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  ‘You could say that, although when I think what you must have been through today, what you must have endured…’

  ‘Oddly it never occurred to me that Clarissa might be responsible for Lucy’s disappearance, although in the circumstances…’

  ‘It was an impulse decision, apparently. She was driving down the street, saw Lucy on her own—’

  ‘Which was my fault. I had intended to go and meet her, only a customer came into the shop. It doesn’t matter how many times you hear of some horrible fate overtaking a child, there are always times when for one reason or another you can’t be there with them. When something like this happens it brings home all the more, that there but for the grace of God…’

  She swallowed hard, her throat burning with tears, closing her eyes against them and then opening them in shock when she felt James’s free hand comfortingly stroking her skin, easing the tension from her muscles as he slid his hand under her hair and gently massaged the back of her neck.

  ‘If anything had happened to Lucy, I’d never have forgiven myself. What makes it worse is that I’ve aided and abetted Clarissa in her delusions about your supposed affair,’ he told her huskily.

  ‘That wasn’t your fault. Nicholas should have told you the truth. I told him I wanted him to. It was a stupid idea, and I was angry with him for involving me.’

  ‘That makes two of us. Before we go any further I want to apologise to you personally. I should have used reason and logic instead of blindly giving in to my emotions.’

  ‘You weren’t entirely to blame. Clarissa is your sister, after all. It’s natural that you should want to protect her, that your emotional response to her anxiety—’

  ‘It wasn’t my emotional response to Clarissa that caused me to over-react so intensely,’ he interrupted rawly.

  Tania tensed, her eyes widening slightly as she searched his face.

  ‘That first time we met, I had come here to reason with you, to ask you calmly and quietly to think about what you were doing…to appeal to you, if you like, to put an end to your relationship with Nicholas before it was too late.’

  ‘You actually consider trying to bribe me into ending the ‘‘affair’’ reasonable?’ Tania asked drily.

  ‘No, I don’t. And it was not what I intended to do at all, but I took one look at you and quite honestly everything I’d planned to say…to do went right out of my head.’

  ‘I did rather get the feeling you’d taken an instant dislike to me,’ Tania agreed as lightly as she could. His hand was still resting on her nape, the slow movement of his fingers now not so much soothing as distinctly disturbing. If she didn’t fight to keep her mind distracted she could all too easily fall into the trap of wondering what it would be like to have his fingers…his hands caressing her entire body.

  ‘Dislike?’

  His voice had an odd rough note in it. ‘Is that what you really thought? No, it wasn’t dislike that made me so aggressive. It was desire…desire and sheer bloody male jealousy. I took one look at you and I wanted you so badly that the thought of you being involved with any other man—never mind my own brother-in-law—nearly drove me out of my mind. To my shame, it wasn’t so much a need to protect Clarissa’s marriage that drove me but my need to separate you from Nicholas so that you’d be free…’ He broke off, shaking his head tiredly.

  ‘I shouldn’t be burdening you with all this. Not now of all times. But men of my age become notoriously maudlin when they fall in love. We don’t expect it, you see. We think we know all there is to know about the human race, especially when it comes to our own reactions. We think we’re too mature, too sensible to be caught up in the kind of emotional maelstrom we believe is reserved only for teenagers. That’s why it hits us so hard. Why we react so…so stupidly.’

  James, in love with her. It couldn’t be true—but before she could say so, he was telling her softly, ‘You shouldn’t let me be here alone with you like this, you know. You should send me away before this whole situation gets completely out of hand and I do something we’ll both regret.’

  Maybe he was right, but it was impossible for her to think straight, to analyse and behave logically when her brain was still trying to accept what he had told her, and she was subtly and weakeningly becoming aware that there was somehow less space between their bodies than there had been and that she could feel the heat coming from his; that heat was like a silent command whispered to her own body, causing it to react to him as immediately and obviously as though he had commanded its response out loud.

  ‘Tell me to leave, Tania,’ he demanded unsteadily. ‘Otherwise…’

  Tell him to leave. But that was the last thing she wanted him to do. She wanted to be with him. She needed to be with him. She had to be with him, she recognised as she impulsively closed the distance between them and raised her face for his kiss.

  The first real kiss she had ever received, she realised shakily minutes later, when her lips were still clinging softly to his, her heartbeat suffocatingly loud in her ears, mirroring the erotic thud of her pulse.

  It was as though the trauma of the day had set her free from the bonds of convention and caution, as though something inside her was telling her to reach out and take what she was being offered; and more, much more, there was a need in her to lift the burden of guilt and pain from James’s shoulders, a need to respond to the sharp clarity of the only truth that mattered: that here was a man whom she wanted and desired, a man she could well even love, and, if the immediacy of their physical coming together here tonight was something which society and convention might judge and condemn, that didn’t matter to her. What did matter was that life was suddenly offering her a chance to experience something she had thought she never would experience, that now after all these years she was being given a chance to fulfil herself as a woman and she knew that if she ignored her need, if she ignored his need, she would regret it for the rest of her life. It was meant to be…ordained almost if such a thought were not profane.

  As James reluctantly released her mouth, he whispered against her lips, ‘If you want me to go…?’

  Immediately her arms tightened betrayingly around him.

  ‘No…no, I don’t.’

  Somehow or other she managed to stand still when he framed her face with his hands and searched her expression with deep intensity.

  ‘Is it the same for you, then?’ he asked her softly.

  Which of them was trembling, or was it both of them?

  ‘I think so,’ she admitted shakily. ‘I’m not used to this kind of thing. There hasn’t—’

  ‘Not even with Lucy’s father.’

  Immediately she froze. Keeping her voice as steady as she could, she told him flatly, ‘Lucy’s father virtually raped me. It was partly my own fault. I had no idea…I was so naïve…and, to be fair to him, I don’t think he realised how inexperienced I actually was.’

  James was frowning now, distancing himself a little from her.

  If her admission, her honesty had made him withdraw from her, then so be it, she reflected painfully. There had been enough misunderstandings between them, enough half-truths and lies. He was obviously a sexually experienced man; if he expected her experience to match his own, then it was better that he knew the truth. If he rejected her because of her inexperience…

  ‘And how inexperienced were you?’ he asked her carefully, watching her.

  ‘Completely.’

  ‘And since then?’

  ‘Since then…’ She hesitated for a fraction of a second, looking down at the floor and then back up at him as she admitted honestly, ‘Since then I haven’t had either the time or the inclination to become involved either sexually or emotionally. Much less with a married man with two children.’

  For a moment he was so silent that she panicked and wondered if she had said too much, admitted too much. He was an intelligent man. It wouldn’t take a great deal of deduction to work out that since she had been celibate for so long her willingness,
her eagerness for this intimacy with him betrayed far more than a casual, fleeting need to appease the physical hunger of a sexually experienced body.

  ‘I have maligned you, haven’t I?’ he said rawly at last.

  ‘If it puts you off…my lack of…of experience—’ Tania whispered hesitantly.

  ‘Puts me off…’ He groaned and slid his hands down her back to her bottom, moulding her against his body so that she could feel its arousal. ‘I doubt that anything could put me off you. I learned a long time ago that sex for sex’s sake has no meaning for me, no real pleasure. I’ve never yet made love with a woman I haven’t respected and liked as well as desired, but I’d long ago given up believing that I’d ever meet a woman I could love. Until I met you.’ He lifted one hand from her body and traced the shape of her half-parted mouth with his fingertip.

  ‘You can’t imagine what it did to my self-respect to realise that I’d fallen in love with a woman who apparently was the complete opposite of all the things I’ve always believed a woman—my woman—would be. I should have known better, trusted my instincts… Do you love me, Tania?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted huskily, her mouth trembling, her tongue tripping her up a little as she stumbled over the admission. ‘I know I need you, I want you… That’s hard enough for me to accept. I’m not used… I never thought…’

  ‘I shouldn’t rush you… I should wait.’

  ‘No,’ she denied fiercely. ‘No.’ She looked at him, her eyes appealing to him, full of all the words she couldn’t bring herself to say.

  ‘Yes,’ he said at last, as though in answer to a spoken question. ‘Perhaps tonight was meant to be…a catharsis for both of us. Although…’ He frowned suddenly as she looked questioningly, trustingly up to him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he told her softly, smiling down at her. ‘Nothing at all.’

  Suddenly she felt slightly awkward, ill at ease and uncertain, not sure what to do. Would he expect her to suggest they went to her bedroom?

  Silently she cursed her previously unregretted lack of experience. What was the done thing in such circumstances? This was her home. She was a mature adult woman, who had had no qualms about admitting that she wanted to make love with him, so why did she now experience this reluctance, this reticence?

  ‘Tania.’

  The sound of her name made her look up at him. He took hold of her hand as he smiled down at her, linking his fingers through hers.

  His grip was strong and firm, safe.

  ‘You don’t have to do this, you know,’ he told her quietly. ‘Not unless you want to.’

  ‘I want to,’ she assured him shakily, knowing that it was true. ‘I want to,’ she repeated with a wry laugh. ‘But that doesn’t stop me being scared to death.’

  ‘Does it help to know that I’m scared too?’

  She stared at him and queried disbelievingly, ‘You?’

  ‘Mm. I want so much to please you, to give you all that you’ve never known, and I’m terrified that if I don’t…if I can’t, that you’ll turn away from me.’

  His mouth was just a breath away from her own. She had an overwhelming need to reach up and claim it. As though he sensed what she was feeling, he bent his head, feathering her mouth with his.

  Immediately a surge of pleasure swamped her, her lips parting beneath his in blind, instinctive need.

  ‘Tania.’

  She moaned softly deep in her throat as he pulled her closer to his body, her hips moving automatically, eagerly against him.

  She wanted his kiss never to end. Her starved senses soaked up the sensations he was arousing inside her like parched earth absorbing much-needed rain.

  When his hands swept up over her back and under her arms, she moved instinctively, easing her body away from his so that his hands could cup her breasts.

  She might never have known these sensations before, but her body certainly recognised them, welcomed them, hungered for them, she realised dizzily, her breathing a stifled whimper of anguished need and disappointment as James removed his hands from her body.

  ‘Shush… It’s all right,’ he told her, pushing her hair back off her face with tender fingers, soothing her with a kiss that began as a gentle caress of reassurance but quickly hardened to urgent desire as he felt her eager response.

  When she felt him unfastening the buttons on her shirt, her whole body went tense with excitement. Long before he had laid bare the soft, pale skin of her breasts, her nipples were taut with arousal, her throat and face flushed with the need that pulsed so strongly inside her.

  The way he looked at her, the way he touched her made her catch her breath in a mingling of pain and pride. He made no attempt to conceal his emotional response to the intimacy between them. No man had ever touched her like this before, and neither had she ever thought she would want one to, and yet when James sank down into the armchair behind him, pulling her down on to his lap, his breath warm against her naked skin, she felt such a tumult of sensation inside her that it was all she could do not to imprison his head with her hands and urge him to take the pulsing eagerness of her breasts into his mouth.

  He seemed to know just what it was she wanted, though, caressing first the taut line of her throat, pausing at its base for a second while her heart kicked beneath his hand and her body trembled with eagerness and need.

  When he cupped her breast with his hand and gently ran his thumb over its hard centre, she moaned out loud, the sharp sound dying abruptly as he bent his head and lovingly took her erect nipple into the moist paradise of his mouth.

  She had never dreamed there could be such a feeling, such a need, such a torment that was so intense…so immediate…so far out of her control that she could do nothing other than clutch at the soft darkness of his hair with fingers suddenly rigid and tense as her heartbeat accelerated to a more frantic drumming.

  The sweet torment of his long slow suckling of first one breast and then the other brought down the last of her emotional barriers. No man who did not love her could have caressed her like this. And no man she did not love in return could have aroused her so immediately and so intensely.

  When he finally raised his head from her glistening breasts, she heard him mutter raggedly into her throat, ‘My God, you’re like no other woman I’ve ever known. You do things to me.’

  She felt him shudder and immediately wrapped her arms around him in the eternal feminine gesture of strength and knowledge, savouring her awareness that in her arms he was as weak, as vulnerable as a mere child, and yet at the same time… As she moved against him and felt his arousal, her body melted and ached inside, yearned and demanded.

  He moved slightly away from her, taking off his jacket and his shirt.

  His chest was broad and tanned, his arms hard with strong muscles that her fingertips just ached to explore. In the lamplight she could see that dark cross of hair that bisected his chest horizontally and tapered diagonally from his breastbone to where it disappeared beneath his belt.

  ‘Stop looking at me like that,’ he told her unevenly as he gathered her back in his arms, easing her down against him, kissing her fiercely, his chest expanding and pushing against the softness of her breasts so that their tenderness was intensified by the urgent movement of his body against her own.

  Wrapped in an invisible blanket of languid pleasure, she lay motionless and bemused as he undressed her, watching with appreciative, fascinated eyes as he quickly removed his own clothes and lifted her gently down on to the floor where he lay down beside her.

  When she reached out instinctively to touch him, he stopped her, gathering both her hands in his and kissing her open palms.

  ‘No, not yet,’ he told her thickly. ‘If you do…’

  As his body shuddered, her own trembled in response. Still holding her hands, he bent his head and kissed the soft roundness of her belly.

  She drew in her breath automatically, startled by the thrill of sensation that ran through her, at
her body’s uninhibited eagerness to offer itself up to deeper intimacies.

  But even as she tried to check that small betraying arch of her spine, that tiny quiver that convulsed her, James had released her hands and was covering the soft-fleshed mound of her femininity with one hand while the other slid beneath her and his lips moved eagerly over her tender skin, refusing to allow her to deny him the intimacy he wanted.

  The sensation of him touching her there, at the most intimate heart of her body, was so fiercely pleasurable that to withstand the exquisite sensation flooding through her was impossible.

  As her body writhed in helpless abandonment to his touch she cried out his name, wanting him, aching for him, reaching for him, wrapping herself eagerly around him as he kissed his way back up her body to her mouth, telling her hoarsely how much he wanted her as he lifted her against him and entered her gently but determinedly.

  Had he guessed how apprehensive she was about this; how vulnerable to his physical possession? As she opened her eyes and looked wonderingly at him, he told her rawly, ‘It’s all right. I’m not going to hurt you. If you want me to stop you only have to say.’

  If she wanted him to stop? His body moved within her own and her fear fell away drowned by the tide of sensation that rolled through her.

  She might never have experienced this kind of sensation before, might have never known that it existed, but her body, her senses, seemed to know instinctively how to respond to it.

  She could feel the heavy, uneven thud of James’s heartbeat, hear the harsh rasp of each shuddering indrawn breath, feel the growing tension and need within his body, a need and tension echoed deep within her own flesh, a driven aching need for fulfilment that made her turn her head frantically from side to side, her fingers digging into his skin as she arched up against him, inciting him to increase the fierce driving rhythm that was now the focus of her whole world.