‘But, as you see, I am not pining for a lost love,’ he murmured, and to punctuate his meaning he caught hold of one of her hands and placed it down his front, then caught her protesting little gasp in his mouth.
Desire pulsed with every hammering heartbeat; it bounced off the walls and back at her in wave after wave of blistering passion, battering her every sense into submission. They kissed; they lost their clothes with an urgent lack of finesse. Somehow they managed to make it to the bed; his hand grabbed the duvet and stripped it back from the mattress before he tumbled her down on it. They kissed some more; they rolled; he stretched her out and ravished her breasts, then placed a line of hot wet kisses down her front; he buried his mouth between her thighs. She almost leapt into the air in shock, then went wild, utterly wanton. Bright hot lights were propelling themselves at her eyelids; she couldn’t keep still and his hands had to clamp her hips so he could sustain the torment until she lost herself completely, lost him, lost everything.
When she opened heavy eyelids she found black eyes glittering down at her, his face a smouldering cast of raw sensuality made all the more potent by triumph. ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ she whispered.
‘Why not?’ The hand he used to push the damp hair away from her face was trembling.
‘Because…’ she breathed. He hadn’t leapt with her, and she wanted him to leap with her. It was essential that he lose touch with himself as she had, or what had he proved here except that he was the expert and she was just somebody, nobody—anybody?
So she pushed him onto his back and came to lean over him, calling upon instincts she had never used before to take him where she had just been. He lay in the darkness and let her do whatever she wanted. She kissed his shoulders, his chest, sucked deeply on the hard points of his male nipples, stroked her hands down his body when he groaned hoarsely, took her mouth on a journey that stopped at nothing. His fingers coiled into her hair and his laboured breathing drove her on. When he shifted to grasp her beneath her arms then drag her upwards for a kiss that devoured she was ready for him to finish what she had started with the deep, urgent thrust of his pelvis.
They shuddered together into a drumming ecstasy; he seduced her mouth until the very last whisper of pleasure had faded, and eventually she lay heavily upon him, limp and useless. She couldn’t even draw enough energy to care that once again she had given him more of herself than she had ever wanted to.
She belonged here. It was that simple—and that sad.
‘We marry as soon as possible,’ he announced suddenly. Then, before she could raise so much as a gasp in protest, he switched their position and began the whole wild adventure all over again.
CHAPTER NINE
MELANIE sat in a chair beside Sophia and carefully rotated her aching shoulders. ‘Can’t I just wear that one?’ she said hopefully.
‘If you want to look like a fairy on a Christmas tree, of course you can wear that dress,’ Sophia replied.
‘Don’t be cruel.’
‘Do you want to knock his eyes out?’
‘No—yes.’ Melanie sighed and fiddled with a drink-starved wilting rosebud. ‘I wish he wasn’t so determined to make all of this fuss about a silly civil wedding.’
‘I still can’t understand why you are going through with it,’ Sophia said with a disapproving snap.
‘You’ve seen him with Robbie, Sophia,’ Melanie reminded her. In an effort to get Sophia and Rafiq to stop sniping at her about each other she had invited Sophia round for drinks. Rafiq had been about to take Robbie to bed when she’d arrived. She had caught him holding his son in his arms, accepting the kind of love-shining hugs Melanie had witnessed many times. ‘They adore each other. I couldn’t stop this now even if I wanted to,’ she concluded heavily.
‘Do you want to?’
She hesitated a bit too long without answering.
‘So you’re the sacrificial lamb.’ Sophia sighed.
Oh, yes, Melanie thought. I sacrifice myself every night in his arms.
Getting up, she walked back to the rail filled with frothy white dresses and began flicking restless fingers along the selection. Why did she let him get away with it? she was asking herself crossly. Had she no pride left at all? 138
She knew the trigger that set him off each time. It was called Serena Cordero. Plant the beautiful Spaniard’s name into his head and he responded by diving into sex like a man in search of blind escape!
But you dive right in there with him, she admitted. In fact you only have to start thinking about diving in and you break out in a hot sweat.
‘I’ll try this one,’ she said, choosing a gown at random which she passed to the hovering assistant who carried it off to the dressing room.
Sophia waited until the woman had gone out of earshot before she said tentatively, ‘Melanie…have you thought about when you’re married to him and things become…intimate?’
‘Are you joking?’ she gasped.
But, no, Sophia wasn’t joking, she realised. She was actually looking like a rather anxious mother hen trying to prepare her innocent chick for what the big bad rooster did.
‘I’m sorry to disillusion you about me, Sophia,’ she responded. ‘But what do you think we have been doing in my home all this time?’
For the first time ever she saw shock then embarrassment flood her tough friend’s face. ‘You mean you—’
The words dried up. Melanie laughed; it sounded strangled. She spun back to face the rail. The silence between them sizzled with the kind of images that just did not belong in this pretty shop adorned with chaste and virginal white.
‘But I thought—’
‘Well, don’t think,’ Melanie cut in on a tight little mutter. Her cheeks were hot. Sophia’s cheeks were hot. What was it about people that they believed they could make assumptions about her? Rafiq believed she was a sex-hungry wanton; Sophia believed she was about as naive and dumb as a woman with a seven-year-old child could possibly be!
Maybe this was a good time for the assistant to reappear, because she helped to carry them over a very uncomfortable moment. Melanie scowled at the dresses on display and wondered what Rafiq would do if she turned up to their wedding in her best black suit?
A beautifully manicured hand appeared to one side of her. ‘You are your own worst enemy, aren’t you?’ Sophia murmured sombrely. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘try this…’
Sophia had pulled a misty-blue silk suit out from amongst the swathes of white. Her whole attitude altered from that moment on. She’s given up on me, Melanie realised as she wriggled into the fitted blue suit. I’ve put myself beyond redemption.
But then I placed myself beyond that when I let him make love to me knowing he was using me to block out another woman, she acknowledged helplessly.
She bought the misty-blue suit. It looked right somehow—made her legs seem longer and her hair more golden, made her eyes glow a deeper shade.
‘What do you think?’
Rafiq was standing in the hallway of Melanie’s house while Ethan Hayes was still looking about him with an interested eye. ‘You must already know that it has tremendous potential,’ Ethan told him. ‘But I don’t know how you expect to modernise the whole house while still maintaining every worn-out feature.’
‘There is an old man’s life etched into those features,’ Rafiq explained. ‘Can we not give the shell an uplift, then simply put everything else back the way it is now?’
‘I am an architect, not a miracle-worker,’ Ethan said dryly ‘The heating is useless, the fires belch smoke, the floorboards creak worryingly and the walls seem to be warning anyone that dares go near them not to remove a single picture unless you want them to fall down. All of that can be put right,’ he stated. ‘But the wallpaper will have to be hand-reproduced, the furniture will need to be sent away for some careful renovation, and nothing we replace will have the patina of age it wears now. I have a worrying suspicion that the deeper we look, we will find wet rot and dry rot, not
to mention woodworm. You need Leona on this, not me, Rafiq,’ he concluded.
‘Leona is busy with other things,’ Rafiq reminded him. ‘I just wanted your opinion before I decided whether to go ahead.’
‘It would be simpler to gut it and start from scratch,’ Ethan advised. ‘You only have to look at the other houses on this street to see what it can look like, given the chance.’
‘I have no wish to make it look like the others.’ This was his son’s home, the place where Robert and Melanie had found love and security. Aesthetically it must not change. Structurally, he feared it had no choice.
‘If Leona is out of action, then what if I hand the project over to my wife?’ Ethan suddenly suggested.
‘To your wife?’ Rafiq couldn’t hide his surprise.
Ethan turned a rueful grin on him. ‘Yes, I do mean the flighty piece who spent the evening flirting with you a couple of months ago,’ he confirmed lazily. ‘She has hidden talents,’ he confided. ‘One of those talents being a very impressive track record in house renovation.’
Rafiq was momentarily diverted. In the space of just a few short weeks, earlier this year, Ethan Hayes had gone from being a serious enemy of the Al-Qadim family to being a good close friend due to falling into love with Eve, the provocative granddaughter of the Greek tycoon Theron Herakleides.
‘The lovely Eve renovates old property for a living?’ Rafiq could not withhold his disbelief.
‘She shocked me with it too,’ Ethan confessed. ‘On the morning after we returned from our honeymoon, in fact, when she came to breakfast wearing overalls and put a builder’s hat down on the table. She’s been buying, renovating and selling on houses in London for years—as a hobby, apparently. Loves to get her fingernails chipped, has an affinity with dirt and grime. Give her a lump hammer and she will have that wall down in half an hour.’
His eyes were glowing with amusement. But beneath the amusement was a love and pride that made Rafiq want to sigh. At home in Rahman his brother was no doubt relaxing with the woman he adored with every breath that he took. And here stood Ethan Hayes so in love with his lovely, if highly provoking, wife, that he could not keep his feelings from showing on his face.
And here I stand, planning to marry a mere obsession, he mused heavily. A past obsession, a present obsession, but most importantly of all a sexual obsession. Upstairs their bedroom had become a place for hot and tumultuous orgies. Melanie had revealed a capacity to take eagerly whatever he chose to offer in that bed upstairs. But what really ravaged him was not knowing if she responded to any man in the same mind-blowing way.
He swung away so that Ethan Hayes could not see his expression. Sometimes he wished he had never come here, had never given in to the temptation that was Melanie Portreath. She turned him inside out, made him behave as he had never behaved in his life before. Which made him—what?
A man in love with his obsession? The words filtered like poison into his brain tissue, sending him on yet another restless swing that concluded with him frowning at his watch. Melanie was due back soon from the hours she donated to Robbie’s school several mornings a week, helping out wherever she was required to do so. He did not want her to find him here with Ethan Hayes.
‘Have you no ambition to do anything with your life?’ he had asked her one evening.
‘Should I be ashamed of wanting to be a full-time mother to my son?’ she’d bristled indignantly by return.
‘No, of course not. I just thought—’
‘Well, don’t think,’ she’d snapped. ‘I am comfortable with who I am, but if you’re not then you know what you can do.’
Leave. She never failed to let him know that the option was there for him to use if he wished to do so. He usually answered by kissing her breath away. But would she care if he did leave? Or would she heave a sigh of relief as she watched him walk away from this idea that marriage between them could work?
‘I would like work to begin while the owners are away,’ he said to Ethan with a calmness that belied what was going on inside his head. ‘It will be less painful for those concerned if they do not have to witness the initial destruction of everything they love.’
‘Who owns the house?’ Ethan questioned.
‘A—friend of mine.’ He couldn’t even say the words, My wife, as of the day after tomorrow, which angered him all the more. Was he ashamed? Was he afraid it might never happen? She was still having second thoughts despite the torrid sex; he was aware of that. Recently she had even withdrawn the sex. She had turned a cold shoulder upon him and said she had a headache.
A headache. The oldest excuse in a woman’s vocabulary. He frowned, glanced at the time again but did not register it because he was remembering that she had spent yesterday out with her cynical friend, choosing something to wear for her wedding day. Ten minutes alone with Miss Elliot would have been long enough for Melanie to begin piling on the doubts.
‘Then this house cannot be touched without her permission.’ Ethan’s voice intruded on his own dark thoughts.
The very walls seemed to move, as if William Portreath’s ghost was stirring himself to warn Rafiq to be careful how much he took for granted. I take nothing for granted, he grimly told the old ghost.
‘You said it is in danger of falling down,’ he responded.
‘Yes,’ Ethan confirmed. ‘But you will still need written permission from the owner to touch it, Rafiq,’ he advised. ‘Even my flighty wife would not dare come near it without written consent from the owner.’
‘I will obtain it.’ He nodded. By fair means or foul, he added silently, thinking of the trust with which Melanie signed any papers either he or Randal Soames placed in front of her.
Which was just another thing about Melanie that irritated him. The money she now possessed meant nothing. Her son and this house meant everything.
Where did he fit in?
The telephone in William’s study began ringing. Since he had commandeered the room for himself, Rafiq assumed the call must be for him, and excused himself, leaving Ethan to wander the house some more while he went to lean against William’s old desk and lifted the receiver to his ear.
‘Yes?’ he said brusquely.
There was a small silence, then a tentative-sounding voice. ‘Is Melanie there?’
Rafiq froze on instant recognition of that deep country burr. ‘No,’ was all he could manage to utter.
‘Oh…’ Jamie Sangster sounded momentarily nonplussed. ‘Who are you?’ he then asked curiously.
‘A—friend,’ Rafiq gritted.
Another ‘Oh’ raked his eardrum, followed by, ‘Will you give her a message for me, then? Tell her that Jamie will be in town on Saturday and could she give me a ring so we can arrange dinner or something to talk about her proposition?’
Rafiq replaced the receiver without replying. He then carefully removed it from its rest. Beyond the study door he could hear Ethan Hayes moving about the hallway. In William Portreath’s study the only sound was the buzzing taking place inside his own head.
Melanie signed all the papers Rafiq set in front of her without bothering to look at them. She was so tired she knew she couldn’t see straight to read them anyway.
‘Randal tells me you have decided to set a separate fund aside,’ Rafiq murmured levelly. ‘Is it for anything special?’
‘Is Randal supposed to pass on to you every decision I make?’ She frowned.
‘Taking care of your money is what you signed me up to do for you.’
Shame this relationship hadn’t stayed that simple, Melanie thought heavily and got up from the desk with the grim intention of taking herself off to bed. She was exhausted beyond anything—stress and tension—tension and stress…
‘So, what is the money set aside for?’ Rafiq prompted an answer.
‘Personal stuff,’ she said.
‘A million pounds of it?’
His sarcasm showed. Melanie turned to look at him. There was something different about him tonight. He�
�d been quiet and withdrawn, even with Robbie. And he looked paler than he usually did. Was the stress of it all getting to him also?
‘I might want to go on a spending binge.’ She attempted to make light of a tricky subject. ‘Your know, retail therapy and all that.’
He didn’t even try to smile. ‘You believe you may require such therapy once married to me?’
She glanced at him, standing there in so-called casual clothes that had clearly cost the earth. ‘Well, my one good suit doesn’t look much next to the dozen or so suits you have hanging in my wardrobe,’ she pointed out wryly.
‘It will not cost a million to replenish your wardrobe.’
‘I might decide I want to by loads of things—like a new car or two,’ she suggested. ‘Why, is there a ceiling on how much I am allowed to stash on one side?’
‘No,’ he answered quietly. ‘But I think you have overdone it a little. Why not allow me to place, say—one hundred thousand in your account to be going on with?’ he suggested. ‘You need only say when you require more.’
Melanie shifted tensely; she did not want to talk about this. ‘Don’t talk down to me just because you know more about money than I do, Rafiq,’ she told him crossly. ‘If I’d wanted only one hundred thousand I would have made it only one hundred thousand.’
With that she went to leave the room.
‘Where are you going?’ His dark voice came after her.
‘I’m tired. It’s been a—long day. I want a nice soak in a warm bath, then just to fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.’
‘What—again?’ he drawled lazily.
It was like a red rag to a bull. She whipped around to look at him. It was a terrible—terrible mistake. He was leaning against the edge of William’s desk with his arms loosely folded and eyes slightly hooded by long black lashes, as usual.
Why? Because he was trying to impose another woman’s image over her image. He wanted that other woman so badly that sometimes she could actually feel him ache.
‘We aren’t even married yet and you sound like a husband,’ she lashed out. ‘There has to be more to this relationship than just sex, or we are about to make a big mistake.’
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