared…’ It was a small sobbed sound, torn from her as he slid down and pushed back her tunic so that his mouth could close over one breast, his fingers caressing and moulding and teasing the other into throbbing tumescence before his mouth claimed that one too, drawing it into its erotically suckling warmth, sending an agony of exquisite pleasure down through her lower body.

Her fingers were luxuriating in the thickness of his hair, both hands eagerly caressing him, reacquainting themselves with the curve of his head, the coarser hair that formed his sideburns, the hard, exciting structure of his cheek and jaw.

Little murmurs of pleasure escaped her as his lips and hands rediscovered her, spasms bringing her straining against him—this man of whom she could never have enough—inviting, accepting him as sole licensee of her body.

She could feel the fullness of his arousal pressing against her beneath the soft shorts and she wanted to be rid of the barrier, wanted him inside of her, guiding her, controlling her, taking her with him to some other place, some other part of the universe that no one else could share.

She grappled with his waistband, slid her hand beneath it and felt the tightening flesh of a firm buttock. But then he reached down and helped her, pulling the garment free, then tugged her tunic over her head so that they were lying naked together.

The air in the room was like ice on her sensitised body, but that didn’t matter any more. Heat seared her as he came back down to her, causing her to gasp from the electrifying sensation of his warm nakedness.

This was where she belonged! This was where she had always belonged, she told herself feverishly, with no thought for tomorrow. In this man’s arms. In his bed. Giving as much as he demanded of her. And taking too. Taking in turn.

With his lower body pressed against hers, tantalising her with the promise of unbearable pleasure, he lay propped up on his elbows, hesitating, as though gripped by a moment’s doubt, like an undeserving soul unsure whether to take or turn away from the unexpected gift of heaven.

In the darkness, desperately Taylor’s eyes sought his.

Was he harbouring second thoughts? He couldn’t be. She was his and there was nothing she could do about it except take him into her, she reasoned blindly, thrusting her pelvis towards his.

As if that one action had snapped his self-control, he was pushing hard into her, the sudden and rapturous reality of his filling her drawing guttural sobs from her throat.

She was moving with him, joining him in a rhythm that was theirs and had only ever been theirs alone. She felt him sink deeper into her and she moved to accommodate him, winding her legs around him and gripping him hard, locking him to her in a dizzying, primeval rhapsody of the senses.

He groaned, robbed of his powers to do anything but lose himself to the generously offered gift of her femininity. But she had already begun to climax from the powerful thrusts of his body, and she felt the moist warmth of his flowing into her, first as an aphrodisiac, increasing her pleasure, then as a soothing balm after the fierce and throbbing contractions of her own body.

The next thing she knew it was morning. Sunlight was streaming in through a chink in the curtains and Jared’s side of the bed was empty.

The cold struck home as she slipped an arm out of the bed, and she quickly retracted it, reminded all too shockingly that she was naked.

Shame stung her more than the icy temperature in the room. Why had she let him? Let herself? she wondered despairingly. Why, whenever he was around, could she never constrain herself? Retain any self-control? She gritted her teeth, angry with herself. How could she have behaved so recklessly, when nothing had been resolved between them, and the only reason for his coming here had been to seduce her back into his bed—into his life—regardless of what she wanted? Of what was best for her?

Even now, lying here with regret and shame as her bed partners, her swollen breasts were tingling from the memory of his kneading hands, the sensual throb at the core of her femininity from just thinking about him assuring her that if he came in now her body would open to him again as a flower opens to the sun, welcoming him into her; that she could only ever be whole and fully alive with this man as her lover.

She got up quickly, slung on her dressing gown and darted into the bathroom, ignoring the biting chill while she forced herself to wash in the bitterly cold water.

Downstairs, dressed in a black polo-necked sweater, thick shirt and jeans, she had started washing the dishes from the previous night with water from the kettle she had found already singing on the fire when the back door opened with a blast of cold air and Jared stood there, kicking snow off his boots.

‘Morning,’ he greeted her somewhat cautiously, coming in.

‘Morning,’ Taylor returned quietly, with half a glance over her shoulder, unable to look at him, not only because she felt too ashamed, but also because, if she had, she knew exactly what she would have seen. A dark, unshaven Jared sporting that brutish man-of-the-fells image in his thick country clothes and padded body warmer, and she was having enough difficulty keeping her anxiety over the previous night reined in, without letting him see how potently she was affected by him as well.

‘The power’s still off, as you’ve probably gathered.’ He was opening a cupboard, putting something away. ‘And there’s no sign of a thaw.’

Taylor swirled hot suds around a plate with the washing-up brush. ‘No.’ The residue of last night’s feast had set hard on the china, refusing to be erased. Like their lovemaking, she thought, keeping her head down and scrubbing hard.

‘At least we haven’t had any fresh snowfall.’

‘Haven’t we?’ She sounded disenchanted but she couldn’t help it.

After a marked hesitation, he said, ‘Did you put the kettle back on to boil?’

‘Yes,’ she answered, wondering why he appeared so coldly matter-of-fact. Was he recriminating himself for what had happened last night? Was he regretting it too?

Behind her the cupboard door banged. ‘Did you sleep well?’

Taylor scrubbed at the caked potato more violently. ‘Yes.’

‘No more problems with being cold?’

Was he kidding?

‘No,’ she said tautly, her actions mirroring her agitation. Well, how else was she expected to feel? Last night they had both behaved recklessly and he wasn’t even mentioning it, which made the whole thing even more disconcerting.

‘For heaven’s sake, save your energy,’ he said, suddenly sounding impatient, ‘and leave that blasted plate to soak.’

She dropped it abruptly. It made a dull clunk as it hit the bottom of the sink.

‘What’s wrong?’ He was opening the cutlery drawer, making its contents rattle as he rammed it closed again. His voice wasn’t too gentle. ‘Worried you might be pregnant?’

She winced, because of course the thought had crossed her mind but it wasn’t just that. She hadn’t agreed to go back with him because, as far as she was concerned, nothing had changed. He would still love Alicia, no matter how much he convinced himself he couldn’t have her—that it was over. It was another man’s wife he really wanted to be the woman at his side. But last night, just as in the past, when he made love to her, she couldn’t think straight; tried to make herself believe that she meant more to him than just a substitute for someone else. Last night had been no exception because he had made love to her as though his heart and mind were free for him to do so—unreservedly and uninhibitedly—and she had let him, practically instigating it, while knowing that sooner rather than later they would become just another statistic in the eternal line of broken marriages, because she could never go back to him to be what she had been to him before, just a convenient little stand-in for somebody else.

And now, of course, because of her foolish and utterly thoughtless behaviour, there was the worry, as he’d said, that she could be pregnant…

‘It shouldn’t have happened,’ she demurred, staring at the cup she was washing without even seeing it.

‘That’s obvious,’ he said brusquely, behind her.

‘I don’t want to be pregnant,’ she protested, fighting the idea, her deep buried fears surfacing above everything else.

‘No,’ he breathed heavily in acceptance. ‘You made your opinions and objections clear enough while we were living together. I should have known better. I could easily have used something. But then neither of us was in the mood for rational thinking, were we? Well, what’s done is done, Taylor. We can’t put the clock back. And if you are carrying my child, I’m sure you’ll work something out where it doesn’t inconvenience you too much.’

‘Like I did the last time?’ She spun round to face him with the washing-up brush in her hand, soapsuds flying everywhere. Her teeth were clenched from the pain of remembering, her green eyes over-bright with bitter emotion. ‘Isn’t that what you accused me of? Getting rid of our unborn child?’

‘No!’ He was dragging a hand across his cheek, wiping away suds from where she had splashed him. Soapy water ran down the dark shiny front of his body warmer. ‘I never said that.’

‘No? Only that losing our baby was exactly what I wanted!’

With his wide shoulders held rigid, jaw locked tight, there was a bleak look about him as though remembering pained him too.

‘It was a… natural… assumption…’ he said, picking his words carefully ‘… in view of the way you were… the way you seemed to have no time for…’ He broke off on a heavily drawn breath. ‘For heaven’s sake, Taylor! Do I have to spell it out?’

No, he didn’t, she thought, turning around again, her brush toying absently with the winking bubbles in the bowl.

Throughout her short marriage, she had shied away from any contact with babies, refusing to show any interest in them; wanting one so desperately she couldn’t bear to inflame the need. Jared had scorned her lack of maternal instinct, but he had been unaware of her fears, taking her attitude as a total disregard—if not distaste—for children and motherhood, which was why he had been so derisive when he had seen her with Josh.

Her pregnancy had been the result of an impassioned row, a making up during which, just as the previous night, neither had had the will nor the inclination to consider protection. She remembered the first tentative excitement she had experienced—the joy even—when she had first suspected that she was going to have a baby; then, when it was confirmed, the fear. She became withdrawn and introverted. Moody, too, she accepted with a mental grimace. So it probably wasn’t that surprising that he had picked up on those vibes; why he thought she was no less than relieved when he came home from that ten-day conference and she told him that she had miscarried.

Numbly, she shook her head. No, he didn’t have to spell it out.

‘Don’t feel so bad about it, Taylor,’ he advised in a suddenly silken voice and she realised he was talking about last night. ‘Neither of us could have prevented it, and the way we are whenever we’re around each other… well, it was bound to happen sooner or later.’

‘Why? Because you were determined it would?’

He laughed softly behind her. ‘Hopeful, dearest, but not exactly determined.’

‘OK. So you got what you wanted.’

‘What I wanted?’ he breathed with harsh emphasis and, before she could sidestep, he was reaching out and pulling her back against the whipcord strength of his body. ‘What I wanted,’ he repeated, his words softly mocking now because his arms were already crossed over her breasts, and his hands were massaging the small mounds through her clinging sweater. ‘I think, my love, if I took you upstairs now, you’d be begging me again as helplessly as you were begging me last night.’ The reminder stung, scorching her cheeks with bright colour. ‘You want me as much as I want you—no matter how much your pride and crazy determination tell you otherwise. OK. Perhaps you were right once when you accused me of marrying you on the rebound. Maybe I didn’t show you enough love or appreciate you as much as I should have done. Possibly I neglected to do all the little things you needed me to do for you to feel wanted—perhaps I was away too much. Oh, I’m not going to lie and say I wasn’t still in contact with Alicia when I met you. God knows, I was!’ His deep voice seemed to rumble with an intensity of emotion and, recognising it, Taylor closed her eyes against it, against the longing to be able to move him to such a degree. ‘When I saw you at that party, you were like the promise of summer after a long, long winter, with your youth, your sexy mystique and your surprising innocence. You showed me something new, something different, something to hope for. And you excited me more than any woman I’d ever met.’

She wanted to keep her mind on what he was saying, hold on to her composure, but she couldn’t because of what he was doing to her. Even through the layers of her clothes her breasts were responding to his sensuous massage, his sweet provocation stimulating the more intimate and secret pathways of her body.

‘Give us this chance, Taylor.’

His lips against her ear whispered their trembling message, his teeth nipping the sensitive area now just above the neck of her sweater, so treacherously feather-light that she gave a small groan and dropped her head back against him.

‘What you’re suffering—what we’re both suffering from,’ he breathed, ‘is chronic frustration from being cooped up here together. It’s not surprising I’m going out of my mind with wanting you—with what I want to do to you. Especially when—deny it as you may, Taylor—you want it too.’

His breath came warmly across her ear, arousing her, bringing her hand up to the nape of his neck so that he wouldn’t stop, because, dear Heaven! she wanted him to do all those things he had spoken of, take her upstairs and make her his again, so that she could make him hers, and only hers…

‘No, Taylor,’ he said gently, reading all the signals. ‘That won’t do either of us any good right now.’ With amazing control he was removing her arm from around his neck, leaving her feeling oddly bereft and disappointed as his hands slid away from her. ‘Right now—for both our sanities’ sakes—I think you should concentrate on breakfast, while I finish off what I was doing outside. And then, my dearest, I’m yours for the rest of the day, during which you and I are going to get down to some really serious fun.’