Wanting His Child

by Penny Jordan

  Briefly, without allowing her to stop him, Silas told her exactly what had happened.

  After he had finished speaking Verity looked searchingly into his eyes. There was no doubting the veracity of what he had just told her. Her stomach felt as though it had just done a fast cycle in a washing machine, her heart was banging so hard against her ribs she thought it was going to break them, and as for her legs…

  ‘I…I need to sit down,’ she told Silas weakly.

  ‘And I need to lie down,’ he countered gruffly, ‘preferably in bed with you in my arms with nothing between us, with nothing to separate us. Oh, Verity,’ he groaned as he suddenly reached for her, wrapping her in his arms as he kissed her eyes, her face, her mouth. ‘Oh, Verity, Verity,’ he whispered rawly to her. ‘You are the only woman I’ve ever loved, the only woman I ever will love…’

  ‘No, that can’t be true,’ Verity whispered back through kiss-swollen lips. ‘It can’t be…Not after the way you left me the other night…not after I’d begged you to stay…’

  Tears filled her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

  ‘Oh, no, my darling, don’t cry. Please don’t cry.’ Silas groaned, holding her tight and rocking her in his arms, his cheek pressed against her head. ‘It wasn’t like that, it really wasn’t. I left you because…because I was afraid, not just for myself or for the pain I knew I would feel if I let you back into my life, but for the pain I thought you might cause Honor.’

  ‘I would never hurt Honor,’ Verity protested fiercely.

  ‘No,’ Silas agreed softly. ‘Forgive me for that.’

  ‘She reminds me so much of the way I was…’ Verity told him shakily. ‘Oh, I know how much you love her, Silas…and you couldn’t be more different from my uncle—’

  ‘But I’m not enough,’ Silas interrupted her ruefully, adding before she could protest, ‘I know, so my darling daughter has already informed me.’

  ‘Did you really think that of me…that I might hurt you both…?’

  ‘You’d already hurt me very badly once,’ Silas reminded her softly. ‘Or, at least, so I thought.’

  ‘I felt the same way about you,’ Verity admitted. ‘It hurt so much knowing that when you’d told me you loved me, when you said that you’d love me for ever, you didn’t mean it…’

  ‘I did mean it,’ Silas corrected her. ‘I still mean it, Verity. Is it too late for us to start again?’ he asked her seriously.

  Verity looked at him, her heart in her eyes.

  ‘I…Oh, Silas…’ she whispered.

  ‘Let’s go inside,’ he whispered back. ‘There’s a phone call I want to make…’

  Even to make his telephone call to Jane Alders, Silas refused to let Verity move out of his arms.

  ‘You stay right where you are,’ he mock growled at her when she did try to move away.

  ‘Jane, it’s Silas,’ he announced when Catherine’s mother answered his call, tucking the receiver in the crook of his neck whilst he bent his head to feather a soft kiss against Verity’s mouth. ‘Would it be asking too much for you to keep Honor there with you tonight? I wouldn’t ask but…You don’t mind…? No, it’s okay, I don’t need to speak with her,’ he continued, ‘but if you could just give her a message from me, if you wouldn’t mind. Could you tell her that I think she might be going to get what she wanted? What she wanted more than a puppy,’ he stressed, smiling.

  ‘What was all that about?’ Verity asked him when he had replaced the receiver.

  Smiling at her, Silas said, ‘Honor has been begging and pleading with me to let her have a puppy. The other day when I ill-advisedly offered her one as a peace-offering, she informed me that she didn’t want a puppy, she wanted you.’

  Verity looked at him.

  ‘Oh, Silas,’ she protested, torn between laughter and tears.

  ‘I want to take you to bed,’ Silas told her huskily, cupping her face in both his hands. ‘I want to make love to you, Verity…I want to make love with you. I want to re-affirm all those vows and promises we made to each other years ago, but if you think it is too soon, if you want to wait…if you feel…’

  Putting her fingertips against his lips to silence him, Verity told him softly, ‘What I feel right now is that I want you. I want you in all the ways that a woman wants a man she loves, Silas. You can’t imagine how empty my life has been without you, how—’

  ‘Can’t I?’ he checked her gruffly. ‘There hasn’t been a day in the years we’ve been apart when I haven’t thought about you. Even on the day of Sarah’s funeral…As I stood at her graveside all I could think was how much I needed and wanted you.’

  ‘Poor girl,’ Verity whispered compassionately.

  ‘Yes, poor girl,’ Silas agreed.

  ‘Take me to bed,’ Verity begged him urgently. ‘Take me to bed, Silas, and…’

  She didn’t have to say any more, couldn’t have said any more because suddenly he was picking her up and carrying her towards the stairs.

  ‘You are the most beautiful woman on earth,’ Silas whispered extravagantly as he threaded his fingers through Verity’s hair.

  Smiling lazily up at him in the aftermath of their lovemaking, Verity reached out and touched his face, wriggling appreciatively against the muscled warmth of his naked body.

  ‘Hey, don’t do that,’ Silas warned her as he slowly kissed the palm of her hand. ‘At least, not unless you want…’

  ‘Not unless I want what?’ Verity teased, deliberately moving even closer.

  ‘Not unless you want this,’ Silas told her huskily, taking her hand and placing it against his hardening body.

  ‘Silas, we can’t,’ Verity protested unconvincingly as her fingers stroked instinctively down the hard strength of the silky, hot-skinned shaft of male pleasure she was caressing.

  It felt so good to be able to touch him like this, to know how much he wanted and needed her, to know how much he loved her.

  ‘Oh, no?’ Silas challenged softly, cupping her breast in his hand and bending his head to trail tiny provocative kisses all the way down from her collar-bone to her navel.

  ‘Don’t…’ Verity whispered.

  ‘Don’t what?’ Silas asked her as he circled her navel with the tip of his tongue, gently biting at her flesh.

  ‘Don’t…don’t stop,’ Verity breathed.

  ‘I’m not going to,’ Silas assured her as his head dipped lower and his hand slid between her thighs.

  This was bliss, heaven, every delight she had ever known or imagined knowing, Verity decided shakily as she gave in to the gentle caress of Silas’ hand against her body and the slow, sensual search of his mouth as it homed in on the sensitive female heart of her.

  The orgasmic contractions gripping her body were, if anything, even stronger this second time. Just for a second she tried to resist them, wanting to share what she was experiencing with Silas, but he wouldn’t let her.

  ‘Let it happen, Verity,’ he begged her, his voice shaking with male arousal. ‘I want to see it happen for you, feel it happen…’

  ‘Silas,’ she protested, but it was already too late. With a small cry she gave in to the urgency of Silas’ plea and her body’s own demands.

  ‘Have you thought…?’ Silas questioned her later, when they were sitting up in bed eating the smoked salmon sandwiches he had gone down to make for them and drinking the bottle of white wine they had decided would have to stand in lieu of celebratory champagne.

  They probably looked more like a couple of naughty children, sitting side by side in the nest they had made of the duvet and pillows, Verity acknowledged, than adults, but she felt almost childlike, full of all the youthful hope and shining joy that she had lost when she had thought she had lost Silas. She felt, she recognised, like a girl again, only this time she was able to appreciate what she had, what they had, with all the maturity of a woman.

  ‘Have I thought what?’ she prompted, taking a bite of the sandwich he was proffering her and giggling when he withdrew it so t
hat her teeth grazed his skin, and then teasingly licking at his fingers as though she hadn’t known all along that that was just what he’d wanted her to do.

  ‘Mmm…’ he retaliated, bending to nibble on her own fingertips. ‘Tastes good, but not as good as—’

  ‘Silas,’ Verity reproved. ‘Have I thought what?’

  ‘Well, I don’t know about you,’ he told her seriously, ‘but I certainly wasn’t using any precautions.’ He shook his head. ‘To be truthful, that was the last thing on my mind, irresponsible though it sounds.’

  Verity gave him a concerned look.

  ‘I’m not protected from conceiving,’ she admitted, adding semi-shyly, ‘I don’t…Well, there’s never been any need, not since…Not since, well, not since you and I…’

  The sandwiches were pushed to one side as he took her in his arms and groaned.

  ‘Oh, Verity, I never expected…I couldn’t, and I love you just the same no matter what…Have you any idea just how much that means to me? It’s the same for me, you know,’ he told her quietly. ‘I haven’t…’

  ‘Not even with Myra?’ Verity asked him.

  ‘Most especially not with Myra.’ Silas grinned.

  ‘She wanted you,’ Verity told him.

  ‘Mmm…but she didn’t get me. There wasn’t anything here for her,’ he told her seriously, touching his own heart lightly and then adding, ‘and so there couldn’t be anything here either…’ Verity watched as he touched his sex.

  ‘I thought it didn’t work like that for men,’ was all she could manage to say.

  ‘For some men, but not for me. Perhaps that’s why I’m so hungry for you now,’ he told her with a soft groan. ‘I’ve got a lot of lonely nights to make up for…’

  ‘I don’t want to get pregnant,’ Verity told him, explaining when she saw the look in his eyes, ‘I mean, not just yet. Not until Honor has had a chance to…to adjust…to know that she’ll always be very special to both of us…We need time together as a unit, a family…We need to bond properly together as a threesome, Silas, before we introduce a new baby into our family. We owe it to Honor to wait until she’s ready.’

  When she looked at him she saw that his eyes were bright with emotion.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked him warily. ‘Have I…?’

  ‘You’re perfect, just perfect, do you know that?’ he told her passionately. ‘No wonder Honor is so determined to have you as her stepmother. Come here and let me kiss you…’

  Smiling at him, Verity complied…

  EPILOGUE

  ‘WHAT are you doing?’ Catherine asked Honor curiously.

  They were both standing in Verity’s bedroom, still wearing their bridesmaid’s dresses from the afternoon wedding ceremony which had taken place in the garden. Honor was writing something down on a piece of paper, shielding it with her hand as she kept a weather eye on the half-open bedroom door.

  Down below them, in the garden, Verity and Silas were mingling with their guests, Silas’ arm wrapped protectively around his new wife’s waist.

  ‘I’m writing a list of babies’ names,’ Honor informed her friend loftily.

  ‘Babies names…What for? You won’t be having a baby for ages yet,’ Catherine told her.

  ‘It’s not for me, stupid,’ Honor told her. ‘It’s for Verity.’

  ‘Is Verity having a baby?’ Catherine asked her, looking confused.

  ‘Maybe not quite yet. But she soon will be now that she and Dad are married,’ Honor told her confidently. ‘I think, if it’s a girl we should call her Mel and if it’s a boy…I think Adam…’

  ‘Why Adam?’ Catherine asked her.

  ‘It’s a nice name for a baby brother.’

  Down below them in the garden, happily oblivious to the plans that were being made for their future, Verity leaned a little closer into Silas’ body.

  ‘Looking forward to tonight?’ he teased her wickedly as he felt the soft warmth of her body.

  Laughing ruefully, Verity wrinkled her nose at him.

  ‘You’re the one who’s supposed not to be able to wait to get me into bed, not the other way around,’ she reminded him.

  ‘What makes you think I’m not?’ Silas challenged her. ‘We’re going to have to make the most of tonight,’ he warned her. ‘It’s the last night we’re going to have to ourselves for quite some time.’

  ‘Mmm…I know,’ Verity agreed, closing her eyes as she dwelt blissfully on the thought of the luxurious suite at the hotel where he had once made love to her that Silas had booked in their names for their wedding night. She smiled as she remembered that on their first stay there they had a much smaller room.

  ‘If I ever thought about where I’d spend a honeymoon, it certainly wasn’t Disneyland,’ he told Verity dryly.

  She opened her eyes and laughed.

  ‘No, me neither,’ she admitted.

  ‘So how come you were the one who insisted that we make the booking?’ Silas asked her gently. ‘Or can I guess?’

  ‘We couldn’t have gone away without her,’ she told him quickly.

  ‘Maybe you couldn’t,’ Silas agreed roundly, ‘but I certainly could!’

  ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘Don’t I?’ He gave her a wide, almost boyish grin that made him look heartachingly young. ‘We must be mad. Three weeks in Disneyland with Honor in tow…’

  ‘Either that or we must be grateful,’ Verity acknowledged, whispering the words into a soft kiss. ‘After all, without her…’

  ‘Yes,’ he admitted. ‘Without her…’

  Both of them glanced up towards Verity’s open bedroom window where they could hear the sound of raised voices.

  ‘Well, I think Adam is a stupid name for a baby,’ Catherine was shouting.

  ‘I don’t care what you think,’ Honor was retaliating in an equally loud voice. ‘I like it and he’s going to be my brother.’

  Her what? Verity and Silas looked at one another whilst all around them their guests started to grin.

  ‘Honor,’ Silas began sternly.

  Verity touched his arm and shook her head.

  ‘Don’t say anything to her,’ she begged him. ‘I think this is probably my fault.’

  ‘Your fault? How can it be?’

  ‘She came into the bathroom this morning whilst I was being sick,’ Verity told him quietly.

  ‘You were being sick…?’ Silas stared at her, his face changing colour and then becoming suffused with tender emotion as he took hold of her gently and asked, ‘Are you?’

  ‘I don’t know…not yet…But Honor seems to have made up her mind what she thinks if it proves to be true,’ she told him ruefully. ‘She was thrilled—so much for us waiting.’

  Silas gave a small sigh.

  ‘You do realise that this baby is going to make her completely impossible, don’t you?’ He groaned. ‘She’ll never let either of us near her or him…’

  Glancing towards the upper window and her small stepdaughter, Verity smiled.

  ‘She’s going to be the best sister that any baby could have,’ she told him softly—and meant it.

  ISBN: 9781408998656

  Wanting His Child

  © Penny Jordan 2013

  First Published in Great Britain in 2013

  Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR

  Harlequin (UK) Limited

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  All characters in this work have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown
to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

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