by Lynne Graham
‘I wasn’t unwilling, you stupid, stupid man!’ Tansy launched back at him in a towering rage such as she had never, ever felt before. ‘I just like you…why else would I have broken my own rule?’
Jude froze as though she had struck him and he was, she reckoned, lucky that in her anger she hadn’t lashed out physically, because she felt absolutely humiliated at being forced to go into the reasons why she had succumbed to his irrefutable attraction. In all her life she had never felt sexual chemistry as powerful as what she felt around him, had never even dreamt that a guy could affect her with one look or one touch the way Jude did. And it truly was scarcely a mystery that, married off at speed to an absolutely beautiful, sexy man, she had succumbed to that irresistible attraction. Only a complete idiot would have required such a fact spelt out to him!
‘I’m not stupid.’ Jude caught her hands in his as she attempted to move past him and walk indoors. ‘I simply had to know whether or not you were with me because you wanted to be and not because you felt you had to be.’
Face burning, Tansy flung back her head and slung him an angry, mutinous glance. ‘Well, now you know! I hope it was a moment worth embarrassing me for to this extent!’
Scorching golden eyes smouldered down at her. ‘I’m sorry—’
‘No, you’re not!’ Tansy argued helplessly because she could see a positively platinum glow of satisfaction shining from him. ‘You heard exactly what you wanted to hear, only you can’t have needed to hear it.’
‘It never mattered so much before,’ Jude framed, gripping her small hands tight when she tried to break free of him.
‘In a few seconds I am going to kick you very hard,’ Tansy warned him between clenched teeth.
In a sleight of hand and at a speed that took her utterly by surprise, Jude released her hands and bent down to scoop her up into his arms instead. A disconcerted squeak escaped Tansy before his warm, sensual lips engulfed hers and he tasted so good her head spun, her toes curled. The pulse of hunger renewed, disconcerting her because she had thought that crazy, clawing need was sated. After all, her body still ached, and yet when Jude tumbled her down on the wide bed and kissed her breathless, she wanted him again with a wildness that shocked her. The heat in her pelvis induced a craving that she couldn’t fight.
Her fingers raked through his hair, her body lifting in delight to the weight and hardness of his, hands sliding down over his back, that insane excitement building and building to an incredible height and making her feel shameless and greedy.
‘I can’t get enough of you!’ Jude growled, burying his mouth in the soft, sensitive skin between her nape and her shoulder, letting her feel his teeth and sending shock waves of arousal coursing through her.
‘Is it always like this?’ she mumbled dizzily, angling back her head to allow him easier access to the tender slopes of her unbound breasts.
‘Are you kidding?’ Jude laughed, unholy amusement illuminating the dark golden eyes locked to her face, colour lying along his high cheekbones. ‘If it was always like this for me, I’d be a sex fiend!’
CHAPTER EIGHT
POSY’S CHUCKLES SHOOK her squirming little body as she rolled away from being tickled and crawled under the desk, peering up at Jude with bright blue eyes brimming with merriment as he flung himself back into his office chair with a grin of amusement at his own behaviour.
Never having had anything to do with children before, Jude had not even considered that he could be fascinated by a baby, but he had discovered that the very simplicity and lack of guile in so young a child appealed to him. Posy liked or disliked stuff or people. There were no shades of grey with her, nothing fake. She didn’t care who he was or what he could give her as long as he played with her and made her feel safe and appreciated.
He had been married to Tansy for six weeks and, very much to his surprise and in defiance of his ingrained cynicism, Jude was extremely satisfied with the wife he had picked and the life they were sharing. Tansy was a breath of fresh air in his world. Watching her with Posy, he was impressed by her warmth and affection for the child and the sacrifices she had been willing to make to keep Posy in her care. She didn’t have a gold-digging gene in her entire body. When he had presented her with a phone she had been shocked to realise that the blue and white diamonds on the case were real and had tried to return it to him. She had even lectured him about how appalling it was to waste that amount of money on a phone, because she had yet to grasp that, on his terms, what he had spent was not a huge amount of money.
On a practical basis, Tansy was perfect. As for the ‘having a child’ part of his marriage, Jude had, for the present, pretty much buried that ambition at the back of his mind. Of course, he reflected, it would be helpful to his future plans if a conception took place, but it could also change things in his relationship with Tansy and, right at that moment, Jude wanted nothing to change because he liked it just as it was. Indeed, he liked it a whole hell of a lot. Their sex life was off-the-charts fantastic. He couldn’t keep his hands off Tansy and she was pretty much the same with him. He had never enjoyed that level of sexual chemistry with a woman before and that told him that it had to be incredibly hard to find that enhanced buzz and thrill, because he was no innocent. His liberal upbringing and his opportunities had made his sexual experience a fact of life.
‘Are you tormenting my sister again?’ Tansy teased as she walked into his office and discovered that there wasn’t a lot of work getting done just at that moment. A colourful cascade of toddler toys lay scattered across the rug. Safe playing spaces suitable for a baby had appeared all over the magnificent yacht after Posy had slid and banged her head on a hard wooden floor. The Alexandris had not been designed with a baby in mind and Jude had had to ensure that, where possible, the vessel was child-friendly for her sister’s benefit.
‘She’s much more fun than a coffee break,’ Jude informed her with gravity, his lean, strong face full of contrasting amusement. From his flaring black brows, bronzed skin, lion-gold eyes and taut jaw line, he remained as spectacular as a living, breathing vision to Tansy’s admiring gaze.
Turning pink, Tansy reflected on how very far their relationship had progressed over the past six weeks. All three of them had travelled an impossible distance from that difficult start, not least her baby sister, currently engaged in trying to climb onto Jude’s chair with him to regain his attention. Posy adored Jude. The little girl squirmed and slid back down again and started to cry and Jude reached down a long arm and automatically hauled the baby up. Posy clambered across his lap with a beaming smile, sat down, rested her curly head calmly back against his chest and stuck her thumb in her rosebud mouth, her satisfaction unconcealed.
‘Although she’s not quite as much fun as you are, moli mou,’ Jude intoned thickly, lushly lashed dark golden eyes narrowing to wander over her slight body. His intense gaze lingered on the soft pink fullness of her mouth, the sun-streaked fall of her hair and the pouting profile of her breasts in a halter-neck top before literally devouring the long, smooth, golden length of her legs in casual denim shorts.
And below that scorching appraisal, which was now so awesomely familiar to her, Tansy’s whole body lit up like a torch with heat and awareness. Her nipples tightened, something clenched low in her pelvis and her insides turned liquid and melting.
A knock sounded on the door and Posy’s nanny appeared. Jude sprang upright and passed over the sleepy child, crossing the floor as the door closed again to tug Tansy up against his tall, powerful frame. One hand wound into the thick, silky length of her hair to tip her head back and the other flirted with the fashionably frayed edges of her shorts so that she quivered against him, as on edge as a cat on hot coals.
He crushed her mouth under his, his tongue delving deep, and a low whimper of helpless response escaped low in her throat. ‘We only got out of bed a few hours ago,’ Jude grated above her head, bumping his brow agains
t hers in apology while she struggled to breathe again. ‘This is crazy.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Tansy muttered, trying to call a halt on her own runaway hormones. ‘We shouldn’t give in to it.’
Jude ground the thrust of his arousal into her stomach. ‘To hell with self-denial,’ he groaned raggedly.
‘You’re not into that,’ she conceded shakily.
He tipped up her chin to gaze down at her. ‘Are you too sore? Oh, don’t go all shy about it. I know I’m demanding.’
‘You’re not too demanding,’ Tansy framed, biting at her full lower lip, her face rosy. ‘I would tell you if—’
‘The same way you would tell me why you were still a virgin when I married you?’ Jude scorned, unimpressed. ‘If you’re embarrassed, you won’t tell me anything.’
‘Right… OK. I’ll tell you why I was inexperienced…later,’ she promised reluctantly.
‘It’s a deal.’ Jude treated her to one of his wide, charismatic smiles that dazzled her. ‘It annoys me when you won’t tell me things.’
‘I know, but I’m getting better,’ she pointed out. ‘I just never had anyone to confide in before.’
And the very thought of what she had just admitted hit her like a resounding crash of doom. What did it say about her that she was confiding in a fake husband as if he were the real thing? A loving, affectionate guy, who was intending to stay with her? That awful truth was so clear to her but, even so, somehow all her boundaries with Jude had blurred and every time she tried to take a sensible step back from him he inexplicably contrived to yank her closer.
That they had spent the past six weeks behaving like a real couple on a honeymoon certainly didn’t help her to retain rational barriers. Initially she had been overwhelmed by the giant yacht and the sheer luxury of its appointments, but somewhere along the line, she conceded guiltily, she had become accustomed to living with meals served whenever hunger struck, a maid, a team of nannies and an onboard beauty salon where she could have her hair done any time she liked. And with all the practicalities of life taken care of for her, so much time had been freed up, time she had spent with Posy and Jude while The Alexandris sailed round the Greek islands, stopping off wherever took their fancy.
As he yanked the door open again, Jude closed a hand over hers and they headed down the passageway and up the stairs to their gorgeous cabin. For a split second Tansy tried to break free of that sensual haze that entrapped her, but, one step into complete privacy, Jude scooped her off her feet and tumbled her down on the bed and the allure of the sheer excitement he sent cascading through her overwhelmed her again. Heart hammering inside her chest, she exchanged kiss for kiss as they rolled across the bed, engaged in a frantic effort to rid themselves of their clothing and connect at the fastest rate possible.
There was nothing cool about that urge, nothing controlled or disciplined. In fact, the insanity that often seemed to grip her in Jude’s radius bewildered Tansy as much as it dominated her, because she had no previous experience of the woman she became with Jude. She ripped at his shirt, pressed her lips hungrily to a satin-smooth brown shoulder and trembled at the aphrodisiac of his scent. She couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t deny the needs of her own body. The instant he touched her she went up in flames. He was her source of irresistible temptation and she wanted to savour every moment with him just as feverishly as she told herself that she needed to learn to control her susceptibility.
Skilled fingers traced the sensitive skin at her core and she jerked, frantically opening her mouth to the delve of his tongue. All of her was on fire, the tips of her breasts straining and stiff, the heart of her damp and pulsing. He flipped her over as easily as though she were a doll and ground into her hard and fast and the pleasure was almost more than she could bear. She arched her back and moaned, the delight of pure unvarnished sensation screaming through every fibre of her being. Her climax still quivering through her limp body, Tansy finally flopped back against the sheets, absolutely wiped out by the experience.
With a glimmering smile, Jude reached for her and drew her under a strong arm, disconcerting her so much for a moment that she froze.
‘What’s up?’ Jude prompted.
‘Nothing, absolutely nothing,’ she hastened to tell him, as though that small affectionate gesture were an everyday occurrence.
It wasn’t. Jude didn’t cuddle or snuggle or hug after sex. He was very much an island, a loner in intimacy. From the sidelines she had watched him slowly, almost clumsily learning to respond to Posy’s unrestrained baby affection. She had seen him freeze in shock the first time her sister dabbed playful baby kisses all over his face in the same game she often played with Tansy. But Posy had forged her own path with Jude and he was returning her hugs without restraint now, and it seemed as though that had changed something in him, Tansy acknowledged with quiet pleasure, ridiculously pleased by that arm anchoring her to him in the aftermath. Why? It gave her a sense of achievement and the conviction that she was humanising Jude, who could often seem remote from the concerns that troubled others.
‘So,’ Jude murmured softly. ‘You agreed to tell me why…’
‘Is that why you’re hugging me for the first time ever?’ Tansy demanded with sudden anger. ‘You want me to bare my soul, so you come over all manipulative and finally hug me?’
A frown line drawing his ebony brows together, Jude studied her in apparent wonderment. ‘You will be “baring your soul”?’ he queried.
Tansy went red. ‘Well, that was a bit of an exaggeration,’ she conceded, marvelling and mortified that that angry outburst had emerged from her without her volition.
‘But the use of that word, “finally”, suggests that I’m a major fail in the hug department?’ Jude pressed. ‘Well, that’s not surprising. I didn’t get hugged as a child very often—’
‘But surely your mother—’
‘No, when she visited me after losing custody of me to my father, she wasn’t allowed to touch me. Isidore and my father hated her and considered her a malign influence and restricted her access to me as much as they could,’ he took her aback by revealing. ‘A nanny with strict instructions always acted as a chaperone.’
‘But why on earth did they hate her so much?’ Tansy exclaimed, wide-eyed.
‘I think because she fought back and wouldn’t lie down to be walked over. All their lives Isidore and my father were all-powerful in almost every sphere and virtually everyone set out to please them. To be fair to them, though, Clio can be very difficult to deal with. In the end they dealt with her by almost destroying her,’ he breathed tautly. ‘But we’re not going to get distracted by my background just when you were about to spill the beans about why you were still a virgin when we met.’
Tansy gritted her teeth at the reminder and lay as still as a statue beside him. Her mind was still clinging to what he had told her about his background though. Growing up in such a difficult family situation had damaged Jude too. She was trying to imagine his childhood without hugs and winced in sympathy. The adults around him had been at daggers drawn and he had suffered accordingly. Distrust and intolerance had deprived Jude of the loving care he should have enjoyed.
Certainly, Tansy had had a better experience as a young child, but her face shadowed when she recalled her teenaged years when her peers had been dating and getting sexual experience. By that stage, the lack of understanding and shared interests between Tansy and her mother had become more obvious. She admitted to Jude that she had never had time at that age to get out and about. Either she had been swotting for exams, off on a beauty training course or working in her mother’s salon.
‘There wasn’t room for anything else in my life.’ She sighed. ‘And in any case, nobody was interested in me that way.’
‘I don’t believe that.’
Tansy rolled her eyes, unimpressed, thinking back to her almost prepubescent lack of curves in he
r teens. ‘When I started university I was sharing a flat with five girls. For the first time I was having a social life. The others were much more comfortable with boys than I was, and they all had active sex lives. I didn’t realise it at the time but afterwards, after what happened, I think a few of those girls disliked me just for being different. Early on I admitted I was a virgin but that I was hoping to meet someone special. I was teased a lot, but I didn’t let it bother me.’
‘Why should you have?’ Jude breathed above her head.
‘One of my flatmates became my best friend, a girl called Emma. I fell madly in love with Ben, who was on Emma’s course, and we started dating. I was quite frank with him about not being willing to jump into bed with him straight away. I wanted to see if we could go anywhere first,’ Tansy admitted ruefully. ‘I suppose that was pretty naive…me expecting him to wait.’
‘No. It was his choice, whether he did or not,’ Jude chipped in, being more supportive than she had expected.
‘We were dating a few months and I was so happy,’ Tansy recited with a groan of embarrassment. ‘He was my first boyfriend and we were holding hands! And then one weekend, when I was supposed to be going home, I accidentally found out the real truth of what was going on behind my back. Mum cancelled my visit at the last minute because she and Calvin had been invited away by friends. I returned to the flat unexpectedly and found Emma and Ben in bed together and heard them laughing about me.’
Jude turned her face towards him as she fell silent. ‘What did you do?’
‘I confronted them. Emma admitted they’d been together from the start and that she and her friends and his had bet Ben that he couldn’t collect my V-card,’ Tansy confessed stiltedly. ‘They’d all set me up for a joke. I was horrified, humiliated, awfully hurt because, not only did I love Ben, I believed Emma was my best friend.’
‘I bet Ben tried to get you back afterwards,’ Jude surprised her by remarking.