by Penny Jordan
Super-sensitive to his movements, she heard him pause as he reached the door. The tiny hairs along her spine quivered when he spoke to her.
‘Remember,’ he told her, ‘if there’s anything you want or need...’
The only thing she wanted was to somehow blot out her visual memories of what had been done to her home, she told herself as she climbed into the bed. But was it? Didn’t she want him, Marsh, here in bed with her, holding her, protecting her, loving her?
No, no, of course she didn’t, she told herself shakily. That was exactly what she didn’t want. What she could not allow herself to want.
She sat up in bed, holding the mug of chocolate, sipping it and pulling a face as she felt the raw sting of the spirit it contained on the back of her throat.
Exactly how much had Marsh put in it? she wondered dizzily ten minutes later. It felt like enough to knock out a horse, never mind her.
She could feel herself succumbing to the strength of the alcohol, her thoughts slowing, easing, her body unable to hold on to its tension as she slid unstoppably into sleep.
She woke up slowly and muzzily, a sour taste in her mouth, her head aching slightly. She turned her head towards the window, blinking in the light coming through her curtains. What time was it? She was still wearing her watch. She glanced at it and then tensed. Ten to ten. It couldn’t be. She ought to be at work.
She was halfway out of bed before she realised that all she had to wear were yesterday’s already worn clothes. She grimaced with distaste at the thought of putting them on again, especially her underwear.
Marsh should not have let her sleep. He should have woken her. She frowned as her gaze suddenly focused on the green carrier-bag on the bedroom chair. There was a note pinned to it. She frowned as she read it.
Hope these will be the right size.
She got out of bed and walked over to the chair, opening the bag. Inside it was a pack of plain white briefs and a box containing a pretty cotton bra edged with pale pink ribbon, and yes, they were the right size. There was also a pair of tights, and another bag, which she opened to reveal a toothbrush and comb.
Her eyes smarted with tears. There had been no need for Marsh to do that for her, and it made her ache slightly inside that he had.
He must, she realised, have been out and bought these things for her, and brought them into the room while she was still asleep. She felt a slight frisson of apprehension touch her at the thought of him seeing her as she slept. Had he seen the way she had curled herself into his shirt, breathing in the scent of it like a child with a comforter? She flushed at the thought that he had, and then told herself firmly that he had probably never even given her a second glance.
She wondered what he had told them at work.
Work! She must get washed and dressed and into the office. Quickly she got out of bed and picked up her new underwear, heading for the bathroom, opening the door without even a second thought and then coming to an abrupt standstill as she heard Marsh say warningly, ‘Hang on.’
But it was too late—the door was wide open, and she was standing inside the bathroom, her eyes widening in an instinctive female response to the sight of his naked body.
He was, as she’d imagined, lean and tautly muscled, his skin smooth, adhering sleekly to his bones.
His body hair, though, was softer than she had imagined, fine and dark, almost fluffy where it was beginning to dry, so that she wanted to reach out to see if it felt as tantalisingly soft as it looked.
It startled her how erotic the thought of its softness against the muscled hardness of his body was to her, how much the contrast in textures lured her to explore them with her fingertips.
It took her several seconds to register the fact that he had been drying himself when she’d walked into the bathroom, and that he was now holding the towel in front of his body.
When she recognised that the emotion she felt was not one of relief at his modesty but rather one of disappointment, she flushed vividly.
‘You’re embarrassed!’ Marsh exclaimed feelingly. ‘How do you think I feel? I always thought it was the woman who was supposed to do the timid cowering behind her towel, not the man.’
He was smiling, Debra recognised, gently teasing her as he deftly wrapped the towel around himself.
‘I...I thought you’d gone,’ she explained helplessly, her colour still high.
‘I said I wouldn’t leave you on your own,’ Marsh reminded her.
‘But you must have gone out for these.’
He smiled as he glanced at the boxes she was holding.
‘No, I rang Margaux and asked her if she could get them for me. I also told her that neither of us would be in the office today.’
‘Neither of us? But—’
‘The police will want to interview both of us again,’ Marsh told her, ‘and I thought you might want to go and see your parents. I’ll drive you over there.’
‘No. There’s really no need,’ Debra protested, but Marsh was already reaching past her to push closed the door.
‘Have you any idea how very sexy you look in my shirt?’ he asked her softly.
His words were tiny darts of pleasure, each one of them anaesthetising her to the danger of what was happening.
‘Debra?’
There was a question in his voice that made her shiver in silent acceptance of what he was asking.
She heard the door swing gently closed and then he was holding her, touching her, with such finesse and delicacy that, instead of her feeling alarmed or apprehensive, it was like being enfolded in warmth and safety.
For the first time since it had happened, she completely forgot Kevin Riley and what he had done.
Marsh was touching her, gently kneading her tense shoulders, watching her, watching her mouth, she recognised on a sudden stab of sharp longing.
‘You want me to kiss you.’
His hand touched her face, gently pushing aside her hair, his thumb rubbing her skin as though savouring its softness.
Without touching her with his body, he leaned towards her.
‘I want to kiss you, Debra,’ he told her huskily. ‘I want to hold you and taste you, to feel you open your mouth to me and want me.’
Her heart was beating so fast that she could hardly breathe. He was arousing her without even touching her, without doing anything other than talk to her. Her body ached for him already, a fierce wanton ache that pushed aside all her reservations and demanded that it be allowed this panacea for all that the last few hours had made it suffer.
She moved towards him slightly, an inch or so, no more, but it was enough. His mouth came down on hers, warm and gentle, savouring the shape of her lips, the softness of their texture with a sensuality that silenced the voice of warning struggling to remind her that this was exactly what she had not wanted to do.
His mouth left hers and skimmed her cheekbone, touching her ear.
‘Hold me, Debra,’ he whispered. ‘Put your arms round me and hold me.’
She did as he asked, marvelling at the satin smoothness of his skin, trembling as she felt her own body’s response to this intimacy with his and then tensing as she recognised how cumbersome, how intrusive, how unwanted the presence of his shirt suddenly was.
‘Would you like to take this off?’
Had he read her mind? She looked wonderingly at him, her eyes mirroring both confusion and desire.
She knew he was looking at her, waiting for her response, but she couldn’t say anything. Her throat aching with tension, she acknowledged that she wanted to feel his skin against her own and that she was certainly old enough, mature enough to be able to say freely and openly what she wanted, but for some reason she felt as shy and tongue-tied as though she were still a young girl, wanting to be shown how to appreciate her own sexuality, rather than a woman who already knew and understood it.
Tensely she reached for the top button of the shirt, willing herself to take responsibility for her own actions as an adult s
Her eyes filled with unwanted angry tears, which she tried to blink away.
‘What is it?’ Marsh asked her softly. ‘Have I got it wrong, Debra? Don’t you want me?’
As she looked away from him Debra saw her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Beneath his shirt the tautness of her erect nipples was clearly discernible.
‘You know it isn’t that,’ she told him huskily, flushing a little at her own too abrupt and clumsy delivery of the words.
He too was looking at her breasts now. He reached out and circled one taut nipple with the tip of his fingers, a surge of colour suddenly darkening his skin as he withdrew his hand from her and asked unevenly, ‘What is it, then? Is my timing wrong—is that it?’
She ought to have been able to say yes, but knew that it would be a lie. Against all logic she wanted him now more than she had ever done; the sweet taste of pleasure to wipe out the acid taste of fear?
‘I just feel so... You shouldn’t have to undress me,’ she told him with fierce self-anger. ‘You aren’t coercing me... I—’
‘Would it make any difference if I said that I wanted to do it?’ he asked her and, although he was smiling, she could see that he meant it.
Her heart missed a beat and then doubled.
Unlike hers, his fingers were deft as he gently unfastened the buttons, but once he had them unfastened, instead of removing the shirt he slid his hands inside it, pulling her against him, holding her with one hand while the other cupped her face, his fingers burrowing into her hair as he bent his head to kiss her. Slowly at first, as though he wanted to take his time and savour her, and then abruptly, with a sudden sharp hunger that stopped the breath in her lungs and made her press herself up against him as she returned the pressure of his kiss, eagerly opening her mouth, touching his tongue with her own, stroking and caressing it while her heart thumped frantically at the sharp acceleration of her need.
Now she could feel Marsh’s hands on her skin, pushing aside the shirt, as he buried his mouth in the curve of her shoulder and groaned that he couldn’t wait any longer to feel all of her against him; that he couldn’t wait to stroke and touch her skin, to know its warmth and curves, to taste its silky sweetness.
His words were only an echo of her own earlier desire, and she tensed and trembled, remembering it.
‘What’s wrong?’ he asked her, lifting his head to look at her. ‘Have I upset you? Shocked you?’
She shook her head.
‘What is it, then?’
He was holding her slightly away from him and as he moved, brushing the hair off her face, his body just touched her breasts.
The sensation that pierced her, darting through her like fire, made her draw in her breath, and suddenly she knew that no matter what happened, no matter what price she might later have to pay, she could not, she would not deny herself this time with him.
Even if for him it was merely desire... merely sex? She banished the thought quickly before she could dwell on it, silencing the last of her doubts, drowning them out with the sound of her own voice as she told him truthfully and quickly, ‘Before. ..I wanted to look at you. To touch you,’ she said helplessly. ‘I wanted...’ She swallowed, unable to continue.
‘Come here.’
He looked at her, watching the delicate colour flood her skin, and then said softly, ‘Give me your hand.’
Shakily she did so, tensing as he placed it on his towel and then covered it with his own, tugging firmly so that the towel fell away.
‘Now you can look and touch just as much as you like,’ he told her huskily, ‘providing you don’t mind me wanting to do the same to you,’ and then she was in his arms and he was kissing her with the kind of hunger and urgency she had imagined was something only dreamed up by the over-active imaginations of fiction writers and, what was more, she was responding to him just as passionately.
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘ALL RIGHT.’
Dazedly Debra opened her eyes. She was wrapped in Marsh’s arms, her head tucked into his shoulder, his hand resting on her waist as they lay together in his bed.
She was still breathing a little unsteadily, still caught up in the awe and wonder of the physical pleasure she had experienced, and still a little afraid of it.
She had thought she had known everything there was to know about her own body, about its reactions and desires, but the intensity of the orgasm she had just experienced was way, way outside her experience.
And even more alien to her awareness of herself had been the pleas she had whispered, the needs she had expressed; the things she had said as Marsh had made love to her verbally as well as physically.
Now he was gently smoothing her damp hair off her face, watching her a little gravely as he spoke to her.
‘I...we should be at work,’ she told him huskily.
For some reason that made him laugh.
‘To judge from the sound of your breathing, you have been,’ he teased her gently, and then, suddenly sobering, he asked her rawly, ‘Have you any idea of just how much I still want you?’
‘Show me,’ Debra whispered; suddenly, unbelievably, she wanted him again. He read that knowledge in her eyes and touched her slowly, stroking her sensitive skin, his tongue lapping at the damp hollow of her throat, its actions mimicking the far more intimate way in which he had caressed her earlier.
Her desire for him flowed through her in a sweetly slow tide. Hunger and immediacy had been softened, tamed a little by what had gone before, and now she could add to her own desire to touch and know him, the knowledge she had already learned of what most pleased and aroused him.
He too, though, had also learned what pleased her, and very soon she felt the sure touch of his hands, the sensation of his mouth at her breast, slowly caressing the taut peak at its centre, and then, when she quivered in an uncontrollable response to what he was doing, pausing to groan softly against the satin dampness of her body before drawing her nipple back into his mouth and suckling so rhythmically and fiercely on it that she knew what he was doing was as arousing to him as it was to her.
Her fingers slid into his hair, holding him against her body, her soft gasps of pleasure an uninhibited response to his lovemaking.
Before, he had urged her to caress him in the same way, his back arching, his eyes closing, his whole body shuddering in an open expression of his pleasure when she did so.
He had shown her so clearly, told her so vocally not just how much he desired her, but how much it pleased him when she touched him.
She had never realised that a man could be so open, so potentially vulnerable about his needs, and it had helped her to push aside her own caution and restraint; to tell him shyly how much the touch of his hands and mouth delighted her.
But not all the time. There had been moments, sensations so devastating, so overpowering that she had lost herself too completely in them to do anything other than let her body speak for itself.
Now, as his hands spanned her waist and his mouth nuzzled the soft flesh there, as he told her that she tasted of honey and roses, and the husky tension in his voice made her tremble inwardly in anticipation of the strong thrust of his body within her own, she marvelled that she could ever have believed she could deny them both this intimacy; this sharing... this loving.
The hand stroking the nape of his neck stilled.
Loving. That was what it had been for her. But for him? In his lovemaking there had been all the things she had ever wanted to find in such intimacy, but he had not actually said that he loved her.
But then neither had she said that she loved him.
He made a soft sound of pleasure against her skin, his fingers slowly stroking the inside of her thigh.
A thrill of sensation and urgency ran through her, the swift resurgence of her physical desire overwhelming her ability to think.
She moved closer to him, holding him, whispering to him that she wanted to touch him, to hold him, to caress his body with the same intimacy with which he was pleasuring hers.
She fell asleep in his arms, her mouth still curved in a soft smile of completion.
Marsh watched her for a long time, and then gently tucked her hair behind her ear.
There had never been a woman in his life like this one. In his twenties he had been wary of commitment, of allowing himself to love. He had seen too many of his friends marry young, their relationships falling apart under the pressures placed upon them.
But now... now things were different. Now, with this woman, he was ready to make every commitment there was. But was she equally ready to commit herself to him?
He touched her mouth sombrely. She had wanted him, he knew that, and it had been easy for him to see that her awareness of her own sensuality was very limited.
But wanting someone was different from loving them.
Downstairs he heard the telephone ring.
Gently he eased himself away from her, pulling on his robe.
He went downstairs and picked up the receiver, frowning as he listened to the voice of the policeman at the other end of the line.
They had found the boy Kevin Riley, he was told, but there had been some confusion at the police station and unfortunately he had run off and disappeared. He was ringing, he added, to suggest that Debra should not attempt to return to her house on her own just in case Kevin went back there.
He would make sure that she did not, Marsh assured him.
Soberly he went back upstairs.
Debra was still asleep. Much as he would have liked to spend the rest of the day, and as many days as possible after that, in bed with her, there were things he had to do.
He smiled as he saw his discarded shirt, picking it up. His touch seemed to release from the fabric the scent of her skin. He felt his body’s response to the sensual messages it was receiving and groaned under his breath.
This was ridiculous, he derided himself, torn between laughter and disbelief. He was a man of thirty-odd, not a boy who had just discovered the power of his sexuality.
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