She closed her eyes and moaned. Man, he loved the sounds she made, the little gasps and sighs.
He grasped her hips and started to move inside her. So tight. So hot. So damned good. He hitched her other leg up and she hooked her ankles together behind his back and thrust her hips forward to meet his strokes.
He could feel her excitement rising, the tension ratcheting tighter and tighter inside her. He lowered his head and licked her breasts, left, then right, pulling on her nipples until she gasped his name. Her fingers dug into his back and she held her breath, straining, almost there…then she pulsed around him, arching away from the wall.
He kissed her, swallowing her cry of release. He closed his eyes and concentrated on the slick heat encasing him, the warm brush of her breasts against his chest, the flex of her hips beneath his hands as she kept his rhythm.
There was nothing in the world except for her and him and the slide of their bodies and the sound of their breathing. Perfect peace. Absolute oblivion.
Too quickly his climax found him, tightening to a point of white heat and need until he pressed his face into her neck and thrust inside her one last time to shudder out his release.
He kept his face pressed into the soft skin of her neck for long moments afterward, regretting the loss of mindlessness, begrudging the return to reality.
Without releasing his grip on her hips, he pushed away from the wall and carried her to the bed. He stayed inside her as he lowered her onto the bed.
Then he started kissing her again, seeking that moment of peace once more.
5
ELIZABETH WOKE TO THE soft snick of the door closing. She opened her eyes and propped herself up on one elbow, disoriented in the dark of the room. For a moment she didn’t know where she was—her bedroom in Mayfair, Martin’s apartment, the hotel room in Soho. Then the languid heat between her legs and the slight soreness of her breasts brought it all rushing back: Nathan, his visit to her room, sex against the wall.
She was in Australia. And she’d just spent her second night in the arms of the sexiest man she’d ever met.
She thought about all the times she’d lain beneath Martin, yearning for something other than his gentle, careful lovemaking. She hadn’t known what that something was until she’d found it on the beach and against the wall in her hotel room. She’d wanted passion. Desire. Animal lust. She’d wanted sweat and grabby hands and panting and undeniable need.
She rolled onto her side and stared at the crack of light seeping beneath the blind on the window.
A few days ago, she’d never had sex anywhere except in a bedroom. She’d never experienced any other position except missionary. She’d certainly never been slammed against a wall and had her lover so desperate to be inside her that he hadn’t even bothered to remove her underwear.
It was just sex, of course. Bodies rubbing against each other because it stimulated nerve endings and satisfied some primal urge. But if she hadn’t seen her birth certificate, if she hadn’t confronted her grandfather, if she hadn’t acknowledged almost too late that there were fundamental problems in her relationship with Martin and that she was shoehorning herself into a future that suited everyone except herself, she might have married him. She might have made her vows and settled into a life half-lived. She might have gone on denying herself and her needs and never known the joy, the freedom of being able to express her desires. Better yet, to pursue them.
So, yes, it was just sex, but at the same time it felt like much, much more than that. As though she was on an archeological dig, searching for herself, and her sexuality was the first truth that she’d uncovered.
Memories from the night washed over her as she lay drowsing. Nathan’s body, so hard and strong beneath her hands. The firm, deeply satisfying thrust of him inside her. The way he’d barely let her catch her breath and come down to earth before he started kissing and touching and torturing her all over again. He was an insatiable lover. Driven. Intense. Almost desperate, it had seemed to her more than once during the night, like a drowning man clutching at passion and desire to keep him afloat. The look in his eyes, the fervor in his caresses…
Elizabeth let out a huff of laughter at her own melodrama. Nathan Jones was a surf bum with a fabulous body and a talent for sex. There was no need to read anything else into his admittedly intense lovemaking. In fact, there was no need to overanalyze it at all. It was meaningless and pleasurable and wonderful, and she was content to leave it that way.
A knock sounded at the door, drawing her out of her thoughts. Since she knew only a handful of people in all of Australia and only one of them knew where she was staying, she thought it was safe to assume it was Nate.
A slow smile curled her mouth. She’d thought he’d gone home, but perhaps he’d simply ducked out to buy a bottle of water or make a call or buy a newspaper or something and now he was back to put in an encore performance.
Remembering the morning sex they’d enjoyed yesterday, she hoped so. She got out of bed and wrapped a towel around her torso and opened the door.
And promptly gaped.
Because standing there in a very wrinkled three-piece suit, overnight bag in one hand, briefcase in the other, was Martin.
“My God. What on earth are you doing here?” she said.
Not the most welcoming of greetings, but he was supposed to be in London.
“I came to talk to you. Since you didn’t seem to want to talk over the phone.”
“But…this is Australia!” she said, still not quite able to comprehend his presence.
“Yes, after nearly twenty-four hours in the air, I’m well aware of that. Might I come in?”
It was a perfectly reasonable request—if they were still engaged. But they weren’t. And she’d spent the night having sex with another man in the rumpled sheets just over her shoulder. It felt hugely, hugely wrong to invite Martin into the same space that she’d recently shared with Nathan. Especially when she was only wearing a towel.
“Could you give me a moment to dress?”
She closed the door before he could answer, feeling both guilty and ungenerous as well as angry and ambushed.
There was only one person who could have told him where she was: Violet. For a moment she was seized with the urge to call her friend and blast her for first blabbing, then not making contact to warn Elizabeth that she’d blabbed. She sat on the room’s one and only chair and closed her eyes.
Who was she kidding? She could work up a righteous head of anger at Violet for blabbing and Martin for ambushing her but the truth was that she was swamped with guilt. A week ago, the man on the other side of the door had had every reason to believe that he would be spending the rest of his life with her. She’d given him her virginity at the ripe old age of twenty-three after dating him for four months. Six months ago, he’d asked her to marry him and she’d said yes. They’d had an engagement party and booked the Savoy for their reception and St. Stephen’s for the ceremony and Paris for the honeymoon. And then she’d pulled the rug out from under his feet and run away to the other side of the world before the dust had even settled.
She owed him a conversation. An explanation. The fact that he’d chosen loyalty to her grandfather over loyalty to her didn’t change that or excuse her actions. Yes, she had been shocked. Resentful, too, although she wasn’t sure that Martin was the right target for her resentment. But she’d had time to calm down now and they needed to talk.
She dressed quickly in one of her new sundresses and brushed out her hair before tying it back in a simple ponytail. She would have killed for a shower, but it was not to be, not when Martin was standing out in the hall like Paddington Bear, abandoned at the train station.
She straightened the bed, then let him into the room.
“It’s a long flight. Would you like a shower?” she asked, gesturing toward the ensuite.
“Yes. That’s probably a good idea. I suspect my personal hygiene leaves pretty much everything to be desired right now.” He offered her the gh
ost of a smile. “I won’t be long.”
She handed him a fresh towel and sat on the bed to wait as he disappeared into the bathroom.
This was going to be difficult. There was no getting around it. Martin had not flown halfway around the world to find closure. He’d come to talk her into coming home and getting married. And she was going to say no, and he was going to be hurt all over again.
She stared at her lap. It wasn’t as though she had a choice. She couldn’t marry him simply to avoid hurting him. That would only hurt him far more in the long term, even if she was prepared to sacrifice her own happiness in the name of doing the right thing. And she wasn’t. She’d put a lid on her own feelings, wants and needs for too long, first bowing dutifully to her grandparents’ idea of who she should be, then to Martin’s. No longer.
The water shut off abruptly and she crossed to the corner counter and turned the kettle on. By the time Martin emerged from the bathroom in a fresh white shirt and a pair of slightly wrinkled, tailored trousers the tea was ready to pour.
She made him a cup the way he liked it and passed it over wordlessly. He took the lone chair and she returned to her spot on the edge of the bed.
Martin glanced around the room, taking in the dingy carpet and basic furnishings before focusing on her. She held his eye and took a deep breath.
“Martin, I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but I’m not coming back to London with you.”
“I understand that you’re keen to meet your biological father—”
“It’s not that. That’s why I’m here, yes. But that’s not why I can’t go back with you. I’m incredibly sorry that it’s taken all this to open my eyes, but I can’t marry you.”
Martin looked down at the mug of tea in his hands. “Can I ask…is there someone else?”
“No.” Which was true. Her decision to call off the wedding had come long before she even knew Nathan Jones even existed.
Martin drew breath to ask another question and she rushed into speech.
“I know you’re confused. I know this must seem like it’s come out of nowhere, but it hasn’t. It’s been building for years. Ever since I dropped out of field hockey when I was fifteen.”
Martin shook his head. “Hockey. I’m afraid I must be incredibly dense, Elizabeth, but I’m struggling to see how your hockey team has anything to do with our relationship.”
“My grandmother hated the idea of me playing. She thought it was rough and dangerous, but I adored it. Then Grandmama came to the semifinal and I got checked and fell over and she was so upset after the game that I promised to quit on the spot. And I’ve been doing it ever since, Martin. I dropped English Literature and took up Fine Arts as an elective and didn’t accept a full-time teaching position when I graduated because she wanted me to take over her seat on the Friends of the Royal Academy Committee and the other charities she sits on. I didn’t get my hair cut because my grandfather prefers it long. I didn’t go backpacking through Europe with Violet because they were worried about my safety—”
“You’re saying you feel an obligation to please them.”
“That’s it, exactly. I love them enormously, but the truth is I’ve let them dictate too many of my decisions. To the point where I don’t even know what I want anymore.”
“I understand what you’re saying, but it won’t be like that once we’re married. You’ll be in your own home, your choices will be your own to make. I certainly have no plans to impose my will on you.”
“Martin—” She broke off, feeling incredibly sad as she looked at him. “Don’t you see? You were their choice, too, in a way. Don’t you remember how they sat us together at the firm Christmas party, and how my grandmother encouraged you to ask me to dance? And how my grandfather kept asking you to drop his papers by at the house when he ‘forgot’ to bring them home from the office so we’d keep running into each other?”
“Elizabeth, I can assure you that the only reason I have ever been interested in you is for yourself.”
She could see the devotion in his eyes, the adoration—and she knew she was utterly unworthy of it. Not because she was a bad person, but because he had an idea in his head of who she was, and it had nothing to do with the real Elizabeth.
She searched her mind for a way to explain the fundamental disconnect between them.
“Remember that time I wanted to talk about our sex life?” she asked. “Remember how I asked you to, you know, do it differently, and you refused?”
“I remember Violet putting ideas in your head.”
“Those were my ideas, Martin. I wanted you to do those things to me. But you said you respected me too much.”
“You’d prefer for me to throw you over my shoulder or do you in the backseat of my car rather than taking the time to ensure your needs are met, would you?”
“Well, honestly, yes. Sometimes I would. Haven’t you ever wanted to do any of those things?”
He broke eye contact and slid his mug onto the bedside table before smoothing his hands down his thighs. The very picture of discomfort.
“Of course I’ve wanted to do those things. There are lots of things I’d like to do, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to cast all other considerations aside and jump in, boots and all. Life isn’t only about what you want, Elizabeth.”
Elizabeth put down her own mug of tea. “I’m going to take a guess that when it comes to me the ‘other considerations’ that come into play are my grandparents. Am I right or am I wrong?”
Martin threw his hands in the air. “Again with your grandparents. Could you please stop trying to equate their values with mine? I respect them enormously, especially your grandfather. He’s a brilliant lawyer and he’s been an incredibly generous mentor to me. I owe him everything. But I’d like to think I have enough native wit and intelligence to make my own decisions.”
She stared at him, frustrated. How to get through to him?
“Look me in the eye and tell me that when I asked you to do me from behind like a dog you didn’t once think of my grandfather and what he might think and how much you respect him,” Elizabeth challenged boldly.
“For God’s sake, Elizabeth. What a question.” His color was high as he shifted in his chair.
“Okay, fine, answer me this, then—have you ever done it that way with one of your other girlfriends?”
She saw the truth in his eyes before he glanced away. She leaned forward to capture his hands, forcing him to return his focus to her.
“Let’s call a spade a spade here. For better or for worse, I’m fixed in your mind as the granddaughter of the man you respect more than any other person in the world. You said it yourself—you owe him everything. When you look at me, you see the granddaughter of Edward Whittaker first and me second.”
Martin reversed their grips so that he was the one holding her hands. “Elizabeth, I love you.”
“Martin, the woman you think you want to marry doesn’t exist. She’s a construct, cobbled together by my overdeveloped sense of duty and your desire to be connected to a man who, in many respects, has filled the role of father in your life. I would make a terrible, terrible wife for you.”
“I don’t believe that. Not for a minute.”
“It’s true. You might not see it now, but you will one day.”
He stared at her and she could see realization dawn on him as he at last understood that he would be going home alone.
“I’m so sorry. I really am. You’re a good, good man. And one day you are going to make some woman an amazing, wonderful, loving husband. But that woman is not going to be me.”
His eyes were suspiciously shiny. He stood, pulling his phone from his pocket.
At first she thought he was calling her grandparents, but then she realized he was talking to the airline, booking the next available flight to London. She put her hand on his arm to get his attention.
“Why don’t you stay for a few days? You don’t have to go straight back, do you?”
He covered the mouthpiece on his phone. “I didn’t come here for a holiday. I came here for you.”
So she sat with guilt gnawing at her while he booked a flight home for late that evening, reminding herself over and over that she’d done the right thing for both of them, that whatever hurt she inflicted now was better than a divorce down the road when things would be even more messy and complicated and painful.
It didn’t make her feel much better.
Martin ended his call and reached for his overnight bag.
“Now what are you doing?” she asked.
“I need to get back to Melbourne.”
“It’s only an hour and a half away. You can at least stay for breakfast, can’t you?”
He considered her invitation for a long moment. “I don’t particularly relish being the object of your pity, Elizabeth.”
“I don’t pity you, Martin. How could I? You’re one of the smartest, most honorable men I know. I feel bad about the way things have turned out. I wish I’d found the courage to stand up for myself before the business with the birth certificate. But I don’t feel sorry for you. Somewhere out there is a woman you’re going to want to throw over your shoulder, and nothing in the world is going to stop you from doing it. I look forward to hearing about her when it happens.”
He stared hard at the floor for a few beats, then he put down his overnight bag.
“Where do you recommend for breakfast, then?”
NATE HITCHED A LIFT out to Woolamai in the morning. The swell was high and the water crowded with fellow surfers keen to take advantage. He spent an hour in the water, got sandbagged twice and relentlessly drilled when a wave shut down with him in the curl. His brain felt washed clean and he was starving by the time he hit the beach.
A couple of New Zealand surfers were heading into town and he caught a ride with them. He thought about Elizabeth as he sat in the back of their pickup. The silk of her skin. The taste of her. The smell of her hair.
He’d had her three times last night, and still he wanted her again. He wasn’t sure what was up with that, but he wasn’t going to question it. Far better to have his head filled with visions of soft white skin and pretty pink nipples and pale blond hair than what he’d been living with for the past few months.
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