Unwilling Surrender
Page 17
‘Please don’t laugh.’
‘I’m not laughing,’ he said in a low voice. He tilted her chin so that she was looking at him, right into his eyes. ‘I was a fool all those years ago. I should have grabbed out to you and made sure that you never got away, because you made me feel special then, and you’re the only woman who’s ever succeeded in doing that. When we found ourselves marooned in that cottage I felt as though, in some strange way, I’d come home.’
Christina was hardly breathing. If she was imagining all this, if she was crazy, then she never wanted sanity to return.
‘What are you saying?’ she asked.
‘I’m saying, as if it weren’t obvious, that I’m nuts about you—mad, insane, call it what you will, but I love you to death.’
‘You do?’ Now this surely was a dream, but it wasn’t. She knew that when he lowered his head and his mouth brushed against her, lightly and persuasively, tantalising foreplay.
‘If you thought that you wanted to make sure, after Greg, that your fingers were never burnt again, then you’d better believe that I felt even more so. Do you know, you’re the only person in whom I’ve ever confided the state of my parents’ marriage? That’s when I knew that something odd was going on, that you were weaving some kind of spell over me, and it was frightening. Nothing had prepared me for falling in love. Making money, yes, I knew all about that, just as I knew all about making love, but what I felt for you was like a bolt from the blue. I suddenly found myself wishing that I had got to know you—I mean really know you—much sooner, but our paths never seemed to cross, did they?’
‘Only in passing,’ Christina admitted, in a daze. She gasped as his hand travelled downwards to her breast, cupping it until it swelled in agonising response.
‘Why? I wonder.’
‘We moved in different circles,’ she said, her breath catching in her throat as his fingers began to play with her nipple, rubbing it gently, hypnotically, through her top. ‘I can’t think properly when you do that,’ she said unevenly, and he smiled.
‘Good. I suppose,’ he continued thoughtfully, reaching under her jumper to stroke her stomach, before gently unzipping her trousers,'I suppose you’re right. I only ever seemed to see you in the company of Fiona, when there were millions of other people milling about, at some wretched social gathering. I can remember countless Christmas parties when I could just about glimpse you in between the thousands. I always got the impression that you were avoiding me.’
‘Did you?’ Christina asked lazily, enjoying what his exploring hand was doing to her, and enjoying what he was saying even more. ‘I wonder why.’
‘Could it have anything to do with the fact that all I ever seemed to get out of you was a polite little wave, a polite little smile, occasionally a bit of small talk, then a quick look around before you made your escape?’
‘Can you blame me?’ she asked, smiling. ‘I was at a very impressionable age when you made it clear that my teenage crush was something of a joke.’
‘So you spent the next eight years or so avoiding me?’
‘Not actually avoiding.’
‘Well, you’ll have to get used to me being around from now on, because I won’t be letting you run away again.’
‘And how do you propose to do that?’ she teased, liking the unusual feeling of power over him.
‘By putting a certain little gold band around your finger, and if necessary I’ll even resort to begging.’
‘Is that a marriage proposal, Adam Palmer?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘I take it you’ll do me the honour?’
She didn’t have to answer that one. The reply was in her eyes and he smiled at her.
‘I wonder what Fiona will say?’ she mused after a while, when the delicious prospect of being married to him was beginning to sink in.
‘I should think, knowing my sister, that after two seconds of surprise she’ll accept it as if it were the most expected thing in the world. Not that she’ll have much time to devote to us. She’s head over heels in love, so she informs me, with my highly suitable blind date.’
He laughed and she had to chuckle at the devilish gleam in his eyes. ‘I guess you think you know everything, don’t you?’ Christina asked wryly, and he shot her a lingering look from under his lashes.
‘I knew you loved me. Not immediately, but gradually it began to dawn on me, somewhere in my subconscious. When I went out to Trinidad it was half to follow you and half to try and see whether the presence of Frances might put what I was feeling for you into perspective. You see, I really didn’t want my life complicated by falling in love—not that I considered that an option for me anyway. But you managed to get under my skin and I found that I was powerless to do anything about it.’
‘Powerless?’ she asked with mock-incredulity.
‘Who would have thought it? When we got back to England, I’d made up my mind that the whole thing was ridiculous, that love was not something I believed in, that I was far too cynical to be caught in that particular trap, that if I stayed away from you long enough things would return to normal. But that was just wishful thinking. I tried and I failed.’
‘Good.’ She guided his hand to her breast, covering it with her own as he massaged it with slow, sensuous movements. ‘It’s nice to know that you’re not completely failure-proof.’
He gave her a smouldering look that brought a heady flush to her cheeks. ‘I’m glad you like the thought of that,’ he murmured silkily. ‘Now perhaps you’d like to shut up? There are better things to do than talk.’ His head dipped and she felt his mouth circle her nipple, alternately sucking and licking until she groaned for him to satisfy her.
‘I’ve waited a long time for this, woman,’ he said huskily. ‘I’m going to take my time; I want to enjoy every bit of you.’
His tongue trailed a path along her stomach and she felt his hands expertly loosening her clothes until she was naked and erotically turned on by his intense appreciation of her body.
He moved down to part her thighs and she surrendered to his exploration with a moan of contentment, squirming when that exploration became exquisite agony. Only then did he remove his own clothes, to resume the teasing, sensual exploration, while he guided her hand to him.
‘Oh, God,’ she whispered huskily, when his tongue, flicking over her, was proving too tormenting, and he half smiled, as feverish now for fulfilment as she was.
She was a flower opening for him, and as he thrust into her she arched back in deep excitement.
Later, lying together, with her head cradled against his shoulder, he said unsteadily, ‘Now that you’ve managed to make an honest man out of me, I might as well warn you that I want nothing short of the whole hog.’
‘Mmm?’ she whispered languidly, kissing his neck and loving the way she could feel his arousal at that small, feathery caress.
‘Mmm,’ he said lazily, ‘the whole hog—children, the lot.’
‘I might,’ Christina sighed happily, ‘just decide to oblige you in that.’
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8835-5
Unwilling Surrender
Copyright © 1994 by Cathy Williams
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Table of Contents
TITLE PAGE
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
COPYRIGHT