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Not to mention the raging desire he felt for her, he acknowledged with a cynical shake of his head. Yeah, the marriage wasn’t completely selfless.
His body was hard for her even now, but her anger and parting shot stopped him from acting on the feelings that tormented them both.
We both know you’re far from a decent human being.
He didn’t like it because it was true. At least so far as Elizabeth was concerned. The facts were indisputable. He’d cheated, he’d made her the other woman, and now he was punishing her for a baby that would never have eventuated had he been able to act with a modicum of restraint.
He closed his eyes and wished he could so easily shut off his mind.
But he couldn’t. He tossed onto his side, his back to Elizabeth, and he waited for the pleasant oblivion of sleep.
He had been determined to keep space between them, but at some point in the middle of the night, she reached for him. He was half-awake, her clothes were discarded, their limbs entwined, their lips meshed. She was angry with him; she was hurt, but this moved beyond their feelings.
Their reasons to dislike one another had no place in bed – this was just physical. It was just a tempest of desire that overtook them both. She pushed up onto her knees and straddled him, her desperation a keening cry that broke from her lips as she took him deep inside and rocked her hips, pleasuring herself, pleasuring him, her body an erotic silhouette in the darkness of the room.
But he needed no light to see her. The image of her nakedness was burned into his mind – she was there for good. There would be no forgetting her this time.
And for the first time, a sense of loss fractured his thoughts. Loss specific to Elizabeth and what they’d shared. Had it always been like this with them? Had their bodies seemed so perfectly complementary four years ago?
He held her hips and thrust into her, and she moaned his name, arching her back, her long dark hair spilling over her shoulders, brushing against her nipples. Nipples that were taut and erect and begging for his touch. He plucked them with his fingertips and she moaned once more, and now she was saying his name over and over, like a form of sorcery, she breathed the word into the night air and his body answered, beating to the rhythm of hers, his heart pounding inside his chest as they became wild with their feverish desire.
It was animalistic and primal, a carnal instinct that weaved through them both.
He held her when they exploded as one, dragging her body down to his, his hand on her back keeping her pinned to his chest, his other hand running over her hair.
He held her while their frantic breathing slowed and sleep and sanity began to overtake them. He stroked her back for no reason he could think of and then, she pushed up on her elbows, staring at him as though she had no idea where she was, and she said, mournfully, “I really hate you.”
The words were blades slicing through the cloud of pleasure. He rejected and accepted them all at once – despising them and knowing them to be true – and deserved. Besides, wasn’t it mutual?
“Yes,” he drawled, surprised by how cynical he sounded. He lifted her from his body, his strength superior to hers, and lay her down beside him. “But you still want me.”
And he turned his back on her and ignored the pounding of his head and the throbbing low in his gut. He ignored everything, especially the presentiment of disaster.
A pattern established itself in Xavier’s London house. By day, they were civil to one another, and even amicable, if Joshua was around. They shared nothing personal, spoke as little as possible, and tried to stay out of one another’s way. By night, no matter what had happened during the day, they came together, two fevered beings in need of the other’s body.
And Ellie had come to loathe herself. Two weeks after moving into the house, the tension between them was threatening to tear her apart. It was a tension that had her feeling like she was on the edge of a field, watching a thunderstorm gather, and finally at night, it would break, dousing her. And yet no matter how many times she was caught in the storm, burned by bold flashes of lightning, she never brought an umbrella.
She was there, waiting for the storm, every time.
And she begged for him.
He was the master to her body. He tormented her with his touch, his mouth, his powerful thrust, and she cried with her need for him, begging for him to put her out of her misery and simply possess her. Just like he’d said she would, she begged for him night after night and she hated herself for that weakness.
There was no defense to the strength of her desire. She was desperate for him and it was demeaning and offensive, but it was also incontrovertible. She craved him.
And the only way she could think of to retain even a semblance of pride was to keep him at arm’s length during the day. To make sure he knew that sex was sex but it didn’t change the essential facts of their agreement. She still hated him.
She hated what he was doing to her.
She hated him even when she could see how much he loved Josh. How good he was for their son. She hated him even when Josh fell and scraped his knee and Xavier was there, hoisting him to his chest and holding him close. She hated him when she walked into the living room and saw them reading together, Josh’s face enthralled by the story and Xavier’s just as enthralled – by the son they’d made.
One morning, two weeks after moving into Xavier’s house, she walked into the kitchen and found him reading the newspapers, and her body lurched as though she’d crested over the top of an enormous hill on a roller coaster. He wasn’t doing anything in particular, but the sight of him and the recollections of the way their bodies had moved only hours earlier, made her cheeks glow pink.
She padded towards the coffee machine without looking in his direction and pressed the button, waiting for it to produce a shot. His machine was so fancy. She knew now that it required Janice to maintain it every day, refilling the milk container and the coffee grinds, but the results were worth it.
“Buenos días,” Josh said sweetly, appearing in his school uniform, backpack in place.
Ellie spun around, and an involuntary smile crossed her lips at the sight of him in his knee high socks, navy blue shorts, shoes that were always a little bit scuffed, and a tie that was wonky.
