‘And I complicated it by mentioning love and marriage,’ he sighed.
‘Yes,’ she admitted huskily.
‘Does Reedman want you back?’
‘No,’ she answered with certainty.
‘Then what’s he playing at?’
‘I wish I knew,’ she sighed. ‘I thought the divorce was all settled.’
‘So he can marry the anaemic Teresa?’
‘She isn’t anaemic. She’s very—’
‘Malleable,’ Steve substituted mockingly.
‘Maybe,’ she agreed grudgingly. ‘But she loves Zack, and she seems to suit him.’
‘She would suit any man who wanted a beautiful doll to grace his home and bed. No man could want a woman like that after knowing you, Julie.’
She flushed. ‘I don’t think you’re being quite fair to her.’
‘On the contrary, I’m being generous. I’m hiking for granted the fact that she’s good in bed. I’m sure Reedman is?’ he quirked a questioning eyebrow.
‘Steve-‘
‘Don’t bother to answer,’ he sighed. ‘I can see he is. When I sober up maybe we should talk properly.’
‘Do we have anything left to say?’
‘Not a lot,’ he shook his head. ‘But I’m not sure if I’ve been offensive. I have a premature headache from the hangover I’m going to have in the morning, and I may have said things I shouldn’t. I don’t want us to part badly. You do see why I can’t go out with you any more?’
Yes, she saw. ‘I really am sorry, Steve.’
‘I know,’ he nodded, moving to the door.
‘Steve!’
‘Mm?’ he turned in the doorway.
Julie ran over and kissed him lightly on the mouth, moving back as he instinctively deepened the kiss to passion.
‘Habit,’ he muttered apologetically before going into the room next door.
‘How touching,’ drawled a deeply sarcastic voice. ‘And does he sneak back into your room an hour later when everyone else is asleep?’
Her head had gone back at the first sound of Zack’s mocking voice. ‘Is that how you and Teresa arrange things?’ she snapped.
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘I respect Connie’s wish that I don’t share my girl-friend’s bed while I’m in her house.’
‘How noble of you!’ she taunted.
‘But I’m sure even she couldn’t object to my sharing my wife’s bed.’ He moved threateningly towards her.
Julie’s eyes widened as she took in the implication of his words, and she shut the door to keep him out, her heart hammering wildly in her chest.
‘Oh no, you don’t!’ Zack put a foot inside the door and gave it a heavy push, the force of it opening sending Julie staggering across the room. Zack closed the door behind him as he came towards her.
‘No!’ her eyes were wide with fear, the black of the pupil almost obliterating the green of the iris. ‘No, Zack, not again!’ she pleaded chokingly.
His mouth twisted. ‘It won’t be rape this time, Julie. Not rape,’ he murmured as he trapped her against the wall, moving his body insinuatingly against hers before he bent his head to claim her mouth.
She wrenched away from him. ‘I’ll hate you for this,’ her eyes shot venom at him. ‘Hate you!’
‘No hate, not this time,’ he promised huskily. ‘Only love, Julie. Love like it used to be between us.’
‘According to you even that wasn’t very good,’ she was desperately trying to free herself, but Zack had no intention of releasing her.
‘It’s all I’ve got,’ he groaned. ‘All you’ve got. And I intend taking it.’
He lifted her up in his arms and carried her over to the bed, coming down to on top of her, his mouth parting hers with a hunger that left her gasping.
‘Zack, please, no...’ she cried against his shoulder.
‘Julie, please, yes…!’ he groaned, his lips moving down her throat, lingering above her last beating heart before moving lower, slipping the strap of her nightgown from her shoulder as he captured the top of one breast between pleasure-giving lips, loving the nipple to full throbbing life.
Her fingers dug convulsively into his shoulder, as she heard his groan of pleasure and felt his firm flesh beneath her hands, his skin warm through the material of his shirt. His jacket had been discarded before he came into the room, his tie too, and several of the buttons of his shirt were undone. Her fingers moved impatiently to undo the rest, unable to stop herself, the skin below burning her with its heat.
‘Julie!’ His mouth came back to hers, meeting in a love ritual of equal desire, and Zack’s thighs surged into hers as he throbbed with passion. ‘It’s been so long,’ he groaned. ‘Too long. I want to be patient, to take my time, but God, I need to take you now, Julie. Later I —We’ll take it slower. But this time I can’t—I I need—God, I need you naked beneath me!’
All the time he was talking he was ripping his clothes off, first his shirt, then his trousers and dark underpants, and now it was the turn of her nightgown, and he gazed down at her with fevered eyes as she lay beside him.
‘Your breasts are fuller then I remember,’ he muttered, touching each rosy peak wonderingly. ‘And your hips are slimmer. But otherwise—otherwise you’re still the same, still the woman who drives me to a frenzy.’
And he still had the most magnificent body she had ever seen, lean and powerfully muscled, beautifully male, his flesh firm and smooth as she caressed him.
As his body joined with hers she gave a gasp of uncontrollable passion, hearing that gasp echoed in Zack as they moved together, driven on to reach the peak of physical pleasure, a release they both needed.
From the first touch of Zack’s hands and lips Julie had no thoughts other than of him; she was perfectly attuned to his wants and needs, giving him pleasure as only she knew how.
It was nothing like the last time they had been together, nothing like the humiliation she had suffered at his hands, in fact she couldn’t even remember that pain as Zack raised her to the heights with him, clinging to him in tense excitement as the delicious ache became a roar, rivulets of pleasure cascading down them, their bodies shuddering to earth slowly, oh, so slowly.
Zack breathed raggedly into her throat, holding her tightly beneath him as she would have moved away. ‘No,’ he raised his head, the glaze of passion still in his eyes. ‘Stay where you are. And soon, very soon,’ his voice became husky, ‘I’ll give you that slow loving I promised I would.’
She could already feel desire ebbing back into his body. It had always been like this between them, always this fiery passion that never seemed to lessen no matter how much they made love.
‘I didn’t hurt you?’ He looked down at her anxiously.
‘No,’ her voice was thick with emotion.
‘I didn’t mean to rush it, but—God, I have to kiss you again,’ he groaned.
With kisses came renewed passion, only tin time Zack was determined to give her unerring pleasure, his caresses slow and languorous, never quite taking her over the edge, not until they were both ready.
Julie remembered other nights when the had made love until morning, and they hadn’t forgotten a thing about each other’s bodies, their movements sure and erotic, finding pleasure-giving zones as if by instinct.
Finally towards dawn she drifted off to sleep, satiated with the passion of Zack’s body, exhausted with a lovemaking that knew no barriers, every inch of her body knowing the touch of Zack’s hands and the feel of his lips.
She woke up alone, only the indentation of the pillow beside her to show her Zack had been there at all—and the languor of her body, stretching with a feline satisfaction.
She had no explanations for last night, not for herself or anyone else. It had happened and she had no idea why. Zack had seemed as dazed by it as she was, driven on by a fevered desire that he had no control over.
Where would they go from here? Did she want them to go anywhere? She wasn’t even sure of that.
It wasn’t until she was trying to brush her curls into some sort of order that she realised it was after eleven o’clock. What must everyone think of her! And why hadn’t someone come in and woken her before now?
She looked different this morning. Much as she tried to ignore it, a glowingly alive woman was reflected back at her in the mirror, the green eyes shone, the features were softer, a smile curved the lips. She looked exactly what she was, a woman who had been made love to until the early hours of the morning. And she couldn’t go downstairs looking like this!
Finally she had no choice. The minutes were ticking by, and she had no idea what Steve had been doing all this time, left to his own devices and Zack’s biting sarcasm.
Only Ben and Steve were in the lounge when she went in a few minutes later. The two men seemed on quite friendly terms, their conversation, of course, about newspapers.
‘Connie’s in the kitchen supervising the children’s snack,’ Ben told her.
Julie glanced nervously at Steve, finding him looking broodingly back at her. She instantly felt self-conscious, as if it were emblazoned on her that she had spent a night of unbridled passion with her husband. Steve’s room was next door, maybe he had heard—No, after that first exchange of heated words she and Zack had been silent lovers, moving instinctively in their desire for each other.
She licked her lips nervously. ‘And—er— Zack and Teresa?’
‘Gone.’
She looked sharply at Ben. ‘Gone…?’
‘Mm, they left about ten. They were having lunch with Teresa’s mother and father.’
‘I see. I—I’ll just go through and say hello to Connie.’ Julie hurriedly left the room, leaning weakly against the wall outside.
Zack had gone, had left with his future wife as if nothing had happened last night? He was just carrying on with his life as if that explosion of the senses had never happened between them.
But what had she expected, what had she wanted? She hadn’t known what to do about last night, and now Zack had decided for her. She would forget it. She had been a one-off thing for him, a last night with the wife he was divorcing.
She hadn’t expected anything from him, hadn’t wanted anything, but this cruel rejection of their lovemaking hurt her more than she cared to probe.
She was composed when she entered the kitchen minutes later, only the paleness of her cheeks giving away the fact that she didn’t really feel as bright as her mood of forced gaiety seemed to indicate.
She kept up that mood through lunch, chatting lightly about unimportant subjects, aware that Connie and Ben gave her several worried glances, although Steve seemed too wrapped up in his own thoughts to notice her brittle manner.
Poor Steve, he looked so unhappy. And she had done this to him.
Most of all she couldn’t bear the shame she attached to last night. Zack had met little resistance from her, had soon reduced her to a willing partner in his lovemaking. How he must despise her for her weakness!
How she despised herself!
‘Just how rude to you was I last night?’ Steve asked on the drive back to London later that afternoon.
‘You weren’t rude at all.’ Julie bit her lip. ‘I thought you handled it very well.’
‘I got drunk,’ he grimaced. ‘Something I haven’t done since I was a teenager.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Did I make a fool of myself?’
‘No,’ she shook her head firmly. ‘You were angry with me, but then you had a right to be.’
‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘I still can’t get over it, you and Reedman married.’
‘I’m rather surprised by it myself,’ she admitted ruefully.
‘Is he the one who put you off marriage?’
‘No,’ she shook her head. ‘That was—It happened years ago, before I met Zack.’
‘You haven’t been very lucky in the men you’ve loved, have you?’
‘No,’ she rasped. ‘Not lucky at all. Steve, I—Do you think we’ll be able to work together —after this?’ She was wondering if in all fairness to him she shouldn’t leave the Daily Probe.
His mouth twisted. ‘Work isn’t everything, Julie,’ he derided.
‘It is to me,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’ve made it so.’
‘Work can’t be your lover, Julie. Only a flesh and blood man can be that.’
‘And if I don’t want a lover?’ she flashed, last night too vivid in her mind for her to answer coolly.
‘You’re a beautiful woman,’ Steve told her softly. ‘A warm, vibrantly alive woman.’
‘And I need a man?’ she scorned.
He shrugged. ‘I think so. And not just any man,’ he added softly.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’ She stared woodenly in front of her.
‘Don’t you?’ he derided.
‘No,’ she snapped abruptly.
‘If you say so,’ he drawled. ‘And I can’t see any reason why we shouldn’t continue working together. We’re both adults, arid we always knew it could come to this one day.’
‘Yes.’
‘Friends?’
She blinked back the tears as she looked at him, putting her hand into the one he held out to her. ‘Friends,’ she agreed huskily. ‘You really are very nice, Steve.’
‘Aren’t I?’ he grinned.
‘And conceited,’ she added teasingly.
They talked more easily for the rest of the journey, and Julie thought that one day they just might be friends. Things would be strained between them at first, tentative, but she had no doubt of Steve’s sincerity in wanting friendship between them.
As long as she could forget that he knew her secret, had guessed the innermost secret she was almost afraid to admit to herself. Steve had known, had somehow guessed.
She still loved Zack!
She didn’t want to, she had no idea why ii should be so, not after all that happened between them, but she was still in love with Zack. And he had treated her as being no more important than the other women who fleetingly shared his bed.
CHAPTER 6
What was the saying, ‘Life has to go on’? Well, it went on, quite normally in fact—her job .as a reporter, her casual friends, her occasional chats on the telephone with Connie. Yes, life went on, but never as it had been before.
Julie had lost the tranquil peace she had known since leaving Zack, no longer felt relief at not seeing him; her misery was a tangible thing. Even her boss commented on it.
‘You’re not your usual efficient self, Julie.’ Doug came to sit on the side of her desk. ‘You’ve spelt Marriott at least three different ways in this story on the fire in the block of flats.’
She skimmed through the story, making the necessary changes. ‘Sorry,’ she grimaced. ‘I guess my mind was elsewhere.’
‘Mm,’ he nodded. ‘It has been a lot lately.’
‘My work—’
‘Is fine,’ he held up his hands defensively. ‘Even if you only worked at half capacity your work would still be superior to most of the other reporters’ here,’ he gave her a rare compliment. ‘I’m making no complaints about your work. You just aren’t your usual—lively self.’
‘I’ve felt tired lately.’
‘Maybe you should see a doctor,’ Doug frowned his concern. ‘After all, you went through a harrowing experience five weeks ago.’
If she saw a doctor he would just tell her to get more sleep. And it wasn’t that she didn’t go to bed early—she had nothing else to do!— she just couldn’t sleep when she got there.
‘I just have a cold coming on,’ she excused.
‘For a whole month?’ Doug derided.
A month, was that all it was? It seemed more like a year. Heavens, was
the whole of the rest of her life going to drag in the same way?
‘I’m sure it’s nothing serious,’ she gave a nervy smile. ‘Maybe I just need a holiday.’
‘You’ve just had one,’ he reminded her dryly.
Her smile deepened to genuine humour. ‘I meant a holiday in the sun.’
Doug quirked an eyebrow at her. ‘How about a day in sunny Blackpool instead?’
‘Blackpool!’ she said disgustedly.
‘Human interest story,’ Doug mocked; he was a hardened newspaperman of indiscriminate years, his brown hair sparse now, his body thin rather than just lean, filled with a nervous energy that left younger men standing. ‘How Sammy the cat survived three weeks bricked up in an old fireplace.’
‘Oh, Doug, no!’
‘Oh, Julie, yes,’ he chuckled, putting the details down on her desk. ‘It will be a nice break for you after all the serious stuff I’ve been giving you lately. Besides, the’ drive will be good for you.’
‘Photographs?’ she said resignedly.
‘I’m sending Sharon with you. Two young girls should be able to charm the old lady who owns Sammy. Maybe you’ll even charm Sammy. I hear the man from the Mirror nearly got his hand scratched off.’
Julie stood up to get her coat. ‘Sammy’s probably feeling hungry after all that time being bricked up,’ she grinned.
‘Probably,’ Doug grinned back. ‘You know why I’m not sending Steve with you?’ he sobered.
She made a great show of pulling on her jacket. ‘He turned it down in disgust?’
‘I didn’t offer it to him,’ he shook his head.
‘Maybe that’s as well,’ she mocked the necessity of such a story.
‘Is he the reason you look like death?’
‘Thanks!’ Her mouth twisted. ‘And why should Steve be the reason I look like any thing?’
‘The two of you were close—’
‘We were friends,’ she insisted.
‘Not lovers?’
‘Doug!’
He shrugged. ‘Okay, so it’s none of my business. But have pity on an old man trying to keep up with the relationships of his staff.’
‘My heart bleeds for you,’ Julie taunted. ‘And Steve and I don’t expect any favours.’
‘You aren’t getting any. Oh, go and talk to Mrs Tibbies before I lose my temper,’ he dismissed impatiently.
Love Unspoken Page 8