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She found her softness fitted into the hard frame of his male body as though it had been created for that purpose. His kisses and caresses were deeper, hungrier, guided by a controlled assurance of her response. Her body was betray¬ing her need of him just as his arousal confirmed what she was doing to him, his manhood rock-hard and his breath¬ing harsh and guttural. She felt she couldn't get close enough to him.
How long they stayed in the sensual bubble he had created Beth was never sure, but gradually, as the rain abated and the light outside the sitting room windows became bright again, she realised he wasn't going to take things any further. His kisses had become lighter, softer, his hands ceasing their wan¬derings before he straightened her dress and then rose to his feet still with her in his arms. As he let her gently to the floor her eyes opened, disbelief warring with desire. 'Travis?'
It was a soft confused murmur and for a moment something flared in the grey eyes which made her think he was going to take her upstairs after all. Then a shutter came down, blanking the emotion. 'It's too soon,' he said quietly, answering the unspoken question in her face. 'All this is new to you, isn't? Your body is telling me so.'
She stiffened, rejection whitening her face. 'I was married for a while,' she reminded him tightly. 'I have made love with a man before.'
‘I don't think so.' And, as she went to object, he put a finger on her lips. 'You've been taken by a man before,' he continued very softly, 'but that's not the same thing at all. He didn't take the time to awaken you, to bring you alive. Oh, he probably pleasured you a little—I'm not saying he forced you—but he was more intent on his own pleasure than yours.'
"How can you say that? You don't know Keith; you've lever even met him.' For a moment she wondered why she was arguing with him when it had been her who had insisted she didn't want to get involved with him, physically or in any other way. But somehow logic had gone out of the window. I know all I need to know about him from how you are.' Ed contrast to her clipped voice, his was calm and cool.
'He didn't worship you with his body, Beth. He didn't spend hours taking you from one peak of pleasure to the next until you fought you'd die from the ecstasy he was giving you. He didn't spend all night touching and tasting and giving and re¬ceiving. He had no real finesse, no wish to learn what you wanted, needed. I know this. And now, for the first time, you are sensing what things can be like between a man and a woman and it's bewitching you.'
He stepped back a pace, his rugged face betraying nothing. ".And that's good.' He smiled a smile which wasn't really a smile at all. 'It's a start. But I want more than your curiosity, sexual or otherwise. So we get to know each other first as we've agreed.'
She thought she had been the one who had decided that. Now she wasn't so sure. She stared at him, feeling as if the ground had shifted beneath her feet again just when she had thought she'd reached solid land. And then the old feelings of shame and humiliation and rejection that had come in the aftermath of Keith's betrayal washed over her again. Whatever Travis was saying, however he was dressing it up, he didn't want her, not enough, or he would have taken her when he knew he could have.
'I want you, Beth.' As he had done several times before, he'd read her mind. 'I'll prove how much one day, I promise you. But for now you have to trust me.'
Her eyes flickered and she looked down, but not before he had seen what was in her gaze as his next words confirmed. 'And you're not there yet, are you? So...we wait. Until you understand.'
'Understand what?' The thick smog was back tenfold.
'You'll know one day.' He reached out and took her hand, his firm and warm. 'Let's finish that wine.'
CHAPTER NINE
O'er the next weeks Beth began to think that the more she grew to know Travis the less she understood him, herself too, for that matter. She now accepted he had lured her out of her Bate of solitude, at least at the weekends. He had introduced her to his friends in the district and Sandra had made an appear¬ance a few times, the two women finding they got on very well.
At the beginning of August, when they had known each other for three months, Travis decided to throw a big party for his thirty-fifth birthday, inviting lots of friends from Bristol and all over the country as well as the Shropshire crowd. Catherine and Michael came too, Beth's sister reaffirming her approval of Travis several times throughout the weekend.
'He's gorgeous, Neddy. But then you know that, don't you?' Catherine sighed dreamily on the Sunday afternoon mien everyone was having a barbecue under a brilliant blue sky, the buzz of conversation and laughter flowing around them as they sat together on a swing seat under the shade of a beech tree.
