'I appreciate the trouble you've taken, and I know this will taste good,' he smiled, buttering a slice of bread and helping himself to the tomato salad.
He ate hungrily, confirming her suspicions that he had not had a proper meal all day, and a tender, compassionate warmth stole about her heart when she turned away to switch on the electric kettle. She made coffee for both of them, and joined him at the table when he had finished eating.
'Tell me about Warren Chandler,' he steered the conversation unexpectedly in a personal direction. 'How close a friend is he?'
Julia put down her cup and her candid grey glance held his steadily. 'I've known Warren for more than two years.'
'That doesn't tell me anything,' Nathan smiled twistedly. 'Is he your lover?'
She went rigid with anger, but her glance did not waver from his. 'How can he possibly be my lover if, as you once said, I practise the art of teasing men sexually into believing that I want them only to back off before they can get me into their beds?'
Her sarcasm did not escape him, and his mouth tightened. 'That was an unforgivable statement made in anger.'
'It was,' she agreed with a forced calmness.
'Am I to understand, then, that Warren is your lover?'
She avoided his probing glance when she felt the tension spiral between them. 'No, Warren is not my lover,' she heard herself answering him truthfully.
'Is there someone else?'
'There is no one.' What was it to him anyway? He had Marcia, what more could he want, she wondered, anger glittering in her eyes when she raised them to his. 'Why am I being subjected to all these questions, Nathan?'
'I'm merely curious.'
He smiled lazily as he leaned back in his chair, his magnetic glance holding hers, and an incredible spark of intimacy was ignited between them that made her pulses throb with a mixture of anxiety and undeniable excitement.
Damn him! Damn him for doing this to her! She had never before experienced such an emotional vulnerability, and she quivered inwardly like a hunted animal sensing danger.
'This is quite like old times, isn't it?' Nathan forced her to recall something which she had been trying desperately not to think about from the moment he had arrived. 'Do you remember how you used to make us something to eat on the evenings when we'd worked late in the theatre?'
Did she remember? Dear heaven, how could she ever forget those wonderful hours they had spent together before… She reined in her thoughts sharply, and wished that she could control the rapid beat of her pulses.
'I remember,' she said, her voice husky with the emotion aroused by memories best forgotten, and she lowered her lashes to veil the pain in her eyes.
'We used to close the kitchen door so as not to disturb your grandmother, and then you would concoct the most delightfully outrageous meals with whatever you could find in the refrigerator.'
There was a hint of laughter in his voice, but her highly charged senses had picked up an undercurrent of emotion that triggered a physical response within her which she fought desperately to suppress. She did not want to reminisce about the past, but it seemed to envelop her like a heavy cloak until she felt she was being suffocated by the memory of the laughter, the dreams, and the loving they had shared. The laughter and the dreams were no longer there for her, but the love had remained against all odds. It had simmered unobtrusively in her heart all these years, and it had chosen this particular night to erupt inside her with a force which was making her body react in a way which was totally alien to her.
She risked a glance at Nathan, and wished him anywhere but there in her small kitchen. There was a strange fire smouldering in his eyes that made her catch her breath on a soft hiss, and she dragged her glance from his only to find herself staring fixedly at his unbuttoned shirt where the dark hair curled against his sun-browned chest. The desire to touch him, to feel the texture of his skin beneath her fingers, was incredibly strong, and she had to clench her hands tightly in her lap. She was in the process of being trapped by her own frenzied emotions, and she was powerless to do anything about it. The physical lure of him had been a trap of her own making. He had been aware of this, she was convinced of that, and he was playing her now on a mental leash until she would be too exhausted to deny him control.
'Drink your coffee, Nathan,' she instructed in a choked voice, rising abruptly from her chair and praying that he would leave while she was still capable of exercising some sort of control over her truant body.
She stared down at the dishes she had piled into the sink earlier. Her hand went out to turn the tap, but Nathan seemed to materialise beside her, and his hand gripped her wrist to stay her action.
'Leave the dishes for the morning.' His free hand touched her shoulder, burning her skin through the thin cotton of her blouse when he turned her to face him. She tried to move away from him, but she was trapped against the corner cupboard. 'You're trembling and I can feel your pulse racing.'
Dear God, as if she didn't know that! His nearness and the familiar male smell of him was launching a maddening assault on her senses, and she was in deadly peril of losing that last fragile grip on her control.
He lifted the heavy strands of hair away from her flushed cheeks, and she stood petrified when his fingers stroked the sensitive skin along the column of her throat. She was almost too afraid to breathe, and her heart was hammering wildly against her ribs when he tipped her face up to his. She glimpsed her own desire mirrored in his eyes, and it robbed her of the strength to resist when he lowered his head to taste and savour her parted lips with tantalising, feather-light kisses which excited her to the point where she was aflame with a need for more. His tongue explored the soft inner flesh of her lips, and for the second time that evening a heated wave of desire engulfed her, but her mind issued a grave warning in a brief moment of sanity.
He doesn't love you! You can't want a man who is going to marry someone else! He belongs to Marcia, and don't forget it!
She leaned away from him, dragging her lips from his and placing her hands against his broad chest to push him away, but her strength was puny, and he merely laughed at her attempt to get away from him. She was literally and figuratively cornered against the steel cupboard. There was no way of escaping unless Nathan moved aside, but something told her that he had no intention of setting her free.
'Go!' she begged frantically, her voice unrecognisably husky with emotion. 'Please go, Nathan!'
She stood powerless and rendered insensible beneath the force of her own feelings while he stroked her trembling body, and an aching warmth surged into her loins when his fingers brushed lightly against her hardened nipples.
'Why deny yourself something you know in your heart you want?' Nathan demanded thickly, a sensuous smile playing about his mouth and a slumbrous fire in his heavy-lidded eyes while he undid the buttons of her blouse with a slow deliberation. 'You want me to kiss you and touch you, and you might as well admit it.'
Her breath caught in her throat, and she gripped his wrists to stay the action of his hands. 'No!'
'No?'
His smile deepened, mocking her denial and her feeble attempt to stop him as the remaining two buttons slipped from their buttonholes beneath his fingers. She realised his wrists, blushing as she tried to cover herself, but his hands were already parting her blouse fronts to explore the smooth skin at her waist and the soft, tender swell of her breasts.
Julia's body rejoiced in the anticipated pleasure of his touch, and the voice of her conscience grew fainter. Meeting Nathan again had been a cruel twist of fate, and she should have known that her long-suppressed emotions would be in danger of erupting at some stage. She had felt it coming all evening, like the wall of a dam bursting high up in the mountains to release a mad torrent of water, and she was trapped mercilessly at the centre of it with no control over her destination.
'Don't do this to me!' she groaned, clinging weakly to his shoulders when she realised that her treacherous body would give her no
respite.
Her lashes fluttered down over eyes that had become stormy with emotion, and her head sagged back on her shoulders when Nathan's warm, exciting mouth trailed a path of fiery kisses along the curve of her exposed throat.
'Tell me the truth,' he prompted softly while his tongue explored the sensitive hollow behind her earlobe and aroused a spate of erotic sensations that made the blood leap hotly through her veins. 'That is what you want, isn't it?'
'Yes!' Her confession burst from her parted lips in an agonised whisper. 'Oh, God, yes, but it… it's wrong!'
'Look at me, Julia.' She lifted her heavy eyelids to obey him, and his fiery glance seemed to scorch her to her soul. 'This is something we've both wanted for a long time, and it's nothing to be ashamed of.' He looked down at his hands cupping her breasts, and he drew a hissing breath. 'God knows, I've always wanted to do this to you.'
His hands shifted down to her waist, his grip firm on her flesh, and for one startled second she was airborne as he lifted her on to the cupboard so that her breasts were almost on a level with his rugged face. He lowered his head to circle one rosy nipple with his tongue before he took it into his mouth, and she gasped and trembled in the wake of that sweet, sharp stab of pleasure his touch had evoked. She slid her fingers into the short dark hair at the nape of his neck, and she was not in control of her actions when she guided his warm mouth to her other breast for a repeat of that erotic caress.
'Oh, Nathan!' she sighed jerkily, lowering her head over his, and her hair fell forward to veil her flushed, ecstatic features.
The smouldering passion in his eyes seared and excited her when he raised his head and, with an arm about her waist and the other beneath her knees, he lifted her off the cupboard and carried her from the kitchen into her bedroom.
He lowered her to her feet beside her grandmother's old double bed with the heavy mahogany headboard, and his fiery glance held hers while he lifted her blouse off her shoulders to let it slide along her arms to the carpet at their feet. 'I'm going to make love to you, Julia, and you're not going to stop me, are you?'
If there had been a tap on her emotions she might seriously have considered turning it off, but his hands were cupping her breasts, his fingers squeezing the soft mounds gently, and her clamouring body was relentless in its demand for something which only Nathan could give her.
'No,' she murmured unsteadily. 'I'm not going to stop you.'
He caught her in his arms and set his mouth on hers in a long, deep kiss that dispensed with any last fragment of doubt she might have nurtured, and her body quivered expectantly beneath his stroking hands when he divested her of the remainder of her clothes to expose her heated skin to the sensuous exploration of his lips and hands. She was drowning in sensations which aroused a throbbing, primitive need inside her, and her surrender was total when Nathan drew away from her unexpectedly.
'It's your turn to undress me,' he instructed throatily, taking her hands and placing them against his chest where she could feel the quick, heavy beat of his heart through his shirt.
Julia felt no embarrassment as she complied with his wishes, but she was aware of her own excitement mounting rapidly as she undid the pearly buttons of his shirt with trembling fingers, and slipped it off his wide, gleaming shoulders. She would never have believed that to undress the man she loved and wanted could be such a sensually exciting experience. She stroked his broad chest, loving the feel of the springy hair beneath her palms, and the tautness of his stomach muscles.
He was lifting her hair away from her face as if to observe every expression that flitted across her sensitive face and, smiling faintly when she fumbled with the buckle of his belt, he lowered his hands to help her. The male smell of him intoxicated her, and her body was one throbbing pulse when she exposed his lean hips and long, muscled legs.
Her lungs felt restricted when Nathan stepped out of his clothes and took off his shoes. His eyes were glittering jewels of desire when he pulled her up against his aroused body, and a choked cry escaped her as she locked her arms about his strong neck and raised her lips eagerly for his kiss.
'You have a body made to please a man, and I know you're going to please me,' he murmured when he lay beside her on the bed.
Julia could not answer him while his mouth trailed fire across her sensitised skin from her breasts to her navel. Passion was a sweet madness, and a fevered moan escaped her when Nathan stroked her intimately.
Her arousal was so intense that the eventual loss of her virginity was no more than a faint discomfort swiftly forgotten in the rush of new sensations that left her mindless to everything except her mounting pleasure.
She loved him! Oh, God, how she loved this man! And this, it seemed, was what her body had wanted and waited for so long. Could something this beautiful be wrong? Could it?
She clung to Nathan a little wildly, her breath rasping in her throat as her excitement rose to a peak where a near-intolerable tension gripped her. Her body seemed to possess a knowledge which she had been unaware of, it moved with Nathan's in a pagan rhythm of love, and a hoarse little cry escaped her when the tension finally snapped inside her to release her from that exquisite bondage. Waves of tingling, ecstatic pleasure swept throughout her body, leaving her sated and contented—for the moment—to the very depths of her soul as she welcomed the shuddering weight of Nathan's body on hers. She held him tightly, reluctant to end this moment of closeness, and they lay with their bodies entwined until the heavy beat of their hearts subsided.
Nathan moved his face against her throat, she could feel the roughness of his beard against her skin, and she was overawed at the thought of what they had shared. A warm feeling erupted inside her, it burst from her heart in a rush until the words, I love you, hovered perilously on her lips, but she bit them back hastily when Nathan stirred and eased himself away from her.
His face was in shadow when he raised himself on to his elbow to look at her, but the dim bedside light behind him was sufficient for her to see that he was smiling at her for the first time without that familiar glint of mockery in her eyes, and her eyes filled with tears.
'I'm glad I was the first after all,' he murmured, his hand stroking her thighs and trailing across her flat stomach to fondle her breasts with gentle fingers.
Julia was too happy at that moment to take exception to his remark, and her hand went up to touch his cheek when he leaned forward to brush the tip of her small, straight nose with his lips before his mouth found hers in a lingering kiss. She was also too busy trying to analyse her own thoughts and feelings, but Nathan's warm mouth was moving against hers with an urgent sensuality that made it difficult for her to think coherently, and she finally relinquished the effort to surrender herself to the pleasure of his touch. Nothing else seemed to matter now except this closeness she was sharing with the man she loved, and the voice of her conscience had diminished to an inaudible whisper.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The shrill, persistent ringing of the alarm clock was an unwelcome intrusion on Julia's dreams, and she groaned protestingly as she flung out an arm to silence it. She stifled a yawn behind her fingers and stretched lazily, wishing that she could stay in bed a while longer, but then, suddenly, she remembered. Her breath locked in her throat, and she sat up in bed with a jolt, jerking the sheet up against her naked body, but she need not have bothered. Nathan's clothes were gone, and the silence in the cottage indicated that she was alone.
Julia sat staring straight ahead of her, almost too afraid to think, and then she saw the note which had been propped up against the jar of night cream on her dressing-table. She leapt out of bed and, dragging the sheet with her across the room, she snatched up the note and read it.
My apologies for leaving so early. I took the liberty of using your telephone to call the hospital. I was told that Tommy Durandt had a reasonably peaceful night, but I'm driving out to the farm for a shower and a change of clothing before going to the hospital to check on him personally. I'll see
you this evening, if not before. Nathan.
Julia sat down heavily on the dressing-table stool, and she went cold and hot in rapid succession as she recalled every intimate detail of what had occurred between Nathan and her during the night. They had made love fiercely and passionately, and then they had made love again, but that second journey towards fulfilment had been a long and leisurely experience which had left them both sated. The last thing she could remember was lying in his arms with her head on his shoulder and her legs still entwined with his.
It had all seemed so perfect last night. Her love for him had been the overriding factor, it had justified her actions, but in the cold light of day the memory of what had occurred filled her with shame and a deep sense of guilt. She took refuge in anger, but her fury was directed at herself for having had so little control over her emotions. What, for God's sake, must Nathan think of her? She had lost all sense of decency in order to assuage the desire of her flesh and, for someone who ought to know better, she had also been extraordinarily careless. She had not paused once to consider the possibility that she might become pregnant! And what about Marcia? Julia was merciless on herself as she drove the sword of condemnation into her soul by changing places mentally with Marcia, and she felt sick and disgusted with herself as she flung Nathan's note to the floor to bury her quivering face in her hands.
She had spent the night with a man who she had known was going to marry another woman, and she could not blame Nathan for her indiscretion. She had wanted him, and he had sensed it. Her love for him had made her an easy prey, but loving him was not a sufficient excuse for what she had done, and it did not erase that terrible feeling of guilt. Oh, if only she had had the strength last night to put a stop to something which she should have known she would regret deeply in the morning! If only…!
Julia had difficulty in concentrating on her work that day, and on two occasions Roland had cause to reprimand her severely for not carrying out a simple instruction.
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