The Sister Secret (Family Ties)

by Jessica Steele

  She stared at him, the gamut of emotions rioting in her. She wanted to tell him no, but was too transfixed to move, too transfixed to speak. Gently then he began to mould her breast beneath his hand, and as she gasped, so she strove for calm.

  Once more he gently moulded the full, rounded contour he held captive, and Belvia bore it as best she could. But when he teased, to find the hardened peak he had created, Belvia could take no more. Desire for him was making a nonsense of her. His warmth, the sensuousness of his touch through the thin material of her dress, were blowing her mind.

  ‘D-Don’t—do that!’ she whispered croakily, and on the instant his hand stilled. ‘I—I...’ she mumbled, and knew that, if she was to regain her scattered senses, she had to get away from him.

  Dragging her eyes from him, she stood up—and this time he did not stop her. She knew vaguely that she could not leave his apartment until she had settled things with him about Josy, but, as she moved from the room, Belvia was more concerned just then with finding some self-control than with talking to him about her sister.

  Why instinct should lead her not out of his apartment but into his kitchen she had no idea, but it seemed as good as any place to try and get herself back together.

  The only trouble was that Latham followed her. Oh, heavens, he had the lot, and she knew she did not stand the remotest chance of gaining a scrap of control while he was in the same room. Determinedly she turned her back on him, as though hoping that not to see his intelligent and good-looking face might help her.

  It did not, for the simple reason that Latham came and stood close behind her, his breath against her hair as he murmured, ‘You want me, Belvia, don’t you?’

  She swallowed hard. Other men had kissed her and she had remained cool. This man only had to be in the same room and she wanted him. ‘I’m—I’m...confused,’ she admitted shakily—and knew at that moment that the advantage was all his.

  Which made it more bewildering than ever that, when her resistance to him was at its lowest, when she was his for the taking, he did not take up that advantage, but, placing his hands gently on her shoulders, he just held her in a comforting clasp.

  And she no longer seemed in charge of herself, nor in charge of her voice, for she could do no other than lean back and place her head against him. She felt the solid wall of his chest at the back of her. ‘Oh, Latham,’ she murmured.

  His answer was to turn her without haste until she was face to face with him. She looked up at him and could see none of the coldness in his expression that had been there before. ‘Latham.’ She whispered his name again, and leant her head against him.

  His arms came round her in a gentle hold, and it was bliss. He said not a word, but just held her tenderly in his arms, and she was enraptured—and knew that there was kindness in him.

  She raised her head to look at him, and gently, as his head came down, they kissed. With an arm about her, he walked with her from the kitchen and back to the sitting-room, and there for long, long moments he looked into her all-giving wide brown eyes, and gently, without haste, he kissed her again.

  Feeling shy suddenly, she smiled, and he smiled back, and her heart raced faster than ever. She raised her arms and put them round him and, purely because she wanted to, because she had to, she stretched up and kissed him. It was a lovely, wonderful kiss, and, when she pulled back to smile at him again, Latham responded by kissing her, by holding her that bit more firmly—and everything in her went haywire.

  She pressed close to him; he pressed back. He kissed her throat; she clung on to him, the warmth of his body through his thin shirt making her want to feel more of him—and in no time fires of wanting were burning uncontrollably in her. As his hands caressed her back, so her hands caressed him.

  She wanted him to undo the zip of her dress as he had the last time, but he did not, but just held her, and kissed her, and drove her mad with her need for him when long, sensitive fingers caressed the front of her ribcage, and upwards.

  There was no thought in her head to tell him, Don’t do that, when once more he gently cupped one of her breasts in his hand. ‘Oh, Latham,’ she murmured in joy. Nor was there any thought in her head that the last time she had been in his arms he had rejected her—this time it was different, not only because he had started to make love to her gently. It was just that she knew it was different.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he breathed.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ she replied gloriously, and knew more delight when his expert fingers did go to the zip of her dress.

  A moment later and the zip was undone to her waist. With sensitive fingers Latham eased her dress from her shoulders, from her arms—and that, ridiculously she felt, was when she experienced such a shyness that, as her dress started to fall from her and a vision of herself standing there in little but her lacy underwear shot through her head, she caught a fast hold of it before it could fall from her waist.

  ‘Something wrong?’ he queried softly, teasingly.

  ‘I’m—um—a bit shy,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Shy?’ he echoed, but, as he bent his head to kiss her lace-covered breast, he seemed to accept that some family trait of shyness was getting to her.

  But Belvia, even as her senses were assaulted by fresh, mind-boggling sensations at the feel of his mouth on the swell of her breast, suddenly knew why she wanted him to be her first lover—and, contradictorily, why it was just not right.

  ‘I—don’t want to!’ she choked, and was not surprised, after the signals she had been giving off, that Latham should straighten and stare at her in disbelief.

  ‘You—don’t want to?’ he echoed, his gaze going from the agitated rise and fall of her lace-covered breast and up to her face.

  ‘It’s—not right,’ she choked. She wanted him to love her, for this first time to be with a man—who loved her.

  ‘Not right?’ He stared at her incredulously.

  She took a step back, making a hash of it when with nervous fingers she struggled to get her arms back into her dress. ‘I—just—can’t,’ she said helplessly—and started to get all het up again. He had undone the wretched zip—why the devil didn’t he come and help her do it up again?

  Her dress was at last done up, and she dared a glance at him. Any warmth she had imagined in his eyes was gone. Nor was his tone the sweetest she had ever heard, when he grunted, ‘Are you like this with him?’

  ‘With him?’

  ‘Your lover!’ he snarled.

  ‘Oh, go to...’ she began to erupt, then remembered very belatedly that she was there on behalf of her sister, but knew on her own behalf that she was too stewed up to start a discussion about Josy now. ‘Can I ring you?’ she asked.

  He surveyed her sardonically. ‘Am I to gather from that that you aren’t staying the night?’

  Again she wanted to hit him, even while she still wanted him. She hated the brutal, sarcastic swine. ‘Not another minute!’ she snapped, and got out of there. Damn him, damn him, damn him! She had wondered what could happen to her that had not happened to her already. And now she knew!

  She, stupidly, idiotically, had fallen in love with him, and he—he did not care a button for her! He had desired her, but cared so little he had not pressed her to stay. And she, idiot that she was, felt that, had he asked her with any kindness not to go—regardless of her beliefs on a mutual love when she gave herself—she might have stayed.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THERE had been a hopeful notion in her head when she went to sleep that she might wake up and find that she had made a mistake, would wake to find that she was not, after all, in love with Latham Tavenner. But, from the moment Belvia opened her eyes on Monday morning, she knew just how ridiculous that hope had been. She knew, and it was a part of her, that she was heart and soul in love with him.

  It was not just physical, she knew that undeniably too. It seemed to her to be a love that transcended everything, even the fact that—given that she and Latham struck physical sparks off each other�
��he had shown distinctly that he preferred Josy to her. In fact, he had shown that he did not care for her at all.

  ‘How was Kate?’ Josy asked when Belvia went downstairs to assist with breakfast—and caused her to do a rapid rethink, to recall that she had used Kate as an excuse for going out last night.

  ‘Fine. Enjoying life,’ Belvia answered—and was glad to have her head in the cutlery-drawer so that she need not look her sister in the eye.

  ‘It’s about time you found yourself another job,’ her father complained when Belvia placed a plate of bacon and eggs in front of him.

  ‘What brought that on?’ she enquired, and received a grunt for her trouble—no doubt his weekend had not come up to expectations. Or was it that his money worries were getting to him?

  Oh, grief, she fretted, for it seemed to her that while keeping Josy out of Latham’s clutches, she had been a bit tardy in remembering that—for her father’s sake and for the continuance of Fereday Products—she also had most particularly to keep Latham sweet.

  Great! How sweet was one furious blow to the side of his face? And how about—having shown herself more than willing to make love with him—suddenly halting proceedings by telling him ‘I don’t want to’? Sweet? If that was keeping him sweet, she would be lucky if he gave her father so much as the time of day next time he saw him—let alone the enormous finance he was after.

  ‘More coffee?’ She was brought out of her reverie by Josy waving the coffee-pot.

  ‘No, thanks,’ she replied, and with a sinking heart remembered that, for Josy’s sake, she had asked Latham if she could phone him. But while her love for him made her want some contact with him again—quite desperately did she need some contact—at the same time she was most reluctant to make that call.

  Would he expect her to ring? After last night, perhaps not. Though, since she had gone to see him with the specific purpose of talking to him about Josy, perhaps yes.

  The whole of Monday went by and, although Belvia was close to the phone many times, she did not pick it up to make that call.

  It was the same on Tuesday too, but on Wednesday Belvia got up and told herself she was made of sterner stuff than to go to pieces on hearing the voice of the man she loved on the other end of the phone.

  Even so, nine o’clock came and went and she decided she would leave it a while and give him a chance to read his morning’s mail. At half-past nine, Josy was in the vicinity of the telephone and, having let her sister think that she had nothing to worry about where Latham was concerned, Belvia did not wish her to overhear her conversation.

  At half-past ten Belvia decided she was utterly and totally fed up with the dithery person she had become. She had just decided that she would go out and make her call from a telephone kiosk, however, when there was a ring at the doorbell.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ she volunteered, and left Josy tidying up the sitting-room.

  She had no idea who might be calling, and went to answer thinking more about the phone call she had to make than about who would be standing on the other side of the door.

  Which left her totally unprepared. For, when she pulled back the door, her heart very nearly leapt out of her body to see the tall, dark-haired immaculately suited, sophisticated man she loved.

  ‘Er...’ Her voice dried and colour flared in her face—she loved him more than she had thought.

  Latham’s grey eyes rested on her flare of colour. ‘Good lord, I didn’t know women still did that!’

  ‘And I didn’t know men were so ungallant as to mention it!’ she found a touch of spirit to retort, and hoped with all she had that he would think her colour came from the fact that she had been half-undressed the last time they had seen each other, and not from the fact that she loved him and that to see him was such a joy. Which was why, to counteract any stray ‘I love you’ vibe he might have picked up, she told him aggressively, ‘Josy isn’t in!’

  Latham coolly studied her for some seconds, her aggressiveness not lost on him either. Nor was there any smile on his face when, grittily, he replied, ‘I haven’t come to see your sister.’

  ‘Oh!’ Belvia exclaimed faintly, and her heart fluttered idiotically and her throat dried. ‘You’ve—come to see me?’ she asked.

  ‘There, you see—I knew you were intelligent.’

  Sarcastic swine! she fumed on a loving instant. Though she had to concede, since it was a foregone conclusion that her father would be at his office, that if it was not Josy, then it had to be her Latham had called to see.

  ‘Er—come in,’ she invited, and knew her brain was addled when, as he stepped over the threshold, Josy, whom she had just told him was out, came round the corner of the hall. Oh, grief! Even while Josy’s startled not to say alarmed look registered, Belvia was glancing swiftly to Latham. Oh, dear, he had not taken too kindly to being lied to, she observed, as he favoured her with a superior look from down his lofty nose. Swiftly she turned back to her sister, who was her more immediate concern, and from somewhere she found a light-hearted tone in which to enquire, ‘Would you excuse us, Josy? Um, Latham and I—’

  ‘Of course,’ Josy butted in, with such obvious relief that she did not need to hear any reason why she was being excluded. Her manners, however, were such that she stayed to greet their caller. ‘Good morning, Mr Tavenner,’ she bade him, and was all ready to take flight as he answered her pleasantly,

  ‘Good morning, Josy.’

  As her sister went kitchenwards, Belvia made enormous efforts to get herself more of one piece. ‘Shall we go to the sitting-room?’ She addressed Latham over her shoulder, knowing that so much as to glance his way until she was more in control would negate all her efforts in that department.

  She was still wondering why had he called. What, if he did not want to see her sister—as he had claimed—was he doing there? Why, she was agitating as he followed her into the tastefully furnished sitting-room, did he want to see her?

  He closed the door behind him, and she turned, looked at his dear face—and knew, as her heart renewed its fluttering, that to do so was a mistake. For he was staring directly at her, scrutinising her face, taking in her jeans and T-shirt-clad figure, her long legs and slender shape. She wanted to speak, but found her throat drier than ever, and doubted that anything at all lucid she might be able to find to say would be audible anyway.

  Latham, however, chose that moment to save her the trouble. ‘I thought,’ he began as a cool opener, ‘given the power there seems to be between us to stir each other—sexually—’ He broke off as her eyes widened and pink tinged her cheeks. Trust him not to balk from straight talking!

  She could have done without such straight talking, especially on such a subject. She was just not used to it. ‘Go on,’ she invited bravely.

  ‘Taking that into account—’ he took her up on her offer ‘—I decided it better that I come here for the discussion you wanted with me the other evening.’

  ‘About Josy?’ He nodded, and her heart leapt. He really was not anywhere near as black-hearted as she would have had him painted. ‘Take a seat,’ she suggested, never loving him more than at that moment when, not waiting any longer for her to phone him, he had obviated the need for her to come to his flat—where the physical chemistry between them seemed to ignite—by deciding instead to come to her home. ‘Can I get you coffee?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ he declined, and if he was in a hurry in his busy day appeared to convey the opposite as, clearly waiting for her to be seated first, he went and stood by a well-padded couch.

  Belvia opted to sit in a matching well-padded chair and, as he sat down too and glanced over to her, she realised that the floor was all hers and he was waiting for her to get on with it.

  She took a shaky breath. ‘Josy’s very shy,’ she stated, starting to feel agitated again.

  ‘So you said.’

  ‘Extremely shy.’

  ‘You said that too.’

  Belvia took another glance at him. He was sitting there coo
l and calm and, since this was a meeting she had wanted, manifestly waiting for her to get on with it. That irked her and, as ever where he was concerned, she was glad to feel nettled; it made her feel less all over the place about him.

  And suddenly she was erupting. ‘I just can’t believe you’re truly serious in your pursuit of her!’

  ‘Why can’t you?’ he questioned, quick as a flash.

  ‘Because—well, because...’ Damn him! He knew why! But he was waiting, watching and waiting. ‘Because...’

  ‘So tell me?’

  ‘You know... The way you—um—sexually...’

  ‘For you, you mean?’ he queried, as she knew full well he had known full well all along.

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean!’ she flared, her cheeks starting to colour again. Oh, devil take it, she fumed. She would get nowhere by being angry—not that Latham looked as though he would lose any sleep over that. But he was looking at her rather intently again, and she would have given anything to know what he was thinking.

  If asked, she would have said he had his mind on the person under discussion—Josy. Which was why Belvia stared at him open-mouthed when bluntly, and quite out of the blue, he questioned toughly, ‘Just how sexually active have you been in your life?’

  ‘I—I...’ she stammered, her thoughts leaping everywhere in an effort to get on to his wavelength. She was not sure what to make of his unexpected question. Was it that he had remembered the way she had blushed when she had opened the door and seen him standing there, and...? But he was waiting. She opted to give him the truth. ‘I—haven’t been...er...’ Grief, this straight talking was nowhere near as easy for her as it was for him. ‘You’re the closest I’ve come...’ she tried again—only to have her Latham Tavenner-thumping desires on the loose again.

  For, clearly no more ready to believe her now than he had been before, Latham threw her a furious look and, as if unable to remain still, he was off the couch and standing by the fireplace. ‘Don’t give me that rot!’ he barked, his chin jutting at an aggressive angle. ‘I want the truth from you, woman, nothing less!’ he snarled.