by Penny Jordan
‘Rosie...’ He kissed her mouth, her breasts, and then her stomach, all the time gently caressing her, trying to fight down his own need so that he could let her body tell him what it wanted...take its own pace.
When he kissed the inside of her thigh she trembled and tensed, but she didn’t try to push him away.
His need to touch her, taste her, love her...and to show her what that love could be ached through him.
Rosie... He said her name, helplessly aware of his self-control slipping, unable to resist his need to know her in this most intimate of all physical pleasures, feeling her tense as he opened his mouth over her, telling himself that he would stop the moment she wanted to do, and then becoming so lost in the pleasure of knowing her, tasting her, feeling her body’s first quivering response to his intimate caress, that no power on earth could have made him release her.
He felt her body move against him, lifting, twisting...heard her sharp, frantic cries, felt the tug of her fingers in his hair as she tried to push him away, but wouldn’t, couldn’t let her go, not until he had felt the small, sharp quivers of sensation twisting through her body become a series of intense, pulsing contractions that he could physically feel as he caressed her.
Even after it was over, he still caressed her, gently kissing the inside of her thigh, stroking her skin, moving slowly up over her body, touching her, loving her, until he reached her mouth and saw the imprint of her own teeth on her bottom lip and the tears still seeping slowly from her closed eyes.
She was trembling, he recognised, shivering almost like someone in shock. He wrapped his arms round her, holding her, rocking her.
‘It’s all right, Rosie...it’s all right...’
Rosie didn’t speak. She couldn’t. She was still in shock, still appalled by the intensity of her sexual response to him. Now that she knew...now that he had shown her... How on earth was she ever going to be able to forget?
Panic burned inside her. It would have been bad enough just to know that she loved him emotionally, but now there was this as well. This unwanted knowledge of all the nights ahead of her when she would lie awake, remembering...wanting...aching...knowing that the intensity of the physical peak she had just reached was something that could never be found through mere physical intimacy, that it was something that could only be experienced through love.
Never again would she know the pleasure Jake had just shown her.
She bit down hard on her bottom lip and then cried out as her teeth touched her already bruised skin.
Immediately Jake’s hold on her tightened.
‘It’s all right, Rosie... Go to sleep now... It’s all right...’
Go to sleep. How on earth could she sleep? She didn’t want to sleep...she wanted... She yawned hugely and then yawned again. Wryly Jake watched her, pillowing her head against his shoulder as her eyes closed, and then reaching out to switch off the light before retrieving the duvet and pulling it over them both.
* * *
ROSIE WOKE UP abruptly, conscious of something missing, but not sure what it was until her brain cleared and she realised she was on her own.
‘Jake...’ She said his name sharply, not really expecting any response, tensing when he suddenly appeared in the open doorway.
She stared at him in the semi-darkness, her heart beating fast.
‘I...I thought you’d gone.’
Thought or hoped? Jake wondered grimly as he walked towards her and sat down on the edge of the bed.
He had broken all the rules, done all the things he had promised himself he would not do, and now he was going to lose her—he could see it in her eyes. She could hardly bear to even look at him.
‘Rosie—’ he began, but she wouldn’t let him speak, interrupting him, saying fiercely, ‘You don’t have to say anything, Jake. It should never have happened. We both know that. It was all my fault...I should never—’
‘Your fault...? If any blame lies with anyone, it lies with me, not you, Rosie.’
She turned to look at him. He could see the way her eyes shone in the dark, feel her tension and vulnerability. She didn’t seem to realise that as she sat up the duvet had slid away from her body, or was it that she simply didn’t realise what effect the sight of her naked breasts was having on him?
‘I was the one who started it,’ he reminded her gently.
‘But I didn’t stop you...I wanted...’ Rosie bit her lip, shaking her head, knowing how close she had just come to blurting out how she felt about him.
‘I’m not a total fool,’ she told him stiffly. ‘I do know that sex is different for men than it is for women...that a man doesn’t necessarily have to feel any emotional involvement with a woman...to...to want to have sex with her...’
It was like trying to pick his way across a minefield, Jake recognised as he tried to unravel what she was
really saying to him.
‘Not to have sex,’ he agreed, watching her, wondering if that really had been pain he had seen in her eyes before she turned her head away from him or whether he was deluding himself.
What more did he have to lose? he asked himself grimly. Only his pride, and what the hell did that matter?
‘Not to have sex, Rosie,’ he repeated, reaching out and gently cupping her face, sliding his hand along her jaw and firmly turning her face towards his own. ‘But to make love...that’s different...and I did make love with you, Rosie, even if you only had sex with me.’
She had gone very still and silent, her face showing no trace of emotion or reaction at all.
‘And I do love you, Rosie...have loved you for a very long time...’ his mouth twisted wryly ‘...a very long time. Have you any idea what it does to a man to have to admit that he’s fallen in love with someone who’s still virtually a child, even if physically she might look like a woman? Have you any idea what it did to me to find you in bed with Ritchie?’
Now she did show some reaction, her body tensing, pain flickering in her eyes.
‘You don’t have to say this to me, you know,’ she told him fiercely. ‘I’m not going to fall apart just because I’ve suddenly discovered that I love you, Jake. You don’t have to feel sorry for me...to pretend...’
For a moment he was too stunned to speak, to take in her muffled, fiercely spoken words.
‘I know why you made love to me, you know,’ she continued without looking at him, her words low and rushed. ‘I know you did it because of...of Ritchie. I know you just wanted...don’t want your pity, Jake,’ she told him harshly. ‘I don’t want—’
‘What?’ he demanded savagely, his control suddenly deserting him as he grabbed hold of her shoulders and almost shook her. ‘You don’t want what, Rosie? Me...my body, my need, my desire, my love...? Well, you’ve got them whether you want them or not, and I’ll tell you something else, shall I? All those things you don’t want from me, I do want from you...all of them and more. I want you, Rosie. I want your emotions, your needs, your desires...your love...your life...I want all of it. All of it...all of you, and if you say one word more to me about pity or compassion—’ He stopped abruptly, shaking his head. ‘Rosie, I’m sorry...I shouldn’t—’
He felt her hand tremble as she reached out and touched his mouth.
‘No... No more words,’ she told him thickly. ‘Don’t tell me, Jake... Show me...show me...’
He could feel the way her body shook as she kissed him and wound herself around him, the small frantic kisses that betrayed her emotions and aroused his own.
This time, when he made love to her, it was the powerful pulse of his body within her own that brought her to the peak of her own pleasure.
Later, snuggled up against him, she heard him murmur in her ear, ‘That marquee Chrissie was talking about... How about using it to celebrate our wedding?’
‘So soon?’ Rosie pr
otested. ‘My parents—’
‘They’ll be there. Chrissie will see to that, and besides...’ In the darkness he kissed her gently and then touched her stomach. Immediately Rosie knew what he meant.
‘I wouldn’t want our child to think it wasn’t conceived in love any more than I would want you to think it,’ he told her softly.
* * *
CHRISSIE WAS OVERJOYED when they told her the news.
‘Leave everything to me,’ she told them firmly.
* * *
‘WHAT’S THIS?’ Rosie asked Jake uncertainly as he handed her a small, gift-wrapped box.
They had been married just over three months, and she had never been happier. The shadows thrown by the past had completely disappeared and no longer held any fear or threat for her. They had just come back from a fortnight’s holiday in Greece, Jake having decided to retain his interest in the marina project but to take a smaller active part in its management.
‘I don’t want to be away from you,’ he had told Rosie when they had discussed it. ‘Your own business means that you won’t always be free to come with me...’
And so, rather than ask her to put their relationship before her work, he had been the one to make that decision and that choice.
‘You’re more important to me than anything else in my life, Rosie,’ he had told her. ‘I’ve loved you for too long, wanted you for too long, to let anything come between us now that we are together.’
She hadn’t told him yet that she suspected she was soon going to have to look for a partner to take over her role in her business because she had conceived their child.
Now, as she unwrapped the gift he had given her and saw the small gold teddy bear dangling from its delicate chain, she wondered if somehow he had guessed after all, but then he said quietly, ‘I’m not sure if I’ve got the dates right... I thought it must have been about this time...’ and she realised that this gift wasn’t for the child they had conceived together, but for the one she had secretly lost.
Tears burned her eyes as she went into his arms.
‘I don’t ever want you to think you can’t grieve for him...talk about him,’ he told her huskily as he held her. ‘Or that I’ve forgotten what you went through...what you suffered...or how I wasn’t there for you when you most needed me.’
Rosie shook her head. ‘Oh, Jake...’
‘Don’t think I don’t realise what it must have cost you to have Ritchie here when we got married. To treat him normally...to—’
‘Ritchie doesn’t bother me,’ Rosie told him truthfully. ‘If you want the truth...what happened with him...it doesn’t worry me any more, Jake. Losing my baby—that was different, although I accept now that it wasn’t necessarily because I’d willed it to happen. You’ve driven out all my bad memories and replaced them with good ones.’
She kissed him and then smiled mischievously at him. ‘It’s a pity you bought this, though...’ she told him.
‘A pity?’ Instantly he frowned. ‘Rosie—’
‘Because now you’re going to have to buy another one,’ she told him, watching his face as he realised what she was actually saying.
‘Are you pleased?’ she asked him after he had finished kissing her.
‘Pleased?’ He held her tightly, his voice raw with emotion as he told her, ‘You’re having my child. Pleased doesn’t come anywhere near describing how I feel.
‘I loved you for so long without thinking you could ever love me, Rosie. Sometimes I still can’t quite believe that any of this is real, and then I look at you, hold you...touch you...love you, and I see in your eyes that it is real, that you do love me.
‘Of course I’m pleased,’ he whispered against her mouth. ‘Come here and let me show you how much...’
‘Mmm... That sounds like a good idea to me... A very good idea,’ she whispered dreamily against his mouth as he began to kiss her.
* * * * *
Master of Pleasure
Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
EPILOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
SASHA TURNED HER head to look at her nine-year-old twin sons. They were playing on the beach like a pair of seal pups, wriggling and wrestling together, and jumping in and out of the waves that were washing gently onto the secluded Sardinian shoreline.
‘Be careful, you two,’ she warned, adding to the older twin, ‘Sam, not so rough.’
‘We’re playing bandits.’ He defended his boisterous tackling of his twin. Bandits had become their favourite game this summer, since Guiseppe, the brother of Maria who worked in the kitchen of the small boutique hotel that was part of the hotel chain owned by Sasha’s late husband, had told them stories about the history of the island and its legendary bandits.
The boys had their father’s night-dark hair, thick and silky, and olive-tinted skin. Only their eye colour was hers, she reflected ruefully, giving away their dual nationality—sea-coloured eyes that could change from blue to green depending on the light.
‘Told you I’d get free.’ Nico laughed as he wriggled dexterously out of Sam’s grip.
‘Careful. Mind those rocks and that pool,’ Sasha protested, as Sam brought Nico down onto the sand in a flying tackle that had them both laughing and rolling over together.
‘Sam, look—a starfish,’ Nico called out, and within a heartbeat they were both crouching side by side, staring into a small rock pool.
‘Mum, come and look,’ Nico called out. Obligingly she picked her way across to them, crouching down in between them, one arm around Sam, the other round Nico.
‘Come on. And I’m the Bandit King, remember.’ Sam urged Nico to get up, already bored with the rock pool and its inhabitant.
Boys, Sasha thought ruefully. But her heart was filled with love and pride as she watched them dart away to play on a safer area of smooth sand. She turned to look back towards the hotel on its rocky outcrop, while still keeping her maternal antennae firmly on alert. This hotel was, in her opinion, the most beautiful of all the hotels her late husband had owned. As a wedding gift to her he had allowed her a free hand with its renovation and refurbishment. The money she had expended had been repaid over and over again by the praise of their returning guests for her innovative ideas and her determination to keep the hotel small and exclusive.
But with Carlo’s death had come the shock of discovering that the other hotels in the group had not matched the financial success of this one. Unknown to her, Carlo had borrowed heavily to keep the business going, and he had used his hotels as collateral to secure his loans. Bad business decisions had been made, perhaps because of Carlo’s failing health. He had been a kind man, a generous and caring man, but not the kind of man who had taken her into his confidence when it came to his business and financial affairs. To him she had always been someone to be protected and cherished, rather than an equal.
They had met in the Caribbean, with its laid-back lifestyle and sunny blue skies, where Carlo had been investigating the possibility of buying a new hotel to add to those he already owned. Now, in addition to having to cope with the pain of losing him, she had had to come to terms with the fact that she had gone overnight from being the pampered wife of a rich man to a virtually destitute widow. Less than a week after Carlo’s death his accountant had had to tell her that Carlo owed frighteningly large sums of money, running into millions, to an unnamed private investor he had turned to for help. As security for this debt he had put up the deeds to the hotel
s. And, although she had begged her business advisers to find a way for her to be able to keep this one hotel, they had told her that the private investor had informed them that under no circumstances was he prepared to agree to her request.
She looked back at her sons. They would miss Sardinia, and the wonderful summers they had all enjoyed here, but they would miss Carlo even more. Although he had been an elderly father, unable to join in the games of two energetic young boys, he had adored them and they him. Now Carlo was gone, his last words to her a demand that she promise him she would always recognise the importance of the twins’ Sardinian heritage.
‘Remember,’ he had told her wearily, ‘whatever I have done I have done with love—for you and for them.’
She owed Carlo so much; he had given her so much. He had taken the damaged needy girl she had been and through his love and support had healed that damage. The gifts he had given her were beyond price: self-respect, emotional self-sufficiency; the ability to give and receive love in a way that was healthy and free of the taint of destructive neediness. He had been so much more to her than merely her husband.
Determination burned steadfastly in her eyes, turning them as dark as the heart of an emerald. She had been poor before—and survived. But then she had not had two dependent sons to worry about. Only this morning she had received a discreet e-mail from the boys’ school, reminding her that fees for the new term were now due. The last thing she wanted to do was cause more upheaval in their young lives by taking them away from the school they loved.
She looked down at her diamond rings. Expensive jewellery had never been something she’d craved. It had been Carlo who had insisted on buying it for her. She had already made up her mind that her jewellery must be sold. At least they had a roof over their heads for the space of the boys’ summer holidays. It had hurt her pride to ask Carlo’s lawyers to plead for them to be allowed to stay on here until their new school term began in September, and she had been grateful when they had told her that she’d been granted that wish. Her own childhood had been so lacking in love and security that from the very heartbeat of time when she had known she was pregnant she had made a mental vow that her child would never have to suffer as she had suffered. Which was why...