Matter of Trust

by Penny Jordan

  ‘It was because of Kevin Riley,’ she told him unsteadily. ‘Because of the things he said.’

  She looked up at him, her gaze direct and steady.

  ‘It was as though he had been in the room with us when you... when we... It was as though suddenly all men must share his thoughts, his feelings... as though the words, the way he described us... our intimacy was the way that you must think and feel about me.’

  She saw his expression and appealed, ‘No.. .please let me finish. I felt so degraded, so sickened... so... so dirty somehow. I couldn’t bear the thought that you saw me like that. As a body... anatomical parts... a piece of flesh to be used and then discarded, despised. I told myself it was my own fault... that I had known right from the start that I mustn’t get involved with you... that I mustn’t love you.’

  She felt him flinch and told him huskily, ‘I was afraid, you see... I’ve always been afraid of loving someone too much... I thought I’d seen how intensely Leigh loved and how badly she got hurt. There was a boy at college I thought I loved... later I realised I had never really loved him at all, but it made me afraid, because I knew that I too could one day love like Leigh... too intensely, too demandingly, and so I told myself that when I was ready to marry I’d find a man I could like rather than love, a friend rather than a lover... I didn’t want my marriage to be like Leigh’s. I didn’t want to suffer the way she suffered when Paul left her.

  ‘You were right to call me a coward,’ she told him huskily.

  ‘No. No, I wasn’t.’ He was holding her now, cradling her, rocking her soothingly, his voice thick with emotion. ‘I thought it was just me. That you didn’t want me. I couldn’t see beyond my own egotistical needs. I didn’t even try to see past them. I loved you... wanted you, and deep down inside some part of me was furiously angry with you because you didn’t love me in return.

  ‘I’m so sorry about Kevin Riley. Oh, God, Debra, I’m so sorry.’

  He was still holding her as carefully as though she were a piece of fragile china, she recognised, his body aligned slightly away from hers as though he was afraid of touching her sexually.

  As she looked into his eyes she saw that he was afraid of doing so, that what she had told him had made him afraid of touching her, that his love for her was so great that he wouldn’t touch her, she recognised.

  It was in this bedroom that she had first dreamed of him... that she had first imagined him as her lover, even if she had fiercely tried to deny those needs. This bedroom, which Kevin Riley had desecrated and destroyed, just as he had tried to destroy her, but out of love for her Marsh had created this haven of peace and warmth from that destruction.

  Out of love for her.

  ‘Make love to me, Marsh,’ she whispered shakily.

  He frowned as he looked at her, his body suddenly tense.

  ‘You don’t have to do this, you know,’ he told her harshly. ‘I love you...’

  ‘I need to do it,’ she told him calmly, and then added a little less calmly, ‘I want to do it... I want you’

  She was already stepping back from him, unfastening the buttons of her blouse, her heart thumping frantically while her stomach tensed in knots of anxiety and apprehension.

  ‘Debra,’ Marsh protested rawly.

  She ignored his protest.

  ‘Undress me, Marsh,’ she begged him shakily. ‘Please undress me.’

  He was hesitant at first, pausing, watching her, his face set and grave.

  She took hold of his hand, lifting it towards her body, watching the sudden darkening of his colour, her heartbeat quickening as his fingers brushed briefly against her skin.

  ‘Please. Marsh.’

  His touch was careful, clinical almost, the silence thick with tension. She could see the pain and regret in his eyes as he slowly removed her clothes, his movements almost leaden and unwilling.

  This wasn’t what she wanted, Debra realised helplessly. This wasn’t how it should be between them. Her eyes filled with tears as she remembered the way he had first made love to her.

  ‘Marsh, what is it?’ she demanded in anguish. ‘Don’t you want me?’

  ‘Not want you?’ He caught hold of her, pulling her against his body so that she could feel his arousal.

  ‘Of course I want you, but don’t you think I know how you must feel? How you must dread...?’ He swallowed, his throat working, his hands clenched at his sides as he released her.

  ‘What I feel is that I want you,’ Debra told him unsteadily. ‘I want to touch you, to look at you; to feel your skin against mine. What I feel is that I ache inside for you; that my breasts ache for the touch of your hands and your mouth, that my hands ache to touch you. What I feel is that I love you.’

  He moved then, holding her, his hands cupping her face, sliding into her hair while he kissed her, starved, famished kisses that burned her skin and made her cling helplessly to him, tugging his shirt free of his trousers so that she could slide her hands over his skin.

  He tried to be careful, cautious, but she wouldn’t let him, swamping his restraint with her own passion; with the tender touch of her hands on his body, with her mouth, until he cried out in torment and reached for her.

  She kept her eyes open, absorbing with pleasure the contrast of his darker flesh against her own; the way their bodies fitted so perfectly together, the way the sun dappled their skin, loving the way the scent of their loving filled her senses.

  She cried out as she climaxed, straining to hold on to him, to absorb every smallest sensation of pleasure. His sweat soaked her skin, dampening her fringe and misting her eyes, so that the softly painted wardrobes were a warm peach haze.

  Deliberately she focused on them, projecting against them her mental images of their entwined bodies, of their personal and private joy.

  ‘I love you...I love you so much,’ Marsh groaned.

  She smiled as he kissed her, and then whispered in his ear, ‘I love you too.’

  She knew she would never forget what Kevin Riley had done, but she knew now that she would never be haunted by it either.

  Here in Marsh’s arms she had found the truth; had seen, felt... heard... known just how much he loved her.

  He was right, she had been a coward. Afraid of loving and of being loved, but she wasn’t any more.

  ‘Are you sure you’re feeling all right?’ he asked her anxiously now as he held her. ‘This room... the memories...’

  She shook her head, touching her fingers to his jaw, and then kissing him.

  ‘The bad memories are gone,’ she told him truthfully. ‘In future whenever I think of this house, this room, I shall think of you and me together here, of you wanting me... loving me.’

  ‘Mm...’ Lazily he stroked the curve of her throat with his tongue and then gently bit her.

  ‘Still, it wouldn’t do any harm just to make sure, would it?’ he suggested throatily.

  Debra looked at him and then flushed, her eyes brilliant with laughter and desire as she realised what he meant.

  ‘Again... Are you sure you’ve got the.. .energy?’ she teased him, her fingertips stroking through the soft hair on his chest, loving the feel of it against her skin, her whole body unknowingly provocatively languorous.

  ‘Oh, yes, I’ve definitely got the energy,’ Marsh told her softly. ‘Very definitely!’

  ‘When I grow up I’m going to marry someone like Marsh.’

  Bryony gazed scornfully at her younger sister. ‘You don’t know who you’re going to marry,’ she told her, adding, ‘You might not even get married.’

  ‘Yes, I will,’ Sally retaliated quickly. ‘And I’m going to have a dress just like Debra’s.’

  Both of them looked across to where their aunt was standing with her new husband. They were so engrossed in one another that they might have been alone rather than surrounded by family and friends.

  ‘Happy?’ Marsh asked, kissing Debra. ‘No dark memories?’

  ‘Only one,’ Debra told him soberly. Immed
iately he tensed and frowned, leaning protectively towards her. ‘Debra...’

  ‘Why did that woman from the London office spend so much time with you that day when she came down from London with those papers?’ she asked mock seriously, smiling at him. Immediately he relaxed.

  ‘So, jealous, were you?’ he teased her. ‘Certainly not. Remember, I thought you were a philanderer chasing after dozens of different women.’

  ‘And I thought you were the most beautiful, the most desirable woman I had ever seen Marsh whispered huskily to her. ‘And the most infuriating. I didn’t know whether to shake you or kiss you, you made me so angry.’

  ‘Mm. I wonder what would have happened if you’d shaken me.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Marsh advised, his voice deepening as he told her, ‘Believe me, there really was no contest. And, if I hadn’t kissed you then, sooner or later...’

  ‘Come on, you two, I want to take a photograph,’ Leigh interrupted them, but neither of them had heard. They were too intent on one another.

  ‘Oh, well, perhaps later,’ Leigh murmured good-humouredly, grinning to herself as she heard Sally remarking, awestruck, to her elder sister,

  ‘I didn’t know people could keep on kissing for such a long time, did you?’

  ‘Course I did,’ Bryony told her scornfully. ‘That’s what people in love are always doing.’

  ‘But how do they do it?’ Sally demanded plaintively.

  ‘Well, I suppose they just have to take a deep breath and hold it... like when you go swimming.’

  Behind her Leigh heard Jeff asking whimsically, ‘I don’t suppose you feel like taking a deep breath, do you, Leigh?’

  ‘Why?’ she asked him mock innocently. ‘Do you want to go swimming?’

  ‘Well, despite all those protests about not wanting love or passion in your life, you don’t seem to have any regrets,’ Leigh teased Debra half an hour later as she helped her to get changed into her going-away outfit.

  ‘I was wrong,’ Debra told Leigh sincerely. ‘I was afraid. I thought security was more important than love, but now I know.’ She paused, struggling for words, and then said shakily, ‘It’s a bit like being afraid of deep water, isn’t it, but all you need to do is to take a deep breath and... ? What are you laughing at?’ she demanded indignantly as her stepsister collapsed in gales of laughter.

  ‘Nothing,’ she assured her. ‘Just remind me some time to give you Bryony’s description of how “grown-ups” kiss.’

  Soberly she reached out and hugged Debra, telling her quietly, ‘It won’t be the way it was with me and Paul for you, Debra. Marsh isn’t like Paul. You can trust him as well as love him.’

  ‘I know that,’ Debra told her huskily, returning her hug. ‘I know that.’

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE