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‘You’ll laugh...’
But he shook his head unhesitatingly. ‘Oh, no, I won’t,’ he told her grimly. ‘Believe me when I tell you that I’ve never felt less like laughing in my life.’
Did that mean he wasn’t enjoying himself? Triss found herself wondering nervously, in spite of her emotional state. Wouldn’t it be terrible if he decided to stop?
‘Tell me, Triss,’ he urged softly. ‘Please.’
‘It sounds so stupid to say it...’
‘I’ll be the judge of that.’
‘It’s just that this—this feels like the first time all over again,’ she admitted helplessly, and then could have kicked herself for leaving herself so raw and exposed. ‘For me, anyway!’ she finished, with a small sniff of defiance.
‘For me too,’ he told her gently, his gaze very steady.
She shook her head from side to side. ‘You’re just saying that!’ she objected. ‘You’ve had so many women, Cormack, that you probably can’t even remember what the first time was like!’
‘Yes.’ He frowned down at her and his mouth thinned into a critical line. ‘You always did have a rather over-active imagination where my sex life was concerned.’
‘But you’re surely not denying—?’
‘That I’ve had other lovers apart from you, Triss? Oh, no, sweetheart, I’m not denying that. How could I? But the reality is a lot duller than you might think. Or do you imagine that I experience the same kind of mind-blowing reaction to every woman as I do to you? Well? Do you?’
Triss shrugged restlessly, the directness of his gaze allowing her to acknowledge that in bed, at least, what they had shared had been unique. ‘No,’ she admitted quietly. ‘I guess not.’
‘And I certainly have not been responsible for the endless list of conquests which you seem to have attributed to me!’ he finished softly, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners in that heart-stoppingly cute way which Triss had always found utterly irresistible. ‘Do you understand that, Triss?’ he quizzed softly.
At that precise moment, Triss felt that she had been lured so far into his web of enchantment that all she could do was nod dumbly.
‘So...’ He kissed the tip of her nose, but she could see the strain of longing which showed on his face. ‘Are we going to ruin this by dragging up boring and familiar old arguments?’ he queried softly. ‘Or are we going to make love?’
It had always been the same. On the one hand Triss was appalled by the outspoken way he came out with things like that...
And on the other?
On the other she thought he was nothing short of wonderful. Still, she realised despairingly. After all this time, the effect he had on her eclipsed just about every other feeling.
Cormack was a man of action. He saw. He asked. He wanted. He took.
And sometimes she took too.
She opened her eyes very wide; their faces were only inches apart. ‘We’re going to make love,’ she told him.
‘Well, thank God for that,’ he murmured.
Was that triumph she read in the light which flared briefly from the narrowed blue eyes? Suddenly Triss didn’t care. She needed Cormack now as never before, to fill this great emptiness inside her.
And afterwards?
Afterwards didn’t matter. She would accept the pain if she could just taste the pleasure one last time.
‘Cormack—’ she said, but she could hear the tremor in her voice and she recognised how tense she sti
ll was.
‘Shh,’ he soothed, and gathered her in his arms—not to begin removing her clothes, as she might have expected, but instead to lay her head against his chest, and to stroke her hair in that rhythmical way of old.
It was both comforting and sensual, and Triss felt all the tension slowly leaving her body. ‘Does it feel strange?’ she ventured.
