‘Oh God!’ she heard him groan. ‘Oh God!’ he repeated.
She turned on him angrily, glaring at his bent head and clasped hands. ‘Don’t pretend it matters to you! The aloof Joel Falcone who doesn’t allow emotion to enter his life!’ And she had thought she loved him! How could she have been so stupid to have forgotten the only emotion he recognised was desire. How could she! ‘A little thing like my mother’s death shouldn’t bother you at all!’
Joel stood up, coming determinedly towards her. His hands came up to cradle each side of her tear-wet face. ‘Don’t cry, Farrah. I can’t bear to see you cry. Just what kind of cold devil do you take me for? If you’d explained all this in the beginning—’
She wrenched away from him. ‘You would have reacted the same way. I offered then to tell you why Daddy did what he did, but you didn’t want to know. You were intent only on making me suffer and finding a way of getting rid of Laura Bennett at the same time. Well, you’ve succeeded in part, I hope you’re satisfied?’
He shook his head. ‘I didn’t realise, Farrah. If you’d just told me.’
‘I’d still be in the same predicament. Wouldn’t I?’
Joel moved away, running a hand through his dark hair. ‘I don’t know. God, yes, I do! Yes, you’d still be in the same predicament! And do you know why? Then I’ll tell you. And listen carefully, Farrah, because I’m only going to say this once. I shouldn’t even be saying it now, but I guess you deserve some satisfaction for the hell I’ve put you through with my selfishness. I love you, Farrah.’
Her head snapped back and she looked at him with shock. His face told her nothing and she thought maybe she had misheard him. ‘Wh-what did you say?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘I told you I would only say it the once,’ he reminded her angrily.
‘P-please, Joel. Tell me again.’
‘You definitely want your pound of flesh! I love you! I love your innocence, your beauty, and lastly, but not least, I love your body. I love the way you respond to me, the way your hands caress me, I just love everything about you.’
His voice had lowered huskily and Farrah shivered with pleasure. ‘Oh Joel!’ she choked. ‘You can’t mean it! You said you didn’t believe in love.’
‘I said a lot of damn fool things that would have been better left unsaid. But I didn’t lie about that. I didn’t believe in love. It took a little tigress like you to show me how stupid my words were. Now that you know what an idiot I am you may as well leave. I had no right to tell you of my feelings concerning you anyway.’
Farrah snorted with feeling. ‘When have rights ever counted between us? Did you really say you love me?’
His eyes darkened with anger and he moved away impatiently. ‘Just leave it, Farrah. I think you should go now. Our bargain is at an end.’
‘What are you saying to me?’ Her eyes widened with horror.
‘Goodbye.’
‘You can’t mean that! You’ve just told me you love me, you can’t leave it at that.’
‘What else would you suggest I do?’ he snapped harshly. ‘Get down on my knees and beg that you love me in return? I wish I could! But you seem to be forgetting one important fact, I’m not free of Laura yet. That was the reason for our relationship in the first place.’
‘Oh, Joel, I don’t care! I love you. I love you! I can’t believe you love me. I missed you so much when you were in America—I thought the time would never pass. And I wasn’t even sure if I would see you when you returned.’ Her face was glowing with excitement and love, and Joel’s face softened as he looked at her.
‘You can’t mean what you’re saying,’ he denied. ‘You hate me, you’ve always hated me. Except when I’ve held you in my arms, and then you’ve hated me afterwards.’ He poured himself some more coffee, drinking it in one gulp.
Farrah rushed into his arms, holding her face up eagerly, longing for his lips to part hers with passion and love. It was unbelievable! Joel loved her. Joel, who had always denied such emotions, had admitted his love for her. She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, to dance and sing, but most of all she wanted to belong to him, body and soul. She put her arms about his waist, hugging him tightly to her even though he stood stiffly in her arms.
‘I love you, Joel,’ she said happily. ‘I love you! I don’t think I’ve ever hated you. I’ve been angry and hurt, yes, but never hated.’
Joel grasped her forearms painfully, bruising her soft flesh beneath the strength of his fingers. For long aching seconds those blue eyes raked disbelievingly over her glowing face. At last he gave a groan, a deep heart-felt sigh of satisfaction. She was crushed in his arms, held savagely against him, made aware of every muscle of his body as he strained her nearer.
‘Farrah!’ Her name was a husky caress as he burrowed deep into her throat. ‘Oh, Farrah! You should belong to me! I should be able to carry you to my bed right now and make love to you until you’re senseless, aware only of me and the pleasure we would share.’ He bit her earlobe, but it was a pleasurable sensation rather than a painful one. ‘I think I’m going to have to do it anyway! Right or no right!’
She felt herself lifted up close against him, her face buried in his chest as she rained hot impassioned kisses on his hair-roughened skin. His shirt had been opened to the waist by her eager hands and she could smell the drugging masculine odour he exuded. The dark hairs on his chest made an enticing trail down to his navel, his stomach flat and hard with muscle.
He lowered her gently on to the top of the bed, throwing off his shirt impatiently before joining her. Her hands smoothed over his shoulders, bringing his head down to hers as their lips met in consuming passion. The buttons of her blouse were no barrier to his questing fingers and his lips took and tantalised the rosy peaks now before him in their full glory, pressing her back against the bed as she groaned her heated pleasure.
Farrah wanted the pleasure to go on for ever, she wanted to stay in Joel’s arms and never leave him again. She hadn’t realised their desire for each other could make her so wanton, so uncaring of anything but Joel and the love they shared.
‘Farrah, darling,’ he groaned against her breast, his dark head even darker against her smooth creamy skin. ‘God, you’re lovely! Give me your lips,’ he whispered urgently.
Her lips parted beneath his as he seemed to explore the very recesses of her soul. Her hands ran frenziedly over his taut back, loving the feel of his smooth, firm skin, and the way their bodies strained together in unconsummated desire. ‘Joel!’ she begged. ‘Love me! Oh, love me!’
‘I do, Farrah. More than life itself. God, you’re the sole reason I’m alive! You were born for me, made to fit into my arms, to mould against my body like the other half of myself.’
His tongue licked flames of passion across her body, arousing her to a height where she lost all reason, all will to do other than caress him back. Their clothing was a barrier she longed to remove, but at her first touch Joel drew back. He was pale, icily pale, and he moved away to sit on the edge of the bed he had carried her to.
His hair was tousled from her wild abandoned caresses, but he didn’t seem to care as he made a determined effort to control his ragged breathing. The deep gulping breaths he took were long in calming and Farrah knew the willpower it took him to dampen his desire for full possession of her, for her full response to the demand of his hard body.
He picked up his quickly discarded shirt with shaking hands, standing up to rebutton it. His eyes remained averted as Farrah sat up to straighten her blouse, only looking at her when her creamy skin was again covered. ‘Now you know why this has to stop,’ Joel said huskily, his gaze hungry for her.
Farrah stood up to move into his arms. ‘You can’t mean that, Joel,’ she nestled against him. ‘This is just the beginning.’
Joel put her firmly away from him. ‘Not just yet, we have to wait.’
‘But why, Joel? Why?’ Her eyes darkened with pain. ‘You don’t love me enough, do you?’
&n
bsp; ‘What a damned stupid remark! I love you so much I couldn’t think straight while I was in America. I called you because I just had to speak to you. And what do I find? Only that you’ve gone out with Nigel, the man you told me you were in love with. Did you lie to me about that, Farrah? Or were you just trying to hurt me?’
‘I lied to you,’ she admitted. ‘But not to hurt you. I didn’t know I had the power to do that.’
He gave a tight smile. ‘You have the power, all right. I’m not altogether sure I like that, in fact, at first I really hated it. It made me rather brutal with you at times.’
‘When did you know you loved me?’
He lit up a cheroot before answering her. ‘I wondered when you would ask me that. I don’t really know the answer. I was always attracted to you. I think I got my first jolt when you looked at me past that vase of flowers at the country house. Then that night at the club when you told me you loved Nigel I was unreasonably angry. I didn’t know why, until Simon appeared and paid you all that attention. I could have resorted to physical violence when I saw you dancing with him. This might be love, but I didn’t welcome the feeling into my life with open arms. But that night I had to acknowledge that my feelings went further for you than for any other woman, and in the States I had to recognise it as love. I missed you like hell!’ he added fiercely.
‘No more than I did you, I’m sure. Joel, did you spend the evening before your trip with Laura Bennett?’
‘Is that what she told you, because if it is, then the answer is no. I just couldn’t be on my own with you again before I left, I couldn’t be held responsible for my actions. Then when I called you on the telephone you refused to talk to me. I was going insane over there with no contact with you at all!’
‘It was the names you called me. Such hateful names.’
‘Pure jealousy—the little green god raising his ugly head. I wanted to rip this Nigel apart for being with you when I wanted to be.’
‘So you had him sent away?’
‘Yes, I had him sent away! I wanted him removed, far away from here where you couldn’t meet him. If I couldn’t have you then he certainly wasn’t going to, not again.’
‘Not a-again? But he hasn’t—he hasn’t, Joel!’
‘Why do you persist in that lie?’ he said harshly. ‘All right, you look like an innocent and I’ll have to be satisfied with that. I’ve accepted that I won’t be the first to take you. And I don’t like that either, but I accept it.’
Farrah’s green eyes blazed. ‘There’s nothing to accept! I haven’t given myself to anyone. In my thoughts maybe, to you, but it’s never been a reality.’
Joel moved angrily, marching from the room and into the lounge with barely suppressed violence. ‘Stop lying to me! I have no intention of taking you yet, so your lie won’t be proved or disproved for some time.’
‘But it’s the truth, Joel,’ she insisted.
‘I couldn’t give a damn! You have to leave now, before I do something I’ll regret.’
‘Oh no. Oh no, Joel,’ she gave a choked laugh. ‘I won’t be dismissed as easily as that.’
‘I’m not doing it easily at all,’ he groaned. ‘But it has to be done. I was wrong before, you should never have been involved in this. I know Laura, I know how tough she could make things for us. And I won’t have you involved any more.’
‘It doesn’t matter about her, as long as you want me.’ She didn’t like Joel like this, cold and cruel as if he were trying to drive her away. ‘Don’t make me go, Joel. Please!’
‘What do you want me to do?’ He stubbed his cheroot out viciously. ‘Take you to my bed and keep you there? Because that’s what would happen if I even took that delectable body of yours just once. And I can’t do it. You can credit me with a lot of sins, but I’m not adding you to the top of the list.’
‘But Miss Bennett’s hold over you!’ Farrah reminded him desperately. ‘You need me for that.’
‘I can’t do it this way, Farrah. I’ll have to find some other way out of this. I don’t want the beginning of our married life ruined by her bitchiness. And we are getting married, Farrah!’
‘I wasn’t arguing,’ she said breathlessly.
‘That makes a change,’ he said with a touch of humour. ‘But for the moment we have to forget all about marriage plans.’
‘And what do we do about our love for each other?’ she asked shrilly, sensing the underlying strength of purpose about him, a steely inflexibility. ‘Forget that too?’
Joel sighed. ‘If you want to.’
‘I want—I want you, Joel! I just want you in my life.’
‘I want that too. I want to wake up mornings and find you there beside me, come home in the evenings and find you waiting for me, just to have you with me and know you belong to me for now and always. I want every damned bit of that. But I can wait until Laura is out of our lives.’
‘I can’t,’ she said stubbornly. ‘I don’t see why we have to.’
‘No, I guess you don’t. You had a sample of Laura’s mischief-making, do you think you could stand that for another few months?’
‘I can stand anything if I know I have you beside me,’ she smiled at him glowingly.
‘God, I love you!’ It was a groan from deep within him.
She moved back into his arms, pressing her face against his chest. ‘Let me stay with you tonight,’ she begged huskily. ‘Just tonight.’
His hands caressed her shoulders, exploring every creamy inch of skin. ‘I want to, Farrah, but I can’t,’ he gave a harsh laugh. ‘You know, this is some sacrifice I’m making, who’ve always taken what I wanted and hang the consequences. But with you I want everything to be done properly, including having our wedding night as the first night we make love together. I can wait until we’re married, I have to.’
‘And we don’t have to part now?’
Joel lifted her chin, gently parting her lips with his, pulling her closer as passion mounted between them. ‘I couldn’t be parted from you now for anything. You’ve really hooked me, little darling, whether you want me or not.’
‘Oh, I want you,’ she murmured huskily.
‘I have something for you,’ he picked up his jacket and began sorting through the pockets. ‘I intended giving you this anyway, whether you decided to marry me or not,’ he brought out a small square ring box, opening the lid to reveal the most beautiful ring Farrah had ever seen. A huge emerald surrounded by six diamonds set on a narrow gold band, the ring matched the bracelet on her wrist perfectly and she realised this must be the ring Joel had told her about. He lifted her hand, slipping the ring on her finger. ‘This is your engagement ring, Farrah, and in my case it’s just as much a committal as a wedding ring.’
Farrah raised herself on tiptoe, kissing him softly on the mouth. ‘I love you, Joel.’
‘And I you,’ he gave a self-mocking smile. ‘I must be mad, I who’ve always hated emotional ties, tied to a woman’s whims in business and engaged to another woman.’
* * *
It was almost dark outside, the villa shrouded in the last of the evening’s glow. Farrah stood before the open french doors, watching the lap of the calm sea on the flat golden sand. Joel came to stand beside her and she turned to him, her eyes softening with their shared love. They swayed together languidly to the soft music coming fom the room behind them.
Joel nibbled her earlobe. ‘You once called this making love to music,’ he murmured huskily.
‘I know.’
‘You’re completely shameless, Mrs Falcone,’ he said humorously.
‘I know that too,’ she laughed throatily.
He pressed her possessively against him, burying his face in her neck. ‘Mmm, you smell good.’
She laughed softly, her happiness almost too much to bear. ‘I needed a shower after all that salt water. Oh, Joel, it’s so beautiful here.’
His lips caressed her skin in soft gentle movements. ‘I knew you’d like this place the moment I saw it.’
/>
‘But what a wedding present! I love you so much, Joel. Only you could have thought to give me a villa on the French coast as a wedding gift.’
Joel took hold of her hand and they walked together out of the villa and down along their private beach, the gentle breeze softly stirring their hair. The two of them bathed here in complete privacy during the day, Farrah’s whole body acquiring a light golden tan. It had been almost impossible to believe when Laura Bennett had finally given in and sold Joel her shares. It had been the announcement of their engagement that had finally triggered off her wish to sell, for which Farrah felt truly grateful. Joel refused to think about marriage until he had full control of his firm, and as he also exercised full control over his own feelings the last few months had been a great strain to both of them. But that was all behind them now, and only happiness remained ahead of them.
He stopped beside the gentle lapping of the water, his harsh features softened with love for her and the true happiness they had found in their marriage. ‘You’re perfect, Farrah, perfect and beautiful. I couldn’t believe it on our wedding night when you came to me in complete innocence. When I realised I was your only lover I wanted to get down on my knees and kiss your feet. I should have believed you, trusted you when you told me it would be so. But neither love or trust have come easily to me. I told myself that it didn’t matter that there had been other men, that I couldn’t expect you to have saved yourself for me. But you had! And you’ll never know how humble that made me feel.’
She looked up at him with glowing eyes, her finger tips touching his parted mouth. ‘I didn’t want you to feel humble, Joel, just loved.’
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