by Penny Jordan
Nevertheless when the pills finally took effect she instinctively turned to one side, as though curving her body into that of an unseen partner who shared her bed.
Memories drifted in and out of her mind, whispering silken promises, and her body started to relax. Once many, many years ago she and Lewis had shared a long sunny afternoon in bed together.
It had been a Saturday. He had been at work in the morning and had returned in time for lunch. She had been working in the garden and had gone upstairs to shower and change. He had followed her, walking into the bathroom just as she was emerging from the shower, whatever he had been about to ask her forgotten as he’d watched the way the small beads of moisture rolled down over her skin.
She had looked at him and known with a tiny thrill of feminine elation just what was going through his mind. She had been proud of her body then, proud of her ability to arouse him, innocently believing in the fiction of their love.
She had deliberately, provocatively almost, let the towel slip from her hands and walked towards him.
He smelled of heat and the dry dustiness of an office environment, these scents clinging to his skin, mingling with its unmistakable maleness so that she received a faintly shocking charge of erotic awareness in the contrasting hot, alien scent of man and the outside world, and her own clean, cool, enclosed woman smell.
‘What would you like for lunch?’
She looked at his mouth as she asked the question, her voice carefully neutral but her body openly displaying that the preparation of a meal was the last thing on her mind.
He, as she had known he would, reached for her, running his hands quickly over her still damp skin, and then less quickly as he held her slightly away from him, repaying her teasing with a little deliberate torment of his own, while he pretended to consider her question.
But all the time she was aware of his arousal, of her own growing, heady awareness that she only had to reach out and touch him, that she only had to lean forward and stroke his mouth with the tip of her tongue…
It shocked her a little that she should feel this heady, almost wanton pleasure in her sleek feminine nakedness, her skin cool and soft, while beneath her fingertips, beneath the crisp cotton of his white shirt sleeves his body burned with heat and the restless, surging male urgency which she was deliberately trying to incite.
Shamefully she knew how much she liked to tease him like this, to revel in the security their relationship gave her, his love gave her, to torment him a little so that he fought to hold on to his self-control.
He was never violent with her, never aggressive, never anything other than a generous, almost protective lover, who always seemed to place her own needs above his own; and yet sometimes, when she opened her eyes and looked into his, she saw such an intensity of passion there, such a fierce heat of desire that her heart and her body would clench on a tight wave of awe and excitement that such an ordinary person as herself could arouse him to such emotions.
The sex lessons she had received at school, even the overheard conversations of other girls as she’d grown older, had warned her that it might not be possible for her to feel like this, to derive so much sensual and emotional pleasure from seeing and feeling the intensity of his need for her.
Although she had never told him so, never voiced such deep emotions out loud, the fact that he was prepared to betray to her how much he loved and wanted her, the fact that he allowed her to see how vulnerable she could make him, made her feel stronger, happier than she had ever believed she could feel, banishing all the years when she had been alone, afraid that no one would ever love her, suffering the fears only known to those who, from whatever cause, had suffered the loss of parental love while very young.
Now, as he touched her, her body trembled, vibrating almost to the sensitivity of his touch.
As he started to draw her closer to him, she whispered against his mouth, ‘Careful, I’ll make your clothes damp.’
‘Then I’d better just take them off, hadn’t I?’
It was a familiar game, one Lacey enjoyed playing, dragging it out a little further as she protested untruthfully, ‘But what about lunch? I’m hungry…’
‘You want to get dressed?’
His hand was cupping her breast. The previous weekend he had been putting a new fence around the garden, and his skin was still callused from the outdoor work. She liked the sensation of his hard skin against her softness, rubbing herself sinuously against him to increase the sensation of pleasure, while responding, ‘Mm…I suppose I should.’
His shirt was unfastened at the neck, and if she stood on tiptoe she could just about manage to kiss his throat, letting her lips absorb the hot, salty taste of his skin. She loved the scent and taste of him—it was something that was uniquely his, something that clung to his clothes, to their bed, causing her often when he wasn’t there to stroke her fingers against a shirt he had worn, a pillow on which he had slept.
He often told her that she was unbelievably sensual, and when he said it his eyes would darken with a passion that told her how much he enjoyed that aspect of her personality. An aspect which until she had met him she had never even known existed, and one which even now she kept closely guarded, secret, something she shared with him and him alone. It was as though their love gave her the freedom, the confidence to step outside the image she showed the world to share with him and shower on him all the gifts of her womanhood.
Now, as she kissed and licked his throat, she felt the familiar tension hardening his muscles, caught the familiar small sound he made in his throat, knew with eager joy that soon Lewis would pick her up and carry her over to their bed and that, once there, he would stroke her, kiss her, pleasure her until she was crying out to him, pleading with him for the ultimate expression of his desire, his love…but someone was knocking on the door, the sound overriding her urgent pleas.
Lacey came out of her dream, her body trembling and drenched in sweat, to the realisation that someone actually was knocking on her front door.
She reacted instinctively to the imperative summons, sliding awkwardly off the bed, picking up the robe on the chair and hurriedly pulling it on as she rushed downstairs.
Because of her headache she had forgotten to put the door on the safety chain, and now, as she opened it, it swung back so that the man standing outside frowned a little before stepping into the hall.
Lacey noted his brief frown with a tiny detached corner of her brain, the only part left free from the numbing, paralysing shock of seeing her ex-husband standing there.
‘Lewis!’ she exclaimed weakly.
His presence, coming so totally unexpectedly hard on the heels of her erotic dream memories, was too much for her brain to cope logically with.
As he closed the door behind him, she moved automatically towards him. Her body was still soft and warm from her dream, her senses still aroused by the memory of their lovemaking.
It didn’t seem to matter that her brain, still struggling to recover from the shock of seeing him, was desperately trying to scream a warning to her body; the latter appeared to have no intentions of listening to it.
‘Lewis.’
She said his name again, and this time the tremble in her voice wasn’t caused by shock. Her hand was already half outstretched towards him, her senses totally bemused and confused by the reality of him. She had forgotten to fasten her robe in her rush to answer the door and now, as she moved, it fell open, and in the shadowy coolness of her hallway the light from the window on the half-landing stroked the soft curve of her breast with warm gold where the robe swung open to reveal it.
The fine white fabric of her bra did little to conceal the dark silkiness of her nipple, still swollen and hard, still aching for the slow, sweet torment of the male mouth it had craved.
‘I’m sorry; I had no idea you weren’t alone.’
The harsh, almost angry words shocked her back to reality. She fell back immediately, her face hot with embarrassment and shame
as she realised how close she had come to…to what? To perpetuating the sensual myth embodied in her dreams, to trying to turn them into reality by begging Lewis to make love to her?
Sickened, and filled with self-revulsion, she quickly turned her back on him, fastening her robe with fingers that shook and then folding her arms protectively around her body, before turning back to him and saying huskily, ‘There’s no one here with me. What are you doing here, Lewis?’ she demanded. ‘What do you want?’
The dream was gone now, and in its place was reality. Her mouth twisted a little, bitterly. Whatever had brought Lewis to her door, she knew it was not any desire to make love to her.
Was he afraid that she might tell people that they had once been married? Was he motivated by guilt, or fear, or perhaps merely by curiosity?
‘You’re alone?’
The incredulity in his voice made her tense. Now that she was fully awake she was beginning to realise just what kind of picture she must have presented when she’d opened the door.
Even at twenty-one Lewis had possessed a sensitivity, an awareness of the feminine psyche and its capacity for sensuality and responsiveness, which had often awed and amazed her.
Add to that knowledge twenty-odd years of experience and living, and she knew that he must have been immediately aware that she had opened the door to him in a state of acute physical arousal, even if that arousal had now vanished so completely that even she could hardly believe she had experienced it.
Or maybe it was more that she didn’t want to admit that she had experienced it; that, twenty years on, she was still painfully and humiliatingly capable of being aroused by the memory of his lovemaking, even though she knew that their intimacy had only been a fiction on his part, that he could never have been as committed to her as he had pretended.
How many times when they had made love, when she had thought he was just as deeply enmeshed in his desire for her as she was in her love and desire for him, had he secretly been holding himself aloof from her, allowing her to believe she had his total commitment and love when she did not?
That question had tormented her ceaselessly over the years, making it impossible for her to trust her judgement where men were concerned, making it impossible for her to form another sexual and emotional relationship.
Had he ever realised how much he had damaged her, how much he had hurt her? Did he even care? But she didn’t blame him. No, she blamed herself for being stupid enough to believe in him…in his love, when surely there must have been something, some sign…some warning that he was deceiving her which she had overlooked.
Perhaps he had even thought when he’d married her that he did love her; or perhaps it was only when it was too late that he’d realised that he did not.
She put her hand up to her forehead. Her head still ached, a dull tension headache, the pain slowly spreading down her neck and into her shoulder muscles.
As she half turned away from him, she heard Lewis saying, ‘You still get them…those migraine attacks.’ His voice sounded oddly gruff, as though there was some kind of constriction in his throat.
Her own throat tightened in response, pain welling up inside her. ‘Yes, I still get them,’ she answered, keeping her back to him. ‘I’m sure you haven’t come here to talk about my migraine attacks, Lewis. What is it you do want? After all, we both know that it can’t possibly be me.’
Her whole body went tense with shock as she heard the bitterness, the betrayal in her own voice. What on earth was she doing? Did she want him to know how much the past still hurt her?
She heard him make a small sound. It could have been shock, it could have been disgust. She wanted to turn round and confront him, to tell him that there could be no purpose in his being here in her hallway, but she lacked the courage to do so, knew that if she turned and looked at him now…
‘I came to talk to you about Jessica.’
Now she did turn round, her eyes confused and wary. Her heart had started to beat very fast as panic took hold of her.
He knew. He must know. He had guessed…or worked out…but how could he know? She hadn’t even known herself when he had left her that she was pregnant, and even if he had guessed…what did it matter now so many, many years later? Jessica was hers…hers and hers alone, the panic inside her insisted, and if this man thought that he could simply walk into their lives and…
‘Yes, Jessica. Your daughter—my daughter!’
It was almost worse than if she had been totally unprepared for it.
She felt a numbing wave of sickness reel over her, a nausea which began in her stomach and spread to every part of her body so that she was literally unable to stop herself from trembling and shivering.
‘Lacey.’
He was coming towards her and she reacted instinctively, backing away from him, her voice tight with pain and fear as she half screamed. ‘No, no! Not that! Please!’ She was moaning now, not screaming, her voice broken and defeated, her face pale and haunted as she felt her pain turn in on itself and burn into her, and then she saw the shock in his face and realised abruptly what she was doing. She was a woman now, not a child. She was beyond, surely, behaving with such hysteria and lack of control. After all, what possible harm could he do to her relationship with Jessica now? Jessica wasn’t a child who could be snatched away from her. She was an adult young woman.
Behind her, Lewis was speaking, his voice urgent, desperate almost, as he demanded, ‘Tell me, Lacey. Is she my child? I have to know.’
CHAPTER FOUR
LACEY took one deep breath and then another. What was the point in lies and evasion? All her adult life she had prided herself on her honesty.
‘Biologically, yes, she’s your child,’ she admitted fiercely. ‘But in every other respect, no, she’s my child and mine alone. You never even knew that she’d been conceived…never cared.’ She stopped, furious with herself for allowing her emotions to break through her self-control so easily.
‘I don’t want to take her away from you, Lacey,’ she heard Lewis telling her quietly, confirming what she had already known: that she had betrayed to him her great fear, her terror almost, that somehow he would seek to come between her and Jessica. ‘That isn’t why I’m here. God knows, I wish I didn’t have to say this, but I wish she weren’t mine.’
He wished she weren’t his. Lacey stared at him in disbelief, frozen in the grip of an anger, a rage almost, so strong that it took her several seconds to ask herself why, when he had just freed her from the terror of believing that he wanted to make some kind of claim on Jessica as her father, she should feel this anger at his rejection of her, his verbally expressed wish that she wasn’t his child.
‘If you’re worried that either she or I may make some kind of claim on you…’ she began stiffly.
He interrupted her, saying, ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ and causing her to glare bitterly at him and challenge him acidly.
‘What is it, then? Is it your wife…your children? Don’t you want them to know? Are you so ashamed of us…of the fact that we were once married, and that I, your unwanted first wife, conceived your child? If you hadn’t wanted me to have that child you should have been more careful. Only, as I recall it, you seemed as enthusiastic about the prospect of having children as I was myself. In fact—’
‘I don’t have a wife or any children.’
The words were so low, so filled with unmistakable pain, that she fell silent.
‘Look, could we please discuss this sitting down? I…’ He moved awkwardly, and she frowned, realising that he was limping slightly.
‘You’ve hurt your leg. A…’ Her response was instinctive, wholly feminine and nurturing, her brief movement towards him halted when he too moved, but back from her as though fending her off.
‘It’s nothing.’ He was brusque, terse almost, rejecting her…again, she recognised, embarrassment flushing her skin.
‘The sitting-room’s through there,’ she told him curtly, indicating a door off the
hall. ‘Please go in. I’ll go and put the kettle on.’
She didn’t particularly want a drink, but she needed time to assimilate what was happening. Her brain might have registered the fact that his presence here in her home had nothing to do with her as a woman, nothing to do with their past relationship as husband and wife, their past intimacy as lovers, but her body was rebelliously refusing to accept that same truth. Her body was…
Her body was reacting to his physical presence in very much the same way as it had done to her dreams of him, she admitted bitterly as she hurried into the kitchen and closed the door behind her.
Lacey’s head was still aching, but the sick terror which had pounded through her when she had thought he’d come to try and make some sort of claim on Jessica had gone.
Strange how easily she had believed him when he’d said that that wasn’t what he wanted, when she had so little reason to believe in anything he might say.
The kettle boiled, she made the tea, and put the tea things on a tray. When she walked into the sitting-room with it, Lewis was standing in front of the window, absently massaging his left thigh. When he heard her come in he stopped, walking towards her, taking the tray from her, asking her where she wanted him to put the tray down, and then, when she’d told him, complimenting her on the room’s décor.
‘You always did have a gift for turning a room into somewhere warm and welcoming.’
She stared at him, her eyes dark with pain, her guard down as she registered the solemnity behind his words, baffled by the expression in his eyes.
It was almost as though being here with her tormented him in some way.
‘So there’s no doubt, then: Jessica is my child.’
The words were sombre, weighted. For some reason the tone of his voice made her shiver.
She couldn’t speak and so she shook her head.
‘Then there’s something I have to tell you. Something I myself didn’t discover until after we were married, otherwise I would never…