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She worked methodically, changing the sheets, tidying up automatically, filling the laundry basket with the items of discarded clothing she found scattered round the room. Blake was basically a tidy man and there was nothing really in the starkly furnished room apart from his clothes that had his stamp of possession on it. If anything the room was rather bleak, she thought, studying it, almost monk-like. Mocking herself for her thoughts Sapphire carried the laundry out on to the landing. Blake was no monk, as she had seen last night.
She had just finished preparing the table when Blake called. Guessing that he would probably be tired she had decided that they might as well eat in the kitchen. It was warm and cosy enough and the table was large enough to seat an entire family, never mind merely two adults.
This time she walked into Blake’s room without thinking, coming to an abrupt halt as she realised that he was nude. Of the two of them she was the one to be embarrassed she recognised angrily, as Blake merely grinned mockingly at her, taking his time in reaching for the towel that lay discarded on the bed.
‘Why the outraged expression?’ he demanded calmly. ‘I can’t be the first naked man you’ve seen.’
He was the only one, but Sapphire wasn’t going to tell him that. ‘Hardly,’ she lied, shrugging aside the frisson of awareness the sight of his naked body had given her.
‘And we are married …’
‘Maybe, but it isn’t the sort of marriage that involves parading around naked in front of one another.’
‘What a pity.’ Genuine amusement glinted in Blake’s eyes as he teased her, and Sapphire had to fight against responding, against remembering how much joy there had been in loving him before she discovered the bitter truth. Blake had always been able to make her laugh, and even now she could feel the corners of her mouth twitching in response to his droll expression. The towel was firmly in place around his hips now, but to her chagrin that didn’t stop Sapphire from visualising the taut shape of masculine buttocks and long hard thighs.
‘Something smells good.’ Blake’s voice jerked her out of her reverie, and Sapphire bent her head to hide her guilty flush of colour. What on earth would he think if he knew what had been in her mind?
Fortunately he didn’t, she assured herself as she gestured to the bed and suggested that he sit on it. This time she didn’t allow herself to dwell on the supple texture of his skin or the masculine formation of muscle and bone that lay beneath it, finishing her self-imposed task with a haste she was surprised Blake didn’t pick up on.
When the dressing was in place, she stepped away from him, tensing nervously as his fingers curled round her arm, preventing her from moving.
‘Blake, let me go.’ Her voice sounded sharp and nervous even to her own ears, and her anxiety increased when Blake refused to accede to her demand.
‘I haven’t rewarded you yet,’ he told her softly, the hard grip of his fingers pulling her inexorably closer to him. ‘All ministering angels deserve a reward, don’t you agree?’
Whatever she might have said was lost as she felt the warm heat of Blake’s body. She put out a hand to push him away, but the sensation of warm, sensuously silken male skin beneath her fingertips was so intoxicating that her resistance melted.
Dimly she was aware of Blake pulling her down on to his lap, and of the single bed creaking protestingly under their double weight.
She struggled to pull away out of his constraining arms, but Blake simply toppled her over on to the bed, imprisoning her against it with the superior weight of his body. His thighs pinned her lower body to the mattress, his chest hard against the softness of her breasts.
Sapphire felt vulnerable and helpless and yet the sensations coursing through her veins and along her nerve endings whispered sensuously of pleasurable excitement rather than fear. Even so, she felt moved to protest shakily, ‘Blake, let me get up, the dinner …’
Soft laughter brushed against her skin. ‘Right now I’m hungry for more than just food.’
‘Then perhaps you ought to give Miranda a ring,’ Sapphire suggested tartly, struggling to push him away. She was glad she had said that, until that moment she had been dangerously close to giving way to the insiduous pull of her too vulnerable senses.
‘Why should I need another man’s wife, when I’v
e got one of my own?’ Blake countered outrageously, following her squirming movements and refusing to let her escape. His towel, Sapphire realised, had become dislodged, and weakening darts of pleasure relaxed her muscles into a sensuous lethargy as she felt her body reacting to the male provocation of Blake’s body.
‘Kiss me, Sapphire.’
She looked at him with desire-hazed eyes, barely comprehending the softly whispered command as she fought to subdue the treacherous impulses of her body.
‘No.’ She mumbled the denial huskily, knowing that it was far more than a kiss that Blake wanted from her. She wouldn’t, she couldn’t play substitute for Miranda.
‘Yes.’ The silky affirmation was whispered against her lips, the warmth of Blake’s breath stirring to life a thousand tiny drumming pulses. Against her will Sapphire felt her mouth soften, her breathing suddenly ragged as Blake touched its soft contours with the tip of his tongue, expertly teasing light kisses into the corners, tormentingly stroking her sensitised skin, until she reacted with a feverish protest, lifting her arms, and locking her fingers behind his neck, her body arching instinctively into the hard heat of his, as her mouth opened to capture the marauding torment of his tongue. The sudden fierce pressure of his mouth, searing into her skin, took Sapphire by surprise, making her realise the extent of Blake’s self-control. The kisses he had given her before had been so lightly teasing that she had been lulled into a false sense of security, and yet there was a wild elemental pleasure in responding to Blake’s hunger; a knowledge that they were meeting as equals, not child and adult.
When he eventually released her mouth it felt bruised and slightly swollen, and yet the sensation was a pleasurable one, her lips acutely sensitive to the light kisses he caressed them with as he murmured softly, ‘Let me take this tee-shirt off, I want to feel you against me, Sapphire.’
His hands were already gripping the edge of her tee-shirt, and to her shame Sapphire knew a wild impulse to help him. Once she had fantasised about seeing their bodies intimately enmeshed; the paleness of her fair skin against the gold-bronze of his and now, treacherously, that memory resurfaced making her protest only a token one as Blake tugged the stretchy fabric up over her body.
Her figure had changed in the intervening years, she knew; her shape no longer that of a young girl. Her waist had narrowed, but her breasts were fuller, more mature, crowned with deep pink nipples, at the moment veiled from Blake’s intense scrutiny by the lacy fabric of her bra.
‘Beautiful,’ he murmured huskily, his thumb stroking caressingly along the edge of the dainty lace and down into the hollow between her breasts.
Desire seemed to explode like fireworks deep inside her, stunning Sapphire with its intensity. She had desired Blake before, but surely never with this consuming, all-important depth, that pushed aside every other emotion as trivial and not to be considered. She wanted to respond to him with every feminine nerve ending; she wanted to feel his hands and mouth against every inch of her skin; and she wanted the freedom to caress and know him in exactly the same way. The knowledge that she could feel like this was shocking and yet exciting; freeing her suddenly from the fear she had always had that somehow she was not quite 100 per cent feminine; that the deep inner core of her was cold and un-functioning. No other man had made her feel like this, certainly not Alan.
