Conveniently His Omnibus (11 page)

Suddenly it was impossible to resist. Her tongue touched his, tentatively at first and then more daringly, her body melting with heat as she heard his fiercely indrawn breath and felt the muscles of his chest compress.

Her whole body was aching with desire for him and he had only kissed her. Only kissed her, that was all. Her lips clung despairingly to his as she felt their pressure ease and she thought she felt him smile as his mouth moved slowly over her skin, exploring the shape of her face, his breath warm against her ear.

‘Let me take this off.’

She felt his fingers touch the single fastening that held her dress on and reacted instinctively, her body tensing, as she begged, ‘Please don’t do this, Jon.’

But it was too late and anyway he wasn’t listening to her. His eyes were fastened on the twin peaks of her breasts, fully exposed to him now that their covering of silk had slithered away. Transfixed, she watched as his head bent slowly towards her breasts, remembering on a sudden wave of revulsion how Chris had bitten her tender flesh and how she had recoiled from him in pain and shock. Until now she had forgotten that...but she had not forgotten his anger and contempt.

She reached out protestingly, her fingers digging into Jon’s shoulder. Her voice thick with anguish as she pleaded, ‘Please...’

The downward movement of his head stilled and he looked at her. ‘What is it?’ he asked her softly.

Not even the familiar sound of his voice could calm her. ‘I don’t like it,’ she heard herself whimpering. ‘It hurts...’

She saw his eyes darken and tensed in expectation of the same angry contempt Chris had shown her but instead he said gratingly, ‘Is that what he did, Sophy? Did he hurt you?’

She closed her eyes, not daring to reply in case she burst into tears. What was the matter with her? Not so very long ago she had lain awake at night tormented by her aching need for Jon to touch her but now that he was...

‘Well, I promise you I won’t.’

She could feel the tension in his body as his hands cupped her breast. Despite herself she shivered slightly. He was looking at her, forcing her to meet his gaze, and then he bent his head and gently kissed each coral nipple with warm lips.

A shuddering sigh was wrenched from deep within her, the fear flooding out of her, pushed by the slow tide of desire coming in its wake. The sensation of Jon’s mouth against her breast had been both reassuring and tormenting. She wanted more than the light brush of his lips against her skin, she realised achingly. Much, much more—but Jon was already moving away from her.

Reacting instinctively, she reached towards him curling her fingers into his hair, feeling the unmistakable hardening of her nipples beneath the heat of the sharp breath he expelled.

‘Sophy.’ He said her name roughly, warningly, but she was past heeding him, her own voice taut with longing as she moaned softly. ‘Jon, please...’

‘Please what?’ His voice was thick and slurred as though the words were unfamiliar to him, one hand cupping her breast, the other drawing her down against his mouth as he muttered against her skin, ‘Please this?’ and his mouth moved back to her breast.

For long, long moments, the only noise in the room was the tortured sound of her breathing and the moist movement of his mouth caressing her breast, his tongue moving roughly over the aroused peak of it until she was moaning in wild pleasure.

She ached when he released her but not because he had hurt her.

‘Don’t be afraid, I’m not going to do anything you don’t want.’

She closed her eyes as she felt him move. Couldn’t he see that what she was afraid of now was that she
would
want it...that in wanting him she would be vulnerable to him and that, like Chris, he would find her lacking and reject her? And that was something she could not endure.

She moved away from him and knew he had registered her withdrawal as he said her name sharply.

‘It’s late, Jon,’ she told him huskily. ‘I must go back to my own room.’

For a moment she thought he was going to stop her, and then she heard him sigh.

‘Sophy, you know I want you,’ he told her tiredly. ‘I want you to want me in return, not to be frightened of me. Is it me you’re frightened of, or sex in general?’

‘A little of both,’ she admitted huskily. ‘I don’t want you to look at me the way Chris looked at me, Jon,’ she told him tormentedly. ‘Believe me, it’s better if I go now. If I stayed I promise you you’d only be disappointed.’

‘Is that what he told you?’ he asked her roughly. ‘That all men would find you disappointing because he did?’

She managed a wry smile. ‘I’m not a complete fool, Jon. There have been other men...oh, none of them were ever physically intimate with me because sooner or later our relationship always reached the point where it became obvious that I was disappointing them.’

‘Are you sure you’re not just saying all this because you find me a turn-off?’

‘No!’ Her denial rang with truth. She reached out and touched his face hesitantly, trying to smile at him. ‘Believe it or not, Jon, I find you extremely desirable. But can’t you see that just makes it so much harder? Because of that, I’m frightened of disappointing you.’

She got off the bed before he could say anything and picked up her dress, hurrying out into the corridor and into her own room.

CHAPTER SEVEN

S
HE
WOKE
UP
during the night, not knowing what had disturbed her, conscious only of some sound alien to those she normally heard.

Her bedroom door opened inwards and she sat up in bed, her eyes widening as she saw Jon walk into her room.

He was wearing pyjama bottoms, dark silk ones, and she tensed as he came over to the bed, wanting him and yet afraid of what that wanting might lead to when he too discovered how useless she was as a woman.

As he reached for the bedclothes, she wriggled away, smothering a tiny gasp of surprise as he slid into bed beside her.

‘Jon!’

Her protest was silenced by the warm brush of his fingers against her mouth. ‘I can’t sleep without you, Sophy,’ she heard him saying huskily, as his arms went round her. ‘I only want to sleep with you in my arms, that’s all.’

Unbelievably he was already falling asleep as his arm drew her back against the warmth of his body. She knew she ought to wake him up and send him back to his own bed but it was good having him lie beside her, his body against her own. Instinctively she snuggled back against him, sighing faintly as his arm curved round her body just under her breasts.

They were married, after all, she reminded herself as she fell asleep; and there was nothing immoral in them being here together like this. Apart, of course, from the fact that he did not love her, while she...

He wanted her though, she thought defiantly. He had told her so and there had been no reason for him to lie. What on earth was it that she had that Lorraine and Louise did not seem to possess? Perhaps he just wasn’t keen on blondes, she thought wryly, suppressing a self-mocking smile as sleep stole over her.

* * *

S
HE
WOKE
UP
EARLY
conscious that something was different, but not sure what it was until she felt the weight of Jon’s arm across her body. It was just gone five in the morning. She really ought to wake him and send him back to his own bed. If Alex should wake early and come in for an early morning cuddle as she sometimes did...

She tried to wriggle out from under his arm so that she could shake him but instantly it tightened around her, threatening to crush her ribs. She heard him mutter something in his sleep and then move slightly taking her with him so that somehow her legs became tangled up in his.

She knew immediately that he had woken up, even before he murmured her name in husky surprise, the tone of his voice subtly changing as he repeated her name.

‘Lovely, Sophy,’ he murmured against her ear. ‘Who would ever have dreamed that I would wake up with you in my arms?’ His hand skimmed the shape of her body and she felt him shake slightly as he asked, ‘What on earth is this? It feels like something my grandmother might have worn.’

It was in fact a long cotton nightdress which was slightly Victorian in design. Normally she only wore it in winter but last night, for some reason, despite the heat, she had decided to put it on.

‘Jon, you really ought to go back to your own bed.’ She tried to turn round so that she could look at him, and found she wished she had not as she saw the lazy blue warmth in his eyes as he looked back at her. His jaw was dark and she touched it lightly, her eyes widening at the harsh rasp of his beard against her fingertips.

‘You must have to shave twice a day.’ Even as she spoke she was conscious of the banality of her comment.

Jon’s mouth twitched slightly but his voice was quite grave as he whispered back, ‘At least.’ His fingers curled round her wrist, transferring hers from his jaw to his mouth. The sensation of his mouth moving against her fingertips was oddly erotic. She could feel herself starting to tremble, a low ache spreading through her stomach as he gently sucked her fingers into his mouth, his free hand stroking down her body to caress her breast.

‘Jon...’

He released her fingers and pressed his own against her mouth. ‘No, don’t speak,’ he told her softly. ‘Don’t say anything, Sophy. Not now.’ And because suddenly she seemed to have been transported to a dream world where anything was possible and only Jon existed, she found it easy to acquiesce, to simply let herself follow where he led and give herself over completely to the voluptuosity of his lovemaking.

She had discovered so much she had not known before about him already and here it seemed was something else she had not known, her body recognising instantly that his touch was that of a man who had once learned and never forgotten how to give the utmost pleasure.

Sighing beneath the seductive stroke of his fingers she let him remove her nightdress, crying out softly when the heat of his body touched her own but not with pain, or fear, unless it was the pain of being so close to him and yet not part of him and the fear of losing this pleasure he was giving her almost before it was begun. His pyjamas followed her nightdress on to the floor, his hands drawing her against his body.

‘I want you, Sophy.’ He murmured the words into her throat, sliding his hands to her hips, holding her bones almost as though he might crush them. She shivered and reached out to touch him, tracing the hard slope of his shoulder, pressing her mouth to his warm skin, gently biting the satin firmness of it until she felt the husky groan move his chest. He had thrown off the duvet and it was light enough for her to see his body. Strong and fully aroused, making her shiver faintly with awareness and desire. It was not the sexual act of possession she feared but her own inability to respond to it; the crushing sense of anticlimax and rejection she knew must surely come when Jon discovered...

‘What is it?’ His voice was gentle, teasing her slightly as he murmured against her ear. ‘Surely you have seen a naked man before?’

She hadn’t really—at least not as openly as she was seeing him—but it wasn’t that that held her spellbound in some sort of motionless trance. She swallowed and turned to meet his eyes. ‘Never one as male as you, Jon,’ she told him tremulously...and truthfully, watching his eyes darken and his mouth curl, as his finger traced the shape of her mouth.

‘That was a highly inflammatory remark, wouldn’t you say?’

She couldn’t respond because his mouth was touching hers, caressing her lips with tormenting slowness, until she was forced to wind her arms round his neck and arch her body into his with an impatient moan of need.

She was aware of his fingers biting deeply into her upper arms as he held her against him, just as she was aware of the hard arousal of his body moving against her own, but it was the fiercely draining pressure of his mouth she was aware of the most, the heated movement of his tongue as it sought her own. Desire, sharp and tormenting twisted in her stomach and she pulled her mouth free to whisper his name as she drew painful gasps of air into her lungs.

He was kissing her throat, her shoulders, nibbling at the tender flesh, trailing tormenting kisses down over the upper slopes of her breasts and then the valley between them. Her nipples were stiff, aching for the warmth of his mouth but he seemed determined to ignore them. Stifling a tormented moan, Sophy curled her fingers into his hair, guiding his head to her breast, her body arching up to his mouth in open supplication.

She felt him shudder and for one agonising moment thought she had somehow disgusted him, but even as she tried to pull away his hand cupped her breast, his mouth hot against her skin as he muttered into the creamy flesh, ‘Sophy...Sophy...this time I can’t be gentle.’ And then his mouth was tugging urgently on the coral hardness of her nipple, unleashing a cramping, burning ache low down in her stomach, making her sob his name and drag her nails against his skin as she felt the tiny shudders of pleasure radiate through her body.

There was an odd ringing noise in her head...a distracting sound she did not want to hear, a tormented sound of denial dragged from her throat as Jon abruptly released her.

‘The alarm’s gone off,’ he told her, sitting up slowly. He was breathing so hard she could see the rise and fall of his chest. Sweat clung to his skin. ‘Sophy...?’

Sounds from the next room silenced him. ‘Now obviously isn’t the time to say all that I want to say to you,’ he said wryly. ‘I suspect that any minute now you’re likely to be invaded.’ He reached for his pyjama bottoms pulling them on, his body still openly aroused. ‘As soon as we can we’re going to have to talk.’ He bent briefly and kissed her, just as the door opened and Alex came rushing in.

She stopped abruptly, staring round-eyed at them, demanding curiously, ‘What are you doing in here, Uncle Jon?’

‘I had a nightmare and your uncle spent the night with me,’ Sophy fibbed lightly, giving the little girl a smile.

‘Does that mean that you’ll always be sleeping together now, like real Mummies and Daddies?’ Alex enquired innocently.

Sophy dared not look at Jon. Would he want to sleep with her on a permanent basis...to make their relationship a physical as well as a legal one?

‘You’re not wearing a nightie.’ She had forgotten about that, and blushed guiltily. Jon, standing by the bedroom door was laughing and over Alex’s head her eyes met his.

‘Mummies don’t need them when they sleep with Daddies,’ he told Alex with a grin, sauntering out into the landing.

* * *

O
F
COURSE
IT
WAS
too much to hope for that Alex would let the subject drop. She was full of it over breakfast, telling David all about it, and Sophy was conscious of a certain slightly adult awareness in David’s expression as he looked at her. ‘Married people should sleep together,’ he told Alex firmly.

Luckily Sophy was able to change the subject before Alex could continue it, reminding the children that they would be having visitors at the weekend.

It was on Friday that Jon’s friends arrived from Nassau, and on Saturday evening they were coming round for dinner. Sophy still wasn’t sure what she was going to serve. She felt very nervous about meeting them although she told herself there was no reason why she should.

An emergency call from one of his clients meant that Jon had to go out immediately after breakfast. His client’s offices were in London and he told Sophy before he left that he might not be back that night. She felt empty and very much alone when he had gone, almost as though a shadow had fallen across her day. If she had doubted that she loved him before, she didn’t do so any longer. It took a considerable effort to rouse herself enough to take the children to school and once she had done she found herself reluctant to go back to the empty house. Instead she drove into Cambridge and spent what was left of the morning glancing through cookery books in the library and trying to plan her dinner party menu.

Something simple, she decided...and something cool. In the end she decided on salmon and cucumber mousse followed by chicken and avocado salad with a cheese board and home-made ice cream to follow. She would have to consult Jon about the wine. Jon...it was ridiculous how even the inward sound of his name had the power to arouse and alarm her. Why should he want
her?
She had no way of knowing...she could only accept that he did and be thankful for it.

* * *

T
HE
DINING
AND
DRAWING
rooms were not rooms that they normally used as a family, and Sophy grimaced faintly over their unappealing appearance. Jon had given her a completely free hand with the renovation of the house, but the weather had been so hot that she had not been motivated into making any changes. Now, with the dinner party imminent, she wished that she had. There was nothing wrong with the rooms themselves but they were furnished with clumsy, sale-room oddments and badly needed decorating. The only real improvement she could make was to fill them with freshly cut flowers and keep the lighting dim, she decided wryly when she had finished dusting and vacuuming both rooms on Friday morning.

There had been no phone call yet from Jon and while she was missing him dreadfully she was also apprehensive about his return. They needed to talk he had said to her, but what did he intend to say? Now that she had admitted to herself that she loved him, it seemed impossible that she had not known the truth before; that fierce jealousy she had felt when Alex had innocently told her about Louise for instance...she ought to have known then. But she hadn’t wanted to know. She had felt safer simply liking him; safer thinking of him as a non-sexual being. She had never even tried to look beyond the façade he presented to the world, because she had been quite content with that façade.

When he still hadn’t returned by midnight on Friday evening Sophy went to bed. She knew where he was working and had she wanted to do so she could have put a call through to him at any time during the day, but pride had stopped her. In the past it had always been Jon who rang her to tell her when he was due to return, and she was not going to cause either of them embarrassment by being the one to ring him now. She was painfully aware of what both Roy and Andrea had told her; that in the past Jon had been blatantly pursued by her sex and had apparently not liked it. She had enough intelligence to guess that Lorraine’s virulent hatred was more likely to have sprung from Jon’s rejection of her than from the lack of skill in bed which she had accused him of—after all hadn’t she herself had proof positive that the latter simply was not true?

She shivered slightly beneath the duvet, her bed suddenly far too large and empty without Jon in it but she was not going to be like those others. She was not going to pursue and chase him. That was easy enough to say, she thought tiredly as she gave in to the urge to sleep, but it might be far harder than she envisaged to do.

* * *

‘W
HEN
’
S
U
NCLE
J
ON
coming back?’

They were having breakfast in the kitchen—a leisurely, late breakfast as it was Saturday morning, and once it was over Sophy intended to devote the rest of the morning to preparing for the evening’s dinner party.