by Penny Jordan
Right now he felt responsible for her...and responsive to her? It would be dangerously easy to use those feelings and to try to convince them both that they could become something else.
Some deep-seated feminine instinct told her that it would be the easiest thing in the world right now to increase Jake’s awareness of her, to trade on his obvious compassion for her. All it would take was for her to lift her head, to look at him...to look at his mouth...
She felt the tremor of her own body and acknowledged, with a small pang of shock for her previous lack of awareness, how very strong her physical and emotional responses would be once they were aroused, how very, very much she wanted right now to make love with Jake.
To set the final seal upon the past and free herself completely from it? Or because she loved him...because a part of her was ready to use the smallest excuse it could find to encourage him to want her?
It wouldn’t be all that difficult; physically he was responsive to her, aware of her...physically he desired her.
She wasn’t sure how she knew that, but she did know it, sensed it, felt it, and in a female way was proud because of it.
But to encourage that desire, to take it and make use of it, would ultimately damage them both, but most especially her. She wasn’t strong enough for a relationship which would be based on such a dangerously destructive mixture of compassion and desire on his part, and love and need on hers.
No, if there were ever to be that kind of intimate relationship in her life, then it must be based on emotions that were equally balanced. And besides, to allow...to encourage Jake to make love to her when she knew how widely different their reasons for making love would be would be to cheat and deceive him.
Jake heard her sigh, and felt her lift herself away from him. This time when she pressed firmly against his chest, silently demanding that he release her, he complied.
‘I’m sorry,’ she told him shakily.
‘Don’t be,’ he responded. ‘There’s no need.’
He had released her fully now. She was just about to step back from him and turn away when he said softly, ‘Rosie...’
‘Yes?’
She looked up at him and then tensed as she saw the way he was looking back at her, at her mouth...just as she had so recently imagined he might do.
Quickly she turned on her heel, terrified of giving in to her need to fling herself back into his arms and whisper to him how much she wanted him...loved him.
‘I...I must go...’
Jake saw her to her car, and then stood watching her until she had driven out of sight.
The phone was ringing as Rosie let herself into her house. She dropped her bag and ran to answer it, a small thrill of disappointment stabbing through her when she realised it wasn’t Jake but Chrissie.
‘Rosie...I’ve had a wonderful idea,’ Chrissie announced. ‘Why don’t you have your engagement party here in the garden? There’s masses of room. We could hire a marquee.’
An engagement party. Rosie’s heart sank, but she couldn’t summon the energy to dampen Chrissie’s enthusiasm, nor to destroy the olive branch she knew her sister was extending to her.
‘It sounds a marvellous idea,’ she fibbed weakly. ‘But I’m not sure what Jake’s plans are...’
Promising Chrissie that she would discuss the party with him, she replaced the receiver.
Chrissie was her sister, she reminded herself, and it was unfair of her to shift the responsibility for persuading her to drop her plans for an engagement party on to Jake’s shoulders, but he seemed to have the knack of dealing with her sister. Chrissie listened to him and obviously respected his judgement, while she had always considered Rosie to be her ‘little sister’ and still tended to treat her accordingly.
An engagement party... Wistfully Rosie tried not to dwell on how different things would be if she and Jake really were planning to marry...if he really did love her.
Enough of that, she told herself firmly. She had plenty of other things to think about, such as work. It was too late to return to the office now, but she had plenty of paperwork she could do here at home.
She went into her sitting-room and switched on the fire, opening the flap of her pretty walnut bureau, which she had inherited from her grandmother, and sitting down to work.
* * *
AT NINE O’CLOCK Rosie stopped working to make herself a light supper. After she had finished eating and cleared away, she went back to her work, switching on the sitting-room lamps as she did so. The summer light had started to fade, and as she passed in front of her sitting-room window she saw a car coming down the road.
When she realised it was Jake’s, her heart missed a beat.
He had probably only come round because Chrissie had been on to him about her wretched party, she told herself as she went to let him in.
She opened the door before he rang the bell, standing back to let him in.
‘Has Chrissie—?’
‘Rosie, there’s something—’
Both of them stopped.
‘You first,’ Jake offered.
The way he was smiling at her made her feel as though she had suddenly been wrapped in something warm and cherishing, Rosie reflected shakily. It was an unfamiliar experience for her, and a dangerously beguiling one, betraying her into responding to Jake’s warmth with a smile that made him catch his breath in love and hope.
Quickly she told him about Chrissie’s phone-call, pulling a wry face as she admitted, ‘I’m afraid I used you as an excuse for not going ahead.’
‘I’ve had Naomi plaguing me, wanting to know if we’ve set a wedding date yet,’ Jake told her. ‘I’ve referred her to you...’
Rosie laughed.
‘That wasn’t why I came to see you, though...’
Rosie paused in the act of ushering him into her sitting-room.
‘I was worried about you...being on your own after what happened this afternoon...’ He had turned his head away from her as though half ashamed of his own concern for her, his voice slightly muffled.
As she watched him, Rosie was overwhelmed with emotion. He was so caring, this man, so completely the opposite of all the things she had once thought him. Why hadn’t she realised sooner...known sooner that...?
That what? That she loved him.
Tears pricked her eyes. This was so unfair...so...so unendurable, after all she had already endured.
She turned her head away from him, afraid that he might somehow read the truth in her eyes.
‘That...that was thoughtful of you...’
How formal she sounded, how distant, but she couldn’t, dared not, let him see what she was really feeling.
‘Rosie... About...about the baby...’
She tensed immediately.
‘You have every right to mourn him or her, you know, every right to grieve... Forgive me if I’m saying or doing the wrong thing, but I just wanted you to know that if you can’t bring yourself to talk about it to anyone else, someone closer to you...well, I’m always here, you know...’
She hadn’t meant it to happen...hadn’t planned for it, hadn’t encouraged it in any way at all, but as she turned towards him he must have taken a couple of steps towards her.
‘Rosie...’
The way he said her name made her whole body quiver. She looked up at him and knew immediately that it was the wrong thing to do.
He wanted her—she could see it in his face, read it in the way his glance dropped slowly to her mouth.
She could have stopped it even then, could have turned away from him, stepped back from him, filled the tense silence with some comment which would have banished the tension between them, but she did none of those things; instead she looked back at him, deliberately letting her own glance linger on his mouth, knowing, as surely
as she knew that he could see the warm flush staining her skin, that he knew what she was offering him.
There was no rush, no awkwardness, simply the sensation of being enfolded in his arms, followed by the warmth of his mouth slowly caressing her own, exploring and caressing it, as delicately as though he thought she was something precious and fragile with which he had to take great care.
Hesitantly she opened her mouth and kissed him back, unsure at first, her heart thudding frantically fast; and then, after he had responded to her, shown her, whispered to her how much he wanted her, how much he needed her, her confidence grew, her aching need for him driving out the warning voices urging her to stop now before it was too late.
Only it was already too late. It had been too late from the first moment he touched her. Now she had no defences against the combined emotional and physical longing for him. When he touched her, her body trembled violently in response.
He kissed her mouth and then her throat, his hands warm against her body, tender and patient, not rushing or forcing her. As she clung to him, she could feel the heat coming off his body, sense the desire he was straining to control, but strangely the knowledge of his desire neither alarmed her nor filled her with distaste, as had always been the case in the past with other men.
Neither, when he kissed her, did she see behind her shuttered eyelids an image of his cousin tainting her pleasure in his touch, destroying her ability to respond to him.
‘Open your eyes, Rosie,’ he told her huskily, as he kissed the corner of each eye. ‘I want you to look at me when I touch you. I want you to see me when I kiss you...I want you to know who it is who’s making love to you.’
Obediently she did as he said, unaware of the effect that her languorously enlarged pupils were having on him.
He touched her face with his hands, cupping it, not daring to let himself touch her body. If he did!
He could feel his own physical response to the thought of touching her, of smoothing his hands over the silky warmth of her skin, of caressing every single inch of her with his mouth, of showing her...giving her all the pleasure she had never known, of helping her to be proud of the sensuality that nature had given her.
He could feel his heart hammering against his ribs, his throat aching with tension and need... He buried his mouth against her throat, feeling her tremble violently against him, seeing in the golden shadow of the lamplight the sudden thrust of her nipples against her clothes.
Heat swamped him. Before he had registered what he was doing, never mind stopped himself, his hands slid to her waist, holding her, his head dipping down, his mouth covering her nipple, caressing it, his mind haunted by his memories of how often he had dreamed of touching her like this.
After one violent shudder of shock, Rosie simply clung quiescently to him, too stunned, too devoured by the physical and emotional sensations his passionate caress had aroused to do anything else.
How could it happen that simply the heat of his mouth, its dampness against her skin, the rough brush of his tongue even through the layers of fabric that separated her flesh from it could cause such a frenzy of sensation inside her, could unleash such an aching, a need, a pulsing, that it was all she could do to stop herself from pressing his head against her breast, from wrenching aside the intrusive fabric that prevented her from experiencing his heated, passionate suckle against her naked flesh?
She wanted to feel him touching her like that, kissing her like that, all over her body, but she had no idea she had voiced that need until he lifted his mouth from her breast and whispered to her, ‘Do you, Rosie? Do you? Come here, then, and let me show you how much I want to love you like that...’
He had just started to unfasten her blouse when she suddenly shook her head. Immediately his fingers stilled, his eyes watching her, waiting.
‘Not here...’ she told him huskily, her skin flushing as she looked beyond him towards the half-open door.
It was so hard for her to say the words, to explain to him how she felt...what she wanted, to tell him that, although she knew already that what she would experience with him would be nothing like that other time, she still wanted it to be upstairs in her own bed where, no matter what might happen afterwards, or what the future might hold, she would have the memory of being physically wanted and desired, of being shown tenderness and joy, of knowing what this physical thing between a man and a woman really should be, to destroy for ever the tainted memories of the past.
As she struggled to find the words to express what she was feeling and what she wanted, it seemed that somehow Jake had read her mind for her, because he watched her sombrely for a few seconds and then said quietly, ‘No. Not here.’
As she walked nervously towards the door, the light fell on the damp patch of fabric pulling tautly against her breast. Heat flooded through her, weakening her, making her sway slightly on her feet.
Instantly Jake was holding her, supporting her, his arm wrapped round her.
They went upstairs in silence.
Outside her bedroom door she paused, hesitating, suddenly filled with doubt and panic. What if he didn’t really want her after all? What if he was simply doing this because he felt sorry for her...what if?
As she looked towards him, she saw that he was very obviously physically aroused; her skin flushed, her body responding to what she had seen, filling her with a longing that made her tremble openly.
She didn’t realise Jake had misinterpreted the reason for that tremor until she heard him saying softly, ‘It’s all right, Rosie. You don’t have to do this. If you’d prefer me to leave...’
Her eyes gave her away before she could speak, filling with such anguish that Jake felt as though someone was physically tearing at his guts.
He was close to forty years old. He had promised himself he wouldn’t rush her, wouldn’t panic her, wouldn’t let his own needs, his own love, get in the way of his desire to help her, to put her first...but when he saw the look of helpless aching, longing dilating her eyes...
‘I want to see you,’ she told him shakily. ‘I want you to see me...’
She stopped speaking, unable to explain that she wanted their intimacy to be open and free, clean and wholesome...shared. That she didn’t want it to be something covert and hidden, dark and furtive.
‘I want to see you,’ she had said, and Jake had heard beneath the defiance in her voice the tiny thread of all her past fear.
He ached in helpless anger and pain for her, but knew that if he voiced what he was feeling she would immediately reject his emotions, driven by pride and the need to protect herself.
Instead he told her wryly, ‘There isn’t an awful lot to see. A man’s body doesn’t possess the same beauty as a woman’s...’ As he spoke he looked down at her, and Rosie felt her heart thud frantically against her ribs as she recognised his desire for her.
Was he saying that he found her body beautiful—the swollen curves of her breasts, the swell of her hips, the roundness of her body with its female mysteries?
And he was wrong when he said a man’s body did not possess beauty.
His did for her, she recognised as her glance skimmed hesitantly over him. His skin was tanned from the time he had spent in Greece, his arms and legs tautly muscled where hers were more gently structured, his nipples smaller, flatter but, like hers, taut and hard. If she touched them, kissed them, suckled on them, would he experience the same thrill of sensation that his mouth had given her?
Her skin burned at the thought, her hand clenching against her side as she resisted the urge to reach out and touch him, to stroke her fingertips through the soft silk of his body hair, to breathe in the scent of him, to release all her inhibitions and to show him with her hands and her mouth just how much she wanted and needed him.
‘Rosie...’
She looked at him, her expression open and ung
uarded. What he saw in her eyes made Jake reach out for her, groaning helplessly under his breath as his senses reacted to that unspoken message of longing and need.
‘Hold me, Rosie,’ he whispered against her mouth. ‘Hold me...touch me...love me...’
Perhaps after all this was what she needed most: not to be shown the power of her own sexuality, but to be allowed to discover the weakness of his, its vulnerabilities and needs, to be allowed to discover that a man’s body was just as vulnerable as a woman’s, that she had just as much power to wound and hurt him as he did her, to discover what her touch could do to him.
Against her mouth he whispered thickly, ‘Whatever it is you want, Rosie...whatever it is you need, you can have...’
I want you, Rosie wanted to tell him. I need you...I love you...but she didn’t say the words. Instead she reached out tentatively and touched him, tracing the shape of his shoulder, exploring the warmth of his skin, feeling the way his flesh responded to her touch, seeing in his face that he had told her the truth when he said he wanted her.
What she was learning now...experiencing now were things she should have known years ago, Rosie acknowledged as her heart filled with wonder at the way he reacted to her, at the way he let her see just what she was doing to him, but more unexpected than all of that was the way her own body responded to what she was doing, the way touching him, watching him, kissing him, just simply watching him, aroused her.
When she pressed her lips to the flat plane of his stomach and hesitantly caressed it with the tip of her tongue, the shudder that went through him made her own body ache so sharply that she immediately froze.
‘Rosie...it’s all right,’ Jake started to reassure her, but she shook her head, her face burning with the force of what she was feeling as she took his hand and placed it against her body, and then watched him, uncertainly wondering if she had done the right thing. If she should have waited for him to touch her.
As soon as he touched the moist, intimate heat of her body, Jake knew what was happening to her.