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His dark head dipped, his daunting mouth fastening around one pulsatingly aware nipple, playing with it until she thought she would go out of her mind before he gave his exquisitely tormenting attention to its twin. And his voice sounded strangely muffled, reaching her consciousness in wave upon wave of disorientating sensuality. 'I only have to touch you—like this, and this…' And her treacherous body gave up the fight.
And then the last of the small bright flame of resistance, of common sense, was quenched in the heat, in the moist and sultry pool of desire. And her body instinctively relaxed, moving, arching beneath his, opening to receive his throbbing need, answering it, matching it with the passionate flowering of the silken sheath of her womanhood.
'Are you hungry?' Beth opened her love-drugged eyes slowly to find Charles propped on one elbow, looking at her. And she stretched, supple as a cat, a voluptuous smile curving her kiss-swollen lips. She could tell him she was hungry for him, again and again, but he might think her immodest.
The slow smile twitched into a wide grin at that much too belated notion and he knew her thoughts—of course he did. He made a small, rough growling sound in his throat and circled one erect nipple with the tip of a finger.
'Later, my insatiable little cat. Later, and more, and better.'
More. The very thought made her womb pulsate, that low, telling heat beginning to throb again, and she squirmed over on to her stomach, burying her face into the pillow that smelled of him, of the spicy cologne he wore, the musky scent of masculinity that was his alone.
And it couldn't possibly be better, she thought, feeling him leave the bed, hearing the rustle of his clothing, the faint scratchy sound as he dealt with the zip of his jeans. So many times during the long summer morning, so many times, all of them revealing a different aspect of his sexuality—savagely masterful, tender, slow, so slow with the sensuality of the true voluptuary. So many times and all of them beautiful…
A light tap on her naked backside, a tap that almost lingered, hovered, just, and so tantalisingly, on the edge of a new discovery, pulled her out of drugging memory and he said, 'Food. Ten minutes. OK?'
And she simply nodded, on a plane too divorced from reality to speak because that tap had lingered, full of promise—if promises were needed…
Twenty minute later, showered, dressed now in a full filmy cotton skirt with a toning peacock-blue sleeveless blouse tied just beneath her breasts, she wandered down to the tiny kitchen. She still felt disorientated, as if she had been drugged, reality blurred and suspended. But her nostrils quivered appreciatively at the aroma of grilled bacon and she said lightly, 'So you mastered the stove. You deserve a medal!'
It was a cranky-looking monster, and ran on bottled gas, and to Beth's jaundiced eye it looked about a thousand years old, but Charles gave her an odd, tight smile, hunched one shoulder and turned to yank at the door of the oven. And she looked at him, weak still with the ecstasy of what had happened, a weakness compounded by what her lingering eyes drank in—the tall, lean strength of him, the wide, rangy shoulders covered in the dark cotton of his shirt, the worn jeans that snuggled to spare hips, neat buttocks and long sexy legs.
But he wasn't looking at her as he extracted two plates from the oven, holding them with a cloth. And he walked quickly over to a ramshackle apology for a breakfast bar which, she saw, he had taken the trouble to spread with a checked tablecloth and had set out with fruit conserves, a crock of butter, a rack of fresh toast and a big brown pot from which he began to pour stea
ming, fragrant tea.
'I'm starving,' she admitted, pulling up a stool and sitting down to a plate mounded with bacon and mushrooms.
He joined her, picking up his cutlery, and instead of agreeing he said, 'Tell me exactly why you decided to walk out on our marriage.'
It was like being flung into a bath of cold water. It took her breath away and, for a moment, she couldn't reply because they were back to reality again.
And, suddenly, she didn't think she could face it, not the cold, hard reality of him and Zanna and Harry. Yet, staring down at her plate, she knew she had to. What had happened this morning had to be firmly placed right at the back of her mind, along with the consequences of their lovemaking over six weeks ago.
Somehow she was going to have to make a life for herself and the child she was going to bear, and now was the time to start, she informed herself tartly, not feeling too brave about it.
So she said, in what she hoped was a tone of level reasonableness, 'I told you why, before I left. Surely you can't have forgotten.'
She couldn't bring herself to mention Zanna. She had already told him how she'd overheard that damning conversation, and he might begin to put two and two together if she as much as mentioned that woman's name.
Her pride, or what was left of it, demanded that he should believe that she was the one to abandon their marriage. She was not, in his eyes at least, willing to appear as the spurned and discarded wife!
'I haven't forgotten a single damn word,' he replied heavily. Then, 'What I want to know is why. You lacked nothing. We were good together.'
Her mouth tightened, her fingers knotted together in her lap. Did he think that material things counted for anything? Did he want blood? Did he really want her to confess that her already wounded pride had made her leave before he got the opportunity to throw her out? Would his male ego continue to be piqued until he had wrung just such a confession from her? And she snapped at him heatedly, 'Good together? I disagree. For three months you didn't come near me, stayed away more often than not—you couldn't bear to touch me.'
His face was a battleground of warring emotions, the conflict graphically painted in the hard slash of his mouth, the tightness of skin over jutting cheekbones and jaw, the deep dark silver glints in those narrowed, brooding eyes, and she looked at him compulsively, her heart beating heavily because the truth was here, between them, a cruel, cold and hurting thing.
She said quickly, 'You don't really want me. You never did. I got tired of being second-best.' And that was more of the truth than was wise to release. He could pick it up, examine it, and maybe find the knowledge of her long and hopeless love.
But he said rawly, 'I don't know what the hell you're talking about!' and strode over to the stone sink, tipping his unfinished meal into the waste bin. Then he turned and faced her, his shoulders rigid with tension, his eyes hard as he grated out, 'Didn't our recent lovemaking tell you anything about how much I want you?'
Their lovemaking. That beautiful, beautiful phantom happiness. It hurt too much to think about it. And if he looked back on it, too, he would recognise her unrestrained responsiveness for what it was, understand how much it revealed about her true feelings for him.
And so she made her face blank, lifted her chin and fixed her gaze on a point just above his head because if she met his eyes she would be defeated utterly, and told him with a tiny dismissive shrug, 'You couldn't bring yourself to touch me during the final months of our marriage—that tells me how much you want me. The other—well—' She schooled the wobble of misery out of her voice, replaced it with a throwaway nonchalance that surprised even herself. 'I've already written that off as frustration.'
It wasn't true, of course it wasn't. But it was slightly easier than admitting to the bleak suspicion that he had been simply using her to convince himself of her latent promiscuity.
She expected exasperation, perhaps annoyance, even, over what he would see as a blasé comment. Expected that, but not the white-hot rage which had him covering the small distance between them after one long, deadly moment of silence.
