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‘To hell with what we agreed. Tell me you don’t want me and I’ll walk away but I don’t believe you stopped loving me, in spite of what you thought I’d done. That’s true, isn’t it? And these last weeks it’s been heaven and hell, having you so close and not loving you properly. You’ve felt it as well, you must have done.’
If he only knew how many endless nights of tossing and turning she’d endured. Miriam cleared her throat. She needed to think; her emotions always took over where Jay was concerned. ‘Why—?’ Her voice cracked and she tried again. ‘Why are you saying this now?’
‘Because I’m leaving for a few days and I don’t want to go without making love to you,’ he said simply. ‘Ring in and say you’re feeling ill and then come upstairs with me to one of the rooms.’
Miriam shivered. He had planned this when he had invited her to lunch. Instead of anger the thought brought instant excitement. Her throat went dry as a throbbing heat invaded her lower stomach. ‘I can’t.’
‘You can.’ The cat-like eyes held hers. ‘It’s easy, so easy. Come upstairs with me.’
‘They—they might not have a room vacant.’ She wondered if he’d already reserved one.
It appeared not. ‘We’ll find out.’
She couldn’t. She couldn’t skive off work to go to a strange hotel room in the middle of the day to make love. It was, well, faintly immoral. ‘But we haven’t any luggage and we’re not staying overnight,’ she whispered tremblingly.
‘They don’t care. A room’s a room and if you pay the going rate for twenty-four hours, it’s no skin off their nose.’ He leaned towards her, his hand stroking the side of her face. ‘Come upstairs with me,’ he said again, his voice husky. ‘Please, Miriam. I need you so much.’
She needed him. She didn’t know whether it was the champagne or just the intoxication of the moment but she was drowning in the flood of desire that was banishing all rational thought. This was crazy, insane, but why shouldn’t she step out of time and have this last memory for all the cold, long days and nights to come? She would never love anyone else, she knew that, and so this would have to last a lifetime.
‘What—what about our food?’ she managed shakily.
Jay grinned. A sexy, enigmatic grin that sent her legs to jelly. ‘Is that a yes?’
The feeling of recklessness was heady. She nodded.
‘Then I’ll take care of it. Wait here.’
She saw him walk across to the head waiter and say something as he extracted his wallet from his jacket, then he was walking back to her, handsome, smiling and superbly confident. For a second the knowledge of what she was going to do intruded into the bubble Jay had induced, but then he had reached her and it was easy to let go of reality and live in the moment.
She stood up and he slid an arm round her waist and together they walked out of the restaurant and into the reception area of the hotel. Jay continued to hold her as he spoke to the receptionist, who was all cool efficiency. The girl didn’t bat an eyelid when Jay signed the register as Mr and Mrs Carter, even though Miriam turned a brilliant shade of pink, her embarrassment not helped when Jay requested a bottle of champagne and a large bowl of strawberries be sent up to their suite. In view of the fact they had no luggage the receptionist handed Jay the key to the room and again Miriam had to admire the girl’s professionalism. She just wished she could have matched her for coolness. As it was she felt like a scarlet woman as they entered the lift, her cheeks burning. ‘She didn’t believe we’re husband and wife,’ she said weakly to Jay as the lift smoothly began to ascend.
He took her in his arms, his fingers tightening in her hair as he tilted her head back and his lips moved over hers. ‘Does it matter?’
No, nothing mattered but this moment. And maybe the girl was right anyway. Maybe she was a wanton hussy. Her hands slid up the muscular wall of his chest and caressed the back of his neck, feeling the soft hair at his shirt collar. He smelt divine, that mixture of aftershave and something th
at was purely Jay. She loved him. She loved him more than life and that was why she couldn’t go back to him. It really didn’t matter any more whether he had slept with Belinda or not; this wasn’t about a particular woman but how she viewed him and women in general. If she went back to him she would end up destroying herself and perhaps him too, if what he had said was the truth and he hadn’t been messing around. But they would have this one afternoon.
She pressed into him, into the hard evidence of his arousal, parting her lips as he deepened the kiss. And one afternoon would have to do.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE suite was beautiful. She had been going to protest when Jay had requested that rather than a double room, but in view of what the receptionist must be thinking already she’d let the moment pass. Nevertheless, a suite for just an hour or so was an incredible indulgence, Miriam thought as she stood in the tastefully decorated sitting room. Beyond this, open sliding doors led to a large bedroom. She could just see the enormous bed and floor-length drapes at the window.
She didn’t have time to notice anything more before Jay drew her into his arms and kissed her again. It was a soft kiss, a slow kiss, one that was giving her time to respond at her own pace. She hadn’t realised she was holding herself so tautly until she began to relax against him, the magic of his mouth working its spell as she floated on a cloud of familiar sexual excitement. Jay had been a generous and experienced lover and she had missed his erotic, sometimes tender, sometimes urgent lovemaking more than she had dreamed possible.
She loved him and she would never stop loving him, no matter what he did. That in itself was terrifying. For a moment she tensed again but she couldn’t resist what his mouth and hands were doing to her and suddenly she was hungry for all of him.
She sighed softly as desire flowed like hot melted honey into every part of her, enveloping her in sensual bliss. The first time he had ever kissed her she had wanted the moment to go on forever, amazed that a kiss could be so phenomenally sweet, and once they had married she knew he’d spoiled her for any other man, having awakened her to levels of ecstasy she’d never imagined in her wildest fantasies.
She pressed against his hardness, feeling his shudder of pleasure with fierce satisfaction that she could induce such desire in him. Bending, he scooped her up into his arms and walked through to the bedroom, laying her on the soft quilted bedspread with exquisite gentleness as he murmured endearments against her feverish skin.
He undressed her slowly, savouring each second and admiring her with his eyes, his hands, his mouth until she was stretched out naked in front of him. As she reached out to do the same for him they heard a knock on the outer door. ‘The champagne.’ Jay smiled at her, kissing her deeply before he said, ‘I’ll see to it. Pull the covers over yourself if you’re cold.’
As he closed the bedroom door behind him Miriam did just that, not because she was chilled—the room was as warm as toast—but with Jay fully clothed she felt suddenly shy. She heard him speak to someone and then the sound of the door closing again before he re-entered the bedroom, pushing a food trolley. It held champagne nestling in an ice bucket, along with two flutes, an enormous bowl of fat red strawberries and a plate of luscious handmade chocolates. ‘They think of everything.’ He smiled at her as he poured two glasses of champagne and brought them over to the bed, handing her one as he sat down beside her. ‘To an afternoon of wicked satisfaction.’
Miriam drank deeply. The brief interlude had brought home the fact she was here, in a hotel room with Jay on a Monday lunchtime when the rest of the world was getting on with the nine-to-five grind. She should feel guilty and ashamed of herself—there were all sorts of things to see to this afternoon. ‘I need to phone the office and explain,’ she said quickly, knowing once he touched her again coherent thought would go out of the window.
Silently Jay handed her the phone and sipped his champagne as he listened to her explain she wasn’t as well as she’d thought and would need the rest of the day off after all to fully recover. As she finished the call he slid off the bed and fetched the bowl of strawberries, throwing himself down beside her and lazily offering her one of the juicy red fruits as he murmured, ‘Your medication, ma’am.’
