She wanted to tell him that her fear was not of him, or even of theintimacies they would share, but of disappointing him, of ultimatelybeing rejected by him when he discovered that she simply wasn"t womanenough to make their marriage worthwhile and well founded, but, beforeshe could find the courage to do so, astoundingly, she heard him sayingslowly," Here, let me show you."
CHAPTER NINE.
show her.
Now she did look at him, her head jerking upwards, her eyes wide withconfusion and shock, her sudden movement causing his thumb to pressfirmly against the corner of her mouth.
Whether because of that pressure, or whether because of her own shock,she wasn"t sure, but her lips parted, her tongue-tip touching them innervous apprehension.
He was going to kiss her. Already he was lowering his head towards her.
She looked wildly into his eyes and then away, conscious of how dizzythe steadiness of his gaze was making her feel. She focused on his mouthinstead, but that was even more of a mistake. Her heart started tohammer and trip with frantic haste; she made a small instinctive soundof protest. but made no effort to resist him when he took her in his arms.
He had kissed her before, so she should have known what to expect, butsomehow this time the effect on her senses was even more intense, evenmore shockingly erode, her lips parting helplessly, eagerly almostbeneath the warm moist pressure of his.
She heard the sound he made against her mouth and her body trembled inresponse, logic and rationality put to flight by the storm of sensationsweeping through her.
She could feel Stuart"s hands on her body, smoothing down over her back,encircling her waist as he urged her closer to him, so close in factthat her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were pressed flat against him. Her legs started totremble as she became engulfed by his heat and scent. She made a smallhelpless sound beneath his mouth and instantly the pressure of his kisschanged, softening, deepening as though she had called out a message tohim and he had responded to it.
His hands moved back up over her body, tangling in her hair as theyspread against her scalp, holding her a willing captive.
He said her name, breathing it into her mouth with a kind of hungryurgency that made her body quiver.
He was kissing her less intensely now, biting gently at her mouth, hisfingers moving against her scalp like a cat"s paws weaving, the motionrelaxing. soothing.
He was also, she realised, easing himself away from her body. She wantedto protest, to tell him how much she now needed the heat and power ofhim against her, but it was impossible for her to voice such words, andso instead she clung sid lently to him, her fingers curling into thesolid muscles of his upper arms, her eyes huge and dazed, her mouthsoftly bruised from his kiss.
He lifted one hand from her head, his body flexing slightly in a gestureof gentle denial, and then as she started to shrink back from him, hereyes registering her pain, he said rawly," Sara... No... You don"t..."
Her mouth started to tremble. Stuart made a sound deep in his throat.
His hand touched her face; his thumb stroked gently against her swollenbottom lip.
The heat that shot through her made her cry out loud in shocked panic,her lips parted, and Stuart"sthumb slipped inside the moist warmth ofher mouth.
She touched it with her tongue-tip, an automatic and instinctivereaction.
The texture of his skin felt rough, and tasted slightly salty. She licked it again, surprised to discover how pleasurable it was. Sheclosed her eyes and made a soft sound of pleasure, suckingexperimentally on his thumb, and finding the sensation so addictive that.i.t took Stuart"s fierce shudder, and the explosive sound of denial hemade as he called out her name protestingly, to make her realise whatshe was doing " Sara!"
She released his thumb and stared helplessly at him, guilty colourflooding her face as he cupped it, this thumb making a damp imprintagainst her skin.
" You haven"t any idea what you"re doing to me, have you?" he asked her,his voice softening slightly.
" You haven"t any idea how much you"re... you"re turning me on... makingme want you."
Her shock showed in her eyes.
" You don"t believe me, do you? Let me show you."
He was unfastening the b.u.t.tons of his shirt, pulling it out of hisjeans.
His torso was tanned and firmly muscled. A line of soft dark hair angleddownwards, disappearing beneath his belt.
Her mouth had gone very dry, but her pulses were racing, and it wasn"tfear she felt when he took her hand and placed it on his chest againsthis heart.
Her eyes widened as she registered its frantic fierce beat. She liftedher gaze to his face and saw that there was an unfamiliar flush ofcolour burning up under his skin, that his eyes looked darker. that theywere glittering in a way that made her own body react as immediately andas physically as though he had actually touched it.
Beneath her sweater her b.r.e.a.s.t.s swelled and ached. Guiltily she lookedaway from him. He was breathing raggedly, the muscles in his throattense, his skin slightly damp. She wondered whether, if she licked it,it would taste the same as his thumb. She could feel her own breath constricting in her throat. She tried to look away but couldn"t,helplessly captivated by the irregular rise and fall of his chest.
Was his body like hers, filled with heated excitement -at the thought ofbeing touched, being caressed? Did he long for her hands, her mouthagainst him as much as she.
" You see," she heard him saying roughly. And then he was lifting herhand towards his mouth, his thumb caressing the pulse in her wrist, and,before she realised what he intended to do, he was caressing her fingerswith his tongue, slowly, tantalisingly licking and sucking them whileher heart turned over inside her and the heat she had felt before was nothing compared with the sheet of burning, exquisite agony and needthat ripped through her now.
She actually thought for a moment that she was going to faint, and itseemed that Stuart thought so too, because he released her hand and caught hold of her, picking her up off the floor and holding her tightly,comfortingly, rocking her slightly as though he knew how ill equipped shewas to deal with the sensations he had aroused.
She was shaking so much that she was afraid if he put her down shewouldn"t actually be able to stand, but he showed no inclination to puther fear to the test.
His hands were resting on her skin beneath her sweater, their touchfirm. comforting.
" I ought to stop this right now before it all gets out of hand," sheheard him murmuring against her ear.
" But somehow I don"t think I"m going to be able to." He gave a smallsigh, and she wondered achingly if he already knew how little she wantedhim to stop, how much she." Do you know what I want right now?" hewhispered to her.
" I want to take off your clothes, and lie here with you, your bodyagainst mine, your skin caressing mine. I want to kiss you and holdyou... to stroke you and love you. And I want those things more thanI"ve ever wanted anything before in my life."
It wasn"t true, of course, it couldn"t be true, because after all, a.s.she already knew, he loved someone else, but the words were like amagical salve, soothing and healing the wounds Anna had inflicted.
She wasn"t conscious of saying anything, or doing anything in response towhat he had told her, but there must have been something, some softeningof her body, some secret subtle message which pa.s.sed between her fleshand his, because the next minute he was kissing her, not quite as gentlyas he had done before, his body moving urgently and erotically againsther own, his hands caressing her back beneath her sweater, hesitatingwhen they reached the barrier of her bra, pausing fora second and thenunclipping it so that the fragile silk of her bra fell away, and when hemoved the rough abrasion of her cotton-knit sweater against thesensitive arousal of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s was a stimulation that made her want to cry out to him to touch her there, to stroke her, to kiss her.
She trembled beneath the tempest of sensations a.s.sailing her, making asmall sharp sound of bewilderment that caused Stuart to break off hiskiss and murmur against her mouth," Ssh... It"s all right...Everything"s all right."
Only it wasn"t. She ached so badly inside; wanted him so much, yearned to reach out and touch his skin, to exploreand caress his body with an intensity she had never imagined she couldever feel.
She tried to tell him, struggling to formulate the words, to get him tostop what he was doing right now before she embarra.s.sed him andhumiliated herself, but before she could get any further than" Iwant..." he was easing her out of her sweater and then her jeans, pickingher up, kissing her with a slow tenderness that made her forget everything other than her need to respond to him.
When he stepped back from her to remove his own clothes, she wastrembling so much that she had to sit down, perching on the edge of the bed, hardly able to comprehend that this was actually happening; thatStuart was actually making love to her. that he actually seemed to wanther. to desire her.
She shivered again, suddenly self-conscious and nervous, causing Stuartto kneel down at her side.
Without his clothes his body was taut and strong-muscled, narrow-hippedand flat-b.u.t.tocked in contrast to her own softer curves.
His hand touched her knee in a brief gesture of rea.s.surance and comfort.
" It"s all right," he told her quietly.
" Everything"s going to be all right, and I promise you that if you...if you want me to stop, I shall."
If she wanted him to stop. She shivered, wondering what he would say ifshe were to tell him that that was the last thing she wanted. She benther head, so that her hair swung forward to conceal her expression fromhim.
His head, she realised, was on a level with her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.
She wondered if they looked as swollen and tautly eager for his touch tohim as they did to her, shamelessly flaunting their desire.
He lifted his hand, gently cupping their silk en swell.
" You feel like satin," he told her huskily.
" The purest, richest satin ever made."
And then his thumb brushed against her nipple, causing it to ache andthrob so much that she couldn"t suppress the taut moan of need thatburned her throat.
His response was immediate, as he gathered her closer to him and startedto caress the satiny flesh of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s with tender kisses, althoughit wasn"t tenderness she wanted, Sara discovered on a sharp thrill ofneed. It was.
It was. She made a high sharp sound of release as his mouth opened overher nipple, her back arching, her head going back, her hands grippinghim, digging into the muscles of his shoulders and neck as her whole bodyresponded to the pulsing pleasure of his mouth suckling on her breast.
When she felt the sharp unexpected rasp of his teeth she shuddered,causing him to release her and to apologise.
Her eyes dark with arousal and new self- knowledge, she shook her head,telling him jerkily" No... It wasn"t... It didn"t... It wasn"t pain."
As she heard herself stammering the admission she went hot and cold withembarra.s.sment, but Stuart quite obviously wasn"t judging her as she wasnow judging herself, condemning her as wan ton and over-demanding.
Instead he buried his face between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, holding her so tightlyagainst him that she could scarcely breathe, his voice rough andunfamiliar as he told her thickly," You"re perfect, do you know that?
Perfect. I still can"t believe I"ve been lucky enough to find you. Sara..."
She felt the thrill of reaction engulf her as she heard the urgency inhis voice. When he caressed her other breast as he had done the first,she stopped fighting against the sensations he was evoking, too bemusedby the intensity of what she was feeling to realise that it was her ownalmost delirious words of pleasure and praise that were encouraging andinciting him to suckle on her tender, sensitive flesh until the pleasurehe was giving her filled her so completely that she couldn"t contain itany longer, crying out to him, reaching out to him.
The sensation of his mouth on herskin, hot, moist, so powerfullystimulating that everywhere he touched her she pulsed and burned, madeher oblivious to everything other than the feelings she was.e.xperiencing.
She felt him moving her; felt the bed depress beneath their joint weight,felt his hand on her thigh, stroking gently upwards; felt the soft brushof his hair against her belly, the warmth of his indrawn breath as hefelt her tremble, her skin so sensitised by his touch that merely tofeel his breath against it made her arch eagerly towards, him. ?
" You"re like velvet," she heard him saying thickly to her as he had donebefore.
" Satin and | velvet, so soft, so warm." I She tensed, shock coilingthrough her as the slurred sound of his voice ceased and she realisedthat the heat, the pleasure, the need that made her both tremble withthe tension of aching need, and at the same time relax into its narcoticdelight, was caused by the delicate lap of his tongue against the mostintimate part of her body.
Her brain, her mind; they were shocked and distraught not only by whathe was doing but even more so by her reaction to it, but her body. Herbody overruled their fears and apprehensions, sinking into a languoroussensual delight in the pleasure he was giving her, the compliment he wa.s.surely paying her in wanting to pleasure her so intimately.
A compliment she knew instinctively she would like to return, sherecognised dizzily as she moved against him, allowing her body tocontrol her reactions, her responses, so that when she moved against himStuart moaned and turned his head, biting almost roughly into her thigh,and then pulling her down against him so that he could tell her huskily," The way you react to me is driving me out of my head. My G.o.d, howcould you ever, ever have imagined that you weren"t desirable? You"rethe most desirable woman I"ve ever known."
He was cupping her face, kissing her fiercely. demandingly, his body hardand eager against her own, its movements rhythmic and erode.
" Sara, I never intended things to go this far. I should stop. Ishould..."
She silenced him by biting sharply into his bottom lip and then wrappingher arms around him, opening herself so completely and deliberately tohim that she felt the shudder that ripped through him as sheacknowledged the wanton temptation of her body.
To think of stopping now, to think of being denied the satisfaction herbody craved.
She moved her hips and arched her back, moaning frantically as she feltthe tormenting thrust of his tongue within her mouth, wanting, needingwith all of her body and her soul to have that deeper, more powerful,more intimate thrust of his flesh within hers, so much so that when hefinally moved her, caressed her, covered her with the heat and weight ofhis body, and then finally entered her, she cried out with frantic need,arching to meet his careful controlled movements, wrapping her bodyaround his, raking her nails against his back, overwhelming him so muchwith the sheer intensity of her need that he cried out to her that he wasafraid he might hurt her and that he could no longer control hisreaction to her.
She had read enough, heard enough to know what she might expect to feel,but the actual in tensity of her own experience, her own fulfillment wa.s.so overwhelming that she cried out almost in panic at the sheerawe-inspiring power of it, her body trembling so much in its aftermaththat she felt as physically incapable of movement as though she had lostcomplete control of her nervous system.
She was, she discovered with shock, crying, or at least not crying somuch as having tears simply seep from her eyes, and she wouldn"t evenhave realised it if it hadn"t been for the fact that Stuart was tenderlylicking them away, as he held her and soothed her, praising her,comforting her, making her realise on a small forlorn surge ofdepression that for him this was a familiar experience. that this wasnot for him, as it was for her, something so new, so fresh, so powerfulthat at the height of it she had actually felt as though she had becomeimmortal. Now, with the immediacy of her pa.s.sion spent, she feltembarra.s.sed, insecure. ashamed of the wanton way in which she hadbehaved.
She tried to pull away from him, but Stuart was holding her too tightly.
A la.s.situde, a physical and emotional exhauson unlike anything she hadever experienced before crept over her, easing her inexorably towardssleep.
She tried to fight it, to will herself to stay awake, but it wasimpossible.
Her last awareness before she lost her fight to stay awake was of Stuartgently cupping her face, and kissing her, not with pa.s.sion or desire,but with tenderness and a whole host of other emotions her confused senses could only register impossibly as a mixture of warmth, pleasure,intimacy and understanding, the whole of which somehow went to make upthe single word that encompa.s.sed them all, and which shimmereddangerously, luring her into hazard and danger; and that word was love".
But Stuart didn"t love her. Stuart loved someone else. Stuart. She drew a deep uneven breath and, before she had time to release it, had fallenasleep.
The morning sun woke her, slanting across the bed, warming her closedeyelids, making her move drowsily and languorously, the narcotic ofsleep still anaesthetising her senses until she opened her eyes andrealised where she was.
She sat bolt upright in horror and stared towards the window. Not herown bedroom window at home, but Stuart"s bedroom window. Soon to betheir bedroom window. Herthroat felt tight with shock and disbelief.
She must have slept very deeply, she realised, because she was wrappedlike a mummy in a quilt. There was also only one pillow on the bed, andonly one imprint on it--her own. Which meant that either Stuarthadsensitively and car- ingly realised how self-conscious, how diffident,how confused she would feel if she woke up and found him lying therenext to her, or he had simply not wanted to stay with her.
She shivered a little.
Someone--and it could only have been Stuart--had folded her clothesneatly for her and placed them on a chair. There was, she discovered, aflask on the table beside the bed, and a note propped up against it.
She picked it up nervously and read it.
Coffee in flask. Telephoned your mother last night to tell her that,having share da bottle of wine over our supper, neither of us felt itwould be wise to drive and that you were spending the night here.
There was nothing else, no message of love. no mention of the intimaciesthey had shared. but at least he had taken the trouble to telephone herparents, although really there was no reason why he should not havewoken her up and sent her home, except. Except that had he done so hersense of rejection would have been so intense. so painful. Had he knownthat? Had he guessed that.
That what? What was there, after all, for him to guess, to know, otherthan that where he was concerned she seemed to have a disastrous tendency to lose all self-control, to become so over whelmed by desire,by need. She blushed a little, remembering the previous night. Her bodyfelt different not in the cla.s.sical sense, there was no discomfort,nothing of that order but there was a difference: a languorousness, aripeness al most, as though against her will, against her shock at itswantonness, it clung secretly and sensuously to its memories of theprevious night, to its knowledge that it was after all just as much afinely tuned and receptive instrument of pa.s.sion as anybody else"s, evenwomen of Anna"s ilk. That she was not incapable of experiencing de sire.nor, it seemed, of arousing it.
Whatever fears and apprehensions marriage to Stuart might hold, a lackof s.e.xual compatibility between them could no longer be one of them.
Was that why he had done it? Was that why? Had she perhapsmisinterpreted his response to her after all? Could it have been adeliberate ploy to soothe her fears? Was it possible for a man topretend. to fake?
Shakily she extracted herself from the duvet, acknowledging that therewas no point in looking for flaws. for doubts. That if she must dwell onwhat had happened then she would be far better employed in dwelling onsomething which she could not doubt nor question. Such as her ownpleasure.
She gave a tiny shiver as she opened the door to the bathroom.
The small room had been panelled in keeping with the bedroom, the plaintraditional white suite replacing the tawdry sanitary ware which hadbeen there previously. Coil matting covered the floor, p.r.i.c.kling her barefeet slightly. The room had a new, slightly harsh smell about it.
She closed her eyes, trembling as she remembered how last night she hadbreathed in the scent of Stuart"s skin, how she had stroked and kissedit, tasting its texture, its heat. its scent with her tongue.