by Penny Jordan
Instinctively Poppy looked towards the front of the villa, searching for some sign of his return, her heart racing. She wanted James to come back, Poppy acknowledged; she felt vulnerable without him, afraid of her own feelings and what they might mean, alienated from her past and apprehensive about her future.
It might be the baby who was responsible for her see-sawing emotions, she tried to reassure herself; it had to be... And for her physical desire...?
‘We’d better make a move if you want to eat out tonight,’ James warned Poppy.
She was still sitting outside, watching the sun set, or so she told herself. In truth, since James had returned from town, she had actually been surreptitiously watching him, frantically trying to mask her avid need to keep him within sight as she desperately tried to understand what was happening to her.
Why, why should the most mundane of normal human attributes, such as the way he walked, the sheen of his skin, the fluid ease of his movements, even the warm brown curve of his throat, suddenly evoke such intense feelings and needs within her? Why, when she had known him all her life, should she suddenly have become so suffocatingly aware of him that he had only to come within five yards of her for her heart to beat frantically fast?
And why, when she had never, ever even thought such a thing before, should the mere idea of him touching her bring the tiny hairs up all over her body whilst her skin itself tingled in a silent agony of aching demand?
She had no answer to such questions, Poppy acknowledged soberly, there was no answer...
‘I’ll go and get changed,’ she said now in response to James’s comment and went indoors.
The sun had turned her skin a soft, warm peach-gold; her tan was much lighter and more delicate than James’s. It must surely be her pregnancy that had given her flesh such a rounded feel and such a healthy glow, she thought as she caught sight of herself in the bedroom mirror.
Although the baby had barely started to show as much more than a slight swell, she was already beginning to feel more comfortable in softer clothes, and was glad now that she had let Sally persuade her into a pre-wedding shopping spree.
The fluid ice-cream-coloured dresses that Sally had chosen were not her normal style but oddly they seemed to suit her, although she had never thought of herself as being feminine enough to wear thin muslins that drifted over her body, sleeveless and scoop-necked so that they showed her tanned arms and clung subtly to the slightly fuller curves of her breasts.
‘These will be wonderfully cool,’ Sally had enthused. ‘All you’ll need to wear under them is a pair of briefs. Try this one,’ she had insisted, rummaging along the rail and producing a fine, soft mint-green cotton dress with a drop waist and inverted pleats, which buttoned down the front.
‘Oh, yes!’ Sally had exclaimed when Poppy had reluctantly put it on. ‘James will enjoy that... all those buttons. Men love buttons...’
Poppy remembered how her hands had trembled as she’d wrenched it off. She had decided not to buy it but somehow or other Sally had managed to get it included in her purchases, a fact which she had not discovered until it was too late and she had got it home.
Now, having showered, her hands trembled again as she put it on, but this time for a different reason.
‘James will enjoy that...’ Sally had said, and the sheer intensity of the surge of sensation that hit her as she closed her eyes and pictured him reaching for those small buttons, unfastening them to reveal the curves of her naked body, made Poppy shudder from head to foot and cry out against its torment.
‘Poppy...?’
As she opened her eyes, her face flushing, she realised that James must have heard her.
‘What is it? Is it the baby? Is something wrong?’
He walked towards her, his own torso bare, the cream linen trousers that he had pulled on so softly shaped that they revealed the taut hardness of his thighs as he moved.
Poppy watched him, mesmerised, her lips slightly parted as she absorbed every movement.
‘James.’
He had come close enough for her to touch him now and dizzily she did so, lifting her hand to his arm and her glance to meet his, her eyes already darkening with need and desire.
‘I want you,’ she told him unsteadily. ‘I want you, James. I...’
‘Poppy...’ he began, but she didn’t want to hear what she knew he was going to say, her body trembling as her fingers tightened on his arm.
‘No, no... I don’t want you to say anything. I just want... James, I’m so afraid,’ she told him shakily. ‘I don’t understand what’s happening to me... why I should...’
She could feel him starting to pull away from her, his body tense.
She began to tremble, afraid both of being close to him, because of her desire for him, and of being apart from him, because he was the only stable, familiar thing in a world which had suddenly become alien and out of control.
As he leaned towards her, her lips inadvertently touched his skin, igniting her desire into a fireball of wrenching need. She moaned his name and started to press desperate, hungry kisses against his chest and throat, her control swamped by the scent and taste of him, by the feel of his skin beneath her mouth, the way he swallowed as her lips feverishly caressed his throat, the way his hands tightened on her shoulders as he reached out for her—not to push her away but to draw her nearer.
The thud of his heartbeat beneath her palm suddenly accelerated and his hand curved round the back of her neck, moving her slowly, guiding the clinging moistness of her mouth over his skin whilst his fingers tightened in her hair and he said something roughly under his breath.
And then suddenly he was the one kissing her, cupping her face and holding her immobile whilst his mouth covered hers. What was it about a certain man’s kiss that was so sensually arousing, so impossible to resist? Poppy wondered dizzily as her mouth clung passionately to his, opened hotly beneath his, inviting the swift, fierce invasion of his tongue, her whole body shuddering in response to the effect that he was having on her.
Aching, she pressed herself closer to him, aware of his own arousal through the barriers of their clothes, wanting to be even closer to him, wanting...
‘James, my dress...’ As she whispered the words against his mouth, she opened her eyes and looked up into the brilliance of his. It felt as if she was looking right into the sun, she acknowledged dizzily, only even more dangerous.
She could feel the heat of her reaction to him flooding her body, filling it, making her ache for a different kind of fullness, a different fulfilment that could only come from him, from his touch, from his body. She could see him frowning as he started to look down her body at her dress, as though not understanding what she wanted.
‘Take it off,’ she whispered. ‘I want to feel you next to me, James... All of you,’ she insisted huskily.
Without knowing she had done so, she had already lifted his hand to the front of her dress, to its buttons, and now she watched, her body still, taut with aching anticipation, as he slowly reached out and started to unfasten them, his gaze never leaving hers as they slowly slid free.
When he reached the buttons that secured the dress across her breasts Poppy started to tremble. She was wearing nothing underneath.
‘What is it you want from me, Poppy?’ James asked her rawly, stopping what he was doing whilst he waited for her answer.
‘You know what I want,’ Poppy whispered back.
‘Show me,’ he demanded.
Boldly Poppy did so, taking his hand and placing it on her bare breast. The feel of his hand against her body, cupping the smooth warmth of her, his thumb-tip slowly caressing her already hard nipple, made her shiver with aching pleasure, her eyes closing as she leaned yearningly towards him, her spine arching.
‘What is it you want, Poppy?’ she heard him mutter hoarsely as his mouth caressed her throat and then started to move lower.
‘Is it this...? This...?’
‘Yes. Oh, yes... Yes. Yes, James...’ Poppy re
sponded, the words subsiding into a moan of relief as his lips finally covered a nipple, playing delicately with it at first, as though he was holding back, afraid of being too passionate with her and hurting her. But the increased sensitivity of the fullness of her breasts only made her ache more for the hot suckle of his mouth that her body could still remember.
She moved urgently against him, showing him without words what she wanted, clasping her hands behind his head as she held him against her body, unable to keep the spasms of pleasure from rippling betrayingly through her as she cried out to him that she couldn’t bear any more, that she was afraid of the pleasure he was giving her, afraid of the intensity of what she was experiencing.
But James didn’t appear to be listening to her. Instead his mouth was caressing her body, kissing every inch of the flesh he exposed as he continued unfastening her buttons, pausing only when he reached the small swell of her belly, his hand covering the place where the child rested. He lifted his face to look at her and then, without a word, picked her up and carried her over to the bed, pushing her dress off her shoulders so that it slid to the floor before he laid her gently down.
For a long time he simply looked at her, and to Poppy, who had never once in her whole life imagined any man looking at her like that, never mind James, it came as a shocking revelation to recognise that instead of wanting to cover herself from him, instead of feeling self-conscious about her nakedness, she felt a sense of pride and joy in knowing that he was looking at her, in knowing just why his glance kept on returning to her gently rounded belly, in knowing just by looking at him that the sight of her aroused him.
She had never guessed that it was possible for a woman to feel so sexually strong, so sexually powerful and yet, at the same time, so vulnerable, so much in need, achingly soft and ready inside.
‘James...’
She released his name on a soft, yearning sigh, reaching out her arms to him and then stopping, her face flushing tellingly as she whispered to him, ‘Take off your clothes. I... I want to see you.’
For a moment she thought he might refuse, but then, as she saw the expression in his eyes, she realised that something in what she had said had touched him, reached him on some deeply personal level, almost as though her words had pleased him emotionally as well as physically.
Unblinkingly she watched as he unfastened his belt and then removed his clothes, her eyes wide, her face hot as she absorbed every detail of him.
It shocked her to feel an unmistakable frisson of female pride and smugness in knowing that, powerful and male though his body was, it could still be contained within hers, aroused by hers... as it was now.
She wanted to reach out and touch him but he was already leaning over her, bending his head as he gently kissed the small dome of her stomach.
The sensation of his mouth circling her navel was so unexpectedly erotic that her eyes widened still further at the shock of it, her body starting to tremble as she felt him removing her briefs.
How was it that whereas such a very short space of time ago she could not possibly have envisaged him touching her this kind of intimacy between them now—just the accidental touch of his hands against her skin—was enough to arouse her to the point where she was shamefully aware of just how ready her body was for him?
So ready that there was no point in dissembling, in acting out some kind of coy mock reluctance, in doing anything other than reaching out helplessly towards him and closing her eyes with a shuddering sigh of ecstasy as he took hold of her and slowly fitted his body to hers, his actions, his movements controlled and gentle and yet, at the same time, so strongly powerful that her body was convulsing with light spasms of pleasure just at the feel of him within her.
James made love to her again later, this time with his mouth and not with his body, easily disproving her assertion that she was already satisfied.
And then, before he could stop her, she, with great daring, did the same for him, shocked by the intensity of her own pleasure when he cried out beneath the untutored caress of her hands and mouth, trying to stop her before being overpowered by her gentle insistence and his own flooding desire.
For the first time Poppy slept within the curve of his arm, her sleepy mind knowing that such intimacy felt good and yet warning her at the same time that such feelings made her very vulnerable. But Poppy was too relaxed, too sleepy to heed that warning.
CHAPTER NINE
‘WHEN I look at you, I’m not so sure that Chris and I made the right decision in opting not to start our family for a few years,’ Sally commented enviously to Poppy as they shopped together one Saturday afternoon, reiterating the sentiment she’d expressed on the day of Poppy and James’s wedding.
She stopped to draw Poppy’s attention to the window of a small, exclusive babywear boutique before continuing hesitantly, ‘It’s different for you and James, I know. For one thing, James is so much more...so much more ready to be a father than Chris. You can tell how pleased he is about the baby.’
‘Yes,’ Poppy agreed quietly.
And it was true. There was no doubt that James wanted and already loved his child, but he certainly didn’t feel the same way about its mother. Ever since that time in Italy when she had begged him to make love to her, he had held her at a distance, becoming so remote from her that now, six weeks later, it was virtually impossible for Poppy to imagine that they had ever been lovers; but these were things she couldn’t say to Sally, who believed that they were deeply in love, or to anyone else.
The reality of her marriage was a secret she had to keep from everyone, the reality of her feelings for James a secret she had to keep from him—a secret she had had to keep from him ever since they had last been together, last made love!
She could still remember how it had felt to wake up in the morning with James beside her, to experience that extraordinary, purifying rush of love and self-knowledge, to reach out to touch him with it shining in her eyes and then to have him wake up and turn away from her, rebuff her, reject her.
And she had thought back to the evening before and been filled with mortification at the way she had behaved, the things she had done, the things she had said, and, even more painful to endure, the way she had felt.
She suspected now that she must have known the truth then, even though she had refused to acknowledge it. Certainly now when she looked back there seemed to be no other reason for what she had done, but in mitigation she had to admit that it would have been hard for the girl she had been—the girl who had stubbornly and publicly insisted that she could only love one man and that that man was Chris—to confess that she had been wrong and that everyone else had been right, that she had confused infatuation with love and that when she had finally discovered the difference it had been too late to turn back the clock.
If only she could. The pain of her infatuation for Chris was nothing when compared with the agony of heart and soul that she was enduring now, knowing that she loved James and knowing equally well that he did not love her.
She knew quite well why James had suddenly decided that he needed to spend so much more time away, take so many overnight business trips, and it had nothing to do with the fact, as everyone else seemed to suppose, that he wanted to clear some time to be with her and their baby, to be with her for his or her birth and in the weeks afterwards.
She supposed that it was another indication that she had finally, if somewhat belatedly, joined the real, adult world that she had not even tried to question James about his actions, about his withdrawal and his silence; that she had simply bowed her head and accepted the fact that he did not love her.
She was too aware now to attempt to deceive herself into believing that he might somehow, implausibly, fall in love with her as she had done with Chris. He wouldn’t. And knowing that she loved him, knowing just why her body ached so much with wanting him, had also made it impossible for her to try to. reach out to him physically through sex. It would be like drinking contaminated water—initia
lly thirst-quenching but also potentially harmful, destructive, carrying with it the power to destroy her.
Having sex with James might temporarily ease the physical ache within her body, but it wouldn’t satisfy her emotional need for him, and could, in fact, only underline it. And so she had rigidly enforced a strict control over herself, keeping as much physical distance between her and James as she could, in public as well as in private. And only on the nights when he wasn’t there did she allow herself the luxury of tears, of crying herself to sleep. But then there were plenty of those.
She wondered tiredly what excuses he would make for being away so much once the baby was born. No doubt he would think of something and she would smile and concentrate her love on their baby, knowing that for as long as their marriage lasted he or she would be her only outlet for it.
James was due to go away again this evening and she had deliberately delayed returning from her shopping trip with Sally so that he would have left before she got home.
Automatically she found herself driving more slowly as she approached the house, dreading seeing his car. Thankfully it wasn’t there. Relieved, Poppy parked her own car and hurried into the house. Despite the fact that she hadn’t wanted him to be there, the house felt achingly empty without him, like her heart...like her life.
She had just finished making herself a cup of tea when she heard the doorbell ring. Frowning, she went to answer it, and was surprised to see Chris standing outside.
‘Come in,’ she invited. ‘James isn’t here but...’
‘It’s you I’ve come to see,’ he told her, looking slightly awkward.
Poppy frowned again. Since her marriage to James she and Chris had not really been alone together. She winced, remembering how, on her return from honeymoon, she had not even noticed that Chris was away from the office until James had commented on the fact.
‘It’s...it’s about Sally,’ Chris told her after he had followed her into the kitchen and she had poured him a cup of tea.