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The thought of how she would feel, how she would be when he eventually reached the hot, sweet heart of her was already making his heart pound with deep, heavy hammer-blows of surging longing.
He would take his time, draw out the moment of pleasure, kiss and caress every tiny bit of her, touch her gently with his tongue in that special, sensual and oh, so sensitive place, waiting until she was ready for him before taking her fully into his mouth and feeling her body dissolve in liquid waves of sensual release.
But she was telling him that she didn’t want that. That she didn’t want him. Reluctantly Kyle responded to her rejection, her denial.
The moment he released her Star scrambled off the bed. Her legs were shaking so much that she could barely stand up. She felt sick and anxious and angrily frightened as well...
‘No,’ she said loudly, her body going rigid as she fought to reject her emotions. Kyle, who had been about to reach out to her, let his hand drop back to his side.
‘I rang you several times this morning but there was no reply.’
‘No, there wouldn’t be. I wasn’t there,’ Star told her mother shortly.
It was less than an hour since she had finally managed to get into her flat with the aid of a locksmith who had exchanged the kind of knowing male look with Kyle when she had explained her predicament that set her teeth on edge.
And, of course, the commotion they’d caused had brought Amy out to see what was going on, and Star had been well aware of what was going through her mind when she had asked where Star had spent the night and Kyle had responded immediately, ‘With me.’
Although why she should care or feel angry and self-conscious she had no idea...she told herself. Only, of course, she did, just as she knew exactly why she was so reluctant to explain to her mother what had happened.
It had nothing to do with any kind of embarrassment or guilt over the fact that she had spent the night with a man and everything to do with her own illogical behaviour and emotions. Even now she still couldn’t believe what she had done. She, a woman who had always prided herself on being in control of her sexuality, for some totally inexplicable reason had suddenly become so overwhelmed by it, so afraid of it that she had had to take refuge in the kind of female behaviour that she had thought belonged solely to nervous young virgins.
No woman of her experience ever let things get to the stage that she had done and then said no. No woman...but she had. And not because she had suddenly had a change of heart and decided that she didn’t want Kyle. Oh, no. Certainly not because of that...If only!
A change of heart! Star closed her eyes and tried to swallow past the huge, painful lump which had blocked her throat. How very appropriate that she should pick on such a phrase... How appropriate and how appalling...
‘Star...? Star, are you still there?’
‘Yes, I’m still here, Mother,’ she responded huskily, dimly aware that her mother was in the midst of complaining about Emily’s wedding again, but too preoccupied with her own thoughts to try to stop her.
‘I was just wondering why on earth your father’s making such a thing about Emily’s marriage. It isn’t even as though she is his child. Of course, he always did enjoy throwing her in my face...the child of the woman he discarded me for... making it obvious that she took precedence over you...’
Star sighed. She had heard it all so many, many times before. ‘Perhaps he genuinely did prefer her to me,’ she pointed out quietly to her mother. ‘After all, she was... is...far more the kind of daughter he wanted.’
‘Rubbish... He just did it to spite me. Well, it’s just as well he didn’t invite me. I couldn’t have gone. As a matter of fact...’
Star frowned as her mother’s voice faltered betrayingly.
‘Well, I might as well tell you now... I shall be getting married myself. Very quietly, very quietly,’ she stressed. ‘And we’ll actually be away on honeymoon the day Emily gets married.’
Star took a deep breath.
‘I see,’ she said as neutrally as she could as she tried not to visualise her mother standing side by side with the gangly, still not fully grown teenager who was her current lover, making what in Star’s opinion was a total mockery of the sacred vows of marriage.
‘And Iris... Has she become reconciled to you and Mark marrying or—?’
‘Mark!’ Her mother’s response was immediate and shocked. ‘Don’t be ridiculous, Star. I’m not marrying Mark; he’s only a boy, a child...’
Not marrying Mark. Hard on the heels of her relief Star felt her stomach start to chum with the familiar sensation of anger and anxiety that her mother so often caused.
‘Not Mark,’ she repeated slowly. ‘Then who are you marrying, Mother?’
‘Why, Brian, of course,’ her mother responded impatiently, for all the world as though Star were a particularly dense child. ‘Who else?’
Who else indeed? Star opened her mouth to remind her mother of all the other ‘who elses’ there could have and had been and then closed it again.
Brian Armstrong was one of her mother’s oldest friends. He had known her before she had met and married Star’s father and he had remained patiently and, so far as Star was concerned, unfathomably devoted to her in all the years since.
Whenever her mother was in trouble it was Brian she turned to. He was her rock, her one true friend, she had once laughingly told him in
Star’s presence, and Star, eight years old then, seeing the painful way he blushed and looked away, had been torn with embarrassment at witnessing such intense adult emotion and anger at her mother for causing it and for being oblivious and uncaring of what she was doing.
Brian had loved her mother for as long as Star could remember, but never once had her mother given any indication that she might return that emotion.
‘Brian,’ she said numbly. ‘But Mother—’
‘I know what I’m doing, Star,’ her mother interrupted her firmly. ‘I should have married him years ago but I suppose I wanted to show... to prove to your father that he wasn’t the only one who could change partners whenever the mood suited him... I saw him not long ago, you know... He had those three children with him—the triplets... He looked so old... Poor man... I almost felt sorry for him.
‘Brian and I are getting married in the Caribbean, by the way,’ she told Star. ‘So romantic... It’s time you got married, Star,’ her mother reproved her. ‘I can just imagine how Louise will be crowing over the fact that her daughter is getting married first.’
‘Mother...’ Star started to protest warningly, but her mother was already announcing that she had to go and replacing the receiver.
Her mother remarrying...again. Well, at least she was marrying Brian and not Mark, Star reflected, which was probably the most sensible, the only sensible decision that her mother had made in her entire life.
Unlike her mother’s, all her decisions were sensible and well thought out. She never acted on her emotions, nor allowed them to rule her. Never...
‘And Kyle asked me to ask if you could come in to see him and bring whatever work you’ve managed to do on the campaign so far,’ Star heard Tim’s secretary explaining to her as she cradled the telephone receiver against her ear.
‘Well, I haven’t really got very much to show him as yet,’ Star said untruthfully.
But Mrs Hawkins had obviously been primed by Kyle not to accept any put-offs, because she insisted, with quiet firmness, ‘He has a free slot this afternoon at four and I know he’s hoping to fly home this weekend to report to Brad.’
