In Her Enemy's Bed Read online

  He wasn’t gentle and tender as he had been at his mother’s, and yet her body delighted in his urgency, her fingers clenching eagerly into his hair as his mouth slid down over her skin to find the taut point of her breast.

  The touch of his mouth sent feverish spasms of delight exploding inside her, making her arch against him in frantic supplication. The increased pressure of his mouth, the almost painful scrape of his teeth against her tender flesh as he answered her mute demand, made her shudder with pleasure and moan his name.

  His mouth left her breast, his chest contracting as he breathed in harshly. ‘Is that what you like? Is it what you want, Shelley? Tell me how much you like it,’ he muttered into her ear. ‘Show me how much.’

  His hands guided hers to his body, and she felt its tremor as she slid them against his flesh.

  His skin burned against her palms, his eyes glittering strangely as he groaned deep in his throat. Mesmerised by her knowledge of his desire, Shelley pressed her lips softly to the hollow of his throat. She felt him tense, and then his hands were shaping her head, pressing her into his body, urging her mouth to move more intimately against his skin. She felt him shudder as she touched him with her tongue, her hands sliding down over his body to his hips. Suddenly shy and self-conscious, she touched him tentatively and then withdrew.

  Almost instantly, his hand clamped down over hers, holding it against his skin.

  ‘Do it, Shelley.’ He sounded softly savage, his voice raggedly uneven. ‘Touch me!’

  Need swept away all her inhibitions, her hands untutored but eager in their discovery of him. When he moved away from her briefly Shelley watched him, worshipping him with her eyes, aching to reach out and touch him and yet making herself wait like a child with a long-desired store of favourite sweets.

  His hand touched her, smoothing the sensitive skin of her thigh. Instinctively she reached up to tug him down towards her, drowning in the invasive heat of his kiss. His teeth tugged at her bottom lip, and she arched up against him, gasping in pleasure as she felt his hot skin caress her body.

  The rage she had sensed in him before had been transformed into something else: a raw, elemental hunger that demanded satisfaction without any allowances for her inexperience, and yet there was no punishment in his touch, only a fierce and intense desire.

  The stroke of his hand against the most intimate part of her released a flood of sensation, shot through with a need that made her press herself achingly against his touch, her mouth hot and trembling as she buried it against his throat.

  She could feel the rigid muscles tensing beneath her tongue. His skin burned, the scent and feel of him filling her senses. Dimly she heard him moan. At first her name and then a rash of hoarse Portuguese that meant little to her. One hand caressed her, fuelling the ache that twisted and expanded deep inside her; the other tangled in her hair, trying to lift her mouth away from his body, but her hands had already found the hard contours of his hips and had felt the betraying shudder that wrenched through him. His skin felt soft and smooth, like touching warm satin.

  The need inside her escalated, and as he sensed her response to his caress, his fingers slowly and deliberately moved against her making her, heart pump and her breath catch in her throat in ragged gasps.

  A sensation of eager, melting fluidity rushed through her, turning her muscles weak, making her eager to offer herself to him without restraint.

  Of its own volition her body moved rhythmically against him, her hips arching, her breasts swelling with the same aching sensation that possessed her lower body.

  Instinctively she sought the physical contact he was denying her, rubbing herself sinuously against his body, feeling her nipples peak at the soft abrasion of his chest hair.

  A deep groan wrenched from deep in Jaime’s throat, the fingers locked in her hair which had been trying to drag her head away from his body now urged her against him.

  Shelley buried her face against his chest, breathing in the moist musky scent of him. She felt Jaime tug her hair and move against her so that her mouth pressed against the hard flatness of his nipple.

  Tentatively she touched it with her tongue, thrilled by the sudden shudder of pleasure that racked him. Hesitantly she absorbed it into her mouth, caressing him the same way he had caressed her.

  Almost instantly he stopped touching her. He didn’t like what she was doing. Feeling sick at the abrupt cessation of his lovemaking, she made to move away, but he wouldn’t let her. His hands locked round her head, his body arching against her mouth.

  ‘Don’t stop, Shelley, don’t stop doing it.’

  His fingers tangled in her hair, and then one hand slid down her arm to take hers and place it against the hard thrust of his body.

  Touching him so intimately made her ache with longing, her body quivering with the same sensation his stroking fingers had aroused.

  As though he knew what was running through her mind, Jaime pushed her down against the mattress, dragging her hands away from his body and pinioning her arms away from her own.

  There was something achingly erotic about lying here like this, so acutely vulnerable to him. Part of her instinctively shrank from the bold intimacy of his scrutiny. Defensively she gripped her legs together and started to lift them so that she could protect herself from his appraisal, but he moved too fast for her, trapping her with the weight of his thigh. The rough hairiness of his leg rubbing against hers was an alien and yet an exciting sensation. Something inside her seemed to twist and melt and turn her insides to liquid. As though Jaime had experienced the sensation for himself, something possessive and very masculine gleamed in his eyes.

  As he lowered himself over her body, the remnants of her virginal fear made her tremble and ask huskily, and, she reflected later, ridiculously, ‘What are you going to do?’

  Her eyes were open very wide, holding his as though her life depended on it. She could barely draw a breath without trembling, and now when the moment she had incited and deliberately aroused had arrived she shrank back from it.

  ‘What am I going to do?’ How deep and throaty his voice was. ‘Well, first of all this.’ His mouth touched one nipple and then the other, in the lightest of caresses. ‘And then this.’ He was still holding her arms away from her body, and she quivered as she felt his lips move against her skin, down over her rib cage, tasting the smooth flesh of her waist, and then lower so that his tongue brushed seductively over the slight swell of her stomach.

  She was no longer afraid of him. Now she was afraid of herself and of the feelings he was arousing inside her. Wanton, erotic feelings that had nothing to do with the person she had always thought herself to be.

  His hands freed her wrists, but she was too bemused to move her arms. His tongue circled the indentation in her belly, making her quiver with renewed sensation. A tense, coiling ache was building up inside her, an urgent heat burning through her veins.

  She felt Jaime slide his hands down over her hips and then slip them beneath her, lifting her slightly. Her legs felt curiously weak, and opened easily as he nudged them apart with his knee. She felt his mouth against her inner thigh and tensed in shock, even though she had guessed what he meant to do.

  Knowing didn’t stop her from tensing against the shocking intrusion of his tongue touching her with an intimacy she had known existed but never dreamed of experiencing. She tried to drag herself free of his hands, frightened by the intensity of the sensation that shot through her. She didn’t want to feel this awesome, unknown pleasure that touched her senses. She didn’t want to be so vulnerable to anyone, least of all Jaime.

  His tongue ceased its delicate exploration, and his mouth moved back to her thigh. She shuddered in relief, fighting to regain control of her reactions.

  ‘What’s wrong? Don’t you like it?’

  ‘Like it?’

  ‘Or are you just frightened? Is that it, Shelley? There’s nothing to be afraid of.’

  His voice was soft, the words soothingly rhy
thmic, his mouth moving gently against her inner thigh.

  Slowly she started to relax, only to tense up again as his mouth moved back to the centre of her body.

  This time his touch wasn’t tentative, but determinedly assured. Shelley reached out to push him away. ‘No!’

  Jaime raised his head slightly and looked at her. ‘Yes, Shelley,’ he contradicted flatly, and her stomach quivered as his breath moved against it. ‘Yes…yes…yes…’

  He kept on reinforcing his intentions until the sound was smothered against the intimacy of her, his mouth caressing her with an erotic heat that she fought to oppose until it was impossible any longer to hold back the flood tide of sensation convulsing her.

  She neither knew or cared that she had stopped resisting him and that instead her body moved eagerly to the subtle instruction of his mouth. Her nails dug into his shoulders as she experienced for the first time the reality of feminine sexuality, and as the pleasure flared higher and higher and then finally receded, she no longer cared what emotions she exposed to Jaime.

  Through a lethargic fog of pleasure she felt him slowly release her. He moved to lie beside her, and for the first time she realised that while she had reached a peak of sexual satisfaction, Jaime had not shared it with her.

  A sense of failure enveloped her, the swift downward plunge of her emotions from high to low, bringing stinging tears to her eyes. Abruptly she turned away from him, curling into a tight little ball. His hand gripped her shoulder, and she felt the warmth of his breath against her ear.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘You didn’t really want me at all, did you?’

  She couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice. He had aroused her and satisfied her, but the knowledge that he himself neither wanted nor needed her completely wiped out all her own pleasure. By not wanting to possess her, he had robbed her of her femininity, made her feel that she was inadequate as a woman.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ His voice was dry, his fingers biting hard into her skin.

  ‘I should have thought it was obvious.’ She couldn’t look at him, and her voice trailed away miserably.

  ‘Shelley…’

  ‘Don’t lie to me, Jaime. You aroused me. You made love to me, but that’s all it was, wasn’t it?’ She was suddenly terrifyingly, humiliatingly sure that she had hit on the truth. ‘You don’t want me in that way, you…’

  The words were silenced in her throat as Jaime wrenched her round so that he could look at her. His mouth was hard with tension, his hands bruising her skin as he held her captive.

  ‘Of course I want you, you little fool, but I didn’t want to hurt you. I wanted to show you what pleasure there could be before I had to show you any pain. Of course I want you.’ His voice was softer now, less harsh, his hand sliding into her hair.

  ‘Then why don’t you make love to me properly?’

  She felt his tension and thought for a moment he was going to move away, his hand was still in her hair, angling her face so that he could look at her.

  ‘Is that what you want?’ His mouth touched hers, and shockingly she tasted her own scent on it. ‘Do you want me inside you, Shelley, is that what you want?’

  The tip of his tongue caressed her lips, stroking softly over them in the same way that she had already imagined the silken caress of his flesh within her own.

  Her mouth had gone dry, her heart pumping unevenly. ‘Yes.’ She mouthed the word against his lips. ‘Yes, I want it very much.’

  She felt him move, the weight of his thighs settling between her own. The heat of him was something she hadn’t expected and she trembled.

  ‘Still want me?’

  His eyes searched hers, and Shelley wondered if he was remembering his vow. If he was it obviously didn’t matter. Her own betrayal of him, her lack of trust had destroyed what had been between them. She was his wife and she loved him; wasn’t that reason enough?

  ‘Yes… Yes…I still want you…I want you now, Jaime… Jaime!’

  She moved urgently against him, gasping as she felt the swift intrusive thrust of his body within her own. For the space of a heartbeat all sensation, all movement was totally suspended. Pain, sharp and blessedly brief, took away her breath. Within her she felt Jaime tense, but the pain was already fading and in its stead… Wantonly, joyously she arched up against him, and after his initial hesitation felt the assured controlled movement of him inside her.

  ‘Is it what you wanted? Do you like it?’

  If his movements were controlled, his voice wasn’t, and to hear the rasped words falling against her skin filled her with a pagan delight—and a need to seduce his body, until it mirrored the hunger she could hear in his voice.

  ‘More, Jaime,’ she begged against his throat. ‘More. I want all of you inside me.’

  It was as though she had invoked some magic spell. His hands gripped her hips, teaching them the rhythm of his body, his mouth hot against her skin as his control splintered and she experienced for the first time the driving intensity of a man’s desire.

  Her body, already sensitive to his touch, already aware of the pleasure he could give it, responded eagerly, absorbing the hard heat of him, travelling with him to a peak of pleasure that brought her name from his throat on a guttural cry of triumph.

  She was reluctant to let him go, curling tiredly into his arms, wanting to beg him to understand that it had all been a mistake, that she had been guilty perhaps of loving him too much rather than too little, but somehow, as she tried to form the words, they slid away from her.

  CHAPTER TEN

  SHELLEY woke up slowly, her body aware of the changes that had taken place within it before her mind properly assimilated them. Last night she and Jaime had made love with a passion she hadn’t known existed. She had gone to sleep in his arms, but now she was alone.

  Apprehension drove out her waking euphoria. She sat up, reaching instinctively for the sheet, as the bedroom door opened.

  Jaime came in, carrying a mug of coffee. His mouth tightened as he looked at her, and Shelley knew she had been right to feel apprehensive.

  ‘I’m sorry about last night.’

  His clipped voice wasn’t that of the lover who had whispered in the darkness how much he desired her and how much she pleased him; his eyes avoided contact with hers as he deliberately looked away from her.

  ‘It won’t happen again, Shelley. It wouldn’t have happened last night if…’

  ‘If I hadn’t begged you to make love to me,’ she said quietly. Pride was the only thing that was holding her together now. She had killed Jaime’s love, and she had deserved to lose it. How ironic it was that her pain was caused by her lack of trust instead of an excess of it.

  ‘I would like you to come back to the quinta with me this morning,’ he went on, making no comment on her remarks. ‘There are things that have to be sorted out before…before I can set you free.’

  Had his hand trembled as he set the mug down, or had she simply imagined it? If she reached out and touched him now, would he respond to her as he had done last night? Perhaps, but it wasn’t merely his sexual responsiveness to her that she wanted. She wanted what she had so recklessly thrown away. She wanted his love…his belief in her…his trust.

  Suddenly his words struck her like blows. Set free? What did he mean?

  ‘I was wrong to rush you into marriage; I can see that now. I should have waited…taught you to trust me first. I’d underestimated how much damage your grandmother had done, and overestimated your…your feelings for me.’

  ‘But last night…’

  ‘Last night both of us reacted out of character; both of us needed the release of what happened between us, but good sex isn’t any basis for marriage, at least not for the sort of marriage I want,’ he said harshly.

  ‘But we can’t divorce.’

  Shelley managed to whisper the words past the tight lump obstructing her throat.

  ‘No, I’m afraid that’s not possible. I was thinking m
ore of a legal separation. When I came here last night I had intended to discuss having our marriage annulled, but…’

  But she had destroyed any chance of that. Numbly Shelley stared at him. What he was so calmly discussing with her was no more than she herself had decided upon not twenty-four hours before, and yet now, she knew it was not what she wanted. What she wanted was this man and what they had shared last night—what they could have shared right from the start of their marriage if only she had had the courage to trust him. Yes, she could admit that now. Trusting him would not have been the weakness she had always perceived it to be; it would have taken an act of courage, an act of faith. But she had lacked both, and because of it, she was now being punished. Dear God, how ironic it was! Sofia had achieved her wish after all. She had destroyed their marriage.

  She couldn’t let it end like this. There must be some way. Wildly she searched for a means of turning back the clock, of blotting out the reality of what was happening.

  ‘Jaime, what if we…if there would be a child?’

  A mask seemed to come down over his face, blanking off all expression. ‘I wouldn’t wish on any child of mine the misery that permeated my own childhood. Quarrelling parents is a cross no child should have to bear. You will always have my financial support, of course…whether there is a child or not.’

  He sounded as though they were discussing a piece of furniture. She wanted to cry out to him that she loved him; that she wanted him, but she couldn’t. What right did she have to claim that now? Would he believe her? Would he even care? This morning all the passion and fire she had known last night were gone. He was as remote and unreachable as a statue.

  ‘It will take some time to make the arrangements. In the meantime I suggest we return to the quinta and continue to live there as before. My mother…I shall ask her to remain in Lisbon until everything is finalised. She will be disappointed.’