‘I want you so badly.’ Joe covered her mouth and lost himself in the hot, sweet temptation of her lips. His tongue met hers and a lightning bolt of lust shot through his groin. He gathered her in his arms, their legs tangling in a way that was achingly familiar and yet no less thrilling. It was like discovering her body for the first time—the dips and slopes and contours, the honeyed secret of her centre, the taste of her mouth and the feel of her breath mingling intimately with his.
He left her mouth to kiss his way down the scented hollows of her neck, over the delicate scaffold of her collarbone, all the way to her breasts. He took each nipple in his mouth, rolling his tongue over the tightly budded flesh, his blood thrumming with excitement. Her soft breathless groans, the arching of her spine, the folding out of her knees to welcome him made his heartrate spike. No one could turn him on like her. No one got him so worked up and ready to explode. No one.
He slipped on a condom and, putting a hand under her left hip to tilt her towards him, entered her with a deep thrust that made the hairs on his scalp stand up and a shudder ripple through him. She welcomed him with a gasp and began moving with him, her smooth slim legs in a sexy tangle with his. It was too hard for him to slow down as he’d planned. Too hard to resist the magnetic pull of her silken body. He thrust and thrust, his blood racing like rocket fuel through his veins, his skin tingling from head to foot. He placed his hand between their rocking bodies to caress her.
She threw her head back, writhing and whimpering as her orgasm took her away and carried him with her. The tight rolling spasms of her body sent him flying into the stratosphere. He buried his face into the side of her neck and groaned and shuddered and shook as his release powered through him in pulses and waves and ripples, taking him to a place beyond thought. Beyond the ugly divorce word, beyond the lonely emptiness of a future without her in it.
Beyond anything but mindless, magical bliss.
CHAPTER NINE
JULIETTE WOKE TO find herself spooned in Joe’s arms. One of his legs was flung over hers, his head buried against the back of her neck, where she could feel his deep and even breaths stirring her hair. One of his hands was resting on her ribcage and he murmured something unintelligible and glided it up to cup her breast. She shivered with longing, her inner core contracting with the muscle memory of their passionate lovemaking during the night.
He groaned and sighed like a satisfied lion and propped himself up, turning her so she was on her back, his dark gaze smouldering. He brushed her hair back from her forehead with a touch so gentle it made something in her chest spring open. ‘So here we are. The morning after the night before.’ His tone was playful but she sensed an undercurrent of gravity.
She pushed back his hair from his forehead with her splayed fingers. ‘You probably need to find a better way of getting through your birthday without drinking on your own or having one-night stands with strangers.’
He circled her mouth with a lazy finger, his gaze suddenly inscrutable. ‘Is that what last night was? A one-night stand with a stranger?’
Juliette lowered her hand to his jaw, stroking his lean cheek with a feather-light touch. ‘You don’t feel like a stranger to me now. Not after we talked about...stuff.’
A frown flickered on his forehead and his gaze became wary. ‘Is that why you slept with me? Out of pity?’
She pulled her hand from his face and jerked her chin back in shock. ‘How could you think that? I wanted to make love with you. I practically begged you to.’
He placed a firm hand on the flank of her thigh to keep her moving further away, the heat of his touch sending a fizzing current to her core. ‘There’s probably a lot of stuff I should have told you before. But I try to forget about how I came into the world. I don’t like thinking about it, much less talking about it.’
Juliette slid her hand back to rest against his cheek, her thumb stroking back and forth over his prickly skin. ‘It must be awful to not look forward to your birthday. It must have been so painful growing up without a mother, especially feeling so guilty about how you lost her. But it wasn’t your fault. Your father should’ve made that absolutely clear.’
His gaze flickered with shadows, as if he was leafing through his childhood memories like fanning through the pages of a thick book. ‘He was grieving for a long time. I didn’t understand that until I was much older. He was like a zombie walking through life. He was only a young man. My mother was the love of his life—they met in primary school. They married at twenty-one.’ His mouth twisted and his eyes briefly squeezed shut as if he was experiencing the most excruciating pain. ‘And she was dead at twenty-two. She didn’t get to live the life she’d planned. She didn’t get to reach her potential, to do the things most people dream of doing.’ He swallowed and continued in a strained tone, ‘I hated going to visit her grave. I felt sick to my stomach, because I knew I was the one who put her there. Who robbed her of everything: the man she loved, the future she’d dreamed of, the family life she longed for. I took it all away from her.’
Juliette blinked back tears. ‘Oh, Joe, I wish I’d known all that before. I feel so annoyed at myself for not pressing you to tell me more about yourself. Is that why you found my pregnancy so unsettling? I sensed you were staying away longer and longer, the further along the pregnancy went.’
He took one of her hands and brought it up to his chest, holding it against the steady thump of his heart. ‘I wanted to support you—that’s why I married you, to provide for you and the baby. But when I saw your belly growing bigger each week, a vague panic set in and I could only quell it by distracting myself with work. I don’t think I was entirely conscious of it at the time—why I was feeling like that. I just felt compelled to work as hard as I could. But I see how you would’ve read that as something else.’
Juliette swallowed a knot of emotion in her throat. ‘When you got to the delivery suite... I thought you looked relieved... I hated you at that moment. I couldn’t believe you were being so brutally insensitive.’
A flash of pain went through his eyes and his fingers on her hand tightened. ‘I was relieved. Relieved you hadn’t died.’ His voice sounded rough around the edges, raw and uneven. ‘I didn’t think about the baby at that point. All I could think on my way into that room was, Has it happened again? Have I killed my mother and now my wife?’
Juliette bit down on her lower lip until she was sure it would draw blood. She couldn’t believe how blind she had been. How blinkered she’d been to think he hadn’t cared about her and their child. She pulled her hand out of his so she could hug him around the neck. She rested her cheek on his chest, her throat so tight it was aching. ‘I’ve made so many mistakes. I’m sorry for misjudging you.’
Joe rested his chin on the top of her head and stroked her hair with his hand. ‘We’ve both made mistakes.’ His voice was a low, deep rumble against her ear. ‘I guess the thing to do now is not make any more.’
Was this a mistake? Lying in his arms, wanting him with a need so strong it throbbed deep in her core. A need that made a mockery of the divorce papers she had brought with her. Joe hadn’t said anything about loving her. And nor had she to him. She still wasn’t sure how to describe her feelings for him. They had been under layers of bitterness and anger and grief and were only now rising to the surface. One thing she did know for sure—they didn’t feel anything like the ‘love’ she’d thought she’d felt for her ex. They felt strong and lasting, healing and hopeful.
How long Juliette wanted to stay with Joe was not so easy for her to acknowledge—even to herself. She’d only booked her hotel for one night, as she’d planned to fly back to England once the divorce papers were signed. But spending the night with Joe and finding out so much more about his background made her reluctant to rush off home without spending a bit more time with him. To answer some important questions that were niggling at her conscience.
She felt foolish and immature for being so
intransigent in Corfu about going to Paris with him, but was it too soon to jump back into their relationship? Was it too soon to hope he would grow to love her as she was growing to love him? Or maybe she had always loved him. From the moment they’d met she had felt something shift inside her. The connection they’d formed had rocked her to the core and not just because of the pregnancy and its tragic outcome. Her misplaced anger towards him had covered up her true feelings. Feelings that had sprouted at that first meeting but had been poisoned and almost destroyed by the tragedy of losing their little baby.
‘I know you’re busy with work but I can hang out here and sketch and relax by the pool until we go to Paris. I’ll try not to get in your way.’
One side of his mouth lifted, his gaze gleaming with unmistakable desire. ‘You can get in my way all you like.’ He traced her mouth with a lazy finger. ‘The more the better.’
Juliette shivered at his tingling touch. ‘You don’t mind me being here?’
‘Not at all.’ And his mouth came down and confirmed it.
* * *
Juliette woke later that morning to find the bed empty beside her. She glanced at the clock beside the bed and was a little surprised she had slept in for so long. How could it be nine in the morning? She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept so soundly. Her nights were usually disturbed by restlessness and sleeplessness, rumination and regret.
She threw off the bedcovers and slipped on a bathrobe. Joe’s bathrobe. She breathed in the scent of him, her senses whirling, her belly fluttering, her heart swelling as she recalled his exquisite lovemaking during the night.
How could she regret last night? It was impossible. She felt close to Joe in a way she had never expected to feel. Knowing more about his heartbreaking background had softened her anger towards him and directed it more at herself. Her own grief had blinded her to the reality of his. Didn’t the untouched nursery demonstrate that? He hadn’t changed a thing in that beautiful room. Last night, he had shown her with his lips and hands and body how much he’d missed her.
Juliette walked out of the bedroom to head downstairs, where she could hear Joe moving about in the kitchen. But as she was passing the door to the master bedroom she had previously shared with him, she stopped and reached for the door knob. Why did he no longer sleep there? What had motivated him to occupy one of the spare bedrooms instead? She opened the door and, leaving the door open behind her, walked further into the room.
Memories floated towards her, stirring her emotions into a way she hadn’t expected. She walked past the king-sized bed where she had spent so many nights wrapped in his arms, when he’d come home from his work trips. She opened the door of the walk-in wardrobe and found her clothes still hanging there as if she had never left. She could even pick up a faint trace of her signature perfume. She came out of the wardrobe and entered the en suite bathroom. Some of the cosmetics and toiletries she hadn’t bothered to take with her were on the marble counter and in the cupboards under the twin basins.
Surely he could have got one of his housekeepers to remove her belongings? Why hadn’t he? Or had Joe been expecting her to return?
Juliette frowned and came out of the bathroom to find Joe standing in the open doorway of the bedroom, carrying a tray with tea and toast and preserves. His expression was hard to read. On the surface he looked relaxed and open but she could sense an inner tension.
‘I was just bringing you breakfast in bed.’
‘Why didn’t you get rid of my things?’
He came further into the room and placed the tray on the bedside table. He straightened to face her. ‘I figured if you wanted them you would’ve taken them with you when you left or asked me to send them to you.’
Juliette searched his unreadable gaze. ‘Were you always expecting me to come back?’
Something flickered at the back of his eyes and his mouth took on a rueful twist. ‘No. I had given up on that score.’ His tone contained a flat note of bleakness.
She sat on the edge of the bed and looked up at him. ‘Joe...why don’t you use this room any more?’
He ran a hand around his shirt collar as if the fabric was prickling him. ‘I told you last night—I sleep better in the other room.’
‘But why?’
Joe released a harsh-sounding breath. ‘For God’s sake, do I need to spell it out?’
Juliette kept her gaze trained on his. ‘Yes, I’m afraid you do.’
He drew in another breath but this time released it less forcefully. He sat down beside her and took one of her hands in his. His fingers wrapping around hers in a protective cloak. ‘Every time I came in here was another reminder of how I’d let you down. I couldn’t be in here without thinking about you. It was easier not to come in here at all.’
Juliette lifted her hand to his cleanly shaven jaw. ‘Is that why you left the nursery as I left it?’
A flash of pain went through his gaze. ‘I can’t even bear to say her name, much less go in there and be reminded of her.’ His voice was raw with suppressed emotion, his jaw tightening against the cup of her palm.
Tears sprouted in her eyes. ‘Oh, Joe, I can’t say her name either. Some days, I can’t even think it without falling to bits.’
Joe brought his hand to her face, blotting her tears with the pad of his thumb. His eyes were dry but pained. ‘My whole career has been based on fixing things that are broken. Finding why things that shouldn’t have failed, failed. But I couldn’t fix any of this for us.’
Juliette put her arms around him and laid her head on his chest. ‘I’m glad we’re able to be so honest with each other now. It helps me to know I’m not the only one who feels so undone by what’s happened.’
His hand stroked the back of her head in gently soothing strokes that made the last of the armour around her heart melt away. ‘I wish I’d been there to support you better. There’s so much I would like to have done differently.’ His deep voice rumbled against her cheek—full of low, deep chords of regret and self-recrimination.
‘It might have been different if we had known each other better at the time,’ Juliette said, glancing up at him. ‘I mean, if we’d had a normal period of dating before we married. I feel like I’m only getting to know you now.’ When it was too late. Or was it?
He glanced at the tea tray with a wry expression. ‘I’m trying to decide whether to feed you breakfast or give you a kiss first.’
Juliette linked her arms around his neck and smiled. ‘Just one kiss?’
His eyes smouldered and he gathered her closer. ‘Why stop at one?’
And he didn’t.
* * *
A couple of days before the Paris trip, Joe came in to the morning room where Juliette was sketching. He had been on a lengthy Skype call in his study. ‘Sorry that took so long,’ he said, leaning down to press a kiss to the top of her head. ‘Hey, it’s great to see you sketching again.’ He picked up one of her earlier sketches—one of him sleeping—and frowned. ‘I look so relaxed.’ He put the sketch back down.
Juliette swivelled on her chair to look up at him. Something in his expression sent off a distracted vibe. A subtle distance in his gaze. A slight disturbance in his tone.
‘Is everything okay? Has something come up with work?’
‘I’ve been thinking about this Paris thing.’
Juliette straightened in her seat, unsure what to make of his expression. ‘You still want me to go...don’t you?’
‘I shouldn’t have pressured you into going. I can go alone if you don’t feel up to being social.’
Juliette rose from her chair and wrapped her arms around her middle, uncertain of what to make of his seeming reluctance to have her accompany him. Was he wary of being out in public with her in case people read more into their relationship than was true? After all, they weren’t officially reconciled. They were having a break-up fling. Di
d he want to keep their involvement with each other out of the press? Or was there some other reason?
She turned her back to him and stared at the view of the ocean below the steep slopes, with their collection of old and luxury villas and the vivid splashes of colour and greenery. ‘Are you worried I might say or do something I shouldn’t? That I might disgrace you in some way?’
Joe came over to her and placed his hands on the top of her tense shoulders. He turned her around to face him, his expression etched in lines of concern. ‘No. I’m worried people will make you feel uncomfortable. You know how it works at these gatherings. You get stuck next to someone who wants to know every detail about your life or tell you every detail of theirs.’ He made a husky, clearing his throat sound and added, ‘I know it’s a fundraiser for stillbirth research and counselling services but people can still ask intrusive questions. I don’t want you to be hurt by someone asking you about things you’d rather not talk about.’
Juliette’s heart gave a funny little flutter-spasm.
He was concerned about her. He wanted to protect her.
She had done her usual jumping to conclusions by thinking he was somehow ashamed of her, worried she might drink too much and humiliate him. But it was nothing to do with any of that.
He genuinely cared about her.
She put her hands on his chest, her lower body flush against his. ‘I’ve avoided a lot of social events for exactly that reason. What if someone asks me if I have any children? Or plan to try again? What am I supposed to say? Am I even allowed to call myself a mother when I didn’t give birth to a live baby?’
Joe framed her face in his hands, his gaze tender as it meshed with hers. ‘You will always be Emilia’s mother. No one can take that away from you. No one.’
Tears stung her eyes and a lump formed in her throat. ‘Y-you said her name...’
Joe stroked his thumbs across each of her cheeks in a slow soothing motion. ‘Maybe some time in the future it won’t hurt so much to say it. To think of her.’
The Return 0f Her Billionaire Husband (HQR Presents) Page 10