by Anne Mather
Grace turned from the windows. ‘At nearly two o’clock in the morning?’ she said wryly. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Okay.’ Oliver lifted one hand to ease the tension at the back of his neck. ‘So—I guess you want to talk.’
‘That is why you’ve brought me here,’ she reminded him softly, but Oliver thought he detected the humour in her voice again. She hesitated a moment and then came slowly back to where he was standing. ‘Unless you’ve got a better idea.’
Oliver’s throat felt dry. ‘I can only think of one better idea,’ he said hoarsely, and felt his blood thicken when she lifted a hand to stroke the roughening curve of his jawline.
‘So can I,’ she said, reaching up to trace his lips with her tongue. ‘We can talk later.’ She paused and then added breathily, ‘Let’s go to bed.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I T WAS light outside the long windows when Grace opened her eyes. It was going to be a brilliant early summer day, she thought sleepily, and although it was barely six o’clock the sun was already pushing its way into the room.
It illuminated the room, with its high vaulted ceiling, illuminated the huge bed, where she was lying, illuminated the still-prone form of the man who was lying beside her, whose lean, muscled thigh imprisoned hers beneath him.
For a moment, Grace knew a sense of panic, her brain immediately jumping to the horrifying conclusion that Tom had forced his way into her bed during the night. But then, the memory of the previous night’s events swept over her in blissful detail, and the knowledge that it was Oliver who was beside her, Oliver who had made bewitching love to her all night, sent a shiver of delighted anticipation through her body.
She tried to turn her head to look at him, but his head was resting on the curtain of her hair spread out across his pillow and it wasn’t easy. His breathing, slow and easy, was a delightful counterpoint to the quickening beat of her heart as she inched towards him, and her lips curved in a smile of utter satisfaction. She loved him, she thought incredulously. She could let herself admit it now. She loved him with every fibre of her being and she felt so grateful to Sophie for wanting to get her own back on Tom. Without her intervention, it might have been weeks, months, before she and Oliver saw one another again, with all the possible doubts and misunderstandings between. Doubts and misunderstandings that Tom would have seized upon to achieve his own ends.
‘What are you thinking about?’
Oliver’s husky query startled her. She’d assumed he was still asleep, but evidently he wasn’t, and she drew a tremulous little breath as she turned more fully towards him.
‘What do you think I was thinking about?’ she countered, her eyes soft and sensuous as they rested on his lean dark face. ‘You, of course. I was thinking about last night, about you bringing me here.’
Oliver rolled onto his side facing her. ‘Do you regret it?’
Grace caught her breath then. ‘No.’ She swallowed anxiously. ‘Do you?’
‘Only that I didn’t do it sooner,’ said Oliver, his hand cupping her nape to bring her nearer. ‘So why were you looking so troubled? I saw the way your smile faded, as if you’d remembered something you didn’t like.’
Grace’s lips tilted. ‘You weren’t supposed to have been watching me,’ she reproved him. ‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘What? When I’ve just spent the most incredible night of my life, and the woman I spent it with is lying beside me?’ Oliver chided her gently, bringing a trace of colour to her cheeks. ‘I still can’t believe you’re here with me. I’ve wanted you for—well, it seems like for ever.’
Grace put out her hand to touch his cheek, but he captured it in one of his and brought her palm to his lips. ‘I love you,’ he said, his voice thick with emotion now. ‘I never want to let you go.’
‘You won’t have to,’ she murmured, nestling closer. ‘I love you, too. Isn’t that just perfect?’
‘Perfect, yes.’
But Oliver was looking at her as he spoke, his hand seeking her hip, pulling her against him, letting her feel the effect she had on him. His breathing wasn’t slow and easy now, it had quickened like hers, and his mouth on hers was hot and demanding.
The impact of his kiss was as devastating as ever. Its heat spread over her, flooding her with a need to match his own. Her legs parted at the first nudge of his knee and she rode his thigh shamelessly, feeling her arousal wet against his leg.
And although she was still tender from their lovemaking of the night before, she was as eager as he was to repeat the experience. She wanted him, wanted to know that wonderful sublimation of self she’d felt when he was inside her, the feeling that they were not two, but one.
He was gentle with her, easing his way into her tight honeycomb with indefinite patience. But she welcomed his penetration, her muscles at first expanding and then contracting around him so that his breath caught in his throat.
‘God, oh, God,’ he muttered as she arched towards him, unable to prevent the automatic response of his body. Grace lifted her slim legs and wrapped them about his waist and he had to steel himself not to lose control. But when he felt her climax rippling about him, drenching him in her essence, his release was a spontaneous reaction. He spilled himself into her with a groan of complete and sensual satisfaction.
It was a long while after that before he moved again, and Grace stretched luxuriously when he eventually rolled onto his back beside her. She had never felt happier, more content, and although she was loath to break this up, it was after nine o’clock and they couldn’t stay in bed all day.
‘Where are you going?’ Oliver protested when she threw the covers aside and made to get out of bed, and she cast him a lazy glance.
‘For a shower,’ she said, nodding towards the open door of the bathroom across the room. ‘I assume you do have a shower, don’t you?’
‘Oh, yeah, I have a shower,’ he agreed ruefully. His eyes caressed her. ‘Perhaps I’ll join you. But I’m going to make some coffee first. I need something to get me going.’ An attractive smile crossed his lips. ‘You’ve worn me out.’
Grace’s lips parted in mock indignation. ‘I’ve worn you out?’ she exclaimed, flinging herself across the bed and straddling him threateningly. ‘You’re insatiable!’
‘Are you complaining?’ he asked, his hands sliding up the sides of her body from her hips to her breasts. ‘I rather got the impression that you liked it.’
‘I did. I do. Oh…’ Grace was too susceptible to his caresses to do anything but collapse upon him, and once again Oliver rolled over, pinning her beneath him. ‘You know I do.’
‘Mmm.’ Oliver contented himself with nibbling at the soft slope of her breast. ‘I know. I like it, too. Too much, probably.’ His lips twisted. ‘I don’t want to let you go.’
Grace gazed up at him with her heart in her eyes. ‘You don’t have to let me go,’ she told him huskily. ‘I’m here as long as you want me.’
‘Do you mean that?’ He smoothed the tumble of her hair back from her cheek. ‘You know, I dreamed of this. Of seeing your hair spread across my pillow, of making love with you. And now you’re here and I can’t quite believe how lucky I am.’
Grace trembled. ‘Oh, Oliver…’
‘Yeah. Pathetic, isn’t it? It must be nearly twenty years since I had dreams like that.’
‘I think it’s wonderful,’ she told him sincerely. ‘I’d given up believing I could feel like this about anyone. And now…’
‘And now?’
She wound her arms about his neck. ‘And now I can’t imagine my life without you,’ she confessed shyly. ‘That’s what I was thinking before, when you thought I looked troubled. If it hadn’t been for Sophie wanting her revenge, we might never have known how we felt.’
Oliver stroked her lips with his thumb. ‘It’s possible,’ he admitted honestly. ‘I must admit, when Tom told me you weren’t coming back to the garden centre, I was shattered. I was sure I was responsible for you deciding to
move away and, short of asking Tom for your address, which I was too proud to do, I didn’t know how to get in touch with you. Until tonight, of course. Sophie didn’t have your address either, and I rousted Tom out of his bed to get it.’
Grace shook her head. ‘I was sure you’d just been using me, that Miranda was really the woman you loved.’
Oliver bent his head and kissed her then, his lips lingering against hers. ‘Tom has a lot to answer for,’ he said roughly. ‘But I can afford to be generous. After all, you hadn’t left the garden centre and sooner or later I’d have found out you were still there.’
Grace managed a tremulous smile. ‘I suppose so.’
‘I know so,’ said Oliver firmly. ‘Don’t forget, we had unfinished business.’
‘And is it finished now?’ she asked, propping herself up on her elbows as he pushed himself up and swung his legs over the side of the bed.
‘It’ll never be finished,’ he assured her, leaning over the bed and swinging her up into his arms. ‘Come on, I’ll help you with your shower.’ He carried her into the bathroom and set her on her feet. ‘Then we’ll go and see Andy. He’s my partner in the business. I know he’ll be glad to hear the good news. He thinks I’ve been as miserable as sin since I got back from Spain.’
Grace dimpled. ‘And Tom?’
‘Yeah. Tom, too,’ agreed Oliver drily. ‘I want to see his face when I tell him where you’re going to be living from now on.’
Almost exactly a year later, Oliver and Grace were returning from having dinner with Oliver’s parents at their villa in San Luis. In a few days, Grace’s parents were coming out to join them, but for the present they had the place to themselves.
And just like on that other occasion when Oliver had escorted her home, Grace saw lights burning in the house where they shouldn’t have been.
‘Juanita never uses the living room,’ she protested, when Oliver suggested the maid might have lit them. ‘In any case, it doesn’t look like a lamp. Oh, God, Oliver, you don’t think someone’s broken into the house!’
‘No.’ Oliver was reassuringly calm. He inserted his key in the lock and opened the door. ‘Stop panicking. There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation.’
‘What explanation?’ exclaimed Grace, unconvinced, urging him on so that she could get past him and reach the stairs. ‘I’m going to—’
‘Wait.’ Oliver captured her arm as she would have rushed away, and drew her along the hall to the living room. ‘Let’s see what it is first.’
Grace cast him a nervous look. ‘But Alex—
‘Alex is all right. You know he is. Maria would have rung us if—’
But before he had time to finish what he was saying, Grace had uttered an incredulous gasp. Halting in the arched entrance to the living room, she gazed in wonder at the sight that confronted her. Dozens of candles had been placed around the room, their flickering flames the source of the illumination she had glimpsed from outside. As well as the candles, long-stemmed roses decorated every available surface, their beauty only surpassed by their fragrance.
Grace’s lips parted and she turned to look at her husband with wide, uncomprehending eyes. ‘Who—who—?’ And seeing his complacent expression, ‘Did you do this?’
‘Well, I’d be feeling pretty annoyed if I hadn’t,’ he remarked drily. ‘Do you like it?’
Grace shook her head in amazement, turning back to look at the room again. ‘But how could you?’ she protested. ‘We’ve been at your parents’ villa all evening.’
‘Except for when I came back to check on Alex,’ Oliver reminded her smugly. ‘Our son is safe in his cot, by the way. And Maria’s reading in the dressing room, just as you expected.’
Grace turned to him then, a look of adoration on her face. ‘And you did this for me?’
‘For both of us,’ he said, taking her shoulders and bending his head to bestow a tender kiss at the corner of her mouth. ‘Don’t you know what day it is?’
Grace frowned. ‘Well, it’s not our wedding anniversary. That’s not for another six weeks yet.’
‘No.’ Oliver conceded the point.
‘And it’s not because Tom and Gina are coming tomorrow, is it?’
Oliver grinned. ‘Heaven forbid!’
But, surprisingly enough, the two brothers had mended their differences. Tom had had to accept that Grace had never been interested in him, and although he had dated Gina on the rebound, their relationship had lasted much longer than anyone had expected.
Which was why, with Gina’s eighteenth birthday only days away, Mr and Mrs Ferreira had invited them to spend a few days with them at the villa. Whether anything serious would come of the relationship, no one knew, but Grace suspected that Gina was more than a match for her thirty-two-year-old boyfriend.
Now, however, she frowned, and taking pity on her, Oliver said, ‘It’s exactly a year ago today that we made love for the first time.’ And as her face cleared and she caught her breath in delight, he added, ‘This room and that sofa have very dear memories for me.’
‘Oh, Oliver!’ Grace wound her arms around his neck. ‘That’s so romantic!’
Oliver looked a little sheepish then. ‘Yeah, well, don’t let Tom hear you say that.’
‘Why not?’ Grace arched her brows teasingly. ‘Knowing the way he always tries to copy what you do, would you begrudge Gina a similar experience?’
‘In a word, yes,’ said Oliver drily, taking her hand and pulling her towards the sofa where he had experienced so much pleasure—and so much grief when she’d sent him away. He drew her down beside him and cupped her face in his hand. ‘I love you, Mrs Ferreira. And I wanted to do something to show you how much.’
Grace quivered, but when his hand went to the buttons on her bodice, she caught his fingers in hers. ‘You don’t intend to—not here?’
‘Why not?’
‘But Alex—and Maria—’
‘Alex had a bottle half an hour ago. And Maria has strict orders not to come downstairs without my permission.’
Grace expelled a shaky breath. ‘You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?’
‘I hope so. It hasn’t been easy, I can tell you.’ He continued to open the buttons as he spoke, and then bending towards her, he captured one swollen nipple between his teeth. ‘You only agreed to let Alex have a bottle tonight because my mother asked you to.’
Grace felt the sensual pull of his tongue right down to her toes, and she sank back against the cushions, taking him with her. ‘You wouldn’t want me not to feed our son, would you?’ she teased him as he moved to her other breast. She caught her breath as his teeth nipped her. ‘That—that would be mean.’
‘But just,’ said Oliver roughly, his eyes dark and slumberous with passion. ‘Can I help it if I get jealous sometimes?’
‘There no need to be jealous,’ Grace assured him urgently. ‘You know how I feel about you.’ Then, with his erection hard against her stomach, ‘Oh, Oliver, do you think we dare…?’
‘I think so,’ he said huskily.
And they did.
ISBN: 978-1-408-93956-7
THE FORBIDDEN MISTRESS
© 2004 Anne Mather
Published in Great Britain 2014
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited
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