AllFreeNovel
Share Us
‘I thought Calvin was bad when he brought a woman home for the night less than a month after my mother passed,’ Tansy muttered uncomfortably. ‘I just ignored it, acted like it wasn’t happening because I didn’t have any alternative.’
‘Hetherington didn’t ever come on to you?’ Jude prompted tautly.
‘Oh, my goodness, no!’ Tansy laughed outright at the idea. ‘That’s one sin he didn’t commit. I’m not his type, though. His type is big blond mane of hair, large boobs, very decorative. Didn’t you see his girlfriend outside the register office? Susie is like a much younger version of my mother.’
Olympia brought coffee. Jude stepped away from the table and sank back down with careless grace on the wall to survey Tansy with an intensity that made her uneasy. He had beautiful eyes, but they could also be very piercing and distinctly intimidating.
‘What?’ she said defensively, as though he had spoken.
‘Now we have to talk about the elephant in the room…the topic you don’t want to touch,’ Jude extended softly. ‘I want to know why you had sex with me this evening. And I need an honest answer. I think I deserve that from you.’
Caught unprepared by that demand, Tansy was aghast at his candour; her lips rounded and her eyes were huge and green with stricken dismay. ‘I… I—’
‘You need to think about it?’ Jude elevated a sardonic ebony brow. ‘Really? Nobody should need to think that hard about telling the truth.’
And that genuinely put Tansy in the hot seat and she sat as stiff and expressionless as a statue in her chair. ‘I can’t even understand why you would be asking me that question,’ she argued.
‘From what I understand, Hetherington virtually blackmailed you into agreeing to marry me. You wanted to protect your sister and that’s why you agreed…correct?’
Tansy nodded as jerkily as a marionette hanging taut on uneven strings.
‘How do you think I feel knowing that you were pressured into sharing my bed?’
‘But you didn’t pressure me…not at all!’ Tansy stressed in fierce disagreement.
‘That doesn’t add up. Before we married you asked me to give you time to get to know me,’ Jude reminded her, causing hot colour to sweep into her cheeks. ‘Then we marry, you produce Posy like a rabbit out of a hat and then all of a sudden you decide you don’t need getting-to-know-me time and we have sex. Was that because you felt you had to please or soothe me in some way to persuade me to accept your sister?’ Jude demanded with all the cool, critical fire of a hanging judge.
‘No!’ Tansy slashed back at him in a temper at being mortified to such an extent. ‘I had sex with you because, stupidly, after you confided in me about Althea, I felt closer to you because someone I cared about was once unfaithful to me as well. Why the hell should you even need an explanation for why I chose to be with you?’
‘Because I will not accept an unwilling partner.’
‘I wasn’t unwilling, you stupid, stupid man!’ Tansy launched back at him in a towering rage such as she had never, ever felt before. ‘I just like you…why else would I have broken my own rule?’
Jude froze as though she had struck him and he was, she reckoned, lucky that in her anger she hadn’t lashed out physically, because she felt absolutely humiliated at being forced to go into the reasons why she had succumbed to his irrefutable attraction. In all her life she had never felt sexual chemistry as powerful as what she felt around him, had never even dreamt that a guy could affect her with one look or one touch the way Jude did. And it truly was scarcely a mystery that, married off at speed to an absolutely beautiful, sexy man, she had succumbed to that irresistible attraction. Only a complete idiot would have required such a fact spelt out to him!
‘I’m not stupid.’ Jude caught her hands in his as she attempted to move past him and walk indoors. ‘I simply had to know whether or not you were with me because you wanted to be and not because you felt you had to be.’
Face burning, Tansy flung back her head and slung him an angry, mutinous glance. ‘Well, now you know! I hope it was a moment worth embarrassing me for to this extent!’
Scorching golden eyes smouldered down at her. ‘I’m sorry—’
‘No, you’re not!’ Tansy argued helplessly because she could see a positively platinum glow of satisfaction shining from him. ‘You heard exactly what you wanted to hear, only you can’t have needed to hear it.’
‘It never mattered so much before,’ Jude framed, gripping her small hands tight when she tried to break free of him.
‘In a few seconds I am going to kick you very hard,’ Tansy warned him between clenched teeth.
In a sleight of hand and at a speed that took her utterly by surprise, Jude released her hands and bent down to scoop her up into his arms instead. A disconcerted squeak escaped Tansy before his warm, sensual lips engulfed hers and he tasted so good her head spun, her toes curled. The pulse of hunger renewed, disconcerting her because she had thought that crazy, clawing need was sated. After all, her body still ached, and yet when Jude tumbled her down on the wide bed and kissed her breathless, she wanted him again with a wildness that shocked her. The heat in her pelvis induced a craving that she couldn’t fight.
Her fingers raked through his hair, her body lifting in delight to the weight and hardness of his, hands sliding down over his back, that insane excitement building and building to an incredible height and making her feel shameless and greedy.
‘I can’t get enough of you!’ Jude growled, burying his mouth in the soft, sensitive skin between her nape and her shoulder, letting her feel his teeth and sending shock waves of arousal coursing through her.
‘Is it always like this?’ she mumbled dizzily, angling back her head to allow him easier access to the tender slopes of her unbound breasts.
‘Are you kidding?’ Jude laughed, unholy amusement illuminating the dark golden eyes locked to her face, colour lying along his high cheekbones. ‘If it was always like this for me, I’d be a sex fiend!’
