by Penny Jordan
She shook her head, unable to answer, just as a large fat bumble bee flew dozily towards her. As she ducked her head to avoid it, her hair swung against Lewis’s skin. He raised his hand, his fingers entangling in its silkiness, and then as she looked at him, her eyes round and startled, he said her name in a low jerky voice and bent his head towards her.
Mesmerised, she waited, unable to withdraw her body from within the circle of his arm, nor her gaze from his mouth.
Only when it finally touched her own did she close her eyes, her whole body trembling with aching anticipation.
His hand touched her face, cupping it gently, his fingers skimming her skin before sliding into her hair, supporting the weight of her head while he kissed her.
His skin carried the hot musky scent of an active male body, intensifying her own arousal, making her snuggle closer to him, her body pressing against his.
‘Lacey.’
The sound he made as he said her name thrilled through her. It needed no translation, no explanation, its message as clear as the one given by the fierce hardening of his body.
She aroused him and he wanted her. Her senses trembled with exultant joy that he should so clearly feel what she herself was experiencing.
‘I want you so much,’ she heard him whispering shakily to her. ‘So very, very much.’
He was still kissing her, and she opened her mouth beneath his, pressing herself closer to him, sliding her hands up under his jacket, her heart beating furiously fast as the tenor of their kiss changed, the slow gentle pressure of Lewis’s mouth giving way to something else, something more demanding and emotionally charged.
As she responded to it, welcoming the intimacy, she knew that she was responsible for what was happening, that she was the one who had subtly encouraged and invited the passion they were now sharing.
Her mind screamed a volley of warnings and objections to her, but her senses screened them out. They weren’t what they wanted to hear. What she wanted to hear was the erotic counterplay of Lewis’s breathing, the soft sound of his hands as they moved against her body, the delirious control destroying the messages her senses and her emotions were relaying to her.
All around them the garden was full of the rich evening scent of the roses and growing things. The week had been dry, and when Lewis lowered her on to the grass she was conscious of the earth’s warmth and the clean green smell of the grass, long where it edged towards the trees and soft against her face as she turned blindly towards Lewis, seeking a renewal of the kiss they had been sharing.
When he hesitated, cupping her face, smoothing his thumbs over her skin, searching her eyes, she read the question he had not yet asked her. Her heart trembled inside her body. There were a hundred—no, a thousand reasons why she shouldn’t be doing this, but none of them mattered.
As she reached towards him her hands trembled as they slid up over his arms, free of the restriction of the jacket he had shrugged off.
She watched as his eyes betrayed the effect she was having on him, dizzy with the knowledge that she should be able to call up so much desire from him.
‘Common sense tells me that we shouldn’t be doing this,’ he told her huskily as he leaned over her. ‘But right now there’s nothing that I want more than to hold you in my arms. Do you remember how it used to be between us?’
Did she…? Her eyes grew huge and dark, reflecting his desire. Her hands trembled as she held him.
‘So many, many times I’ve dreamed of holding you like this.’
He was leaning over her, unfastening the row of tiny buttons fastening her T-shirt, laying her body bare to the evening sun and to the touch of his hands and his lips.
She shuddered wildly, her lips pressed tightly together as she struggled to suppress her emotions. The touch of his lips was so familiar, so…so tender…so…so adoring.
Her hands came up, clasping the back of his head, her body arching in fierce response as his hands cupped her bare breasts and his lips tasted her sun-warmed skin.
‘You’re so beautiful…so perfect.’
The humble, marvelling tone of his voice made her throat close with emotion, the sight of his dark head against her breast heart-stoppingly poignant. She was a woman now, not a girl, and for twenty years she had scarcely given her body a thought in the sexual sense, and yet now, suddenly, she found she was afraid almost, conscious of the difference physically between a woman of twenty and a woman of thirty-eight. But Lewis’s body had changed as well, and to her eyes for the better.
He kissed the hollow between her breasts, his tongue stroking her skin, and then the slope of her breast itself, his kisses delicate, gentle as though he was afraid of hurting her.
When he withdrew from her, carefully covering her exposed breasts with her T-shirt, her feelings must have shown in her eyes because suddenly his own changed, darkening, glittering almost, his voice rough as he told her, ‘It isn’t that I don’t want to. It’s just that I’m afraid…afraid that once I have you in my mouth, that once I…I’m afraid of losing my self-control…of hurting you…rushing you. I’ve dreamed of this for such a long, long time…wanted you…ached for you—’ He saw that she was crying and stopped, demanding abruptly, ‘What is it…what have I said? If you want me to stop…’
Logic told her that that was exactly what she should say she did want, but she refused to listen. He was sitting up now, watching her anxiously, his eyes shadowed, his body tense.
She sat up too, shaking her head, knowing that there was no way she could say to him what was in her heart, no way she could simply tell him how much she loved and wanted him…no way she dared risk spoiling the magical wonder of what was happening with clumsy explanations and questions.
She wasn’t a girl any longer, ruled by the expectations of an outside society. She was a woman, and free to make her own decisions. Giving in to her love for Lewis now, showing him how much she wanted and needed him would hurt…need concern no one other than herself.
Before she could lose her courage she reached for him, her fingers trembling as she unfastened the buttons on his shirt.
For a moment he didn’t move, but then when he realised what she was doing he started to help her, wrenching the shirt off with the cuff buttons still fastened so that he had to yank hard on the sleeves, causing the cuff buttons to fly off, making Lacey laugh, her laughter half nervous tension, half shock at the sensation that shot through her stomach at the sight of his bare torso.
It was ridiculous that the sight of a man’s bare chest should affect her like this, making her hands tremble as she touched him, causing her to…
She touched his throat with her lips, hesitantly at first, her touch uncertain as she tensed herself against his physical reaction.
A vein throbbed in his neck. She touched it with her fingertips, measuring the furious race of his pulse. Beneath her other hand his body hair felt warm and damp, his nipple a hard point against her palm. Slowly her kisses became less hesitant, more certain, more eager.
She heard him moan, the sound thrilling her; felt the warmth of his hands against her bare back, felt the deliciously wanton friction of his body hair against her breasts as he gathered her against him, his lips against her ear as he warned her shakily, ‘Lacey, don’t. Please don’t do this, unless you mean it, unless you want me as much as I want you.’
Reluctantly she lifted her lips from his throat, her eyes slumbrous, her expression soft with love and need.
‘Isn’t it obvious that I…that I want you?’ she asked him tremulously, looking down at their bodies, at the taut erect points of her nipples.
His gaze followed hers. She felt him catch his breath and saw the deep flush of colour run up under his skin.
His hands cupped her breasts as he whispered her name, his head dipping down over her body.
At first the warm suckle of his mouth was restrained, controlled, but even so a thousand memories came flooding back, her body responding both to them and to him, her back arching,
her fingers digging into his shoulders, a tiny sob of desire muffled in her throat, her body shaking with the emotions inside her.
It broke through his self-control, the sudden hard, urgent pressure of his mouth causing her to whimper softly and cling to him, forbidden words of plea and praise flooding from her as she arched and twisted against him, her senses overwhelmed by the pleasure he was giving her.
Even the fierce rake of his teeth, as his own control was swept away, was a sharply fierce sensual pleasure, an erotic underlining of the completeness of his desire for her.
Her jeans and the rest of his clothes were somehow removed, urgency overtaking finesse, so that the sensation of skin against skin when they were finally free of them was so acutely heightened—for her at least—that Lacey actually felt her response to it deep within her body, a familiar tensing of certain muscles, a familiar awareness that just a kiss, a touch would be enough.
As she tensed Lewis looked at her, tensing too, demanding huskily, ‘What is it? If you’ve changed your mind, if you want to stop…’
She shook her head, unable to speak, instead taking his hand and placing it against her body so that he would know for himself how much she wanted him.
Delicate colour fluctuated under her skin as she did so, and saw the aroused awareness come into his eyes.
Perhaps her younger self might never have done such a thing, might never have been the one to indicate her wants or needs, but she could hardly pretend now that she did not want him, and his own arousal was, after all, obvious for them both to see.
She remembered how once, at first, she had found the sight of his naked body unnerving…not frightening, perhaps, but neither had she felt completely comfortable with his nudity. But now she welcomed the freedom he was giving her to look at him, to watch and touch him and watch him as she did so, her senses measuring his erotic reaction to each caress.
Seeing that he wanted her increased her own desire, her own need, and as she leaned forward to caress him with her lips, to show him how greatly she desired him, she felt again the familiar sharp spasm of sensation within her own body, and shuddered with the force of it.
As she closed her eyes, she heard Lewis saying urgently, ‘Lacey…oh, God, Lacey.’
And then he was holding her, touching her, entering her and possessing her so immediately and so powerfully, as though he knew exactly how she had felt, how much she had suddenly needed him there within her, that she cried out, unable to bear the pleasure of it in silence, moving against him, whispering his name, telling him how much she wanted and needed him.
It was a fierce, short-lived coming together, a powerful explosion of sensation that left Lacey feeling weak and dizzy, clinging to Lewis while her body shook with its aftermath.
She could feel Lewis kissing her, holding her; his lips touched her ear, and he told her shakily, ‘In all these years there’s never been a day, an hour when I haven’t wanted you, ached for you…remembered…how it was between us; but I realise now that those memories were only pale shadows of reality. Mercifully so, because I could never have endured living with memories of that kind of reality…of knowing…’
Lacey opened her eyes and looked at him, her voice full of pain. ‘It didn’t work out, then, with her—the…the woman you left me for.’
‘What?’ He cupped her face, holding her so that she couldn’t avoid looking at him. ‘What other woman?’ he demanded huskily. ‘There never was any other woman. I just let you think that because…because it made it easier…easier to let you go, to tell myself that I was doing the right thing for you if not for myself…that you’d find someone else…someone who could give you children, and that when you did if you’d known the truth you’d have been grateful to me.’
‘There was no other woman?’ Lacey could scarcely take it in. ‘But you said. You…’
Lewis shook his head. ‘No, you said. I merely said our marriage had to end. I hadn’t got as far as thinking of anything so sophisticated as pretending there was someone else. I was still sick with the shock of discovering what I had inherited. All I could think of was that I must not allow you to find out…that your life must not be torn apart and destroyed the way mine had been.’
‘No other woman,’Lacey repeated slowly. ‘You mean you left me…divorced me because…?’
‘Because I’d found out from my father about the gene I was carrying.’
‘You divorced me because of that?You let me think you no longer wanted me…no longer loved me because of that?’
All her shock…her horror was betrayed by her voice, her eyes huge and accusing as she stared at him. ‘Did you really think I was so weak…so…so shallow that knowing the truth would have made any difference at all to me? Didn’t you realise how much I loved you?’
His face had gone white. ‘Yes, I knew,’ he said simply, not trying to evade her. ‘But I also knew how much you wanted children. How important a family was to you. Had I known about the hereditary disorder before we married…had I been in a position to grow up knowing about it…to discuss it with you…to be honest with you…but…well, when you married me it was in the belief that we would have children. You’d told me how important that was to you, remember? What right did I have to turn round and tell you that we couldn’t have those children?’
‘But I loved you…you, not some mythical father of children I hadn’t even conceived!’ Lacey protested vehemently.
‘You say that now, but think, Lacey. You were so young. I know you loved me. I know how loyal you are…were. I know you would have stayed with me…and continued to love me…for a while at least, but how long would that love have lasted? A year…two maybe…maybe even longer, but I couldn’t live with the fear that one day you would turn away from me…that one day your need for children would outweigh your pity for me. I had to set you free. Free to find someone else.’ He heard the sound she made and stopped and then asked her, ‘Why didn’t you find someone else?’
‘You hurt me too much.’
It was cruel and unfair, and she hated herself the moment she had said it, biting her bottom lip and shaking her head.
‘No. No, that isn’t entirely true, Lewis. You did hurt me…unbearably so. I couldn’t believe at first that all the time you had been telling me you loved me there had been someone else. I was afraid to trust another man, to believe that he might love me…and then I had Jessica. She filled my life…my heart, and besides…’
She lifted her head and looked directly at him.
‘It’s pointless lying about it now. I never stopped loving you. Oh, I tried. I even told myself I’d succeeded, but then I’d dream about you at night and wake up in tears, aching inside from wanting you…loving you. Perhaps if I’d allowed myself to forget you there might have been another man.’
‘Just as if I had allowed myself to forget about you there might have been another woman. I did contemplate it. A divorcee with a couple of children who didn’t want any more. It seemed an ideal solution, but there was also you…and certain memories of the way it had been for us that refused to allow me to want that kind of intimacy with someone who wasn’t you.
‘I can’t give you back all the lost years, Lacey. I can’t give you anything now that I couldn’t give you twenty years ago, but, if it helps at all, I’ve never stopped loving you. Never stopped wishing things had been different. Sometimes, God help me, almost wished I had never found my father…never known.’
He gave a deep shudder. Lacey reached out and touched him gently. ‘You must have come close to hating me for that. Because if I hadn’t suggested you look for him…’
He shook his head. ‘I could never hate you, no matter what happened. I hated myself, though…hated myself for still wanting you…for never truly setting you free.’
‘If only you had told me…shared it with me.’
‘And caused you eventually to turn from me…to hate me the way my father ended up hating my mother…rejecting me…the way he had rejected me?’
; Lacey hesitated and then asked him quietly, ‘If you had known…about Jessica…would that…?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ Lewis told her. ‘Because I don’t know the answer. The way I felt then, the panic…the fear…the self-hatred I was experiencing—God help me, but I think I would have wanted you to have a termination.’ He saw her face and closed his eyes. ‘I’m sorry, Lacey, but I can’t lie to you. Not again. I was still too raw from my own discoveries…from knowing that my father had rejected me…All I know is that I would have tried to justify my decision by saying it was to protect you…to protect our marriage…that the risk was too great. Even when I first realised that Jess might be mine, my strongest emotion was one of panic…of fear—fear of both her rejection and yours…of your condemnation of me…fear of the burden of my own guilt because she had been conceived…because I had been careless.’
‘I was the one who was careless,’ Lacey pointed out wryly.
‘You must despise me for what I felt…for the way I reacted. I did want Jess to consider being sterilised…but then when she came to see me…and I saw her and realised that this was my daughter…my child…The wonder of it…the awe—I can’t describe how I felt. It was like stepping out from beneath an immense cloud, the darkness and weight of which had become so much a part of my life that I scarcely even recognised that they were there any longer. I had become so used to being alone…to keeping my friends in the dark about the real reason I wasn’t married…didn’t have any family. Suddenly there was someone I could be open with…share things with. And suddenly once again there was you.
‘I’ve never stopped loving you, Lacey, and I’ve no right to ask you this, but could you…would you…is there any possibility of our starting again…marrying again?’
‘Only if you promise that never, ever again will you keep anything from me…no matter how painful it may be—to either of us.’
It was only when he kissed her that she realised that they were both still naked.