Obediently she did as he said, unaware of the effect that her languorously enlarged pupils were having on him.
He touched her face with his hands, cupping it, not daring to let himself touch her body. If he did!
He could feel his own physical response to the thought of touching her, of smoothing his hands over the silky warmth of her skin, of caressing every single inch of her with his mouth, of showing her... giving her all the pleasure she had never known, of helping her to be proud of the sensuality that nature had given her.
He could feel his heart hammering against his ribs, his throat aching with tension and need... He buried his mouth against her throat, feeling her tremble violently against him, seeing in the golden shadow of the lamplight the sudden thrust of her nipples against her clothes.
Heat swamped him. Before he had registered what he was doing, never mind stopped himself, his hands slid to her waist, holding her, his head dipping down, his mouth covering her nipple, caressing it, his mind haunted by his memories of how often he had dreamed of touching her like this.
After one violent shudder of shock, Rosie simply clung quiescently to him, too stunned, too devoured by the physical and emotional sensations his pa.s.sionate caress had aroused to do anything else.
How could it happen that simply the heat of his mouth, its dampness against her skin, the rough brush of his tongue even through the layers of fabric that separated her flesh from it could cause such a frenzy of sensation inside her, could unleash such an aching, a need, a pulsing, that it was all she could do to stop herself from pressing his head against her breast, from wrenching aside the intrusive fabric that prevented her from experiencing his heated, pa.s.sionate suckle against her naked flesh?
She wanted to feel him touching her like that, kissing her like that, all over her body, but she had no idea she had voiced that need until he lifted his mouth from her breast and whispered to her, "Do you, Rosie? Do you? Come here, then, and let me show you how much / want to love you like that..."
He had just started to unfasten her blouse when she suddenly shook her head. Immediately his fingers stilled, his eyes watching her, waiting.
"Not here..." she told him huskily, her skin flushing as she looked beyond him towards the half-open door.
It was so hard for her to say the words to explain to him how she felt... what she wanted, to tell him that, although she knew already that what she would experience with him would be nothing like that other time, she still wanted it to be upstairs in her own bed where, no matter what might happen after wards, or what the future might hold, she would have the memory of being physically wanted and desired, of being shown tenderness and joy, of knowing what this physical thing between a man and a woman really should be, to destroy for ever the tainted memories of the past.
As she struggled to find the words to ex press what she was feeling and what she wanted, it seemed that somehow Jake had read her mind for her,
because he watched her sombrely for a few seconds and then said quietly, "No. Not here."
As she walked nervously towards the door, the light fell on the damp patch of fabric pulling tautly against her breast.
Heat flooded through her, weakening her, making her sway slightly on her feet.
Instantly Jake was holding her, supporting her, his arm wrapped round her.
They went upstairs in silence.
Outside her bedroom door she paused, hesitating, suddenly filled with doubt and panic. What if he didn"t really want her after all? What if he was simply doing this because he felt sorry for her... what if?
As she looked towards him, she saw that he was very obviously physically aroused; her skin flushed, her body responding to what she had seen, filling her with a longing that made her tremble openly.
She didn"t realise Jake had misinterpreted the reason for that tremor until she heard him saying softly, "It"s all right, Rosie. You don"t have to do this.
If you"d prefer me to leave..."
Her eyes gave her away before she could speak, filling with such anguish that Jake felt as though someone was physically tearing at his guts.
He was close to forty years old. He had promised himself he wouldn"t rush her, wouldn"t panic her, wouldn"t let his own needs, his own love, get in the way of his de sire to help her, to put her first... but when he saw the look of helpless aching, longing dilating her eyes... "I want to see you," she told him shakily.
"I want you to see me..."
She stopped speaking, unable to explain that she wanted their intimacy to be open and free, clean and wholesome... shared. That she didn"t want it to be something covert and hidden, dark and furtive.
"I want to see you," she had said, and Jake had heard beneath the defiance in her voice the tiny thread of all her past fear.
He ached in helpless anger and pain for her, but knew that if he voiced what he was feeling she would immediately reject his emotions, driven by pride and the need to protect herself.
Instead he told her wryly, "There isn"t an awful lot to see.
A man"s body doesn"t possess the same beauty as a woman"s..." As he spoke he looked down at her, and Rosie felt her heart thud frantically against her ribs as she recognised his desire for her.
Was he saying that he found her body beautiful--the swollen curves of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the swell of her hips, the roundness of her body with its female mysteries?
And he was wrong when he said a man"s body did not possess beauty.
His did for her, she recognised as her glance skimmed hesitantly over him. His skin was tanned from the time he had spent in Greece, his arms and legs tautly muscled where hers were more gently structured, his nipples smaller, natter but, like hers, taut and hard. If she touched them, kissed them, suckled on them, would he experience the same thrill of sensation that his mouth had given her?
Her skin burned at the thought, her hand clenching against her side as she resisted the urge to reach out and touch him, to stroke her fingertips through the soft silk of his body hair, to breathe in the scent of him, to release all her inhibitions and to show him with her hands and her mouth just how much she wanted and needed him.
"Rosie..."
She looked at him, her expression open and unguarded. What he saw in her eyes made Jake reach out for her, groaning helplessly under his breath as his senses reacted to that un spoken message of longing and need.
"Hold me, Rosie," he whispered against her mouth.
"Hold me... touch me... love me..."
Perhaps after all this was what she needed most: not to be shown the power of her own s.e.xuality, but to be allowed to discover the weakness of his, its vulnerabilities and needs, to be allowed to discover that a man"s body was just as vulnerable as a woman"s, that she had just as much power to wound and hurt him as he did her, to discover what her touch could do to him.
Against her mouth he whispered thickly, "Whatever it is you want, Rosie... whatever it is you need, you can have..."
I want you, Rosie wanted to tell him. I need you ... I love you ... but she didn"t say the words. Instead she reached out tentatively and touched him, tracing the shape of his shoulder, exploring the warmth of his skin, feeling the way his flesh responded to her touch, seeing in his face that he had told her the truth when he said he wanted her.
What she was learning now... experiencing now were things she should have known years ago, Rosie acknowledged as her heart filled with wonder at the way he reacted to her, at the way he let her see just what she was doing to him, but more unexpected than all of that was the way her own body responded to what she was doing, the way touching him, watching him, kissing him, just simply watching him, aroused her.
When she pressed her lips to the flat plane of his stomach and hesitantly caressed it with the tip of her tongue, the shudder that went through him made her own body ache so sharply that she immediately froze.
"Rosie... it"s all right," Jake started to rea.s.sure her, but she shook her head, her face burning with the force of what she was feeling as she took his hand and placed it against her body, and then watched him, uncertainly wondering if she had done the right thing. If she should have waited for him to touch her.
As soon as he touched the moist, intimate heat of her body, Jake knew what was happening to her.
"Rosie..." He kissed her mouth, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and then her stomach, all the time gently caressing her, trying to fight down his own need so that he could let her body tell him what it wanted... take its own pace.
When he kissed the inside of her thigh she trembled and tensed, but she didn"t try to push him away.
His need to touch her, taste her, love her... and to show her what that love could be ached through him.
Rosie... He said her name, helplessly aware of his self-control slipping, unable to resist his need to know her in this most intimate of all physical pleasures, feeling her tense as he opened his mouth over her, telling himself that he would stop the moment she wanted to do, and then becoming so lost in the pleasure of knowing her, tasting her, feeling her body"s first quivering response to his intimate caress, that no power on earth could have made him release her.
He felt her body move against him, lifting, twisting... heard her sharp, frantic cries, felt the tug of her fingers in his hair as she tried to push him away, but wouldn"t, couldn"t let her go, not until he had felt the small, sharp quivers of sensation twisting through her body become a series of intense, pulsing contractions that he could physically feel as he caressed her.
Even after it was over, he still caressed her, gently kissing the inside of her thigh, stroking her skin, moving slowly up over her body, touching her, loving her, until he reached her mouth and saw the imprint of her own teeth on her bottom lip and the tears still seeping slowly from her closed eyes.
She was trembling, he recognised, shivering almost like someone in shock. He wrapped his arms round her, holding her, rocking her.
"It"s all right, Rosie.-it"s all right..."
Rosie didn"t speak. She couldn"t. She was still in shock, still appalled by the intensity of her s.e.xual response to him. Now that she knew... now that he had shown her... How on earth was she ever going to be able to forget?
Panic burned inside her. It would have been bad enough just to know that she loved him emotionally, but now there was this as well. This unwanted knowledge of all the nights ahead of her when she would lie awake, remembering ... wanting... aching... knowing that the intensity of the physical peak she had just reached was something that could never be found through mere physical intimacy, that it was something that could only be experienced through love.
Never again would she know the pleasure Jake had just shown her.
She bit down hard on her bottom lip and then cried out as her teeth touched her already bruised skin.
Immediately Jake"s hold on her tightened.
"It"s all right, Rosie... Go to sleep now... It"s all right..."
Go to sleep. How on earth could she sleep? She didn"t want to sleep she wanted... She yawned hugely and then yawned again. Wryly Jake watched her, pillowing her head against his shoulder as her eyes closed, and then reaching out to switch off the light before retrieving the duvet and pulling it over them both.
Rosie woke up abruptly, conscious of something missing, but not sure what it was until her brain cleared and she realised she was on her own.
"Jake..." She said his name sharply, not"re ally expecting any response, tensing when he suddenly appeared in the open doorway.
She stared at him in the semi-darkness, her heart beating fast.
"I ... I thought you"d gone."
Thought or hoped? Jake wondered grimly as he walked towards her and sat down on the edge of the bed.
He had broken all the rules, done all the things he had promised himself he would not do, and now he was going to lose her he could see it in her eyes. She could hardly bear to even look at him.
"Rosie he began, but she wouldn"t let him speak, interrupting him, saying fiercely, "You don"t have to say anything, Jake. It should never have happened. We both know that. It was all my fault... I should never "Your fault...? If any blame lies with any one, it lies with me, not you, Rosie."
She turned to look at him. He could see the way her eyes shone in the dark, feel her tension and vulnerability. She didn"t seem to realise that as she sat up the duvet had slid away from her body, or was it that she simply didn"t realise what effect the sight of her naked b.r.e.a.s.t.s was having on him?
"I was the one who started it," he reminded her gently.
"But I didn"t stop you... I wanted..." Rosie bit her lip, shaking her head, knowing how close she had just come to blurting out how she felt about him.
"I"m not a total fool," she told him stiffly.
"I do know that s.e.x is different for men than it is for women... that a man doesn"t necessarily have to feel any emotional involvement with a woman... to... to want to have s.e.x with her..."
It was like trying to pick his way across a minefield, Jake recognised as he tried to un ravel what she was really saying to him.
"Not to have s.e.x," he agreed, watching her, wondering if that really had been pain he had seen in her eyes before she turned her head away from him or whether he was deluding himself.
What more did he have to lose? he asked himself grimly. Only his pride, and what the h.e.l.l did that matter?
"Not to have s.e.x, Rosie," he repeated, reaching out and gently cupping her face, sliding his hand along her jaw and firmly turning her face towards his own.
"But to make love... that"s different... and I did make love with you, Rosie, even if you only had s.e.x with me."
She had gone very still and silent, her face showing no trace of emotion or reaction at all.
"And I do love you, Rosie... have loved you for a very long time..." his mouth twisted wryly "...a very long time. Have you any idea what it does to a man to have to admit that he"s fallen in love with someone who"s still virtually a child, even if physically she might look like a woman? Have you any idea what it did to me to find you in bed with Ritchie?"
Now she did show some reaction, her body tensing, pain flickering in her eyes.
"You don"t have to say this to me, you know," she told him fiercely.
"I"m not going to fall apart just because I"ve suddenly discovered that I love you, Jake. You don"t have to feel sorry for me... to pretend..."
For a moment he was too stunned to speak, to take in her m.u.f.fled, fiercely spoken words.
"I know why you made love to me, you know," she continued without looking at him, her words low and rushed.
"I know you did it because of... of Ritchie. I know you just wanted... don"t want your pity, Jake," she told him harshly.
"I don"t want "What?" he demanded savagely, his control suddenly deserting him as he grabbed hold of her shoulders and almost shook her.
"You don"t want what, Rosie? Me ... my body, my need, my desire, my love...? Well, you"ve got them whether you want them or not, and I"ll tell you something else, shall I? All those things you don"t want from me, I do want from you... all of them and more. I want you, Rosie. I want your emotions, your needs, your desires... your love... your life... I want all of it. All of it... all of you, and if you say one word more to me about pity or compa.s.sion He stopped abruptly, shaking his head.
"Rosie, I"m sorry ... I shouldn"t He felt her hand tremble as she reached out and touched his mouth.
"No... No more words" she told him thickly.
"Don"t tell me, Jake... Show me ... show me..."
He could feel the way her body shook as she kissed him and wound herself around him, the small frantic kisses that betrayed her emotions and aroused his own.
This time, when he made love to her, it was the powerful pulse of his body within her own that brought her to the peak of her own pleasure.