For the Babies' Sakes (Expecting) (Harlequin Presents, No. 2280)

by Sara Wood

  Better, she mused, after a sip or two. She might even be able to sleep now. Her head felt muzzy and she dimly realised that she hadn’t eaten at all that day. Stupid. No more for her! Time she got horizontal and in bed before she fell over.

  With a sigh, she was about to turn around when she felt the hair prickling on the back of her neck as if she was being watched. Very slowly she checked over her shoulder—and her hand went to her pounding heart in relief.

  ‘Dan!’ Hastily she turned off the automatically joyous light in her eyes and fashioned her face into a more appropriate scowl. ‘I didn’t hear you come in.’

  How achingly desirable he looked. An appealing mixture of sleek-suited executive, and open-collared, sexily askew-tie lover. Someone else’s lover, she reminded herself painfully.

  And here she was, looking sickly, plain and horribly scruffy in a T-shirt and socks. Crossly she wished she’d been draped in something diaphanous and utterly alluring. She yanked the T-shirt straight and wished she hadn’t because it bounced a bit, drawing Dan’s piercing gaze to her naked thighs.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked, as stiff and uncompromising as if his jaw had been turned to granite.

  Her head whirled with the effort of thinking.

  ‘Yukky.’

  ‘There’s a smell of polish.’

  ‘Diversionary tactic.’

  She frowned. Had those words come out right? She’d had to say them very slowly.

  ‘I see.’ He licked his lips with the very tip of his tongue, his eyes oddly heavy as he contemplated her. ‘I think I could do with a drink,’ he muttered.

  Loose-limbed and worryingly woozy, she lurched over to reach up for a glass, pushing it and the bottle along the counter top. Dan was far too close, giving off an enticing scent of maleness that made her sway nearer in an attempt to mark that scent in her memory for ever.

  ‘You’re back from work early,’ she observed, trying not to sound slurred.

  Dan nodded curtly. He had no intention of telling her that he hadn’t been to work at all, that his entire day had been spent coming to terms with the fact that Helen was like all the others. Not to be entrusted with his feelings.

  ‘Came back to pack some of my stuff,’ he replied.

  Good. That was virtually emotionless.

  His eyes hungered for her, though. She was rosy-cheeked, her gaze languid from the wine. He wondered how much she’d drunk. Her hair had been screwed back in a pony-tail. It looked cute. He liked seeing her face without make-up. Her mouth was naturally red, the upper lip so arched that it made him ache to kiss it.

  The T-shirt showed too much of her incomparably long and slender legs. And when she had turned her back to reach for the glass, he’d had an eyeful of the tantalising first curves of two rounded buttocks.

  ‘You’re off, then,’ she commented with slow care.

  ‘Uh-huh.’ He sipped thoughtfully, his eyes narrowed.

  It gave him a sexual kick to see her wearing his top. It hung loosely, moulding to her beautiful breasts. Hazarding a guess, he’d say that she wore nothing underneath at all. But she was taboo now. Still his wife, but only because a piece of paper said so.

  A sourness filled his mouth and he drained his glass to mask the taste.

  ‘You look a bit better,’ he said, baffled as to why he was indulging in this ludicrous conversation instead of escaping unharmed.

  She gave a short ‘Huh!’ and squinted ruefully down at herself. Her arm described a rather uncontrolled arc in the air before falling to her side. ‘Let’s be honest. I look a mess.’

  There was an awkward pause. Unable to think of anything original to say—or even anything banal—he reached for the bottle just as she did, their hands meeting…and lingering for an electrifying moment.

  Oh, hell, he thought, his guts melting. He wanted her.

  ‘After you,’ he said, dredging up a grunt.

  Her hand was shaking. She slopped wine all over the counter. Blushing beautifully, she reached across to grab a cloth, her mouth so sweetly parted over her even white teeth that he couldn’t bear it any longer.

  His hand descended on her bare arm. Warm flesh seemed to fuse with his.

  ‘Let me,’ he said in a ridiculous husk.

  He cleared his throat, hoping she’d imagine he had a cold. Presumably he ought to let go of her. Reluctantly he did so. When he mopped up the wine with an air of concentration, she didn’t move back but stayed to tantalise him with enticing drifts of warm woman, polish and soap.

  ‘So,’ he said stupidly, bemused by the electrification of his entire nervous system.

  This hadn’t happened for weeks. Bit late now. He filled her glass and then his for want of something better to do.

  ‘Yes?’

  Her voice had quavered. Her lower lip was trembling and all he could think of was the way it would feel when he took it in his mouth. Fleshy. Yielding. With an inner groan, he took a swig of wine and struggled to add something to the ‘so’.

  ‘Uh…I’ll go and pack.’

  He’d had to drag the words out. What he wanted was to stay here and gaze at her. No. To hold her. Slide his hands beneath the cotton fabric and feel the yielding of her fabulous body. Slowly, thoroughly, make mad, passionate love to her…

  ‘Right.’

  Her lashes lay darkly on her cheeks as she took small sips from the glass. There was a softness to her face that he hadn’t noticed before—she’d always been thin, with fantastic cheekbones, but now she positively glowed. He liked the way she looked. Womanly. Inviting.

  A spasm sucked at his loins. ‘Just finish my wine, then.’

  He heard the bright, polite and meaningless rubbish he was uttering and tightened his mouth in exasperation. Why couldn’t he tell her, show her, how he felt?

  He knew the answer to that. In a word: self-preservation. All his life he’d protected himself from others. He’d made an exception in Helen’s case, believing she’d never let him down, that they’d be together for ever. Big mistake.

  ‘There’s stuff of yours in the tumble-drier,’ she said.

  Graceful as ever, she put her glass down with exaggerated care and physically pointed herself at the utility room.

  It was then that he knew she was a bit squiffy. And it only took a slight and wicked adjustment of his balance for her to blunder into him.

  ‘Oh, whoops!’ she gurgled in surprise.

  His hands eagerly went out to steady her. What was he doing?

  ‘Sorry. My fault,’ he said, releasing her with a supreme act of will.

  ‘No. Mine.’

  Definitely slurred. She didn’t move. There was something painfully forlorn about her whole attitude. Without another thought in his head, he took her in his arms and drew her close, just holding her to his chest.

  It was natural that she’d be upset and lost. They’d known each other since she was fourteen. Parting would be…

  He stopped thinking about it. It hurt too much.

  ‘You’ll be OK,’ he assured her curtly.

  She was tough. Sailed through life with her amusing quips that made him laugh like a drain and a swift application of her sharp brain that impressed him like hell. God, he’d envied her. Nothing had ever scarred her. Nobody had ever made her feel she was unwanted or a waste of space.

  Total self-assurance ran through to her very core. She’d soon be snapped up by someone else…

  No!

  In a violent blur of anger and lurching emotion, he roughly tipped up her chin and kissed her fiercely on her open lips, pulling her against his painfully aroused body.

  He felt her shock, the deep shudder that ran through her. Loath to hang around where he wasn’t wanted, he was about to release her when he felt her hands slide up his chest and lodge awkwardly in the gaps between his shirt buttons. One of her favourite moves.

  Soon she’d tease the buttons free and nuzzle him with her nose and mouth, teeth and tongue. A jerk of longing arced through his body. Knowing he was mad t
o play with fire, he groaned and let his kiss become slower, gentler, more exploratory.

  His intention then was to step away and say farewell, but the road to Hell was paved with intentions, wasn’t it?

  Because she wasn’t having any of this friendly goodbye. It seemed she wanted fire and passion because her mouth drove hard into his and her hands were pulling at his clothes frenetically.

  Something snapped inside him. In a blind fog he gently lifted her onto the counter top, one hand hooked behind her head so that their mouths continued their bruising kisses and the other sliding up beneath her top to settle beneath one heavy breast.

  His eyes closed in agonised bliss. As always, it felt incredibly voluptuous, swollen and hot. He had to get her T-shirt off. Impatiently he dragged it up and let her take over.

  For a moment her body stretched up, lithe, shapely, and staggeringly erotic with her gorgeous breasts lifted high and her arms reaching above her head as she wriggled out of the top. He was shaking, marvelling at the huge plum centres, peaking for him, enticing his mouth…

  And she was sweet to taste. Her nipples shaped to his lips as he suckled greedily and she grabbed his hair, moaning. Beneath his hands her skin felt beautifully smooth as if it was straining to contain her flesh. The sensations were so intense that he felt drunk with them, so drunk that he could hardly stand.

  His nose burrowed into the firmness of her, inhaling the unique fragrance of her body as he worshipped every inch of her deeply sensual breasts.

  But she was in a hurry. His scalp tingled where she’d tugged fistfuls of hair, his face burned from her scalding, desperate kisses and grazing teeth, which were now nipping his lower lip urgently. Every last corner of his head was filled with their laboured breathing, his mind just a mass of cataclysmic connections that fired his pleasure centres and nothing else.

  Her hand enclosed his and drew it from where it was enjoying the lengthening of one rosy nipple. About to protest, he let out a guttural groan instead as he felt the warmth of her thighs and then her wetness waiting for him.

  His head spinning, he managed to put his hands on her waist and to lift her. With Helen’s legs wrapped around him, he staggered more by luck than judgement to the adjoining sitting room, kissing her deeply and with mounting hunger as she writhed and squirmed against his body.

  He laid her down on the carpet and tore at his own clothes with the impatience of a teenage boy. Her hair was falling about her face, the band holding it hastily ripped off. They stared at one another with naked need and as his nudity increased her eyes became more and more sultry, her lips more inviting and his heart came close to bursting.

  She didn’t want a long, slow seduction. And he too was enveloped in a sense of desperation, some part of his nonfunctioning brain retaining the knowledge that this would be the last time he ever made love to his wife.

  Although he was tender with her as always, their love-making had a different dimension. He had never known her to be so uninhibited, so intensely passionate and fierce. She blew his mind away, every stroke of his body stoking up the furnaces that inflamed his nerves, every touch and caress affecting him like wildfire. They were both crying out and shouting, their bodies moving with exquisite perfection, drawing the very last ounce of sensation from their union.

  Through the misty haze that covered his eyes he saw that she was more beautiful than he had ever remembered. Sweat-licked, carnally erotic, she lured him on with her eyes, mouth, her hands and her entire body till every sense he possessed went into meltdown.

  His body flamed like a furnace. Exquisite pain tore at his sensitised nerves. He couldn’t bear it. No more, please, it was so good, too good…

  Shellbursts of pleasure. And again. And yet again…

  He couldn’t breathe. He seemed to be balancing on a summit, every muscle in his body tightened so fiercely that he ached everywhere. And then gradually consciousness began to flood back, his jerking muscles relaxed and he floated back to earth again.

  Back to a whole raft of guilt and regret for what he’d done.

  Helen lay limply beneath him, her eyes closed, a blissful smile on her lips. Gently he pushed the hair from her flushed face.

  ‘Helen.’

  She didn’t stir. Moving carefully, so he didn’t disturb her, he shifted his weight and just gave himself up to luxuriating in the extraordinary tremors chasing through the cells of his body.

  He swallowed as a terrible emotion welled up inside him. It was pushing away the barriers he’d painstakingly erected and it threatened to flood his entire being with a destructive weakness.

  ‘Helen!’ he whispered, checking.

  Deep asleep. He was glad. He had to grab a shower, chuck some clothes on fast…

  And then he must ring Celine.

  Helen stretched languorously and reached out automatically for Dan. To her surprise her hands encountered nothing but the fibres of the carpet. Reluctantly her eyes peeled open.

  For a moment she lay there, dismay seeping into her very bones as she realised two things. They had made love—mind-blowing, unbelievable love that had shot her up into the stratosphere somewhere—and he had gone.

  Another thought sneaked into her confused mind. Where had he learnt to touch a woman like that? It had always been good, but never so…

  She blushed scarlet, feeling the heat rippling through her turgid body, arousing it again. With disgust, she crushed her lust. Blanked out as well as she could the memory of Dan’s desire-filled eyes luring her on, the intensity of his passion and the terrible need he had satisfied in her.

  How could she have been so stupid? He’d probably packed his clothes and scooted off, vastly amused that she’d been so pie-eyed from drinking on an empty stomach that she’d given him a good time as a parting gesture!

  Furious with herself, she crawled dazedly to her feet, aching and tender from the most tenderly impassioned seduction she’d ever known. Or would ever know, she decided gloomily.

  And she’d willingly encouraged him.

  The starkness of her nudity was mortifying. She’d been…outrageous. All that yelling and urging… It was as if she’d been desperate to be loved by him one last time. Though love hadn’t come into it. Dan had just reacted like any man with sex uppermost in his mind.

  Feeling vulnerable in the middle of the sitting room, she wrapped her arms around herself and wondered what to do.

  She couldn’t face the stairs. Not so soon after Dan’s highly physical goodbye and with the memory of Celine’s pink briefs haunting every step.

  There was a shower in the downstairs cloakroom. She’d use that, then find the T-shirt. Scarlet shame invaded her body from the feet up. She seemed to remember she’d whirled her top over her head and lobbed it in the direction of the pasta jar.

  Nervously she crept to the door, listened, and began to cross the hall. Halfway, with her arms wrapped around herself to protect her modesty, she suddenly froze.

  Dan was still in the house—and talking to someone in the study.

  ‘Celine!’ she muttered under her breath, hoping beyond hope that it wasn’t.

  Grimly determined to investigate, Helen tiptoed to the shower and grabbed a bath sheet. Her heart thumped so loudly she thought he must hear it. Stealthily she padded over to the study and put her ear to the door.

  ‘Thank God you’re there!’ she heard him exclaim with huge relief. And passionately he added, ‘I need to see you. I’ve got to talk to you, Celine!’

  ‘Oh-h-h!’

  Unable to believe his nerve, she hurled the door open with such force that it smashed against the wall and rebounded. Dan dropped the phone in shock. Like a whirlwind she ran forwards and slammed it back in its cradle, exploding with a monumental fury.

  ‘You two-timing, selfish, deceitful, scum of the earth!’ she yelled, barely two inches from him, her body quivering, almost bouncing, with incandescent rage. ‘You disgust me! You’re…obscene!’ she spluttered. ‘How dare you take advantage of me? You mu
st have known I’d had too much to drink! And now you’re ringing her!’

  She was beginning to sob out the words, distraught that their love-making had been nothing special to him at all. When it had touched the very depths of her soul.

  ‘I will never, ever, speak to you again!’ she cried vehemently. ‘You’ll contact me through my solicitor…’ She found herself unable to construct a sentence. ‘Get divorce. Contemptible! Broken trust…amoral, vile…’

  Now she was incoherent, words just emerging wildly, arms windmilling in all directions. But he did nothing, just stayed where he was, impassive, cold, utterly closed to her.

  Her head buzzed strangely. Something black seemed to roll across her eyes and the last thing she knew was that she was falling into a deep and endless well of nothing.

  The blackness became grey and then she was being dragged unwillingly into daylight. No—the glow of a lamp. Blinking, she discovered that she was in bed. Naked. Waves of sickness were coursing through her and she scrambled miserably for the bathroom where she retched emptily.

  Dan came into the room as she was wearily climbing back between the sheets. In hip-hugging jeans and casual T-shirt he looked undeniably sexy. And also quite appalled.

  ‘Helen!’

  Dan wet his dry lips with a deliberate thoroughness and she stiffened. There must be a reason why he was shaking, why the steaming mug in his hand was slopping hot liquid onto his hand—and yet he wasn’t even wincing.

  Warily she sat up, hugging the sheet to her body, her grey eyes huge with alarm.

  ‘What?’ she breathed.

  The mug was placed on the bedside table. Dan kept staring at her helplessly, his hands now thrust into his pockets, and he swallowed several times before he managed to speak again.

  ‘You…fainted.’

  She glowered, bristling. ‘I certainly did. I hope you realise how much you’ve hurt me.’

  ‘There’s a problem.’ He seemed unsure how to go on.

  ‘All of your making,’ she muttered.

  ‘No…you…keep feeling sick.’

  She furled her brow. ‘So?’

  Dan sucked in a huge breath and strode about the room erratically while Helen watched him in amazement. He was so rigid he looked as if he might snap. Each jerky step jarred his entire body, sending ripples of movement across the straining T-shirt and his grim, flinty face.