by Penny Jordan
Sean could feel the shallow, rapid race of his heartbeat as he tensed his body against its immediate reaction to her. He had never for one minute imagined, and certainly not intended anything like this should happen.
But now that it had...
Now that it had he was having to battle against the reality of the situation, against the achingly sensual pleasure of Kate half lying over him. There was no way he could allow himself to even acknowledge what it did to him, having the softness of her lips delicately brushing his skin.
If he didn’t put an end to what was happening, and soon, he would be in danger of racing out of control and down a road he had no right to travel. A road which Kate in full health would refuse to allow him to travel.
Determinedly Sean reached out and closed his hands around her upper arms, intending to lift her away from his body and place her back on her own half of the bed. But the minute he tried to move her she moaned and clung to him.
It was more than his self-control could bear. Sean swallowed hard. He had to put a stop to this.
‘Kate—’
‘Mmm...’ Kate exhaled on an ecstatic sigh as she pressed a small kiss to the corner of Sean’s mouth. Helplessly he returned it—with interest—whilst inside him a savagely bitter voice reminded him condemningly that Kate was sick, that she did not really know what was happening, and that just because she was kissing him back, and trying to touch him, it did not mean that he should let her.
It took all the strength he had to lift his mouth from the sweetness of her, and when he did she looked up at him in confused bewilderment.
He had to put a stop to this, and he had to do it now, Sean told himself fiercely.
But the look in Kate’s eyes made him want to take her in his arms and hold her there until it disappeared.
The duvet had slipped away to reveal the curves of her breasts, palely silvered by the moonlight streaming in through the window, in contrast to the sensually darkened areolae from which her nipples rose in stiffly erect peaks.
Dizzily Kate watched with open sensual pleasure as she saw Sean’s gaze fasten helplessly on her exposed breasts. But she knew that she wanted to feel more than his hot gaze touching her. A fierce shudder gripped her, making her gasp and exhale.
And as he watched her, and recognised what she was feeling, somehow, without him knowing how it had happened, Sean started to lower his mouth towards her lips.
Eagerly Kate offered herself up for Sean’s possession, her hands reaching out with surprising strength to draw him to her waiting body. A wild shudder contorted her as she parted her lips for the driving pressure of his tongue, her own mating with it.
Beneath his hands Sean could feel the familiarity of her—the longed-for and long-loved familiarity of her—and it was more than his self-control could stand. He hadn’t meant for his hand to touch her breast, to slowly caress its fullness as it swelled sweetly into his hand, and he certainly hadn’t intended to allow his fingers to stroke softly against her thigh as she trembled beneath his touch. Dear heaven, he should not be permitting this, Sean admitted helplessly. He should be putting in place the barriers between them that Kate could not. He should be stopping what was happening, not feeling that he would die if he did not hold her and love her.
His need was overruling his conscience and his self-control. The tight, swollen feel of the nipple pressing into his hand, the feel of Kate’s mouth against his skin, the knowledge that he had only to move his hand and place it between her open thighs to feel the familiar pleasure of her sweet, wet warmth, was obliterating everything but his overpowering need for her.
He moved her body and cupped her face, kissing her until she was moaning longingly beneath his mouth, her hands seeking his hard arousal as hungrily as his were seeking the swollen wetness of hers.
He kissed her breasts, slowly and then far more fiercely, making her shudder with desire as she felt the rough sensual lapping of his tongue against the sensitivity of her nipples, then cry out in primitive female pleasure when his mouth closed over one swollen peak.
Her own hand pressed over the hand he had placed between her thighs, holding it there as his fingers caressed her receptive flesh.
Sean felt that his actions were not premeditated so much as preordained. What was happening between them just seemed so natural, so right—and so very, very much what their bodies wanted. So much so, in fact, that for a few seconds he allowed himself to suspend reality and give in to his love.
Almost as soon as he touched her intimately Sean heard Kate cry out as her body quickened to his touch. Her hands clamped around his arm as though seeking and needing reassurance—and the small, almost startled cry ended as the contractions of her orgasm began.
‘Sean,’ Kate whispered dreamily, with appreciative pleasure, lifting her hand to touch his face, but she was asleep before she could finish doing so.
Numbly Sean waited until he was sure that Kate was deeply asleep before moving away from her. He could not comprehend how he had allowed things to get so out of hand, why he had not somehow stopped. Not so much Kate, but more importantly himself. Why and how had he allowed his feelings to become so out of control that he had given in to them? A stab of revulsion against himself hit him like a sledgehammer-blow to his heart.
Deep down inside Sean, despite the trauma of his childhood, was a core of pure old-fashioned male protectiveness that was an essential part of how he regarded himself. As a man who would protect the woman he loved—from everything and everyone, even including himself, if and when necessary. Wasn’t that, after all, why he had divorced Kate in the first place? So that she should be free to have with another man the children he knew he could not give her.
That element of his personality was of vital importance to him; it underpinned his sense of who he was and his pride in himself. But how could he be proud of himself now? As his anger against himself grew Sean paced the floor of Kate’s room, refusing to allow himself to escape from his own contempt.
A sound from the bed—a whimper and then a small burst of unintelligible words—caused him to freeze, and then go to Kate’s side.
It was obvious that the fever was mounting again, and when he woke her to give her the medication the doctor had left, and to make sure she drank some water, the blank, unseeing look she gave him made Sean suspect that she didn’t even realise who he was...
She would hate knowing that she had clung to him and begged him to love her, he recognised grimly. Although he doubted that in her feverish state she would remember what had happened. She would certainly not want to remember it; he knew that.
But when he laid her down again, and sponged her hot skin, Sean acknowledged that he would remember it, that he would store the memory deep inside himself, where he had already stored so many memories of her.
Bleakly he looked away from her. The pain inside him that never went away was tearing at his gut. Just being here in this small house intensified it almost beyond bearing. Within this house were the woman he loved, always would love, and the child he would give his life to have been able to give her. Kate had no idea what she did to him when she tried to insist that Oliver was his son. Kate could feel the warmth of sunlight on her closed eyelids. Weakly she struggled to understand the feeling of panic that the warmth engendered, her body stiffening as the knowledge hit her that the sunlight only shone through her bedroom window early in the afternoon.
As she opened her eyes she tried to sit up in her bed, only to collapse against her pillows as her virus-weakened body refused to support her. Shock and panic spiked through her, multiplied by fear as she realised how quiet the house was.
Where was Oliver, and why was she here in bed? She had to get up and find her son. Shakily she pushed back the bedclothes, frowning in alarmed bewilderment as she looked down at the unfamiliar sea-green fine cotton nightgown she was wearing, its hem an
d bodice lavishly trimmed with expensive lace.
Instinctively she touched the fabric. Once, long ago, she had owned such things—not that she had ever worn them very much. Her expression changed. Sean had always preferred them to sleep skin to skin, and so had she. A tiny shudder gripped her body as a vague, unsettling memory—confusing misty images of Sean and her as lovers—stirred inside her head like ripples on water. And just as elusive to grasp. But she had an urgent and anxious feeling that she had to grasp it.
Her heart was hammering against her ribs; she felt oddly disorientated—light-headed, almost. She put her feet on the floor and stood up, shocked to discover that her legs could barely support her and that she had to cling to the side of the bed.
Whilst she was struggling to keep her balance the bedroom door opened, but her initial relief was quickly swamped by angry panic when she saw Sean coming towards her. Immediately she backed up towards the bed. Sean stood still.
Shockingly surreal and unwanted mental flashbacks were tormenting her. Disjointed but frighteningly potent memories of Sean and herself as lovers, of herself begging Sean to make love to her.
Nausea and pain tore at her in equal measures. She could hardly bring herself to look at him. Her head was pounding, and with every second that passed she felt weaker.
‘Where’s Oliver?’ she demanded anxiously. ‘And what are you doing here?’
‘Oliver’s at nursery, and I’m here because both you and he needed someone here to look after you.’
‘To look after me? You’ve been looking after me?’ Try as she might, Kate couldn’t keep the near hysterical anguish out of her voice. ‘Why you?’
‘Why not me? I was here, and I am your ex-husband.’ He gave a small dismissive shrug.
‘My ex-husband?’
‘There was no one else, Kate.’ Sean stopped her almost gently. ‘Your friend Carol wanted to help, but she has a husband and a child of her own. I did wonder at one stage if perhaps hospital...’
‘Hospital?’ Kate could feel the terrifyingly heavy thud of her heart.
‘The virus you’ve had hit you very hard,’ Sean told her patiently, adding, ‘Look, why don’t you get back into
bed—?’ As he spoke he came towards her.
‘No! Don’t touch me,’ Kate protested in panic when he looked as if he were about to pick her up.
The way he was looking at her made her flush painfully, her skin burning. Just having him stand so close to her was activating all kinds of disturbing memories. It wasn’t just some feverish act of her imagination that was responsible, Kate acknowledged miserably. The memories were there because it had happened. She had said and done all those things she was being forced to remember.
Helplessly she waited for Sean to mock and taunt her with the words she could hear ringing so clearly inside her own head, to remind her that she had already begged him to do far more than merely touch her. Instead he said nothing, simply bent down to pick her up and placed her firmly back in the bed.
‘You’re still very weak—’ he told her, and then broke off as the doorbell rang. ‘That will be the doctor. I’ll go down and let him in.’
As soon as he had gone Kate lifted her hand to her forehead and pressed her skin tightly as she tried to force herself to remember exactly what had happened. Humiliatingly, all her body could and would remember was the pleasure Sean had given it, whilst inside her head she could hear the ringing echo of her own passionate pleas for his possession.
The bedroom door reopened and Sean ushered in the doctor, whose face was full of concern.
‘So, Kate, you are back with us. Good! Your husband has obviously done an excellent job of looking after you.’
Her husband! Kate wanted to remind the doctor that Sean was her ex-husband, but somehow it was too much of an effort. The frightening realisation of just how physically weak she felt was just beginning to hit her.
‘You are over the worst now, but that does not mean you are better. You are very far from better,’ the doctor told her emphatically.
‘So when will I be better?’ Kate demanded, with a show of energy she was far from feeling. A little uncomfortably she saw that the doctor was looking at her as though he knew perfectly well how she was really feeling.
‘Well, if you do as you are told, and don’t try to rush things, I would say that you will be fully back to normal in three weeks or so.’
‘Three weeks!’ Kate struggled to sit up as she stared at him in shock. ‘But, no! That’s impossible!’ she started to tell him frantically. ‘I need to find a new job! I have to go back to work. I’ve just had a bit of a virus, that’s all—it can’t possibly take three weeks for me to get better!’
‘You’ve had a very serious strain of the virus, and without wanting to frighten you...’ the doctor paused. ‘It is fortunate that you have such a naturally strong constitution,’ he told her. ‘And as for you going back to work...’ He shook his head. ‘No, you cannot do that.’
‘Nor will she be doing that, Doctor.’ Sean joined the conversation grimly, giving Kate a warning look as he added smoothly, ‘I know that no employer would allow her to work anyway, until she has been given a clean bill of health.’
Kate felt distraught, but she had to satisfy herself with giving Sean a seethingly furious look as he escorted the doctor to the door.
When he came back, she told him determinedly, ‘I can’t not work for three weeks! I would have found a new job by now if I hadn’t been ill,’ she added fretfully.
When Sean remained silent she reminded him angrily, ‘I have to work. I have a child to support and a mortgage to pay.’
‘We’ll talk about this later,’ Sean said in a clipped voice. ‘It’s time for me to go and collect Oliver from nursery.’
Kate wanted to argue, but her head was pounding and all she could do was watch him leave with helpless fury.
It just wasn’t possible that it would take three weeks before she was back to normal! She was sure the doctor was exaggerating her weakness—no doubt prompted and aided by Sean, she decided, scowling. And she was going to prove it!
The moment she heard Sean leave she thrust back the bedcovers, refusing to acknowledge that even that action left her arms aching. She was in her twenties, for heaven’s sake, not in her nineties, she reminded herself determinedly, and she ignored her dizziness.
Placing her feet firmly on the floor, she stood up, and immediately had to make a wild grab for the bed as her legs refused to support her properly. Okay, she was feeling a little bit weak—but that was because she hadn’t been doing anything, because she had been lying in bed and not using her muscles.
Kate could feel her face starting to burn as she was forced to remember just what she had done in bed. And as she clung unsteadily to the bed other vague images wove themselves in and out of her memory: strong arms lifting and holding her, supporting her whilst she drank, careful hands soothing her hot and hurting skin, the presence of a shadowy but oh-so-comforting figure doing for her everything that needed to be done, even anticipating her every need.
Shakily Kate wondered for just how long the fever had consumed her. She touched her hair; it felt clean and soft. She had an immediate and shocking image of being held beneath the shower, whilst blissfully cleansing water cascaded over her sticky and uncomfortable body.
Sean had done all those things for her. Sean had cared for her as though...as though... As though they were still a couple—a pair bonded together by mutual love and commitment. As though he still loved her!
But he had abandoned her for someone else, she reminded herself fiercely as she forced her weak aching legs to move. He had given the love she had thought exclusively hers to another woman. No matter what her deepest and most secret feelings, she must not allow herself to forget that betrayal.
Her deepest and most secret feelin
gs? A recognition she did not want to acknowledge tightened its hurting grasp around her heart. Gritting her teeth, she took three steps, and then gasped out loud with shock as her legs refused to support her any longer and she sank awkwardly to the floor.
Ten minutes later she was safely back in bed—her bones, never mind her flesh, feeling as though they had been pummelled and bruised, every bit of her filled with an aching, nagging pain she couldn’t ignore.
Kate had never really been physically ill, and the only real physical pain she had had to endure was when she had given birth to Oliver—and anyway, that had been different.
This unfamiliar aching weakness was alien to her, and very frightening. She loathed the thought of being dependent on anyone, no matter who it might be, and that it should be Sean brought a whole raft of emotional complications she just did not feel able to cope with. But she was going to have to cope with them. Because, as she had just proved to herself, the doctor had been quite correct—she was far too weak to even look after herself, never mind care properly for Oliver, or find a new job!
Angry tears burned the backs of her eyes, followed by a feeling of panicky fear. How was she going to manage? How would she support them both? It seemed so unfair that after all the hard work she had done this should happen—now when she had finally begun to allow herself to hope that her plans for their financial security would be successful. Hastily she blinked the tears away as she heard the door open, followed by the sound of Oliver’s excited voice.
The sight of him bursting into her room and running towards her, followed by Sean, immediately lifted her spirits—although she frowned a little to see that he was wearing obviously new clothes she didn’t recognise.
As though he could guess what she was thinking, Sean explained carelessly, ‘I couldn’t get the washing dry because of the rain, so I bought some new stuff.’