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Fran felt a squeezing pain in her chest, followed by a panicky flutter. What did he mean by that? She had been torturing herself with erotic imaginings for days, gearing herself up to a brief holdiay fling and hoping that it would rid her of this dangerous, unreasoning obsession she had developed for him. Wasn't that what he had wanted? What they both had wanted? There had been no mention of a future. The idea of an open-ended affair was slightly terrifying. Could she handle it? Did she dare risk the physical and emotional disruption he would inevitably create in her life? She paused on the brink of a great discovery, but his next words buried it again under an avalanche of riotous sensation.
'You know... what I do up there in the air,' he murmured in a voice that had the texture of cut velvet, 'the "high" it gives me, is the next best thing to sex. Perhaps this afternoon was a subconscious attempt to sublimate my real need... to do this...' He slowly eased over until he was braced above Fran's supine body, his hips lowering to grind softly against her thighs until they parted to allow him to lie between, the rough denim weave of his jeans catching against the soft wool-blend of her slacks. '...and I needed you up there, with me, to share the exhilaration, the agony and the ecstasy of subliminal sex. God, Frankie, how much longer are you going to make us wait? Tell me, tell me you want me to touch you, and taste you, and feed your appetite with mine...'
With a cry of need that echoed his own, Fran arched against him. His musky male scent was strong in her nostrils, his tongue knowledgeable and exquisitely familiar in her mouth. In a wondrously compelling feat of strength he stood up, supporting their combined weights without taking his mouth off hers. Then she felt his torso slide and dip against her breasts, and clutched at his baggy sweater as she felt herself being swept off her feet. It seemed appropriate.
'No, Ross, put me down... I'm too heavy for you. Your arm
...' her mouth escaped his to plead, even as she revelled in the possessive gesture.
He looked down at her, all arrogant male pride for an instant, until she saw the softness in the big, blue-grey eyes. Then he chuckled and whirled her around a couple of times with a speed that made her gasp and shut her eyes, it was so reminiscent of her recent flight. When she opened them they were in the darkened bedroom.
'I love the, way you care,' he said with a voice full of warmth and desire as he nuzzled the opening of her blouse.' All stiff and starchy and bossy on the outside, but inside soft and buttery, slightly salty and slightly sweet...' He licked her skin and Fran's soft and buttery insides began to sizzle. 'But you're right, after all the alarms and excursions of today I do feel rather weak. Shall we lie down together and tend each other's wounds, heal each other... ?' He lowered her to the firm resilience of the bed, following her down, plucking at the clothes that suddenly seemed rough and hurtful against her skin, barriers to his sexual healing. Her own blind touch found his skin under the sweatshirt, damp and hot to the touch, a series of smooth undulations of bone and muscle.
'Do I feel cool to you now, Princess?' he growled huskily when her clothes lay discarded on the floor and his shadowy bulk rose over her, clad only in narrow, dark briefs. 'Is that why you shiver?' his voice teased her while his hand explored what he uncovered with erotic slowness. 'Shall I warm you, Princess.. .here.. .and here?' His delicate touch sent another sighing quiver through her body. 'Ah, Frankie, at last... after all these years...'
Just as she was sinking beyond rational thought, Ross pulled back and twisted his body to reach up to the light switch on the wall above them.
'No—' Fran caught him just in time, feeling a sudden return of shyness, an echo of the past. She wanted to be perfect for him, and the only way that she could be that was if he couldn't see her as she really was. True, she wasn't plump any more, but the image of herself still remained...
'No?' He let her guide his hand away, but grasped instead the curtains beside the bed and dragged them back so that the pale light of a full moon spilled over the tumbled bed. Its light was enchantingly revealing, yet Fran didn't feel exposed. Moonlight was romantic, kind, silvering away imagined imperfections.
'Ah, Princess, how could you try to deny me the pleasure of watching myself make love to you?' he murmured with throaty satisfaction, his shadowed eyes running over the moon-bleached smoothness of her body, the breasts that fascinated him with their lush femininity, the pearly sheen of her thighs where they curved invitingly inwards.
Slowly he reached out to cup her breast with an almost reverent desire. He knelt beside her, his other hand joining worship of her breasts, the muscles in his belly and thighs tensing as he watched them respond to his flattery, swelling in his hands, the taut nipples beckoning his mouth. As his head dipped in homage, Francesca saw the explicit outline of his need, held straining captive by the thin strip of silk across his loins. She gasped, digging her fingers into the broad, bowed shoulders in a sharp agony of wanting. When she felt his mouth, exquisitely gentle, tasting, enveloping her in warm wetness, violent sensation exploded in the pit of her belly, radiating out through her body in rippling waves of shock.
As he made love to her breasts with his skilful mouth, he nudged her flat on the bed, his hands straying down to twine her legs against him until she could no longer bear the separation and tugged at the silk on his hips with trembling fingers, silently begging him to help her. With an easy flex of muscle he bent and stripped off his briefs, then angled himself against her on the narrow bed to provide them with fleeting relief from the growing pressure in both their bodies.
'Yes, Francesca...God, yes!' he cried gratingly as she moved her thighs restlessly against his velvety hardness, teasing his pulsating desire, finding him with her hands and marvelling at his hot virility. The moonlight played across their shifting bodies, a cool counterpoint to the heat they were generating, and Fran was naively astonished at how exciting it was to see as well as to feel what Ross was doing to her, and she to him. Her experience of sex had been of a rushed sense of urgency too soon satisfied... this slow, languid, sensuously thorough journey of exploration was a revelation. Her wide-eyed delight provoked her lover to even greater pleasures and, when at last his strong, gentle fingers lingered, breath-soft on the delicate flesh between her quivering thighs, Fran was stormed by a violent, racking shudder that almost spilled him from his position of dominance. His hand wrapped around her hips, holding her still.
'No...wait, Francesca...' He sucked in his breath. '...slow down...'
'I...can't...' She twisted helplessly, unable to control her body's demand as he groaned against her.
'I don't think I can either...' He thrust her legs apart with a possessive strength that sent a stab of pain to the core of her pleasure. Then, just as he moved between her legs his body clenched. 'Oh, damn... I... I'm not prepared... You are on the pill, aren't you?'
It was a question that had no meaning and the manner of his asking made the answer a mere formality, but Francesca stiffened, her hands balling against his back. The pill? Contraception? Until that instant what they were doing together had had no relevance to anything else, much less to the act of procreation. Sex? Babies? Suddenly the true meaning of what they were risking hit her like a hurricane...
'No!' Babies should be born out of mutual love, not selfish passion. Fran would never, never bring a child into the world unwanted by either parent, as her mother had done. A love child... what bitter irony in the name.
'No?' Ross's voice was hoarse, uncomprehending, his body freezing rigid when his brain interpreted her reply. 'No?'
'No.' She closed her eyes against the tears, and the terrible realisation, unable to prevent the words tumbling out, 'I'm not used to this sort of thing, you see. I'm not experienced...'
'Don't, Frankie—' He rolled off her with a groan and pulled her hard against the length of him, cupping her chin in his hand and forcing her to look at him. 'Don't you think I know that? That's why it's important that this be good for you, why I wanted you to be sure.' He gave a short, stunned laugh, blue eyes expressing his bewilderment. 'I can't believe this...I was so busy trying to blind you with the rightness of our being lovers that I didn't even think of the elementary precautions. If this ridiculous situation is anyone's fault it's mine... contraception is part of my business, for God's sake!'
'Perhaps it was a Freudian slip, perhaps you didn't
really want—'
'Baby, you have to be kidding!' He cut off her attempt to ease away from him with a very definite movement of his still-aroused body against hers and closed his eyes with a slight shudder. 'I'm very, very tempted to ask if this is a safe time for you—' his voice was thick and slow, like syrup '—but we're both too intelligent to deny the element of risk.' He opened his eyes and looked at her and smiled, a slow, sultry smile of resignation. 'Ah, well, Princess, if the path of pleasure is barred to us, I guess we'll have to dally in the by-ways...'
'No, please... can you... just hold me?' Fran put a frantic hand against the deep chest. She knew to suggest that he leave would provoke a confrontation that she couldn't endure, and to have him make half-love to her would be even worse. She held her breath when he studied her flushed face long and hard, her fearful grey eyes and trembling mouth. He protested, but tenderly, with a gentleness that made her ache, and at last acquiesced and held her until the awful tension drained away. They talked of inconsequential things, Francesca desperately willing him to sleep, and when at last the big naked body slackened in sleep she lay there in an agony of guilt for what she was going to do. He had held her, rocked away the pain, acted with supreme consideration in putting her needs above his... all the time believing that tomorrow, tomorrow she would fulfil his needs. She was cheating him, and he would never forgive her. But it was for the best... it had to be for the best!
CHAPTER NINE
Fran was in the bath when the doorbell rang. She groa
ned. Her nightly soak was the one leisurely luxury she afforded herself in her current hectic, dawn-to-dusk schedule. It was also a necessity, for she came home each night weary, sweaty, grimy and often delicately perfumed with manure. If she didn't love it so much she would bemoan the success of The Garden Company, so completely did it devour her life. But the hard work was worth it. In three short, yet also very long, months she and Christina had built up a booming business, confounding not only their critics but also their own cautious expectations.
