by Penny Jordan
‘Quick, take them off, and I’ll soak the stains in salt,’ Jake snapped.
‘I…’
‘Look, it won’t be the first time I’ve seen you in your underwear,’ he reminded her sardonically, ‘and that wine is going to stain. Come with me.’ He reached for her wrist, steel fingers closing round the slender bones as he led her to the stairs and up them, pushing open his bedroom door, and leaving her standing there like a wooden puppet as he opened a cupboard door and removed a shirt. ‘Here, take off your skirt and blouse and put this on.’
The dark red stain was already sinking deeper into her clothes, jerking her out of her lethargy. If they weren’t soaked in some stain remover now, she’d never get the stain out. Quickly with numb fingers she started to unfasten her blouse, turning her back on Jake, wishing he would go away and leave her alone. Obviously any intimacy between them didn’t have the same effect on him as it did on her. As she reached the last button on her blouse she heard his impatient exclamation and turned automatically.
‘Give me that,’ he instructed, as she started to slide the silk off her arms. She felt acutely vulnerable standing before him in just her silk camisole, her fingers fumbling with the zip of her skirt, which Jake bent to scoop up as it fell to the floor. ‘You’d better take that off as well,’ he added calmly, glancing at her camisole, ‘unless you want it to be permanently stained.’ The wine had soaked through her blouse, staining the soft cream silk beneath, and Kate bit her lip angrily as she studied it. The camisole was new and pure silk, and Jake was right, it would stain. But she wasn’t wearing anything beneath it, and she felt reluctant to remove it in his presence. He seemed to have read her mind. ‘I’ll turn my back if that’s what’s worrying you, although I don’t know why I should. I won’t be seeing anything I haven’t seen—and touched—many times before, will I?’
He was right and she was being childish, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier to turn her back to him and wriggle out of the camisole. The shirt he had offered her lay on the bed and she reached for it, tensing as her fingers brushed his arm, her eyes opening wide in the shock of the contact.
‘I’ll leave these to soak in the bathroom while I get some salt.’
‘I really ought to go home, Jake,’ Kate protested. She couldn’t sit down and discuss their divorce with him, dressed only in silk stockings, a wisp of a suspender belt, a pair of minute briefs and his shirt. She felt too acutely uncomfortable.
‘Jake?’ She looked over her shoulder just in time to see the door to the en-suite bathroom closing and the sound of water gushing from the taps.
There must have been another door from the bathroom on to the landing, because the next time Kate saw him it was as he walked lithely up the stairs carrying a container of salt, his shirt unfastened at the throat, the sleeves rolled back. Her knees seemed to turn to water, and she had to edge towards the bed, terrified that her legs would collapse under her. Why was he affecting her like this now, when she had never felt a tenth of this avid hunger for the sight and touch of him during their marriage? She wanted desperately to reach out and touch him, to run her fingertips through those crisp hairs darkening his chest and feel his muscles clench beneath her delicate assault. Her eyes lifted to his mouth, her breath caught in her throat as she tried to drag them away from the sensual curve of his lower lip, her tongue unconsciously moistening the dry tension of her own lips as her body pulsed with the need to feel his mouth against her own.
‘Kate?’ He came towards her and her senses swam with awareness of him; the male scent of his body; the cool tang of the lotion he wore; the movement of bone and sinew beneath his clothes. It was all that she could do not to cry out to him, begging him to touch her. The intensity of her feelings appalled her. She felt as though she had strayed into another world, where she was unfamiliar to herself. The power of her body’s hunger for him amazed her. Where had it come from? Had it lain dormant all the time they had been apart? During their marriage she had still been very much a child. Oh, she loved him, but she had also resented and been in awe of him; now she was an adult and she wanted him as a woman wants a man.
‘Kate, are you all right?’ How could she feel like this and Jake not know about it? she thought dazedly as she felt his hands on her shoulders, his voice rough with concern. ‘Kate…’
He stopped as someone opened the front door. ‘It must be Mrs Hillary,’ Kate whispered, not knowing why she felt this need to keep her voice low. Jake was frowning, but his hands remained on her shoulders, and Kate tensed, her eyes widening in shock as the living room door opened and Rita stepped inside.
‘Jake darling, where are you?’
‘Up here—what do you want, Rita?’
Kate gasped, trying to pull away, but Jake’s fingers tightened on her shoulders and they both heard Rita coming upstairs. ‘Jake, please,’ Kate begged in an agonised whisper, all too conscious of the fact that she was wearing little other than Jake’s shirt, which she hadn’t even had time to button, and that Jake himself was practically bare to the waist. As her fingers gripped the edges of her borrowed shirt and tried to tug it together, his hand moved downwards, clamping over hers.
‘Don’t,’ he growled softly against her. ‘I like seeing you like that, it’s very alluring.’
‘But Rita’—Kate protested, unable to believe he could act so coolly, knowing all too well what conclusion Rita would leap to when she saw them, and Jake seemed to be doing nothing at all about it.
‘I thought I’d pop round and see you, darling. I’ve borrowed Mrs Hillary’s key. Aren’t you pleased to see me?’ Rita stepped into the room, her eyes narrowing in disbelief as she saw Kate, to all intents and purposes in Jake’s arms. Jake watched her without pity, and Kate felt herself tremble in reaction to the other girl’s humiliation.
After what seemed like a lifetime Rita retreated to the door, her eyes glittering ice blue fire. ‘Enjoy him,’ she flung at Kate as she left, ‘because you’ll never get to keep him!’ They heard her heels clattering down the stairs and then the front door close behind her.
‘I think I’ll have to have a word with Mrs Hillary about just who she gives my key to,’ was all Jake said when the reverberations of the slammed door had finally faded away. Kate realised that he was still holding her, and moved away, freed instantly this time, sitting down on the bed as she tried to gain control of her shaky legs and even shakier thoughts.
‘How could you do that?’ she whispered at last. ‘Jake, how could you humiliate her—and me—like that?’
‘She asked for it,’ he responded, shrugging aside her words. ‘Like any other man who senses a trap is being set for him, I fought back. Rita’s set her mind on marriage, and…’
‘And to stop her, you let her think you and I are lovers? You realise it will be all round Woolerton by tomorrow? Oh, Jake, how could you do this to me? The Dales aren’t London. There’s still a certain moral code; a standard that’s expected…’ she began fretfully, silenced when Jake interrupted.
‘You could always tell the truth. That you don’t go in for one-night stands and that I’m your husband.’
‘But we’re getting a divorce.’ Her breath seemed stifled in her throat, and it hurt to say the words. Again Jake shrugged.
‘We could have been trying for a reconciliation. In fact…’
As he bent towards her Kate knew she should move, because his intention was clearly readable in his eyes, but somehow the will to do anything seemed to have deserted her, and her body welcomed the taut strength of his hands gripping her arms with a surge of savage pleasure that was reflected in her eyes.
‘Don’t fight me, Kate,’ Jake murmured. ‘You’re as hungry for me as I am for you. No, don’t say anything,’ he told her as his hands slid down her arms to where her fingers were still knotted in his borrowed shirt. Gently he unlaced them, his mouth touching butterfly-light kisses against her eyelids until they closed, and the ensuing darkness abandoned her to a sea of sensation. Without being
aware of it she must have moved, closing the distance between them, and she heard Jake’s husky sound of satisfaction as her fingers came free of the shirt, his palms smoothing the pale skin of her waist as they slid round her back, shaping her against him. Had she actually known this pleasure before? Kate wondered dizzily, as her arms automatically locked round his neck, the rough abrasion of the dark hair matting his chest, something between pleasure and pain against the sensitive fullness of her breasts, the light kisses with which Jake bemused her powers of thinking, igniting a hunger that held her helpless in its voracity.
‘Kate, Kate, I want you so much,’ she heard Jake mutter urgently, ‘Ever since that night in that damned hut I’ve been thinking about you like this, hungry for me making those little cries of pleasure that turn my bones to water. Mmm. What is it you want, little Cat?’ he asked her as his lips continued to torment her, still withholding the contact she wanted, muscles riding in her throat as she lifted her face blindly to his, too frightened of collapsing at his feet to let go of him and her blood wild for the hard pressure of his mouth against her, murmuring softly seductive questions to match the brief kisses which promised so much and gave so little.
Reason, pride, logic all fled before the devastation of the storm inside her. There came a time when she could endure the teasing no more; when the mere contact of his hard body along the length of hers was not enough and her hands were forced to unwind from his shoulders, her eyes deep, dark pools of sapphire hazed with desire, her hands sliding into the thickness of his hair to shape his skull and stop the languid teasing of his mouth.
‘Jake.’ His name reached her; blurred and unfamiliar as though her tongue stumbled over it. He bent his head, his tongue investigating the moist corner of her mouth. ‘Jake, kiss me…’ At any other time the anguished plea would have appalled her, as would his reaction to it.
‘I thought I was,’ he whispered against her throat, stroking his fingers along its smoothness as she arched automatically beneath the caress. His tongue touched lightly against her ear, and a shudder of pleasure shivered through her.
‘No, not like that,’ she protested, tugging his hair and trying to reach him.
‘No? Like this, then?’ Teasing lips delicately explored the outline of hers, moving away the moment she tried to prolong the contact, and then returning to torment her still further, until she gasped.
‘No…not like that.’
‘Then show me.’ Kate looked up at him warily, but the dark head wasn’t moving, and the grey eyes were watching her steadily. All she had to do was lift her head and… Her tongue touched tentatively along his mouth, her teeth tugging hungrily at the full bottom lip. Tears of frustration weren’t far away. He had done this deliberately, damn him, to humiliate her! She started to pull away and his fingers curled round her neck, holding her against him. His mouth was a breath away from hers, when he asked softly, ‘Like this, Kate?’
It was everything her starved senses had clamoured for; an intimate welding of flesh and need, a fusion that made her melt into him, conscious of nothing but the heated demand of his mouth as it moved against hers, touching, tasting. As he felt her response he gave a soft groan of pleasure deep in his throat, his hands moving down to her waist and then upwards, easing her gently away from him, as though he shared her reluctance to be deprived of the warm contact with her flesh. The intimate exploration of his mouth was a penetration that left her weak with need, wildly impatient to touch him as intimately as he was touching her. He pulled his mouth away, burying it in the scented warmth of her throat, his fingers tangling in her hair.
‘God, the things you do to me,’ he groaned. ‘Do I have to tell you?’ he demanded huskily, dark eyebrows rising when she simply stared at him. ‘Can’t you feel the way my body reacts to you?’
To her, or to any woman? Kate wondered bleakly, suddenly feeling cold. In view of the provocation she had given him it was hardly any wonder that he was aroused. And he was; even if he hadn’t told her she would have known it. His hands had slid to her hips, biting into her skin as he eased her against his body, and for one wild moment hers cried out for the feel of him against her without the restriction imposed by their clothes.
‘Kate.’ He had sensed her withdrawal and tensed slightly.
‘Jake, we can’t do this,’ she reasoned with him, trying to steady her pulse rate. ‘I believe it’s quite common when people are splitting up for them to feel…desire for one another, but if we give in to it…’
‘What are you trying to say? That abstinence is good for the soul? That depriving ourselves of what we both want is going to sweeten our tempers? Or was it all just another game, Kate; a let’s-see-how-far-we-can-push-him-this-time ploy? Well, this time, my little Cat, you’ve pushed me too far,’ he growled menacingly, ‘and I’m not going to back down—I did too much of that when we were together.’
‘Jake, no, you can’t mean this,’ Kate protested as he swung her off the floor and on to the bed. She tried to scramble off the other side, but his weight imprisoned her, his voice raw with anger as she hit out at him, catching him a glancing blow.
‘Hell-cat,’ he muttered thickly, ‘but you’re not going to get away with it this time, Kate. There was plenty of time to stop earlier on.’
She stifled a small scream as his hands wrenched the shirt off her shoulders, using it to trap her arms beneath her denying all her writhing efforts to escape.
‘Keep on moving like that and you’d drive a saint out of his mind,’ Jake warned hoarsely as she continued to try to escape, and she stilled, suddenly realising that the thrashing struggles of her body had revealed it to him from the waist upwards.
‘Kiss me, you begged,’ Jake ground out above her. ‘Like this, Kate?’ And the pressure of his mouth on hers was a cruel punishment that ravished its soft vulnerability, the savage sweep of his hands over her body an invasion that made her shudder in fear.
‘Jake, no!’ She moaned her protest from swollen lips, turning her head from side to side as she tried to escape, but he wouldn’t let her.
His superior strength enabled him to keep her pinned to the bed while he removed the rest of his clothes, and then hers. Kate tensed as she felt his fingers circle her ankle, averting her eyes from the sight of her own body as he kneeled over her, his hand moving upwards along her calf and thigh. Kate shuddered deeply at the wanton desire his touch still had the power to arouse, the circles his too-knowing fingers traced lightly against her skin, circles of fire in the pit of her stomach, an aching, melting sensation spreading through her, drawing her back into a world of sensation. She reached almost blindly for his body, sighing her satisfaction as her hands found the taut muscles of his shoulders, stroking over them and down over his chest, tracing delicate patterns there until she caught his bittenoff exclamation, his hands cupping and moulding her breasts as though unable to deny themselves the sensual contact, his fingers kneading already swollen flesh as she pressed feather-light kisses along his throat and chest, her earlier return to sanity forgotten in the urgency of her senses.
‘Kate…’ His voice was rough and urgent, shivering across her skin, heightening an awareness which already bordered on the unbearable, the warmth of his mouth as it moved downwards over her skin, gently exploring the upper curves of her breasts and then the perfumed valley between, a torment that tightened her nerves to a sweet agony. ‘Kate…’ He said her name again, more softly this time as she nuzzled the tanned skin of his throat, feeding on the smell and taste of him. His thumb circled lazily round one breast in ever-decreasing circles, winding the tension inside her until she thought it would explode, the small sound that left her lips when he lowered his head against her a combination of protest and pleasure.
The moon shone almost directly into the room, silvering the broad sweep of his shoulders and arrowing down his back, her own body a fragile sliver of moonlight against the dark possession of the hand cupped round her breast in a gesture so malely possessive that her heart turned over
inside her. He had turned her body slightly to one side and lay against her, his head pillowed against her softness, rising and falling with the pressure of her heartbeats, his mouth lazily exploring the firm flesh captured by his hand.
The touch of his mouth, light though it was, was a ravishment of her senses, Kate thought weakly looking down at him, unable to tear her eyes from his face, the absorbed, rapt look she could see on it as he touched and tasted so slowly and carefully that it was she who grew impatient, his name a sob of release on her lips when finally his tongue moved erotically against her throbbing nipple, anticipating in its movement his mouth’s possession of her aching flesh, but it never came. Instead Jake released her, lifting away from her to study her flushed and aroused features, her head flung back against the pillows, her throat arched in mute supplication.
‘Now we’ll stop,’ he told her softly. ‘Now, when you’re aching for me every bit as much as you had me aching for you. No,’ he told her bluntly, gripping her hands as she reached for him, ‘oh no. It often happens like this with divorcing couples, you told me. The final pathetic conflagration before the fire finally dies, I suppose. Well, lady, you aren’t satisfying your lust with me. I won’t be used that way.’
‘You wanted me,’ Kate protested huskily, unable to take in what was happening.
‘I’ve wanted you before and had to ache for you, it taught me some valuable lessons,’ he told her bluntly. ‘Besides,’ he added, ‘by tomorrow you’ll be thanking me. If we’d taken tonight to its natural conclusions, what would have happened to your divorce?’
He was right, of course, but that didn’t make it any easier for her to bear the appalling aching of her body, which overrode even the humiliation of his rejection. She had never dreamed it was possible to feel like this and wondered fleetingly if, in the past, she had caused Jake this anguish. If she had it hadn’t been deliberate. She bit her lip, knowing there had been occasions when she had allowed him to make love to her and then stopped him, but not for this, her mind protested achingly. That was just because she had resented his assumption that he could just make love to her whenever he chose, as though she were merely a possession, incapable of functioning or thinking apart from him. But she had shown him that he was wrong. She had shown him that she was capable of thinking and even challenging his thoughts and his way of life.