by Penny Jordan
Heather saw him glance at her briefly and then return to his magazine, piqued by his obvious lack of interest in her. The lamp beside the bed threw a warm glow across his skin, still richly tanned compared to hers. Almost without being aware of what she was doing Heather tugged at the bows securing the straps of her nightgown. The soft slither of it falling to the floor caught Race’s attention and he looked up, his eyes dilating fractionally, the pupils enlarging as he looked at her. Without giving herself time to think, Heather walked towards him, reaching out to touch him with fingers that trembled, as she kneeled beside the bed.
‘Heather?’ She ignored the cautionary note in his voice, as her fingertips traced the hard bones of his shoulders, her lips exploring the warm curve of the one closest to her, tasting the salty male flesh, and feeling her body quiver in reaction. Race didn’t touch her, but he hadn’t rejected her either, she thought, growing bolder, her fingernails raking softly through the fine hairs arrowing downwards along his body, feeling him tense as she reached his navel. ‘Heather….’
She ignored the implicit command, tensing when his fingers clamped on her wrist, flattening her palm against the tautness of his belly. She felt his muscles clench, but before he could push her away she lowered her head, hoping he wouldn’t see the fear and uncertainty in her eyes, and brushed her lips hypnotically against the flat, dark aureole of flesh, so different from her own fuller, more feminine nipples. She felt Race tense, his free hand grasping the back of her neck, tangling in her hair, and desperation made her bolder; she had come too far to back down now, and his body wasn’t entirely indifferent to her caress, she let her tongue explore the vulnerable area discovered by her lips, feeling the explosive reaction of the taut skin, closing her mouth over it experimentally, and hearing Race groan hoarsely, his fingers buried in her hair as he tried to lift her head.
‘Heather, for God’s sake,’ she heard him mutter thickly when he couldn’t move her, and her fingers moved teasingly over his stomach, lower and lower until he moaned harshly. ‘Heather, for God’s sake stop. If you don’t, you could well find yourself in exactly the same position again. Surely you don’t want another child—of mine….’
‘And if I do?’ She raised her head, to look at him, stunned by the pain and raw aching she saw in his eyes, her fingers stilling as she watched him.
‘Heather!’ He groaned her name protestingly, and something warm and sweet seemed to melt inside her, her voice a soft sigh of pleasure as she lay down beside him, twining her arms round his neck. He did want her!
She covered his face with small kisses, teasing the taut line of his mouth with her tongue, revelling in his harsh moan of protest as his hands claimed her breasts, his mouth buried in the warm curve of her throat. ‘Heather… you shouldn’t do this,’ he said thickly. ‘God knows I don’t want to hurt you… but, darling, I’ve wanted this for so long….’
Darling, he had called her darling! Heather’s heart sang, giving her the confidence to push aside the bedclothes and entwine him with her body, immediately feeling his searing, heated response. His mouth and hands devoured her hungrily, making her gasp in fierce arousal as his tongue explored the moist cavity of her mouth, his the initiative now as his hands moved strokingly over her body. ‘Oh God,’ he moaned into her skin, ‘I want to touch and taste every inch of you…. You don’t know what you do to me….’
‘Show me.’ She whispered it against his ear, watching his eyes darken in disbelief, suddenly mischievously happy, as she let her fingers drift over the hard angle of his hip, and felt the surge of need he couldn’t hide as he cried her name harshly and moved against her, his lips gentle against her breast, the darkness of his head against her unleashing the same tenderness she experienced with Robert.
‘Heather, why are you doing this?’ She went still as she heard the tortured huskiness of his voice. ‘You must know how hard I’ve tried not to let this happen; staying in London, keeping away from you until my body aches with the pain of wanting you. I thought I could make you love me…. I willed you to love me,’ he told her, his eyes dark with pain.
‘From the first moment I saw your photograph I wanted you. I was obsessed by you,’ he admitted, letting his lips linger over the satin skin of her shoulder. ‘I found out about Jennifer and persuaded Terry to introduce you to me, only it didn’t work; you rejected me, but I still wanted you—so badly that I think I went a little mad. I’d heard about your reputation with other men and couldn’t understand why you wanted them but you didn’t want me. That was when I planned to trap you at the cottage. I thought if I got you alone… I wanted to make you pregnant,’ he admitted, astounding her, his lips unable to resist the tormenting appeal of her peaked nipple, a sweetly aching pain piercing. Heather as she caught the small sound of satisfaction moving his throat as he gave in to the temptation. Her fingers stroked gently through his hair as she tried to absorb what he had said.
‘I thought if I did you would have to marry me,’ he added, reluctantly releasing her warm flesh. ‘I didn’t want to be like all the others—allowed to share your bed for a while and then discarded. I wanted you too much for that. And then I found out you were a virgin.’
He shook his head as though the discovery still pained him. ‘I wanted to kill myself,’ he admitted unevenly. ‘I couldn’t understand how I’d been crass enough not to see it for myself…. My only justification was that I was so fathoms deep in love with you that I couldn’t see anything but that….’
‘You loved me?’
‘Love, in the present tense… Did love, do love, will love….’ Race murmured softly, punctuating the words with tender kisses.
‘But you were so angry…. You wanted me to leave the cottage….’
‘Because I couldn’t live with what I’d done,’ Race groaned. ‘Can’t you understand that? I told myself it was only fair to let you go, but that didn’t stop me trying to tear London apart to find you. Jen wouldn’t tell me where you’d gone. God, when I saw that damned newspaper, I thought I was hallucinating. I couldn’t believe it…. I couldn’t rest until I knew. I found out Neil’s address, I went to find him and saw your aunt and uncle. Your aunt guessed immediately who I was…. Between us we fixed it so that I could see you. Once I knew the baby was mine I was determined not to let you go.’
‘Then all those things you told me….’
‘Were true,’ he told her firmly, ‘but more important than any of them was the fact that I loved you. I was so jealous of Neil, and still am. I thought tonight you were just relieving your frustration of wanting him, and then when you said you wanted….’
‘To have your baby?’ Heather whispered, smiling. ‘And I meant it, Race,’ she murmured against his throat, seeking and finding the sensitive core of maleness and stroking it with her tongue, until he pushed her away from him, ‘but this time, I’d prefer if we didn’t succeed first time,’ she said demurely.
Oh God, if she hadn’t come to him tonight, how long would they have gone on in mutual misery?
As though he had read her thoughts, Race said huskily, ‘I couldn’t have endured much more. When I came home today and saw you with the baby….’
He closed his eyes, and Heather saw the dampness clinging to his lashes. ‘God, I was so jealous, of my own child. And when you were having him…. They told me that you kept calling for me. I couldn’t believe it. I felt so helpless watching you struggle, I wanted to bear the pain for you, but instead what I had done was cause it. I’ve never been so terrified by anything in my whole life!’
‘It takes two, you know,’ Heather reminded him, nuzzling his shoulder and feeling his arm tighten round her. ‘We’ve both been blind, Race. I know with hindsight that I was attracted to you from the first; I think I fell in love with you the first time I saw you, but we weren’t looking properly at one another, we were just seeing images of what we’d expected to see. I was jealous too,’ she admitted, ‘of Davinia Fane.’
‘Davinia?’ The open incredulity in his voic
e warmed her heart.
‘You were mentioned together in the gossip columns. I thought you were staying in London to be near her.’
‘When in reality I was staying there because I knew it was the only way I could keep my hands off you. When you came to me tonight…. why did you….?’ His hands were exploring the supple shape of her body, reason abandoned to desire as she moved sensuously against their warmth.
‘Because I thought you’d come down to tell me you wanted a divorce, and I wanted you so badly.’
‘How badly?’ he drawled, with an unanticipated resurgence of his former control.
‘Very badly,’ Heather admitted huskily. ‘These last few months I’ve thought I hallucinated you making love to me; that I’d just imagined it all.’
‘Umm… tell me,’ Race murmured against her skin, ‘Was this how you imagined it… and this…?’ His heart thudded against her, his body hardening against her as she responded feverishly to his lovemaking, the love-words and pleas his voice murmured against her skin echoing the rhythm of their bodies.
‘Race… oh… oh, Race,’ she protested feebly, only partially satisfied by the warm stroke of his hand along her inner thigh, her body welcoming and recognising the tense breath he exhaled as his control splintered and his hands slid under her thighs, lifting her towards him. ‘Heather, I don’t want to hurt you,’ he protested when she arched her body into his, rejoicing in the thrusting arousal he was fighting to control. ‘When Robert was born….’
‘The only way you can hurt me, Race Williams,’ she whispered lovingly against his ear, her fingers finding and smoothing lovingly the muscles of his back, ‘is by not loving me. I want you, Race,’ she said quietly, ‘I desire you, I need you, I love you.’
Her fingernails raked over his back as he moved against her and into her, her small gasp of pleasure silenced by his lips, her body rising joyously to meet die demand of his….
It was some time later when the sound of Robert crying broke her deeply peaceful sleep. She had gone to sleep in Race’s arms, enfolded by his body, still enraptured by the pleasure they had shared; the knowledge that he loved her. But now Race was gone. Opening her eyes, she struggled to sit up, her eyes widening as she saw Race perched on the end of the bed, Robert in his arms.
‘He was crying,’ he told her softly, ‘I think he’s probably hungry.’
‘I’m sure of it,’ Heather agreed, glancing at her watch. ‘But it won’t hurt him to go a little hungry for once,’ she added cheerfully. ‘After all, sooner or later he’s going to discover that he’s only the second most important male in my life.’
She was rewarded with a smile that dissolved the last of her doubts. ‘I’m hungry too,’ Race told her. ‘I’ll go down and make us something to eat while you feed him. I was too wrought up to eat before. I told myself I’d stay away this weekend, I wouldn’t torment myself by coming down to see you knowing you didn’t want me, but somehow I found myself in my car driving down here. I half expected to find Neil with you.’
‘Neil’s perfectly happy with Sue,’ Heather told him softly. ‘He always knew that I loved you.’
‘When I saw that blasted pram I nearly wanted to commit murder,’ Race admitted wryly, ‘but that was nothing compared to how I felt when I discovered that he had been the one to drive you to the hospital. He….’
‘But you were the one I wanted,’ Heather interrupted. ‘I love Neil as a brother, but it was you, my lover, my husband, the father of my child, that I wanted with me—–’
‘I’d better go down and fix us something to eat,’ Race told her, ‘otherwise our son might find himself going without another meal.’ His eyes were tender as he handed Robert over to her, plumping up the pillows behind her so that she could lean back, watching in fascination for a few seconds as Robert started to suck, and then bending his head to kiss her gently.
He paused at the door and turned. ‘I love you, Heather,’ he said softly, and she knew it was true. She could see his love in his eyes, feel it, filling the room, almost tangibly so. ‘Don’t spend too long in the kitchen, then,’ she said demurely, ‘so that you can show me.’
The look in his eyes reminded her of the way he had looked at her when she first saw him, and her body responded to it immediately. It took Robert’s protesting yell to remind his parents of his existence, and as she heard Race walk downstairs smiled dreamily down at her son.
‘He loves me,’ she whispered, as Robert stared back at her uncomprehendingly, ‘and I love him… and you, my little love, could very soon find yourself exiled to the nursery!’
* * * * *
Now, read on for a tantalizing excerpt of Caitlin Crews’ next book,
MY BOUGHT VIRGIN WIFE
I’ve never wanted anything like I want Imogen. I married her to secure my empire—but my wife has ignited a hunger in me. I will strip away her obedience, and replace it with a passion to match my own…
Read on for a glimpse of
MY BOUGHT VIRGIN WIFE
CHAPTER ONE
Imogen
IN THE MORNING I WAS TO MARRY A MONSTER.
IT DID NOT matter what I wanted. It certainly did not matter what I felt. I was the youngest daughter of Dermot Fitzalan, bound in duty to my father’s wishes as women in my family had been forever.
I had always known my fate.
But it turned out I was less resigned to it than I’d anticipated when I was younger and far more silly. And when my wedding had not loomed before me, beckoning like some kind of inevitable virus that nothing could keep at bay.
There were no home remedies for my father’s wishes.
“You cannot let Father see you in this state, Imogen,” my half sister, Celeste, told me briskly as she swept in. “It will only make things worse for you.”
I knew she was right. The unfortunate truth was that Celeste was usually right about everything. Elegant, graceful Celeste, who had submitted to her duty with a smile on her face and every appearance of quiet joy. Stunning, universally adored Celeste, who had the willowy blond looks of her late mother and to whom I had forever been compared—and found lacking. My own lost mother had been a titian-haired bombshell, pale of skin and mysteriously emerald of eye, but I resembled her only in the way a fractured reflection, beheld through a mist, might. Next to my half sister, I had always felt like the Fitzalan troll, better suited to a life beneath a bridge somewhere than the grand society life I’d been bred and trained for.
The life Celeste took to with such ease.
Even today, the day before my wedding when theoretically I would be the one looked at, Celeste looked poised and chic in her simple yet elegantly cut clothes. Her pale blond hair was twisted back into an effortless chignon and she’d applied only the faintest hint of cosmetics to enhance her eyes and dramatic cheekbones. While I had yet to change out of my pajamas though it was midday already and I knew without having to look that my curls were in their usual state of disarray.
All of these things seemed filled with more portent than usual, because the monster I was set to marry in the morning had wanted her first.
And likely still wanted her, everyone had whispered.
They had even whispered it to me, and it had surprised me how much it had stung. Because I knew better. My marriage wasn’t romantic. I wasn’t being chosen by anyone—I was the remaining Fitzalan heiress. My inheritance made me an attractive prospect no matter how irrepressible my hair might have been or how often I disappointed my father with my inability to enhance a room with my decorative presence. I was more likely to draw attention for the wrong reasons.
My laugh was too loud and always inappropriate. My clothes were always slightly askew. I preferred books to carefully vetted social occasions where I was expected to play at hostessing duties. And I had never convinced anyone that I was more fascinated by their interests than my own.
It was lucky, then, that my marriage was about convenience—my father’s, not mine. I had never expected anything like a fairy t
ale.
“Fairy tales are for other families,” my severe grandmother had always told us, slamming her marble-edged cane against the hard floors of this sprawling house in the French countryside, where, the story went, our family had been in residence in one form or another since sometime in the twelfth century. “Fitzalans have a higher purpose.”
As a child, I’d imagined Celeste and me dressed in armor, riding out to gauzy battles beneath old standards, then slaying a dragon or two before our supper. That had seemed like the kind of higher purpose I could get behind. It had taken the austere Austrian nuns years to teach me that dragon slaying was not the primary occupation of girls from excruciatingly well-blooded old families who were sent away to be educated in remote convents. Special girls with impeccable pedigrees and ambitious fathers had a far different role to fill.
Girls like me, who had never been asked what they might like to do with their lives, because it had all been plotted out already without their input.
The word pawn was never used. I had always seen this as a shocking oversight—another opinion of mine that no one had ever solicited and no one wanted to hear.
“You must find purpose and peace in duty, Imogen,” Mother Superior had told me, time and again, when I would find myself red-eyed and furious, gritting out another decade of the rosary to atone for my sins. Pride and unnatural self-regard chief among them. “You must cast aside these doubts and trust that those with your best interests at heart have made certain all is as it should be.”
“Fitzalans have a higher purpose,” Grand-Mère had always said.
By which, I had learned in time, she meant money. Fitzalans hoarded money and made more. This was what had set our family apart across the centuries. Fitzalans were never kings or courtiers. Fitzalans funded kingdoms they liked and overthrew regimes they disparaged, all in service to the expansion of their wealth. This was the grand and glorious purpose that surged in our blood.