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'I…I was only teasing,' she said, flustered into sobriety.
He smiled. 'I like it when you tease me with your tongue. Do it some more,' he invited in a vibrating purr against her mouth. This time his kiss had the desired effect. Drowning in his sweet taste, Clare slid her arms up his back, under the soft caress of cashmere. His skin was hot and dry to the touch, a contrast to the moist silk of his mouth. She had to explore his chest, too, to see if the thick growth of hair was as soft and springy as it looked. It was, and Clare slid her fingers through it as David moaned encouragement, his flat nipples rising against her palms. His mouth hardened, as she slanted her head back over his arm so that her back arched and he could feel the tension quivering through her body. His mouth moved down her exposed throat to where the silk blouse was thrown back from her shoulders. Here he lingered in anticipation, the muscles of his chest rippling beneath her hands as he supported his upper body on his elbows. His head dipped and he kissed a slow line across the taut flesh rising from the basque. The kisses were followed by an equally slow string of erotic bites, and then by kisses again as he murmured to her in Russian. She didn't know what he was saying, but the verbal stroking aroused her almost as much as the exquisite touch of his mouth. His thighs pressed against hers, parting them, the two layers of denim an offence to both of them. David's free hand slid against the sheepskin to seek the low back of the basque. He ran a fingernail down the long line of little hooks—and groaned.
'Hooks… hundreds of them,' he despaired thickly. 'This damned erotic piece of underwear is a chastity belt!' He punished her with another bite on her breast, this one hard enough to sting and make her cry out involuntarily. He soothed it immediately with his tongue, suckling the place until she cried out in another kind of pain—his kind—the pain of frustration. His hand moved to the dome of her jeans. 'Clare?'
A faint cry came from the bedroom. Then another, louder. David swore in two languages, continuing to hold her down for a moment. 'Dammit. You see? I told you this would happen.'
'David—' It was a sigh and a plea. He knew there was no contest and wasn't about to argue. He shoved himself to his feet, his knee wedging briefly, with shattering deliberation, hard against the secret woman's heart of her as he did so.
'Go, dammit, go!' he ordered, backing away on stiff legs when it seemed she hesitated, fighting both her own desire and his.
The cry became a shrill scream of terror, and Clare's body was doused in an icy chill of dread. She and David made it to Tim's bedside simultaneously, the boy was sitting bolt upright, screaming and clawing at his throat, his eyes wide open and unseeing.
'What is it? Another asthma attack?'
'A nightmare.' Clare sat on the bed and took Tim's petrified shoulders in her hands and began to shake him gently. 'Wake up, darling, it's only a dream. Tim? Wake up! Mummy's here, Tim. You're at home in bed, your bed.'
'Heavens, does he have this kind of thing often?' David asked, appalled.
Clare was concentrating on waking Tim as gently and quickly as she could. 'Not as much as he used to. He dreams of being buried alive, of being trapped some-where-and not being able to breathe… often in a hospital bed. I told you, his father's death worried him.'
'But I didn't realise it was to this extent.' Tim was awake now, shivering uncontrollably, and he began to cry. He didn't even hear or see David, only his mother holding him safe and tight, helping him to breathe. 'Has he been counselled, seen a psychologist?'
Clare stiffened, alert to the implied criticism. Did he think she was such a poor mother that she wouldn't seek professional help when it was needed?
'I think you'd better go. It'll take a while to settle him down again.'
David drew his own conclusions from her stubborn evasion. 'Perhaps I can help—'
'No!' Already she. was beginning to feel appalled at what she had almost allowed to happen, on the floor, for goodness' sake! It was David who had worried about Tim; she hadn't spared one thought for her son, she had been too deeply in the grip of conscienceless passion. She tempered the violence of her objection with a placating gesture. 'I mean, I don't think Tim would like to have you seeing him like this. He has his pride too, you know.'
'Perhaps you allow him too much pride. But then, you have an awful lot of it yourself, don't you? You have to do everything yourself in case people should see you as a less than perfect mother.'
She turned her face down to her son. David-was so quick to sense her areas of vulnerability that she felt defenceless. 'Please, can we talk about this another time?'
David's mouth twisted wryly, feeling all the ground he had made during the evening slipping away beneath his feet. 'All right, Clare, but we will talk. I'll see you in the morning.'
Tim's pyjamas were drenched with sweat, so Clare changed them and gave him a drink of water before she tucked him back in. He was slightly feverish but, not surprisingly in view of his exhaustion, he lay down without a murmur and closed his eyes. Clare sat, stroking his head for a few minutes, and then frowned as she heard sounds in the lounge. Evidently David hadn't left, after all. For an instant she felt a rush of gratitude. She longed to go out there and fling herself at him, sob out her real feelings on his broad shoulder and trust him to make everything right with her world. But common sense prevailed. She must make him see that tonight had been a regrettable mistake.
She was into the lounge before she realised that the sounds were a conversation. To her horror, Tamara, her face flushed and mutinous, was standing by the half-open door, and it was obvious from David's taut expression and low, controlled voice that they were having an argument.
Tamara saw Clare first. Her eyes widened in shock, swiftly followed by a black contempt that struck Clare like a blow. Clare clutched at the edges of her blouse. She had been so absorbed in Tim and her guilty thoughts that she had forgotten to rebutton it. She quickly remedied the omission, but it was too late. Tamara had seen the white lace basque and the damning evidence of reddening on the creamy pale skin. She knew exactly what Clare and her father had been doing. Tim wandering out would have been bad enough, but Tamara, chock-full of more adolescent conflicts than she could cope with, was even worse. Knowing that her father had lovers was quite different from coming face to face with the emotional reality of a woman who, even if only briefly, had usurped her beloved mother's place.
'I… I thought you had gone,' Clare said faintly to David.
'Don't get dressed on my account,' said Tamara cuttingly, glaring in disgust at the swollen mouth that Clare couldn't possibly hide. 'I've been ordered back to my room so you can carry on with your—'
'Tamara!' It was the first time Clare had heard that musical voice crack.
'I suppose you're going to try and tell me that you were playing cards,' Tamara sneered defiantly. 'What were you playing? Strip poker?'
'That's enough, Tamara.'
'I'll say it is! You know, I was really beginning to think that you might be a friend,' she flung at Clare's tongue-tied humiliation, 'but you were only being nice to me so that you could crawl into my father's bed without me making a fuss.'
'Well, she certainly failed on that score, didn't she?' said David with a bitter sarcasm that offended both woman and girl.
Clare found her tongue at last. 'Tamara, that's not true. I—'
