by Penny Jordan
The Bordeaux had been excellent and had come from the small cellar Eleanor’s husband had laid down. Wine had been one of his passions, and Eleanor admitted ruefully that she felt slightly guilty every time she opened one of his cherished bottles.
Recklessly Jenneth told her, ‘I don’t care. In fact, I’ll have another glass…’
She half expected Eleanor to stop her, but as she turned aside to reach into the fridge for a fresh jug she thought she heard Eleanor uttering something about ‘being over the limit now, anyway’, although it wasn’t until later that the remark sank in. At the moment, Jenneth, normally so abstemious when it came to any form of alcohol—having discovered the hard way as a teenager that she had a remarkably weak head where drink was concerned—was so worked up about Luke’s almost demonical ability to reduce her to grovelling humiliation that she hadn’t room to worry about anything else.
‘Can you help me carry the iced coffees through?’ Eleanor asked doubtfully, eyeing her friend’s troubled face.
‘Of course,’ Jenneth assured her, watching as Eleanor deftly assembled glasses and a tall jug of the pale brown liquid which Jenneth already knew contained Eleanor’s home-made ice-cream and some of her best brandy.
Later, sitting in the conservatory among the plants which were Eleanor’s pride and joy while the warm evening air, heavy with scents from the garden, wafted in through the open doors, Jenneth justified her second glass of the delicious and potent coffee with the explanation that the heat was making her thirsty.
‘Something, or rather someone, is definitely having an extremely unusual effect on you,’ remarked Eleanor to her sotto voce as she walked past her. She wondered if Jenneth realised yet that she was going to have to stay the night. She was certainly in no fit state to drive.
When Jenneth enthusiastically accepted the liqueur she was offering, Eleanor intercepted the sharp, frowning look Luke sent her. Without causing any disturbance, he had somehow managed to extricate himself from his conversation with Bill and Mary, and was now sitting where he could watch Jenneth.
Refusing her friend’s offer to help her collect the empty glasses with a grim smile at the potential fate of her crystal, she wondered with a little smile of sympathy how Jenneth was going to feel in the morning. Eleanor had never seen her drink more than one glass of wine at the most before.
At one o’clock, when Bill and Mary started making leaving noises, the Allisons and Adrian joined in. Jenneth tried to stand up and follow the general exodus through the house to the front door, but discovered that the tiled floor of the conservatory seemed to have become fluid and unstable. Having frowned reprovingly at it for several seconds and still not been able to make it remain solid, she sank back into her cane chair, a puzzled frown furrowing her forehead.
‘A wise decision,’ a familiar voice murmured against her ear, and she whirled round accusingly, glowering at Luke.
‘Why don’t you go away?’ she suggested crossly, and sent him an even crosser glower when instead of moving he grinned at her and hunkered down beside her so that their eyes were almost on a level.
‘You know, I don’t think I’ve seen you pout like that since you were ten years old,’ he told her.
‘I’m not pouting.’ Jenneth denied, and then added in a small, uncertain voice, ‘I wish you would go away. You’re making me feel dizzy and funny inside…’
Her eyes betrayed far more than she knew.
‘Jenneth…’ There was something in Luke’s voice, some strong, sensual current, so intense that it broke through her alcoholic daze and made her breath catch in a sharp surge of awareness.
‘Jenneth, I think I’d better take you up to my spare room…’
Neither of them had heard Eleanor come in, and Jenneth turned her head so abruptly that the dizziness came back and increased.
‘I’ll take Jenneth home,’ she heard Luke saying, and through the mind-numbing influence of the wine she retained enough sense of self-preservation to say huskily,
‘No… I can drive myself home…’ Her eyes drew together in a puzzled frown as both Eleanor and Luke said fiercely together, ‘No!’
Ignoring Jenneth’s incoherent protests, Luke turned to Eleanor and assured her quietly, ‘I promise you she’ll be perfectly safe with me…’
‘I’m sure she will,’ agreed Eleanor drily. ‘But will I be equally safe when she realises what I let her do?’
Luke laughed. ‘We’ll come and collect her car in the morning, if that’s OK…’ he said, in a way that made it perfectly plain to Eleanor that, if necessary, he was perfectly capable of virtually kidnapping Jenneth and taking her home.
‘She doesn’t normally drink very much at all,’ Eleanor felt bound to say in her friend’s defence.
Luke’s smile vanished, his expression oddly vulnerable and haunted.
‘No…I know,’ he said quietly, and then he was bending over Jenneth, saying firmly, ‘Come on, Jen, time to leave…’
To Eleanor’s wry amusement her friend got uncertainly to her feet, and allowed Luke to guide her slowly towards the door.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘COME on, Jen…we’re home now.’
Home…how lovely that word sounded, especially when spoken by that deep male voice that made her toes curl a little just to hear it.
Even so, she was deliciously comfortable where she was…warm and safe, breathing in a familiar man scent that made her want to stay where she was.
‘Come on, Jen. There are two ways we can do this: either you get out of the car under your own steam and walk, or I carry you…’
The voice came from her other side now and cool air was wafting over her, forcing her to open her eyes. She did so reluctantly, frowning as she realised distantly that she was sitting in an unfamiliar car.
With its unfamiliarity came fine tendrils of apprehension which made her turn her head still further, until her gaze encountered that of the man watching her.
Relief filled her. It was Luke, and there was no reason for her to be afraid…no reason at all.
Instinctively she raised her arms toward him and said sleepily, ‘Carry me, Luke…’
An odd, indefinable expression crossed his face, but she was too bemused to translate it, only giving a blissful sigh as he complied with her request and lifted her out of the car.
Instinctively she snuggled against him, her arms going around him as she closed her eyes and wished a little crossly that she didn’t feel quite so dizzy.
Luke had to put her down to unlock the front door, and he was thankful to discover once he had got her inside that the house was in silence. The last thing he wanted to face was the twins’ accusing faces when they saw the state of their sister. He felt guilty enough already, without them adding to that burden.
As he walked across the hall, Jenneth murmured something about wanting a drink. He tightened his hold on her grimly and went straight upstairs, glad of the relative lightness of the summer night so that he didn’t have to switch on any lights and wake the twins.
He knew which was Jenneth’s room; the door was already half open, but he was careful to close it gently behind him as he carried her over to her bed.
He put her on it gently, sighing faintly as he looked down into her face. Without the guard she wore whenever he was around, she looked so young. Hardly any older than she had looked at twenty-one. Her eyes were closed, a silky strand of hair brushing across her face. He reached out to remove it, the breath locking in his chest as he felt the never truly forgotten warm silkiness of her skin beneath his fingertips. How was it that the human senses could remember and react to one specific other human being’s skin so intensely? As he traced her jawbone, her eyelashes fluttered.
She was still fully dressed and, while instinct warned him to leave her as she was, concern made him hesitate, knowing that she was almost bound to oversleep in the morning, and that her brothers, curious as to her whereabouts, were equally bound to invade her bedroom.
Knowing how sen
sitive she was, he could equally well imagine how much she would hate them finding her still fully dressed, obviously recovering from the effect of too much to drink.
He moved her gently, turning her over, reaching for her zip, and then stopped again.
Equally, and probably far more intensely, she would hate the thought of him undressing her, no matter how altruistic his motives.
As he hesitated, weighing the problem, she stirred and muttered something in her sleep, and, telling himself firmly that he was acting in her best interests, he found the zipper tag and eased it down swiftly.
No one could go through the early years of medical training without learning how to remove clothes with speed and efficiency, and he discovered that he had not entirely lost that skill. He hesitated about removing her bra, and then compromised by removing that article of clothing, but leaving her with the doubtful modesty of her briefs, wondering with wry self-irony why it was that this same brief article of clothing he felt sure he had seen in a pile of clean washing Jenneth had brought in from the garden, and which had then merely been a scrap of silky fabric, should suddenly have been transformed into a garment of such allure and temptation when adorning Jenneth’s lissomly feminine body. As he sat up, she rolled over on to her stomach, exposing the delicate curve of her spine. He traced its descent visually, noting the narrowness of her waist and the tender roundedness of her bottom. She had surprisingly long legs…long and slim, with tiny, delicate ankles and pretty pink feet.
He drew a deep breath as he realised what was happening to him, and then another…so much for clinical detachment, he reflected ruefully, starting to move away from the bed, automatically picking up Jenneth’s clothes.
Perhaps because the removal of his weight from the mattress disturbed her, or perhaps because she was only sleeping lightly, his withdrawal woke her, her eyes opening and focusing on him before he could move.
Jenneth blinked, and then blinked again, and then said frowningly, ‘You’re real…but you can’t be…you’re supposed to be part of my dream.’ She pinched her arm and scowled malevolently at her soft flesh.
Perhaps unwisely, Luke moved back towards the bed, dropping her clothes on to a chair.
‘Jenneth, go back to sleep,’ he told her. ‘It’s late, and in the morning…’
‘In the morning you’ll be gone,’ Jenneth finished tightly. ‘Just like all the other mornings.’ She focused on him again, her eyes huge and brilliant with unshed tears.
‘Don’t leave me, Luke,’ she pleaded, stretching her arms out to him. ‘Don’t leave me this time…stay with me, please…’
There were a hundred things he ought to say, calm, reasoned explanations of why he couldn’t possibly do what she was suggesting, of how she was going to feel in the morning if by some mischance she should remember what she was saying to him now in her tipsy, inhibition-free state.
He had a responsibility towards her, never mind to himself, which was telling him loudly and clearly to ignore the pleading look in her eyes, and to walk away from her bed as quickly and quietly as he could.
But between him and that responsibility stood the spectre that had haunted him for eight years, the spectre of a young woman too hurt and too proud to let him see what he was doing to her, and in the shadows of Jenneth’s eyes he saw now the ghost of that young girl, and he took one step towards the bed and then another.
Jenneth watched him with huge, dream-darkened eyes, and when he got closer she silently opened her arms to him, her body trembling between two pinnacles of emotion.
She had had this dream so often, but this was the first time it had been so real… Real enough for it to actually hurt when she pinched herself… Real enough for her to smell the scent of roses through her open bedroom window and to hear the uneven harshness of Luke’s breathing.
He caught hold of her hands, turning them gently palms-uppermost as he prevented her from coming any closer. She frowned in confusion. This wasn’t part of the dream. In the dream, he always welcomed her into his arms, touching her, kissing her with an urgency that made her own flesh catch fire.
He was speaking to her too, soft, low-spoken words she had to strain to catch, something about regrets and this not being the time or the place.
He bent his head and touched his mouth to the pulse in her wrist, a tender, almost asexual, caress that made her body prickle with despair.
He released her quickly and moved away, heading for the door. Jenneth watched him go in confused despair. It was never normally like this…normally—normally he took her in his arms and held her against the fierce heat of his male flesh, whispering to her how much he ached for her…how much he needed her.
She got out of bed, calling out his name in a husky, anguished voice.
As she stood up, the room swung dizzily around her. Luke turned, saw her sway unsteadily and turned back to the bed, catching hold of her to support her.
As she felt the harshness of fabric against her own nakedness where there should only have been the smooth hardness of answering male flesh, Jenneth frowned.
‘It’s all right, Jenneth,’ Luke told her, sensing her confusion, and then, totally unable to stop himself, he bent his head and kissed her mouth gently, smiling a little against her lips as he touched them with his tongue and tasted the wine sweetness of them.
It should have stopped there. He fully intended that it would stop there, but she moved, and somehow the hand that had been resting supportingly against her back was now pressing against the softness of her breast, and beneath his mouth her lips parted on a soft gasp of reaction.
‘Hell, Jenneth, don’t do this to me,’ he muttered against her mouth, knowing that he couldn’t…that he dared not allow himself to make love to her while she was in what amounted to an alcoholic daze, and yet unbearably tempted to take advantage of what the fates were offering him; not for the greedy possession of her body, but for the opportunity it afforded him to manoeuvre her into the position he wanted.
Her body moved innocently and accommodatingly against his, her mouth soft and inviting, and then suddenly no longer passive but actively inciting as she nibbled tormentingly at his bottom lip, flicking her tongue teasingly over the closed line of his mouth, while the unintentionally provocative movement of her body against his own made him achingly aware of the soft swell of her breasts, and the way her hips seemed to curve so naturally into his hands that it was the hardest thing in the world not to hold her and lift her so that he could press the grinding ache of his own arousal into her softness.
Her mouth teased and seduced, and then suddenly pouted centimetres away from his ear as she complained crossly, ‘This isn’t like my dream at all. You aren’t doing any of the things I want you to do…’
And, knowing he was likely to damn himself for eternity, but totally unable to stop himself, he heard himself asking in a slow, strained voice, ‘What do you want me to do, Jenneth?’
For a moment he thought she had realised what was happening. She drew back from him and he let her go, half of him hoping that she had returned to full awareness, the other half… Well, he preferred not to dwell on how the other half felt.
But she frowned and seemed not to be looking at him but gazing instead into the darkness, and he realised that she still had no idea that this was reality and not her dream. He knew he ought to leave, but the temptation to stay, after so many long years of being without her, of being forced to live a lie…of being forced to…
She gave him a look that was half bold and half shy, and then said huskily, ‘You know…’
He shook his head.
‘No…I don’t. You’ll have to tell me…or show me,’ he added fatally.
Jenneth looked owlishly at him. Show him…well, it seemed a reasonable suggestion, so she went up to him and said solemnly, ‘Well, first you have to kiss me. Properly, I mean.’ Shadows darkened her eyes, as she added quietly, ‘You hardly ever did…not really…’
So she had known that. He had often wondered…
but he had promised her parents he would not violate their trust in him, and they had not wanted their daughter rushed into a sexual relationship before she was ready.
Now, looking down into the sad darkness of her eyes, he found himself saying ‘Like this, you mean?’ And then he lowered his mouth to hers, hesitating for half a second while he stroked her lips tenderly with his thumb and felt them quiver betrayingly beneath the delicate abrasion.
They were still trembling when he covered them with his mouth. He had told himself that there was no real danger…that all the years of exercising restraint and control would make it impossible for him to lose his head…but he had forgotten that Jenneth was a woman now and not a girl, and the sensation of holding her, touching her, tasting her, engulfed him so totally and so rapidly that it was like standing in the path of an avalanche.
Between kisses, while she removed his shirt so that she could have the access to his chest that she demanded, he asked her what else it was she wanted him to do, and received in reply a soft whisper that made him fit his palms around her breasts until the frantic pounding of her heart made him release her and carry her over to the bed, sitting her on its edge before he dropped to his knees in front of her and covered their softness again, this time slowly drawing his hand away as he kissed the delicate flesh with a tenderness that gave way to aching desire when he lifted his head and saw the intoxicating blend of awe and need in Jenneth’s eyes.
‘And this?’ he demanded rawly, against her skin. ‘Do you want me to do this, Jenneth?’
The low cry she gave as he drew gently on the hard tip of her breast made his body shudder and the sweat spring out of his pores. Against his tongue her nipple felt provocatively hot and tight, and he drew on it fiercely so that it throbbed eagerly. Jenneth, her body arched by the savage spasm of pleasure that arced from her breast to her womb, dug her nails into his shoulders and gave a softly erotic moan.
‘Shush…’ Luke cautioned her thickly. ‘You mustn’t make any noise, not this time…’ But Jenneth wasn’t really listening. She was shivering from head to foot with reaction, a raw, uncontrollable ache that pulsed inside her, and she turned towards him, her eyes huge and blind with a shocked arousal that gave away the extent of her reaction to him.