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He started to get up as Verity reached to remove his plate, her hair accidentally falling forward and brushing his face as they both moved at the same time.
Immediately Verity tensed, lifting her hand to push her hair off her face, but Silas, on his feet by this time, got there first. The sensation of his fingers in her hair was so familiar, so intimate, that she instinctively closed her eyes.
‘Verity…’ she heard Silas groan, and then the next minute she was in his arms and he was kissing her with a fierce, hungry, angry, passion that brought her defences crashing down so that immediately and helplessly she was responding to him, the years rolling back so that she was a girl again, so that they were a couple, a pair again, so that there was nowhere that it was more natural for her to be than here in his arms, nothing that was more natural for her to feel than what she was feeling right now, nothing it was more natural for her to want than what she was wanting right now.
Beneath his mouth and hands her body threw off the shackles she had so sternly imposed on it—he was hers again and she was his. Hers to reach out and touch, as she was doing right now, slipping her fingertips into the gap she had miraculously found between the buttons on his shirt, feeling the solid, familiar heat of his skin. Without realising what she was doing, she unfastened one of the shirt buttons that was preventing her from touching him as she wanted to do.
Beneath his mouth she made a small, contented sound of triumph and pleasure at being able to spread her hands fully over his chest with nothing in the way to bar her sensual exploration of his naked skin.
He felt so good, so Silas, so wonderfully familiar. He even tasted just as she had remembered. Automatically Verity pressed closer to him, shuddering deliciously as she felt his hands slide down her back to cup her bottom, lifting her even deeper into his body.
She could feel the urgency, the hunger, the need, in the way he touched her, running his hands over all her body as he continued to kiss her with increasing passion.
The kitchen was full of the sound of their heightened breathing, the electric crackle of hands against cloth, the silky whisper of skin against skin.
‘It’s been so long,’ Verity whispered emotionally between their kisses. ‘I’ve wanted…’
I’ve wanted you so much, she was just about to say, but suddenly she stiffened. From upstairs Verity heard the bathroom door open. Silas must have heard it too because he immediately released her, saying tautly, ‘This shouldn’t be happening. Blame it on the frustration of the evening…’
The frustration? Verity’s hands were shaking so much she had to hold them out of sight behind her back as she came back down to earth with a sickening jolt.
What was Silas saying to her? That it was his sexual frustration at having to leave Myra which had caused him to kiss her?
For a moment she thought she was actually going to be sick. A pain, like red-hot twisting knives, was shredding her emotions. Silas hadn’t been thinking about her at all. All that passion, all that need, all that wanting she had felt in him, had not been for her at all and she, like a complete idiot, had virtually been on the point of telling him, revealing to him…
Turning away from him so that he couldn’t see her face, she told him quietly, ‘Honor’s obviously awake.’
‘I’ll go up and get her,’ Silas announced curtly. ‘Thanks for looking after her for me.’
‘I didn’t do it for you,’ Verity told him fiercely. ‘I did it for her.’
She still couldn’t risk turning round. She daredn’t, just in case…Just in case what? Just in case Silas guessed what she had been thinking…feeling…wanting…? His pity was something she couldn’t bear. His scorn and his rejection would be hard enough to stomach—almost as hard as the knowledge that for the second time he was rejecting her in favour of another woman, letting her know that he simply didn’t want her—but if she should look at him now and see pity in his eyes…
Quickly she headed for the kitchen door.
‘I’ll show you which room Honor’s in,’ she told him without looking at him.
Honor was back in bed when Verity pushed open the bedroom door. When she saw her father she smiled winningly at him.
‘Can I stay here with Verity tonight?’ she asked.
‘No, you can’t,’ Silas denied sharply, softening his denial by explaining, ‘I’m sure Verity’s far too busy…’
‘You’re not, are you, Verity?’ Honor appealed. Verity hesitated. What could she say?
‘Perhaps another time,’ she offered as Silas gathered up Honor’s clothes and stood waiting determinedly with them.
The house felt empty once they had gone.
Oh, but how could she have been so stupid as to overreact like that just because…? No wonder Silas had felt it necessary to make it clear to her that there had been nothing personal in that kiss he had given her. She could feel her face starting to burn with humiliation and pain. As she began to tidy up the kitchen, a small item on the floor caught her eye. Frowning, she bent to pick it up. It was a button—a man’s shirt button. Her face burned even more hotly. She must have ripped it off when she had…Quickly she swallowed. She had never been driven by her sexuality and even when she and Silas had been lovers she had always been the more passive partner. She could certainly never remember having virtually ripped the shirt off his back before. Angrily she put her hands to her hot face. The last thing she needed was for Silas to start thinking that she was holding some kind of torch for him…that she still wanted him, that she was stupid enough to still be hurting over the way he had treated her.
From now on, when they met—if they met—she was going to have to make it very clear to him that tonight’s kiss was something as little wanted or relished by her as it had been by him!
CHAPTER SIX
‘DAD.’
‘Mmm…’ Silas glanced down at his daughter’s head as she sat next to him in the car.
