Unexpected Pleasures

by Penny Jordan

  Carlo had always treated the boys as his. Everyone had. No one had ever remotely suggested that Carlo might not have fathered them. Especially not Gabriel. Carlo had told her how Gabriel had said that he was a fool to have married her. This had led to a gulf between the two men, much to Sasha’s private relief. She hadn’t wanted Gabriel in their lives because she hadn’t felt she could trust herself around him.

  The last thing she had expected to happen when Carlo was dying was that he would send for Gabriel and entrust the twins’ future to him. It filled her with a mixture of anxiety and acceptance to see how easily and naturally Gabriel related to the twins, and she had thought when he’d challenged her about their birthday that he had finally guessed the truth. She had been holding her breath ever since he had arrived in Sardinia, waiting for him to look at the boys and see his own features in theirs. Her heart turned over in slow torture every time she saw him talking to them, and then again when she saw the way they looked back at him, so innocently, ready to love him even without knowing who he was.

  But the fact that he was their father had obviously never even crossed his mind. The deception he believed he had uncovered was so implausible compared with the simplicity of the truth that if it had been another couple she suspected it would have made her laugh in disbelief. How could he not see that the twins were his? How could he possibly think she, or indeed any woman, could want to go from his bed, the bed of a man at his sexual height, to the bed of a man like Carlo, elderly and sexually withered? For an intelligent man Gabriel was being remarkably blind to the truth. Yes, she knew that Gabriel had always worn protection, and he would not have expected her to get pregnant, but since when had it been a fail-safe barrier to conception? Especially with a man as sexually active as Gabriel had been with her. Didn’t he even question that it might be possible, knowing how much she had loved him, that the twins were his? That she had gone to Carlo in order to protect them and herself, not to exchange his body for Carlo’s? Obviously not. And of course she knew why. It was because of his childhood. Because it hadn’t occurred to him that he might want to be the twins’ father.

  Sasha didn’t even realise she was crying until she felt the damp splash of her tears falling onto the back of her hands as she gripped the polished wood of the window.

  They were his heirs, and that was enough for Gabriel. In fact that was all he wanted them to be. He felt no emotion for them, just as he didn’t for her. Although that wasn’t quite true, she acknowledged. He did feel some emotion for her: anger, contempt, bitterness, and most of all a driving need to punish her for leaving him.

  So what did she feel for him? She didn’t think she had the strength to let herself answer that question. Her head had begun to ache.

  The sky was lightening by the minute. Sasha opened the shutters and looked out. The air smelled clean and fresh. A walk along the beach might help to clear her head. It was too early for anyone else to be up, and the beach was private enough for her to walk there safely in her nightshirt, which after all covered her to mid-thigh.

  Ten minutes later she was on the shore. There was something deliciously pagan and yet somehow childlike about walking barefoot along a sandy beach, Sasha thought. She paused to watch the waves curl and fret along the shore as they welcomed the first rays of the sun.

  * * *

  WHAT THE HELL was happening to him? There was no point trying to sleep now, Gabriel admitted grimly. And there was no point lying here tormenting himself with images of Sasha and Carlo. How could he not have known what she was doing? How could he not have sensed it, felt it every time he had touched her? He had thought she owed him a debt for walking out on him, but he had had no idea of just how great her betrayal had been. She had been pregnant with another’s man’s child and he hadn’t even known. She had been having sex with Carlo at the same time as she was sleeping with him, and such was her skill at deceit that he had never once suspected. She had taken him for a complete fool, using him while she waited for Carlo to offer her what she really wanted.

  There was an explosion of sensation in the centre of his body, a physical pain that roiled like tongues of fire, and stabbed him with deadly sharp knives.

  Somewhere in the savage turmoil of his thoughts a small voice questioned how he could recognise that it was his emotions that were causing him so much pain. He didn’t do emotions. Especially not where a woman like Sasha was concerned. His relationship with Sasha had merely been sexual. He felt the way he did because she had shared with someone else the sexual favours that should have been exclusively his, he told himself; that was all. He had been keeping her, and because of that surely he had had every right to expect the exclusive use of her body.

  He realised suddenly that the strange noise he could hear inside his head was the sound of him grinding his own teeth. Had she enjoyed deceiving him? Had she held that pleasure to her when he was holding her? Had she lain in his arms, planning her future with Carlo? His head felt as though it was about to burst, and there was a tight feeling inside his chest; his eyes felt raw and gritty and his throat ached. He couldn’t understand what was happening to him, or why, but he knew he couldn’t lie here and be tormented by it any longer. He threw back the bedclothes and pulled on a pair of cut-offs.

  A walk along the beach might help him calm down.

  * * *

  GABRIEL SAW SASHA before she saw him. She was standing staring out to sea, the early-morning breeze flattening the thin fabric of her nightshirt against her body. He could see her outline as clearly as though she was naked: the soft swell of her breasts contrasting with the stiff hardness of her nipples; the narrowness of her waist and the curve of her hips; the hollow indentation of her spine followed by the rounded shape of her buttocks, the thin cotton pressed against the cleft between them just as it was drawn tautly over the mound of her pubic bone.

  Inside his head old images were forming, battering down his defences. Another time and another beach, as deserted as this one. Sasha standing there, naked apart from a sunhat, dipping a small fishing net into one of the rock pools, so engrossed in what she was doing that she hadn’t heard him approaching her from behind until he had pulled her back into his body and then stroked his hands over her, her breasts, her belly, the inside of her thighs, over and over again until she was moaning with longing. He could still remember the slick warmth of her wetness between the silky-smooth flesh of the pouting lips no longer concealing her sex but eagerly opening to his touch. She had moved against him, as urgently eager for him as he was for her, leaning forward over the rock in front of her. He had taken her there and then, holding her hips as he thrust deep into the hot satin heat of her welcoming flesh and felt her muscles tighten greedily around him.

  The erection pressed against the fabric of his cut-offs was caused by the past, not the present, Gabriel reasoned. Sasha had no power to arouse him now unless he chose to allow her to.

  Suddenly Sasha turned her head and saw him. For a second she simply stared at him, and then abruptly she turned on her heel and started to run.

  Gabriel’s reaction was instinctive and immediate. Sasha could hear the fierce pounding of his feet on the sand above the shocked thud of her own heartbeat. He was closing the distance between them but she still ran on, driven by the instinct of the prey to escape from the hunter.

  He caught her just when the breath had started to rasp in her throat, grabbing hold of her arm and swinging her round to face him so hard that she almost lost her footing.

  She could hardly breathe, and her heart was thumping erratically. She was still in shock, Sasha recognised. Her chest hurt too much for her to be able to speak. She tried to pull her arm out of Gabriel’s grip, and when he refused to let her go and pulled her closer to him she lifted her free hand, intending to push him away. But the minute it came in contact with the bare warmth of his flesh her whole body was seized with a tremor she couldn’t control. She gav
e an involuntary gasp of despair, her eyes widening. And then Gabriel’s head was blotting out the light and he was kissing her with a savage passion that swept her back in time. Helplessly she closed her eyes and gave herself up to it, returning the angry fury of his kiss with her own pain, letting him take and punish her mouth while she dug her nails into the smooth flesh of his back in mute response to their mutual hostility and helpless need.

  The part of her that was still capable of thought knew that he resented his desire for her as much as she did hers for him. But it wasn’t enough to stop him from shaping her body with his hands as though he was repossessing it, and it wasn’t enough to stop her from responding to him.

  From out of nowhere, between them they had unleashed something they were both powerless to control, Sasha recognised dizzily. It was rushing through her veins, surging past her defences in a tumult of hot, urgent desire that pounded through her body.

  It had been so long since she had felt like this. Too long. Sensations formed semi-conscious thoughts inside her head, instructing her body. She shuddered and moaned, arching her throat for the hot, familiar slide of Gabriel’s mouth against her sensitive flesh. Each second was filled with a building intensity of aching torment. She could feel the familiar heaviness in her lower body, the slow, certain softening and opening of the thick-fleshed lips of her sex, and the urge to part her legs and lean into Gabriel so that he could feel for himself how ready she was for him. She moaned deep in her throat, a sound between a purr and a growl of female pleasure, when she felt the hard jut of his erection pressing into her. Automatically her hand dropped towards his groin, her fingertips pressing eagerly against the bulge straining against the fabric of his cut-offs. She had just enough sanity to be aware that they were out of sight of the house, protected from view by the rocks enclosing them, but she wasn’t sure she would have cared if they hadn’t been, Sasha realised, as Gabriel caressed her nipple through the fabric of her nightshirt.

  ‘Gabriel...’ Her need whimpered through her frantic gasp of his name and her body arched into his. She tugged impatiently at the waist of his cut-offs, sliding down the zip and closing her eyes in aching pleasure as she slipped her hand inside and discovered that he was naked beneath them. She stroked the tips of her fingers along his rigid length in breathless pleasure.

  ‘Wait.’

  The harsh command jolted her into an anguished silent protest.

  Watching her, Gabriel shook his head and reached for the hem of her nightshirt. Sasha’s eyes widened, the breath locking in her throat. And then she nodded and lifted her arms, so that he could pull the nightshirt free of her body.

  Before she could drop her arms his mouth was on her naked breasts, tasting their familiar scented warmth, his teeth tugging erotically at the dark thrust of one nipple in the way she remembered whilst his hand cupped and caressed her other breast.

  It was more pleasure than she could bear. It made her cry out aloud and rake her nails down his back as she moaned his name. Already she could feel the once familiar rhythmic force building up inside her body.

  There was no need for her to say anything, or for Gabriel to ask. They seemed to move together as though their movements were pre-orchestrated.

  Gabriel leaned down and lifted her bodily against himself. As she wrapped her legs around him he could feel the sharp grittiness of the sand from her feet rubbing abrasively against his skin, a reminder that intense pleasure needed to be edged with the sting of pain.

  Maybe that was why he felt this overpowering need for her now. Because without her his life had been bland and dull. Maybe he needed the pain to really feel. Unconnected thoughts flashed through his head and were dismissed as Sasha wrapped her arms tightly around his neck. Bracing himself against the smooth wall of rock behind him, Gabriel thrust hotly into her.

  Immediately her head dropped back, a low moan of pleasure dragging from her throat as he thrust deeper into the tight heat of the muscles holding him skin to skin so perfectly that they might have been his own.

  It had always been like this with her, always, and that knowledge had haunted his dreams and savaged his pride. No other woman had ever made him feel like this. No other woman had made him want like this, driving him to break through the barrier that separated them into two different human beings. But it was only now, in the sexual extremis of his desire, that he was allowing himself to admit that to himself.

  He had forgotten just how intense the pleasure of being with Sasha like this was. How could he have lived so long without it, without her?

  Sasha wrapped herself as tightly around Gabriel as she could, savouring each wonderfully familiar thrust of his body. Her muscles clung to him, drawing him deeper, and she strained against him, wanting to possess all of him and be possessed by all of him. Her senses were flooded with an erotic stimulation and need that brought emotional tears to her eyes. She matched the movements of his body, taking and returning every rhythmic pulse. She pressed her lips to the base of his throat, caressing his sweat-slick skin, its taste sharp, salty and familiar.

  She heard him cry out her name, and then she was gasping and shuddering wildly as she felt the first fierce spasm of her own orgasm.

  * * *

  WORDLESSLY GABRIEL RELEASED Sasha, drawing great gulps of air into his straining chest. It must be lack of oxygen that was causing him to tremble from head to foot like a boy who had just had his first woman, he told himself dizzily.

  Sasha couldn’t believe what she had done. Her whole body was trembling so much she could hardly stand. She felt oddly weak, and yet at the same time filled with a heady sense of triumph and satisfaction.

  She looked up at Gabriel.

  ‘You owed me that,’ he told her grimly, breathing hard. ‘That and more.’

  The rising sun dazzled her, making her turn away from its glittering light. She could see her nightshirt lying on the sand. She picked it up and pulled it on. She felt as though she was existing in some kind of void—something akin to the emotional equivalent of the golden hour after a major accident, when the victim was so traumatised that the body failed to recognise the severity of its injuries.

  Without saying a word to Gabriel she started to walk back to the house.

  CHAPTER NINE

  FORTUNATELY it was still too early for anyone else to be up, because by the time Sasha had finally reached the sanctuary of her bedroom she was trembling with shock.

  She sank down onto her bed, tears pricking her eyes. What on earth had come over her? She had behaved like...like a woman who hadn’t had sex for ten years. Or like a woman who had yearned for ten years to be with the only man she could ever love.

  * * *

  GABRIEL STOOD BENEATH the hot spray of the shower, washing Sasha’s scent from his skin. Something had happened to him out there on the beach, something so precious and so illuminating that deep inside himself he wanted to reach out and hold the memory of it safe for ever. It made him want to reach out to Sasha with tenderness; it made him want to hold her for ever. But it also made him afraid. It had the potential to threaten everything he believed, everything he had built his life on.

  He made himself focus on the reality of the situation: while he might not have planned what had happened on the beach, it proved that he was right about Sasha. It proved that she was no more loyal to Carlo than she had been to him. So where was the moral euphoria he should be feeling? The sense of righteousness and triumph? Why was he feeling more like an ex-addict who had suddenly and fatally been exposed to his favourite drug of choice and discovered that its pleasure was even more potent than he had remembered?

  Just once, just one more time, so that this time he would be the one to walk away from her and leave her aching. That was what he had told himself, but already he knew it wasn’t going to be like that. Already he was thinking about the next time...and the next. Already he was think
ing about waking up in the night and reaching out to find her there next to him. Already he was filled with emotions that—

  Emotions? But he didn’t have emotions—especially not for Sasha. The huge discrepancy between what he had told himself to think and what was actually happening to him held him still as unwanted self-knowledge trickled through the gaps in the barriers he had thrown up, slowly but inexorably gathering force. The pain he had always denied he could feel was already squeezing his heart. On the beach, holding Sasha, completing the circle of human intimacy with her in that small, quiet moment of supreme peace after the intensity of his climax, a thought as soft as a drifting feather had brushed against his heart, telling him that here, in this private moment of time with Sasha, lay the greatest happiness he could ever know.

  * * *

  THERE WERE UNFAMILIAR aches in her body that weren’t caused by having spent the last three hours keeping her muscles under rigid control while she walked round the house with Gabriel and his architect as he inspected it with a view to returning it to a private home.

  Now the three of them were standing outside, and the architect was delivering his opinion.

  ‘I don’t see any major problems,’ he was telling Gabriel enthusiastically. ‘I must say,’ he added approvingly to Sasha, ‘that when you originally converted the house into a hotel your architect did an excellent job of retaining its original features.’

  Sasha had to force herself to at least appear to be giving her attention to what he was saying. Not because she wasn’t interested. Architecture and interior décor and design were her passions, but right now she was still feeling the fall-out from this morning’s very different passion. While her body might be aching with sensual lassitude, her head could hardly contain the thumping force of her mental self-flagellation. It was no use to keep on saying to herself, How could you? She had, and now she had to live with the consequences of what she had done. And right now, she acknowledged, the most unbearable of all those consequences was the way that standing anywhere within a five-yard radius of Gabriel was causing her body to go into a frenzy of sexual lust.