by Penny Jordan
A by-product of her emotional and physical anguish had been the long hours she had spent outside working in the garden. On several occasions Matt had offered to help her with this work, but she had always refused, trying not to react to the brief hardening of his mouth and eyes that greeted this refusal. She couldn’t ban him from using the garden, though, and the sight of him pushing the heavy and old-fashioned lawn-mower over the now tamed lawns was one that always brought an uncomfortable kick of sensation to her stomach.
She knew that they were having a particularly warm spell of weather; she knew that pushing the mower must be hard work; but surely there was really no need for him to remove his shirt completely. Surely there was no need for him to spend so much time fiddling with whatever it was that caused the mower to be so temperamental, so that whenever she chanced to go outside invariably Matt was there, bending over the innards of the machine, his dark hair flopping over his forehead, his torso tanned by his exposure to the sun, the movement of the muscles beneath the skin reminding her all too provocatively of how those same muscles had once reacted to her touch.
And worst of all was the fact that he seemed completely oblivious to the effect he was having on her and, as the days grew warmer and she longed to be outside working on that part of the garden which she had begun to think of as hers, she found that she was prevented from doing so by the knowledge that Matt would already be there, and that his presence put such a constraint on her that she found it impossible to work.
One particular Saturday morning, though, she was in luck. It was a wonderfully mild day, the sun shining, a fresh breeze blowing, and, when Emily was clearing away the breakfast, she was delighted to hear Matt saying something to her uncle about being ready to drive him to Oxford in half an hour’s time.
That was one chore which Matt had taken over completely from her, and in other circumstances she would have been grateful to him for it. Now that she was no longer having to act as her uncle’s chauffeur she had far more time on her hands, and she had even recently had to gently chivvy her uncle for more work to fill in her time.
She waited until she was sure the two men had left before hurrying up to her bedroom, and quickly removing her skirt and sweater. It was warm enough outside for her to wear a thin short-sleeved top along with her jeans and wellingtons.
The espaliered fruit trees along the back wall of the kitchen garden were full of blossom, although Matt had told her that he doubted they would produce much fruit. He had explained to her how once these trees would have been pruned and trained to grow along wires to produce the maximum amount of fruit in the minimum amount of space, and to make use of the warmth of the wall to ripen their crop.
He had been surprisingly knowledgeable, much more so than she was herself, and had casually explained that he had been brought up by his grandparents, both of whom had been very keen gardeners. He hadn’t mentioned his parents, and it had been Uncle John who had told her absently one afternoon, while they were working, that they had been keen botanists and that they had been killed while hunting for rare plants when Matt had been a very small child.
Determined to make a success of her own small plot, Emily had assiduously studied gardening books, mulling over what crops she could reasonably hope to be successful with. The herbs she grew in pots always did well, and while she knew that Matt would probably have been able to tell her which crop she should experiment with first, some perverse streak of independence compelled her to ignore the overtures of friendship he seemed determined to make towards her and instead to hold herself aloof from him.
The man who sought her out while she was gardening, who brought her cups of tea while she was working, who refused to allow her to clean his room, who insisted on doing more than his fair share of the chores, was not the same man who had so brutally and casually proposed that they go to bed together. Far from it—he was instead everything she had hoped to find in a man. She dared not allow herself to respond to that Matt, and it was for that reason that she snubbed all his attempts to re-establish their relationship on a non-sexual footing.
Matt, unaware of what she was really feeling, misinterpreted her snubs and put them down to the fact that she was bitterly regretting what had happened between them and that she was determined to remind him at every turn that she was an engaged woman.
He told himself that he was being a fool for persisting, that he ought simply to ignore her, to pretend she didn’t exist; but, when he had dropped John off at his friend’s and arranged to pick him up later in the day, instead of driving on to Oxford as he had planned he found himself turning the car round and heading back to the house and Emily.
He found her digging energetically in the garden, her soft hair tousled, her skin flushed both by the sun and her exertions. He liked the way her top revealed the smooth, feminine flesh of her arms and clung to her breasts. Her jeans outlined the smallness of her waist and the womanly roundness of her bottom.
Unaware that she was being watched, Emily stopped digging, leaning on her spade as she breathed deeply and surveyed what she had done.
‘Runner beans would be a good crop here.’
She froze as she heard Matt’s voice making the quiet suggestion, and then turned round stiffly, frowning as she realised the picture she must present. ‘I didn’t realise you were coming back for lunch,’ she told him curtly. ‘I’d better go in. Uncle John—’
‘I left your uncle with his friend. I’m picking him up later.’
Emily discovered that her heart had started thumping far too fast and that it was extraordinarily difficult for her to breathe—far more difficult than it had been ten minutes ago when she had been digging so energetically.
A fierce combination of exhilaration and fear thrilled through her, so that she seemed to be conscious of both herself and Matt on two different and separate levels. On one level her senses relayed to her the fact that she felt hot and grubby, and that she felt self-conscious about her untidy hair and flushed skin. She could see Matt looking at her, watching her, and she couldn’t help contrasting his clean jeans and well-groomed appearance with her own. On the second, deeper level, though, she had a different awareness—an awareness of the fact that in merely glancing at Matt’s hands she was remembering how they had felt moving against her skin; that, in briefly noting his clean jeans and soft cotton shirt, she was remembering how his body had looked without clothes, how it had felt…
She licked her lips nervously, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, wishing he would go away and yet, conversely, dangerously, wanting him to stay.
Desperate to banish this latter weakness she demanded angrily, ‘What is it you want, Matt?’
‘You know what I want,’ he told her flatly. ‘I want you.’
She felt the heat invade her skin, prickling along her nerve-endings; it was useless to pretend shock or outrage—hadn’t she known inwardly all the time just what kind of response she was prompting?
‘I’m engaged,’ she reminded him, turning her head as she uttered the lie.
For a moment he was silent, and then he said curtly, ‘So you are. I wonder what this fiancé of yours would think if he knew that you and I have made love, Emily.’
She felt the blood drain from her skin as the shock of his statement hit her; for a moment she felt sick, dizzy—and then from somewhere she found the strength to say huskily, ‘I don’t want to discuss it, Matt, and if you think you’re going to blackmail me into going to bed with you—’
‘Blackmail you!’
If she hadn’t known better, Emily would have believed that the harsh exclamation held genuine horror, but she ignored her own wanton need to make excuses for him, to look for something in his desire for her that she already knew didn’t exist, and said fiercely instead, ‘Don’t try to deny it. You made it clear what you wanted from me the moment you arrived here. Just because we’ve…made l—had sex once, that doesn’t mean it’s an experience I want to repeat. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even
particularly enjoy it,’ she lied, deliberately keeping her face averted and then holding her breath. Surely that should do it. No man liked having his sexual expertise called into question.
Matt frowned as he looked at her tense body and averted face; something here wasn’t ringing true. She might not want him to make love to her now, but as for not enjoying it when they had… Her throat was flushed from the sun; a pulse beat frantically at the base of it and he had to subdue a wild impulse to imprison it with his mouth and hold it imprisoned until he felt all her restraint drain away from her.
‘Not as much as you enjoy sex with your fiancé,’ he said instead, and then waited.
Surreptitiously Emily crossed her fingers behind her back. ‘No,’ she agreed curtly, ‘but then of course there is a difference. I…I love him, while you—’
‘Were just a substitute because he was unavailable,’ Matt finished for her. Curiously he didn’t seem angry, as she had expected. In fact, he wasn’t betraying any emotion at all, and that disconcerted her.
‘I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy it, Emily,’ he added softly, ‘because I certainly did.’
She turned her head, startled shock widening her eyes as she discovered how much closer to her he was.
‘I enjoyed it very much indeed,’ he told her, still walking towards her, coming so close to her that for a moment she was actually tempted to abandon the spade she was clutching and to run as fast and as far as she could. Only there was nowhere to run to, and Matt was still speaking, talking to her in a soft, low voice that seemed to have a mesmeric effect on her motor system, paralysing her where she stood.
‘You know, these last few weeks while I’ve been living here in such proximity to you, I haven’t been able to stop wondering what it would be like to make love to you on a wide, comfortable bed, instead of on the hard floor of a Land Rover. I haven’t been able to stop wondering what it would be like to look at you as well as touch you.’
He was standing close enough now to reach out and slip his arms round her so that he could pull her right up against his body. Emily shuddered at the contact of his hands smoothing the bare skin of her arms.
‘I’m sorry you didn’t share my pleasure in our lovemaking,’ Matt was murmuring softly against her ear, making her body shiver as darts of sensation pierced it.
‘I’d like you to share that pleasure, Emily,’ he was saying hypnotically as his lips moved gently against her skin and his hands slid down her back, urging her still closer to his body.
The tension inside her was like a metal band breaking her in two; one half of her yearned desperately to give in, to melt against him, to wrap her arms around him and to turn her head so that the tormenting pressure of his mouth was caressing her lips. She wanted to tug his shirt out of his jeans and slide her hands up over his back, she wanted… She wanted it all. Everything she had had before and more—and yet at the same time she wanted to push him away from her and take to her heels and run away from him. This wasn’t right. Before…before she had blinded herself to reality, had allowed herself to be caught up in the mystery of the moment—but now Matt was no longer a stranger, now she knew him, now she knew what he wanted from her and what he didn’t want. She couldn’t make love with him now. Not knowing how little she really mattered to him as a human being.
His hand cupped her face, turning it gently, while his lips feathered lightly against hers and his tongue circled their trembling warmth.
‘You taste of sunshine and fresh air,’ he whispered against her mouth, and the vibration of the words sent tiny tremors of excitement pulsing through her. ‘Let me taste all of you, Emily, and show you how much pleasure I can really give you.’
Her whole body trembled under the sensual onslaught of the words. His mouth hardened over hers, the pressure of his arms tightening her awareness of his body that much more intimately as she recognised his arousal and found it fuelling her own.
He was kissing her as she had dreamed of his kissing her ever since that first night, his hands tangled in her hair, his body hard and urgent against hers, his mouth compelling, demanding. Shock after shock of urgent sensation quivered through her, the slight friction of his body moving against hers as he kissed her, stimulating her body so that her breasts swelled and tightened and the memory of the exquisite sensation of his mouth tugging at their hard crests made her move eagerly and instinctively in response to that stimulation, her body adapting itself to the contours of his so willingly, so eagerly that Matt felt his self-control splinter and he wondered if she had any real idea of what she was doing to him.
When he untangled one hand from her hair and eased it between their bodies so that he could cup the soft weight of her breast, Emily made a delirious sound of pleasure under his mouth, and trembled wildly as his thumb-tip brushed erotically against her nipple over and over again until there was nothing she wanted more than to drag his head down against her breast and to feel his mouth tugging fiercely on that small aching point of flesh.
Her top was old and worn with buttons down the front that yielded easily despite the impatience Matt could feel building up inside him. Just remembering how she had felt in his mouth, how she had reacted to the intimacy of it, was driving him crazy with the need to experience it again.
Emily felt the cool, fresh air strike wantonly against her skin as Matt cupped her breast, releasing the pale, soft flesh from its prison of fabric, exposing it momentarily to the warmth of the sun and the cool sharpness of the wind so that its smoothness was briefly disturbed by a rash of goosebumps.
There was something wildly sensual about the sensation of fresh air against her bare skin, Emily recognised feverishly, her back arching in a silent supplication, her nails digging into Matt’s shoulders in sudden ecstasy as she felt the heat of his mouth against her breast. The coolness of the fresh air, the warmth of Matt’s mouth, the fierce sound of pleasure he made, and her own acknowledgement of the pleasure he was giving her—they were like twin rivers, running together, blending, mingling.
There was nothing she wanted more now than for Matt to make love to her—nothing. She felt his teeth against her nipple and shuddered with pleasure, raking her nails against his skin, wanting him, needing him, loving him… Loving him. Loving him! But she couldn’t—must not!
He had released her breast and covered it with his hand. His mouth was caressing her throat, but, as he felt her tension, he stopped and looked at her. ‘What is it? What’s the matter?’
She was too distressed to lie. ‘I can’t do this, Matt,’ she told him brokenly. ‘Please don’t make me.’
She was trembling so much that he frowned, instinctively pulling her closer, trying to ease whatever it was that was distressing her so much. ‘Is it because of him? Your fiancé,’ he guessed, watching her.
Emily looked blankly at him. What was he talking about? And then she remembered and guilty colour flooded her face. ‘Yes…yes, it is,’ she fibbed, and then bit her lip, honesty compelling her to add, ‘It isn’t just that, though. Even if I weren’t engaged, I couldn’t—I want you, Matt,’ she told him bravely, unable to look at him now, but unable to lie either, and what was the point? Her body had well and truly given her away. ‘But I can’t have a relationship with someone that’s just based on sex. It would never be enough… We both know that—that you can arouse me. I’ve tried to pretend that it isn’t true. I’ve tried to resist this—this physical thing between us, but…but I can’t do it without your help. Please, Matt, help me. If I make love with you now, I’ll lose what’s left of my self-respect. I…’
The intensity of the emotion that filled him stunned Matt. He had wanted her, desired her, hated her almost at times, but now suddenly he was filled with such admiration for her, such compassion, that he couldn’t stop himself from lifting his hand to her face and slowly brushing his fingers against it, trying to both comfort her and soothe her at the same time, trying to convey without words all that he felt for her.
‘I think I understand,’ h
e said quietly.’ Physically you want me, but you love someone else. I never intended to pressure you into making love with me, Emily. I just hoped—’ He broke off, knowing there was no point now in telling her what he had hoped.
‘The last thing I want is for anything that happens between us to rob you of your self-respect.’ There was one thing he ached to ask her, but now wasn’t the right time. Why, when she loved this other man so much, had they not been lovers?
She was still trembling, her eyes huge and dark, her face fragile and pale. Automatically, Matt started to close the buttons on her top, dressing her gently as though she were a child.
‘I’m sorry about what I said before, about not enjoying it when you made love to me,’ Emily told him jerkily. ‘I was frightened, you see…’
There was so much pain in her eyes that Matt felt as though he wanted to take hold of her and hold on to her forever. What kind of man was this fiancé of hers? Didn’t he realise what his careless treatment of her was doing to her? She needed him here, not in Australia. And it didn’t help that he himself was still aching with the desire that just being with her seemed to arouse.
Desire…he smiled grimly to himself. When was he going to admit that what he felt was far more than that? He had told himself after Jolie that he would never make the mistake of falling in love again, that he would never expose himself to that kind of pain, that kind of anguish a second time, but emotionally then he had been little more than a child. What he had felt for Jolie had been infatuation; when she had rejected him his pride had been bruised and that bruising had been painful, but what he felt for Emily went way, way beyond the mild infatuation he had felt for Jolie.
He ought to have realised what was happening to him weeks ago—his anger and disappointment when all his enquiries had failed to reveal any trace of her. Now he knew why. He had been looking for a Francine when he ought to have been searching for an Emily. Neither had it occurred to him that Emily would have had her car transported down to Oxford for it to be repaired. No wonder they had never heard of her in any of the garages he had tried. But now he had found her, and much good it was doing him.