by Maggie Cox
Her hand fell away and she curled it round his iron hard bicep instead. The force of how much she wanted him took her breath away. Her blood was on fire just at the mere anticipation of him loving her as he’d used to. Yet the blunt truth was that she was scared … so scared that it would hurt or be too uncomfortable for her to endure. Her body had not healed overnight after being injured in the accident and losing the baby. It had taken weeks before she’d had the strength and confidence even to try to meet the normal demands of day-to-day life. If she now found herself physically unable to go through with this most intimate of acts between a man and a woman then she would disappoint and demoralise them both.
Her heart drummed hard as she waited for Jake’s response. When she saw that his expression was the epitome of tenderness itself a huge weight lifted from her heart. The kindness reflected back at her softened the harsher contours of his face, turning his eyes to liquid silver in the dimmed light.
‘We’ll take it slowly,’ he promised. ‘The last thing in the world I want to do is hurt you. And if at any point you want to change your mind … well, that’s okay too.’
Ailsa breathed a relieved sigh. Then she simply surrendered to the melting sensations that seemed to be intensifying deliciously inside her.
Item by item Jake carefully undressed her. In between removing her clothing he tenderly kissed every inch of flesh that was revealed. She shivered and shook with the sheer joy and pleasure of it. When he removed his own sweater and the tee shirt underneath, her gaze appreciatively luxuriated in the jaw-dropping male physique whose mouth-watering appeal had not dimmed at all in the passing years. Yes, there were a few nicks and scars that hadn’t been there before the accident, but—like the healed gash on his face—they didn’t detract one iota from his powerful attraction.
His shoulders and torso were lean and muscular—like an athlete’s—and he had a very light dusting of dark blond hair crossing his chest. As she had glimpsed before, when his tee shirt had ridden up, Ailsa saw that even though Jake was a businessman—by dint of his career working in offices most days—he kept himself in good shape.
All thought was dizzyingly suspended when he touched his lips to her breast and drew the aching, rigid tip deep into the molten cavern of his mouth. Her womb gave an answering leap. He slid his hand down over her ribcage, the provocative trail his fingers took leading straight to the apex of her slender thighs. Gently but firmly he nudged them apart. When he started to explore the moist heat at her core she immediately tensed and grabbed his hand.
‘Is it too much too soon? Am I hurting you?’ Jake husked, lifting his head to examine her face concernedly.
Unable to relax and completely enjoy an experience she’d privately longed for and fantasised about throughout the years—even though fireworks were exploding inside her at his touch—Ailsa pursed her lips. She shook her head. ‘No. I’m just a bit tense in case—in case it does hurt,’ she confessed anxiously.
He emitted a grated breath. ‘Did the doctor tell you that it might?’
‘She told me I might be sore … but that was about three months after the accident. And by that time we’d stopped being intimate, so I never—I never found out whether it hurt or not.’
‘It’s been over four years since then.’
The silvery-blue eyes boring down at her were like haunting starlight, and Ailsa’s stomach turned over at the sorrow she saw glinting in their depths. That ravaged glance made up her mind.
‘I know,’ she whispered. Carefully cupping her hand behind his neck, she pulled his face back down to hers. ‘Try again,’ she urged softly, tracing the outline of his lips with her fingertip. ‘Everything will be okay.’
He hesitated. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
As if to confirm her decision, her hips automatically softened and her body relaxed. This time when Jake explored her she sensed urgency and a need for fulfilment take hold of her almost straight away. There was no pain, as she’d feared there might be. Instead there was a sensual and erotic blaze of heat that built and built, until her teeth clamped down on her lip because it was almost too incredible to bear, and as the sensations reached a crescendo a throaty moan of pleasure she couldn’t hold back escaped her.
Before she recovered Jake kissed her again, his silken tongue gliding into her mouth with a similar urgent need to experience the bliss and fulfilment that Ailsa had just enjoyed. Dizzingly giving herself up to his wonderful kiss without reservation, she sensed him press himself inside her and then thrust deeply upwards. Again there was no pain—just an amazingly pleasurable fullness she knew straight away she’d missed and achingly mourned. She wrapped her slender legs round his lean, hard middle to welcome him in even deeper. As he thrust into her again and again her hands clung onto the broad banks of his shoulders and her fingernails bit into the smooth muscle of his back. For a second time she came undone. Only a few moments later Jake anchored her head with his hands and with a harsh-voiced groan helplessly joined her …
As soon as he came back down to earth and the reality of what he’d just done hit it wasn’t the fact that he’d spilled his seed unprotected inside Ailsa that was Jake’s concern. Because sorrowfully, to his cost, he knew that she couldn’t become pregnant. He was concerned that he’d maybe been too forceful and hurt her. But then he saw that her sweet, entrancing lips were curved into a wistful contented smile, and it raised his hopes to the skies.
With growing wonder he cupped the side of her face beneath the silken waterfall of her lovely hair to tenderly stroke the pad of his thumb across her cheek. ‘You look happy,’ he said.
‘That’s because I feel good … very good.’
‘I didn’t hurt you, then?’
‘No, you didn’t. My body feels like it’s healed completely. It’s just such a wonderful revelation that I can function normally again. I suppose the worry that I couldn’t has been playing on my mind for a long time now.’
‘Maybe you should have gone to a doctor to have her properly check you over and reassure you?’
‘You know how I feel about doctors.’
‘Even so, having an examination could have saved you a lot of heartache.’
‘Point taken.’
‘I’ll drop the subject, then.’
On the wall behind them, the sinuous shadow of the candle flames continued to dance and weave, and the fire in the wood burning stove seemed to blaze more brightly than before. With a silent prayer, Jake thanked the powers that be for the unexpected gift of a blackout. Then he carefully withdrew from the incomparable delights of Ailsa’s body and reached for the substantial plaid woollen throw on the back of the couch to pull it over them both.
‘Cosy, huh?’ he said, grinning as he urged her close into his side.
‘It feels seriously decadent,’ she agreed, screwing up her nose.
Her amber-coloured eyes were delightfully mischievous.
It had been a long time since Jake had seen her looking so untroubled … like the Ailsa of old that he had fallen head over heels in love with a lifetime ago …
‘So when was the last time you felt as decadent as this, hmm?’
‘I think it was when you whisked me away from work in the lunch hour one day and took me to the Hilton where you’d rented a room for just the afternoon.’ Her lashes lowered shyly for a moment. ‘We made love for the longest time. Normally I would have feared being sacked, returning to work so late, but seeing as I was with the boss’s son …’
‘Didn’t I promote you after that?’ he teased.
She playfully slapped him on the arm. ‘No, you didn’t! And if you’d tried I would have vehemently protested.’
‘No, you wouldn’t.’
‘Yes, I would.’
‘I agree. You probably would have. You were always far too conscientious for your own good.’ He dropped a lingering warm kiss onto her mouth and she went very still. ‘We had fun together once upon a time, didn’t we?’ he mused softly.
‘You were very passionate.’
‘I still am.’ He noticed wariness creep into her eyes at that comment, but in the next instant it was gone again.
‘Jake?’
‘Yes?’
‘Why did you wait so long to meet up with me again? I mean … four years of telephone calls making arrangements for Saskia to stay with you every other weekend, then sending Alain to pick her up and bring her home instead of doing it yourself. I know you have to work, but would it have been so inconvenient for you to collect her and bring her home to me?’
‘It’s not that it was inconvenient. It was that—Look, do we have to talk about this right now?’
Fiercely resisting breaking the spell of these precious intimate moments, Jake feared another soul-destroying disagreement if they fell into discussing how they’d conducted things in the past. He really didn’t want to reveal the guilt and shattering disappointment that dogged him still for not protecting her and the baby that terrible night. Neither did he want to confess that he saw it as his punishment to stay away from her. That was why he employed Alain to act as go-between—not because it was too inconvenient for him to get away from work.
He and Ailsa had just made love, and it had been beyond wonderful, but he knew it didn’t make everything all right. How could it when his mind, body and spirit were weighed down with enough crippling guilt to sink a battleship?
With a sleepy smile, Ailsa dreamily stroked his arm. ‘No. We don’t have to talk about it now if you don’t want to. But I’d really like us to talk tomorrow and maybe clear a few things up.’
‘Okay.’ Jake fought the reluctance that her suggestion inevitably caused, containing his feelings to try and protect himself and silently conceding that maybe it was time to tell her a bit more about himself and why he struggled so hard with expressing his emotions. He brought her fingertips up to his lips and kissed them. ‘Why don’t you close your eyes for a while, hmm? You look a little tired.’
Letting her head rest against his chest, she concurred. ‘I am tired—though goodness knows why, when I’ve done very little today. Don’t let the fire go out, will you?’ she murmured, already drifting off into a land where he couldn’t follow.
‘I won’t.’ Swallowing down the ache inside his throat, he settled his arm around her shoulders. Then, staring over at the wood stove, he surrendered to the hypnotism of the still dancing flames …
‘What was that?’ Staring wildly round in the semi-dark a few hours later, Ailsa pushed herself up. The haunting sound that had pierced her sleep still echoed disturbingly in her mind. ‘It sounded like a baby crying.’
‘It wasn’t a baby.’ Crouched low in front of the burner, where he’d obviously been stoking the fire, his torso bare, Jake got to his feet. ‘I think it was a fox,’ he said, turning to face her.
His jeans were riding low across his hips, highlighting the ridged toned muscle of his flat stomach, and his voice was ‘just woken from sleep’ husky. She couldn’t imagine any other man looking more dangerously sexy. In a disturbing flash she remembered why they were still there in the darkened front room, sensed the places on her body where he’d intimately touched her. That instigated a deep and powerful ache for more of his passionate attentions.
Then, realising she was as bare as a newborn babe beneath the throw, she tugged the cover self-consciously up around her shoulders.
‘A fox?’ She rubbed her eyes and blinked at him.
‘We’re deep in the heart of the countryside. It’s not unusual. We even have them in London.’
‘That’s why I don’t keep chickens.’
‘Really? You mean you wanted to keep chickens?’
Ailsa saw that Jake was shamelessly grinning, perhaps mocking the notion that she had such ordinary, mundane ambitions these days. It certainly didn’t sit easily with the luxurious lifestyle she’d once enjoyed as his wife.
‘I did. What’s wrong with that?’
His expression sobering, Jake lifted his shoulders and dropped them again. ‘I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it. You’re quite the little country girl these days, aren’t you?’
She felt her face heat at the observation. ‘It’s quieter here than the city, and consequently I feel less stressed.’
‘Well … talking of lessening your stress, I think you should try and get a bit more sleep. It’s only just after three a.m.’
‘The power hasn’t come back on yet?’
‘I haven’t checked. I’ve just been enjoying the candlelight and the glow from the fire.’
His concentrated sleepy-eyed glance instigated an outbreak of goosebumps all over her body. ‘I prefer that too,’ she murmured, snuggling back down under the throw.
Immediately crossing the carpet to the light switch, Jake flicked it on. The electric light failed to register. Shaking his head, he made his way back to the fire. ‘If the phones are back on in the morning I’ll make some calls and see about organising that generator.’
‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘I know I don’t have to. I want to … There’s a difference.’
‘Yes …’ Ailsa agreed sleepily, nervously wondering if he was going to rejoin her in their makeshift bed on the couch any time soon. She realised she’d be very happy if he did … ‘There is a difference.’
As if intuiting her secret wish, he dropped down beside her, at the same time raking his fingers through hair that had clearly received similar rough treatment earlier.
‘I like this “just got out of bed” look,’ she teased him.
Unable to understand why it should happen right then, Jake stared into Ailsa’s smiling beautiful face and felt a powerful resurgence of grief at what he had lost. Sometimes he seriously wondered if sorrow was the price he had to pay for this life even for the briefest moment of pleasure. If so, the trade-off was a cruel one. For him, the death of their baby and the death of his marriage had signalled the end of love … period.
Coiling a gleaming strand of her chestnut hair round his finger, dredging up a smile from God only knew where, he stayed where he was for only a minute more, suddenly knowing that he wouldn’t be spending the rest of the night there on the couch with her. He wouldn’t renege on his silent promise to reveal to her why he found it so hard to express his true emotions, but right now he knew he needed some space to think things through.
‘Rock stars would give their eye teeth for inside information on how I do it so effortlessly,’ he replied drolly.
‘Are you okay? Why were you up? Did the sound of the fox wake you too?’
‘No. I just naturally woke up, then saw that the fire was dying.’
‘You look tired, Jake. Why don’t you come and join me under the covers … lie down for a while?’
Feeling as though he had lead in his heart, he shook his head. In another second he was up on his feet again. ‘I think I need to get back to my bed upstairs … we’ll both sleep better if I do. I’ve stoked the fire, so it should keep you warm for a while yet. Like I said, in the morning, if the phone lines are working, I’ll sort out getting you a generator. Goodnight, Ailsa … try and get some more sleep, hmm?’
Collecting the remainder of his clothes from where they lay strewn on the carpet, he exited the room without so much as a backward glance. But the disturbing memory of Ailsa’s surprised and saddened face weighed heavily on his tread as he climbed the staircase in the dark to return to his room …
A dazzling ray of sunlight arrowed through the window, and outside, where a blanket of snow covered everything in sight, it had the dramatic effect of making the crystalline white carpet shimmer like diamonds. And even as she stood there in the kitchen, gazing out at the magical wintry scene, Ailsa heard the sound of ice dripping from the eaves. It was beginning to melt.
She ought to be overjoyed, but she wasn’t. The possibility of the chill weather changing for the better left her feeling raw and empty inside. When he left, would it be another four years before she saw Jake again?
She’d found a note from him on the kitchen table. It read that the electricity had returned, and so had the service on the house phone. He’d gone out for a walk, but would be back soon to sort out the business of a generator and to make some calls home to Copenhagen.
He must have got up especially early, Ailsa realized, because by the time she’d arrived in the kitchen to sort out the detritus from last night’s dinner the dishwasher had been almost at the end of its cycle. She had to confess it was a pleasurable surprise to find everything cleared and tidied away.
Moving across to the table, to lay out the crockery for breakfast, she grimaced and rubbed her back. Her muscles were seriously stiff from her night spent on the living room couch. Pocket sprung mattress it was not! But the main discomfort she was suffering was in the region of her heart, because Jake had left her there alone. Why hadn’t he stayed with her? Was he afraid that now that they had been intimate she would make some sort of unreasonable demand on him?
To bring a temporary end to the string of apprehensive thoughts that were gathering with disturbing momentum as she stood there, she made a beeline for the telephone. Less than a minute later the warmly reassuring voice of Tilda Larsen sounded in her ear. Taken aback by the pleasure Jake’s mother expressed at hearing from her, Ailsa once more conveyed her condolences on the death of her husband and asked how she was coping. Hearing that she was just taking one day at a time—because what else could she do?—Ailsa felt her heart go out to her. Then, unable to wait a moment longer, she asked to speak to her daughter.
‘She’s right here beside me,’ Tilda replied affectionately. ‘The little angel has been longing to talk to you.’
‘Hello, Mummy—I’ve really missed you!’
‘Hello, my darling. I’ve missed you too … so much. But the snow has been so heavy here that we couldn’t get the phone to work and ring you. Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine. I’ve been having a lovely time with Grandma. You don’t mind me—staying a bit longer, do you?’