AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘Si. That, too.’
‘That’s for that bitch you slept with!’
He took her furious punch without flinching.
‘And so is that!’
She made a little roar of rage as she drummed against his chest until her hands ached. And then suddenly her rage became frustration, and all the fight went out of her, to be replaced by a different kind of emotion. She shook her head, trying to deny it, her hands falling a
s she looked up and saw something change in his eyes, too.
The look of understanding, of empathy, and the fleeting look of sorrow had been replaced by something else. Something she knew all too well and had never thought to see again—even though she had longed for it in the sleepless nights which had followed his departure. And it was wrong. Wrong. Oh, so wrong. He had been to bed with another woman!
‘Was she better than me?’ she demanded.
‘Jenny, stop it.’
‘No, seriously—I want to know. Did you do it to her lots of times? Like you did to me when we first met?’
He winced as if she’d hit him, and then the need to destroy her foolish fantasy simply overwhelmed him. ‘You want to know the truth?’ he exploded. ‘I did it to her once—just once—and it was the biggest non-event of my life. Do you know why that was? Because all I could see was your face, Jenny. All I could feel was your body.’
‘Don’t,’ she croaked.
‘But it’s the truth,’ he said bitterly. ‘It’s flawed, and it’s not pretty—but it’s the way it was.’ His black eyes glittered at her bleakly. ‘There—doesn’t that make you feel better now?’
‘Are you kidding?’ she demanded. ‘It still makes me wretched to think of you with another woman, no matter how much you hated it!’
But that was not the whole truth, for the stark admission had made her tremble with an unwelcome new emotion and her heart began to ache with sadness and regret. How the hell had it all come to this? How could love be so quickly transformed into all these other hateful negative emotions?
His eyes blazed black fire as they roved over her trembling lips. ‘You want me,’ he declared unsteadily.
‘No.’ Could he see the terrible need in her? ‘No, I don’t!’
‘Yes. Yes, you do.’ He reached out for her and pulled her into his arms in a movement which felt as natural as breathing.
‘Stop it, Matteo,’ she whispered.
‘You want me to do this.’ He began to massage the little hollow at the base of her spine, the way he’d always done when he wanted her to relax, and as if she was acting on auto-pilot she shut her eyes.
‘Even if I do—we mustn’t. We mustn’t do this,’ she whispered, half to herself. But, oh, the touch of his body made her feel as though great warm waves had washed over her.
‘Why not?’ he whispered.
‘You know why.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘You do. We’re separated.’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
Her eyes fluttered open. ‘That…that…woman.’
‘I just told you. It is over. Believe me, Jenny—it never even began.’
And Jennifer was so lost in the thrall of the soft black look in his eyes that his betrayal of the other woman thrilled her. Later she would be appalled at how easily she could be seduced. But not now.
Now her lips were parting with a greedy anticipation she could not seem to deny herself as he slowly lowered his head towards hers.
