by Penny Jordan
‘No doubt,’ he agreed, and then demanded, ‘Why the rush to sell, Rue?’
‘I don’t feel the same about the cottage now. After the fire…’ She gave a shudder that wasn’t entirely faked.
‘Are you sure it is just the fear of your memories of the fire you’re running away from?’ he asked her softly.
Something in the way he was looking at her alerted her to her danger. ‘Of course,’ she responded defensively. ‘What else could it be?’
‘This,’ he told her succinctly, closing the space between them and taking hold of her, sliding his hands up under the cuffs of the too-large robe, his fingertips stroking her skin and raising rashes of goose-bumps along her arms.
Her entire body trembled beneath his touch, her eyes wide and dark, betraying her fear.
‘I think you’re running away because you’re frightened of the way I make you feel. You’re running away because you can’t face up to the fact that you want me…’
‘No,’ Rue denied desperately, as his head bent closer, his breath scorching her skin.
‘No, what?’ he murmured between light kisses against her forehead. ‘No, you’re not frightened, or no, you don’t want me? If it’s the latter, you’re lying, Rue, and I can prove it to you…’
Before she could stop him, his hand moved from her arm and parted the front of her borrowed robe, reaching out to cup the soft weight of her breast.
A shiver of delicious sensation quivered through her, a sharp cry of tension bubbling in her throat as his thumb stroked slowly back and forth over her nipple, wordlessly telling her that he knew quite well the effect he had on her.
All at once the fight went out of her, and instead of resisting him as she knew she ought to she said wildly, ‘Yes, it’s true. I do want you, and I am frightened of that wanting. Can’t you understand, Neil? The only other man who’s made love to me hurt me badly. Isn’t it understandable that I should be scared?’
She saw the look in his eyes and realised with a fierce leap of her heart that he liked knowing there’d been no one else apart from Julian. Her mouth went dry, her body shaking so much that she was sure that if he hadn’t been holding her she would have collapsed.
‘There’s nothing to be frightened of, Rue,’ he told her thickly. ‘I won’t hurt you.’
But she knew he would…because he didn’t know the truth…didn’t know that she loved him. She had managed to keep that much from him, if nothing else.
‘It’s no good, Neil,’ she cried out feverishly. ‘We can’t be lovers…’
‘We already are,’ he told her, shocking her immobile until he laughed softly and added, ‘Oh, not literally, perhaps—I didn’t take advantage of you during your drugged sleep, if that’s what you’re thinking—but you know and I know that we are lovers, Rue. There’s never been a woman who’s made me feel the way you do, and I suspect that no other man has aroused you as I can.’
It was all too painfully true, but she had to stop him somehow, to make him realise…and then abruptly she knew there was only one way, only one weapon she could use now to deflect him from his purpose.
Steadily she looked at him.
‘I want you physically, Neil…I can’t deny it. But can’t you see: your physical possession of me would never be enough? I’d want more. Much more than you’re prepared to give,’ she admitted painfully. ‘I’d want your love as well as your lovemaking, Neil. I’d want more from you than just a brief affair.’
She waited for him to release her, to turn away from her with shocked embarrassment, to tell her that she was right and that he had been wrong, but to her astonishment he just continued to look at her and then said hoarsely, ‘Say that again!’
His face had lost all its colour, his bones standing out tautly. He swallowed, and she saw the movement in the rigid muscles of his throat. His hand tightened on her arm,, the fingers caressing her breast suddenly stilling.
She had come too far to lose her courage now. One quick blow…an instant severing now was surely less painful in the long run than gradually waiting for him to discover the truth and then reject her.
‘I’m in love with you, Neil,’ she told him sadly. ‘That’s why I want to sell the cottage…to move away…’
To her astonishment, instead of releasing her, he said roughly, ‘I don’t believe it! You’re even more of a coward than I thought. I could find it in my heart to forgive you when I thought you just weren’t aware of your feelings, but to stand here and listen to you telling me that you’d rather turn your back on what we feel for one another than give up your independence… At least you haven’t suggested we become part-time lovers, you in your cottage, me here…because that is something I could never stomach. Perhaps you’re right—I’d want all of you or nothing at all. Commitment, marriage, a family and everything that that means…and you’re not prepared to make that commitment, are you, Rue? You’re not prepared to give up your freedom and independence. They mean more to you than I do.’
He was white to his lips, every word he spoke almost spat out at her as he fought with his rage. Rue knew she ought to be terrified, but all she could do was simply stand and stare at him in disbelief.
She reached out her hand and touched him shakily, interrupting his tirade.
‘Neil…I don’t understand. When you spoke about marriage, about love, I thought you were warning me that there would inevitably be someone else… that all you could ever feel for me would be a fleeting desire. In fact, I thought you didn’t even want me any more.’
‘Not want you?’ He stared at her, his tension dying, to be replaced by a look of grim self-mockery. ‘For a woman of your years, you know remarkably little about men, my dear. Ever since I walked into this room, my body has been proclaiming extremely obviously and painfully exactly what effect you have on me.’
Round-eyed, Rue’s glance slid down his body, coming to rest on his thighs, her skin pinkening betrayingly at his unmistakable arousal.
‘Why the hell did you pretend that you didn’t care?’ Neil groaned rawly. ‘I’ve been going out of my mind trying to think of ways to keep you here so that I could convince you that what we could have between us was worth far more than independence, but every time I brought the subject up, every response you made only seemed to confirm how determined you were not to allow any commitment between us. You don’t know how desperately close I’ve come to giving in to my baser needs and making love to you regardless.’
‘Why didn’t you?’ Rue asked him shakily.
‘Because, like you, I wanted more than sexual satisfaction,’ he told her frankly. ‘I knew I could make you desire me, but that wasn’t enough, and I was terrified that once we’d been lovers you’d refuse to even contemplate accepting me emotionally.
‘Much as I wanted you physically, to enter into a relationship with you based merely on physical desire would have demeaned all that I felt for you. I’ve never believed in love at first sight—nor love at all, really—but when you opened your cottage door to me and stood there looking at me so aggressively, I felt as though the sky had fallen in on me.’
‘You knew then?’ Rue asked him disbelievingly.
‘I knew then,’ he confirmed. ‘I’ve waited a long time to meet the woman I want to spend the rest of my life with. It nearly tore me apart to know that I’d found her and that she didn’t share my feelings.’
‘I did, though,’ Rue admitted, ‘but I was so scared of them…so terrified.’
‘That I’d hurt you as Julian did,’ Neil supplied drily, but Rue shook her head.
‘No, I never feared that, not really. I’m not a complete fool, Neil. Julian had an unusually self-destructive personality, and I was too selfish and spoilt to see it when I met him. No, I knew you’d never hurt me, at least not deliberately, but I was frightened of the way I feel about you…frightened of getting into a situation which could only cause me pain. You see, I thought all you wanted was an affair. I thought you kept going on about my independence because you
wanted to make it plain to me that you didn’t want me permanently in your life.’
She heard him groan and then laugh. ‘When I think of the time we’ve wasted,’ he muttered huskily against her hair.
Somehow or other, both his hands had slid inside the robe and were caressing her body. Free of her fears, she was able to respond to him the way she ached to be able to. She felt him shudder as she pressed herself eagerly against him, moaning softly in her throat as his hands cupped her breasts, tantalising their hard, erect peaks.
She reached up to him and put her arms round his neck, urging his head down towards her own, her lips parting provocatively.
He touched them with his tongue, as though testing their texture and taste, and then stroked them moistly before sliding his tongue-tip between her teeth.
Rue moaned again against the deliberate thrust of his tongue, pressing deeper into him, shivering with pleasure when he parted the robe and pushed his thigh between hers.
She could feel the hard, hot pressure of his erection against her stomach. Her fingers clutched at his arms, her head bending back under the pressure of his kiss, her hips moving frantically against him in open invitation.
‘Somehow I always knew you’d be like this,’ he told her against her mouth. ‘Warm, eager…loving.’ Her hips rotated yearningly against him and he groaned, his body shuddering.
‘Have you any idea what you’re doing to me?’ he protested, and against his mouth Rue said huskily.
‘No, but if it’s anything at all like what you’re doing to me, I think…’
She gasped out loud as his hand swept down the side of her body and across the taut muscles of her belly, unerringly finding the place where she ached and pulsed so tormentingly, and as though he knew immediately how great her need was he picked her up and carried her, not into her own room, but into his, depositing her gently on the large bed.
‘I think this is not so much the first time we’re making love as the culmination of the way we should have made love that morning in your kitchen,’ he muttered as he stripped off his clothes and came to her.
His body was all muscle and taut, supple skin, warm like heavy satin, so pleasurable to touch that she felt almost drunk on the sensation of doing so, and for a while he let her, simply holding her while she gathered in through her fingertips a vast wealth of intense pleasure; and all the time, beyond that pleasure, lay another, deeper, sharper, waiting to be released…building like the tightening of a coiled wire to a pitch where she was almost quivering with the intensity of it, every part of her body so alive that she was practically vibrating with sharp anticipation.
At last he said quietly, ‘No more, Rue,’ and he took her hands away from his body and turned to her so that she could see what she had made him.
She was poised and waiting for him, her body moist and eager to receive him, anticipation strung so tightly inside her that his first slow thrust made her cry out her pleasure to him, wrapping herself around him and drawing him deeper and deeper inside her until her whole body pulsed in the same fierce rhythm that drove him.
Beneath her hands his back was slick with sweat, the scent of him enveloping her, the fierce drum of his heart pounding against her.
Even though she had never experienced it before, her body seemed to know instinctively how to invite his to drive ever deeper within it so that the pleasure built up into an almost unbearable tension, its sudden climactic release almost more than she could endure.
She felt the spasms of release shudder through Neil and clung to him, welcoming the heat of him within her own flesh, relaxing into his arms as he held her and stroked her damp skin, easing her down beside him, her head resting in the curve of his shoulder.
‘I’d forgotten that you’re still supposed to be recuperating,’ he apologised to her, but Rue only laughed.
‘I certainly need to now,’ she told him teasingly, watching the dark colour run up under his skin with possessive amusement.
‘It’s been one hell of a long time,’ he muttered, avoiding looking at her. ‘I gave up going in for casual affairs years ago, and the kind of life I’ve been living doesn’t allow for anything else.’
His confession surprised and pleased her.
‘How long is a long time?’ she asked him curiously.
‘A couple of years at least,’ he admitted. ‘That’s why I’ve been finding it so damned hard to keep my hands off you. You’re committed to me now, Rue,’ he told her rawly. ‘And don’t even think of changing your mind, because I’m not about to let you go. You realise that you could already be carrying my child?’ he added starkly.
Rue had, but only in the last few seconds. Oddly, she found the thought tantalisingly pleasurable.
‘In that case, I suppose I’ll have to make an honest man of you,’ she teased him, letting him see the love in her eyes, adding with a small secret smile, ‘Of course, I might not be pregnant…’
‘Do you want my child?’ Neil demanded hoarsely, correctly reading the message in her eyes. His were glittering almost feverishly as he waited for her answer, and she realised, as she had not before, how much the thought of a wife and family really meant to him.
‘Yes,’ she told him honestly, suddenly feeling very shaky and emotional. ‘Yes, I do.’ She reached out and traced his mouth with her fingertip. ‘I want our children very much indeed, Neil.’
‘But your work…your independence…’
‘I worked because I felt I had to prove to myself that I wasn’t still the same selfish, heedless child Julian had married. I never had any desire to become a successful business-women. I just wanted to prove that I was a person in my own right…and now I have proved it! There’ll be plenty to keep me occupied here running this house, helping you. I don’t know much about computers yet, but I can always learn.’
She felt him tense and wondered what she had said, looking at him uncertainly and asking hesitantly, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘I want you again,’ he told her thickly. ‘Oh, Rue, what is it that you do to me?’
‘I don’t know,’ she told him mock-seriously, ‘but you have exactly the same effect on me.’ She turned to him and moved her body against him. ‘Make love to me again, Neil, and prove to me that I’m not dreaming all this.’
‘If you are, we’re dreaming it together,’ he muttered against her mouth. ‘I love you, Rue, and I’m never going to stop proving it to you—never.’
‘I believe you,’ she told him, and it was true!
* * * * *
Now, read on for a tantalizing excerpt of Michelle Smart’s next book,
BILLIONAIRE’S BABY OF REDEMPTION
The final book in her Rings of Vengeance trilogy!
When Javier learns his explosive night with Sophie left her pregnant, he’s adamant they wed! But warm, compassionate Sophie demands more. Can Javier accept that giving them his all is the key to his redemption?
Keep reading to get a glimpse of
BILLIONAIRE’S BABY OF REDEMPTION
CHAPTER ONE
JAVIER CASILLAS KEPT his eyes fixed on the wide corridor ahead of him, jaw clenched, feet working automatically. He could feel the eyes upon him; had felt them all evening in the private box he shared with his twin. He’d steeled himself for it. His wildly infamous parentage meant the media spotlight was something he’d learned to endure but the past two months had magnified that spotlight by a thousand.
HE WOULD GIVE them exactly what he had always given them. Nothing.
He had not allowed a flicker of emotion to pass his face throughout the performance.
Inside, the rage had built. He’d watched Freya, the woman he’d intended to marry, put on the performance of her life, listened to the rapturous applause and all he had wanted to do was go home and beat the hell out of his punching bag.
Tonight was the culmination of a long-standing dream between Javier and his twin brother, Luis. A decade ago they’d finally had the funds to purchase the crumbling Madrid theatre and
ballet school their prima ballerina mother had spent her childhood learning to dance at, buying the ballet company with it. They’d renamed it Compania de Ballet de Casillas in her memory and set about turning it into one of the most eminent ballet companies in Europe. They’d then bought another parcel of land close to it and built on it a brand new state-of-the-art theatre and ballet school. Tonight was its grand opening. The world’s media was out in force but instead of focussing on the theatre and ballet company and celebrating Clara Casillas’s memory, their focus was on Javier and his ex-fiancée.
The whole damn world knew she’d left him for his oldest friend.
What the whole world did not yet know was that Benjamin Guillem had stolen her in a sick game of revenge or that Freya had been happy to be stolen.
They were welcome to each other. Freya meant nothing to Javier. She never had.
The corridor he walked through on his way to the after-show party forked. About to turn left with the group he was with, which included members of the Spanish royal family, Javier felt a hand settle on his shoulder and steer him firmly in the other direction.
No one other than his twin would have dared touch him in such a manner.
‘What’s the matter?’ Javier asked, staring at his brother with suspicion as they walked.
‘I wanted to talk to you alone,’ Luis replied.
There was something in his brother’s tone that lifted the hairs on the nape of his neck.
Tension had simmered between them since his twin’s foolhardy trip to the Caribbean. How Luis thought that marrying Benjamin’s sister would restore their reputations was still, well over a month on, beyond Javier’s comprehension. Although wildly different from him in both looks and personality, his brother usually had excellent judgement. His opinion was the only one Javier ever thought worthy of consideration.