Breaking/Making Up: Something Borrowed\Vendetta (8 page)

Ashleigh became hotly conscious of that hand as it moved lower and lower... Of their own accord her legs shifted slightly apart in silent invitation for a more intimate caress. James obliged, his hand sliding between her legs, forcing the satin inwards with him, rubbing the silken material over her arousal till she moaned in utter abandonment and need.

James moved to assuage that need, peeling the nightie down over her hips to pool at her feet while he sank to his knees in front of her, licking the soft flesh of her inner thighs, gradually easing them wider and wider apart till he could move his mouth with exquisite intimacy over her.

Ashleigh caught her breath, her hands shooting up to close over his shoulders lest she fall. For those knowing lips and tongue seemed to know exactly what to do to send her mad, moving hotly over the core of her need before returning again to her most sensitive spot. When her soft moans turned to whimpering little cries he pulled her down on to the carpet with him, kissing her mouth while he freed his desire with frenzied movements.

For several excruciating seconds his head was lifted to look down at her naked arousal, his eyes glittering with satisfaction as they roved over the stark evidence of her passion. For Ashleigh was wanton in her desire for his possession, her body restless and open for him, her womanhood moist and swollen.

With an almost tortured groan he knelt between her legs, and, scooping up her buttocks, impaled her with a single powerful thrust.

Ashleigh gasped, her back arching up from the floor, her arms reaching out for him to come to her in a lover’s embrace. He sank down upon her with a jagged moan, gathering her tight against him.

‘Oh, my darling, my only love,’ he rasped, then began surging into her with a powerful, passionate rhythm. She gasped at the speed with which she found herself on the brink, then moaned as she tumbled headlong into an ecstatic release, the fierceness of her contractions hurtling James into an equally explosive climax that left him shaking uncontrollably.

Ashleigh clasped his trembling body close to her, totally unmindful of the potent seed he’d just spilt deep inside her. She certainly wasn’t thinking of how she’d deliberately chosen to have her wedding-day right at her most fertile time of the month so that she might conceive straight away. All she wanted at that moment was to keep her husband’s body fused with hers, to wrap her arms and legs tight around him, to kiss his sweat-covered neck, to tell him how much she loved him.

His shirt had come loose from the waistband of his trousers during their torrid mating, and she slipped her hands up underneath with a contented sigh to rove across bare flesh. But, when her fingers encountered the strangest ridges and dips in the skin on his back, she froze. James did not have scars on
his
back. It was smooth and clear and hairless. At least, it
had
been a week ago when they had gone swimming in the pool at his home.

My God! Exactly what
had
happened last night? Had he been in some sort of accident?

‘James,’ she whispered, her voice shaking, her whole insides shaking. ‘What have you done to your back?’

She felt him stiffen, felt his shuddering sigh.

‘Nothing,’ he muttered. ‘It’s the same back I’ve had for years.’

Slowly he withdrew from her, easing himself back to sit on his heels and adjust his clothes. ‘You see, Leigh,’ he went on, raking her pale face with bleak blue eyes, ‘the fact is...I’m not James.’

CHAPTER SIX

A
SHLEIGH came as close to fainting at that moment as she had ever done in her life. All the blood drained from her face and for a few black moments her world tilted on its axis.

But the crisis passed, and when it did her first reaction was a desperate denial.

‘Don’t be ridiculous! Of course you’re James. I mean...what are you trying to say?’ she laughed shakily, sitting up and snatching the satin nightie from the carpet near by and somehow dragging it over her nude body. ‘That you’re
Jake?
If this is your idea of a sick joke, James, then...’

His hands shot out to grab her upper arms, his blue eyes steely as he leant over her. ‘I
am
Jake. Look at me, Leigh. Really look at me. You know the difference. You’ve always known the difference. You didn’t today because I was where you and everyone expected
James
to be, dressed in James’s clothes, my hair cut exactly like James’s, acting like James.’

He made a scoffing sound. ‘Well...maybe not acting
entirely
like James. Believe me, Leigh, when I say you wouldn’t want me acting like him tonight.’

‘Stop calling me that,’ she screamed at him. ‘Stop saying you’re Jake. You’re not! You can’t be! It’s impossible! Besides, I...I
hate
Jake! I...’

Her high-pitched hysterical outburst was terminated abruptly and effectively by his right hand’s covering her mouth and pushing her, none too gently, flat on her back on to the carpet.

‘Shut up, for God’s sake, or we’ll have the motel manager knocking at our door. Look, I’m sorry for how things turned out here tonight. I was going to tell you the truth earlier but, God damn it, Leigh, you’ve only yourself to blame. You virtually seduced me.
Me...Jake...
not James. For, even if you didn’t recognise me on a conscious level, your body did subconsciously. It recognised me and responded to me, right from the first moment it set eyes on me in that park. Tell yourself you hate me all you like, Leigh, but deep down you know you don’t!’

Once again her face paled, her eyes widening with horror as the truth refused to be denied.

Jake hadn’t sent a letter home... He’d come in person...

It had been Jake looking at her with such inflammatory desire during the ceremony...Jake who’d evoked that mad response when he’d kissed her in the car...Jake who’d just made devastatingly rapturous love to her...

She stared up at him, appalled.

His hand lifted from her mouth and he sat back on his heels. ‘I see you’ve finally accepted the facts.’

Confusion and anguish sent her hand careering across his face, slapping it hard. ‘You bastard!’ she cried brokenly, and then she slapped him again. ‘I thought you were James. I would never have let you touch me if I’d known it was you!’ She began hitting out wildly with both hands, across his face, his shoulders, his chest.

He grabbed both her wrists and ground them slowly back down on the carpet above her head, both their chests heaving as he pressed down flat on top of her. ‘Is that so?’ he bit out, blue eyes flashing with a very male anger. ‘Well, you know who I am
now
, don’t you? I’m Jake. Not James. Let’s see how you respond
this
time, shall we?’

‘No, Jake,
don’t
,’ she choked out. But even as his mouth took possession of hers she was quivering with an instant and breathless excitement.

Afterwards she wept, totally shattered by the moans of ecstasy still echoing in her ears.

‘Oh, Leigh, darling, don’t cry,’ he murmured softly, holding her naked body close to his now equally naked body.

She almost surrendered to this unexpected and disarming tenderness, almost let it wash away the bitter shame she was feeling.

But just in time she recalled what had just happened, how he had ruthlessly exploited his knowledge of her body and its sexual weaknesses, how, when she’d been at her most aroused, he’d coerced from her an erotic intimacy she’d once given freely.

‘Let me go, you...you...bastard!’

She reefed out of his arms and, scrambling to her feet, dashed into the bathroom, slamming and locking the door behind her. The sight of her reflection in the vanity mirror almost made her sick. She couldn’t help staring at her puffy red lips, at her still hard nipples, at the red marks his possessive hands had made all over her flesh.

Shivers ran up and down her spine as she hugged herself in disbelief. This wasn’t happening to her, she thought dazedly. It was a nightmare, and very, very soon she was going to wake up.

‘Leigh?’ Jake called out through the door. ‘Are you all right? Answer me, Leigh!’

Groaning, she dashed into the shower, snapping on the water, unmindful that it was cold to begin with. She washed herself feverishly, trying to get every trace of him from her body. But she couldn’t erase the memory of her ultimate surrender to what he wanted. Why, she agonised, had Jake always been able to command such total submission from her? Why?

And what of James? she worried. Where was he? What had Jake done to him last night to force him to let him take his place today?

Thinking about James’s predicament had the effect of making Ashleigh pull herself together. For there was more than
her
well-being at stake here. Besides, she couldn’t go back in time, couldn’t wipe out what Jake had made her do. What she
could
do was find out exactly what had happened where James was concerned, then make decisions from there.

By the time Ashleigh emerged from the bathroom, her nakedness covered by a large towel, she looked fully composed. Her cold gaze swept over Jake where he was sitting quietly on the side of the bed, his trousers and shirt back on, though the shirt buttons were not done up. He looked up at her, a frighteningly hard glint in his eyes.

‘Can we talk now?’ he asked, getting slowly to his feet. ‘
Properly
?’

‘By all means,’ Ashleigh returned frostily. ‘I’m more than eager to know how you managed to bring off this despicable charade. Just how many people were in on it, besides your sidekick Mr Stevenson?’

Jake’s sigh carried exasperation. ‘Look, Leigh, I—’

‘Just give me the bare facts, please,’ she snapped. ‘Nothing else.’

His eyes narrowed. ‘Very well. My mother was aware of the situation. As, of course, was James and his best man.’

‘Nancy knew?’
Ashleigh gasped. ‘And she...let you get away with it?’

A rather bitter smile creased Jake’s mouth. ‘Mother was only too glad to go along with my suggestions, once I pointed out the alternative.’

‘I can’t imagine what you could have said or done to force her to go along with such a preposterous and disgraceful idea!’

Ashleigh swayed on unsteady feet as she recalled Nancy’s visit before the wedding ceremony, at how dreadfully upset the poor woman had been. Her heart went out to the lady, to what she’d felt then, to what she must be feeling now. How a son could put his mother through such an ordeal she had no idea.

She took a few ragged steps towards him, her face pained. ‘How...how could you do such a thing, Jake?’ she rasped. ‘To your mother? To me? And
why?
You don’t love me. You
never
really loved me!’

And then it came to her. His return had nothing to do with love, but possession. She’d once been his, body and soul, and, while he’d been able to stand her moving on to some unknown man, he hadn’t been able to bear her marrying his brother, in James enjoying the fruits—so to speak—of what he had sown.

‘Oh, my God,’ she groaned. ‘What have you done with James? You...you’ve really hurt him, haven’t you?’

Jake’s eyes grew scornful at her concern for his brother. ‘James is fine. At this very moment he is on his way to Europe in the company of his best man.’

She gaped, totally thrown by why James would meekly go off and let Jake pretend to marry her in his stead. ‘But
why
did he let you take his place?
Why?’
she groaned, and shook her head in agitation. ‘This is all madness. I...I can’t take it in...’

‘Peter Reynolds is James’s lover,’ Jake stated flatly.

Ashleigh froze, her mouth dropping open, her head whirling with what Jake had just said.

‘James was marrying you as a cover to ensure his social respectability,’ he went on. ‘
And
to have the child he always wanted.’

Ashleigh staggered over to slump down on the side of the bed. She could not speak. She felt nothing but shock and sheer disbelief.

Jake walked over and sat down beside her, picking up her chilled, lifeless hands, covering and warming them with his own. ‘I’m sorry to tell you such upsetting news so bluntly, but is there a nice way for news like that? The only comfort I can give you is that he loves you as much as he is capable of loving a woman. I suppose he thought he would be able to successfully consummate the marriage. He told me he kissed you a couple of times and had been aroused enough by them. To be honest, I don’t think James is truly gay. He just met the wrong man at the wrong time in his life.’

Stricken, Ashleigh searched Jake’s eyes, hoping to see that he was lying. But she could see he wasn’t.

‘The invitation to your wedding only reached me three days ago,’ he explained. ‘I was on a type of holiday in the hills, you see, and the letter went all around the giddy-goat in Thailand before reaching me. I’ve never been so shocked in all my life. Or more upset. I’ve sacrificed my love for you twice, Leigh, for what I imagined noble reasons. But I could not stand by and see you marry my brother. Surely you can understand that...?’

Ashleigh blinked. She wasn’t understanding very much at the moment. Her mind was back on what Jake had just said.

‘What...what do you mean, you sacrificed your love for me...twice...?’

But already a suspicion was forming in her mind that startled and dismayed her.

Those beautiful blue eyes clouded for a moment as though some dark memory had leapt from the past to inflict a special kind of torment.

‘I wasn’t guilty, Leigh,’ he rasped. ‘Either of trafficking or possessing drugs. The heroin was included in my luggage by a very clever ruse. I told you I was guilty so you would go away, so you would forget me, so you wouldn’t waste your lovely young life pining for a man who was facing life imprisonment in a prison system that knew no such thing as parole or mercy...’

A wave of emotion swelled in Ashleigh’s heart as she thought of Jake in that filthy prison, making such a noble, heart-rending sacrifice. ‘Oh, Jake,’ she cried in genuine pity.

‘How was I to know that a twist of fate would eventually set me free?’ he went on in a thickened voice. ‘Or that when I rushed home, hopeful you might still love me, I would once again be waylaid through treachery?’