Jermaine looked back into his sombre expression. 'Water under the bridge,' she smiled, and because he was Lukas's brother, and because she bore Ash no ill will, and would indeed like to be friends with him, she agreed sincerely, 'Friends.' She was about to extend her hand in friendship when Ash beamed a smile and kissed her—in friendship.
'Have lunch with me one day next week?' he suggested—but never received an answer, because suddenly Lukas was there, standing over them.
'What are you having to drink, Jermaine?' he cut in abruptly, in contrast to the pleasant way he'd been with her, all at once sounding quite aggressive.
If he asked like that, she'd die of thirst, rather. 'Nothing, thanks,' she answered politely, and could only think that Edwina had been putting more poison down—this time to Lukas. 'If no one minds,' she began, getting to her feet, 'I think I'll go to bed.'
'You're sure?' Ash was on his feet too. Lukas walked away.
'I'm sure,' she smiled, wished everyone a general 'Goodnight,' and found she had her sister for company.
'I'm without my hanky, I'll just come up and get one,' Edwina trilled, and went with Jermaine out into the hall. 'Enjoying yourself?' she asked as they started up the staircase, for once fairly bubbhng with good humour.
Jermaine's suspicions were aroused. All evening she'd been getting nothing but surreptitious ill-humoured looks from her sister. Yet
suddenly, with no one there to witness, she was giving her the benefit of her sunnier side?
'What happened to cheer you up?' Jermaine asked with sisterly candour.
'Isn't he wonderful?' Edwina sighed, and Jermaine knew at once that she shouldn't have asked.
'Presumably we're not talking about Ash, here?'
'Lukas has just asked me to stay at Highfield for as long as I like,' Edwina answered, barely able to contain herself, and, smiling a sly smile at Jermaine, she added, 'Wouldn't you call that progress?'
Thankfully, at that moment they reached the top of the stairs. Jermaine felt too choked to answer and left Edwina to go to collect the hanky she had come up for while she went three doors down to her own room.
Jermaine owned that she felt near to tears, but she wouldn't cry! Oh, how she wished she had never come. Sledging in the snow, laughing, kissing with Lukas that day—suddenly it all seemed light years away. His manner to her just now—cold and aggressive—had been a huge contrast.
She started to get angry—she wasn't having this! First he used his charm on her, and then switched to Edwina! Jermaine started to grow more and more incensed. Who did he think he was, playing ducks and drakes with her emotions? Not that he knew so much about her emotions, of course. Nor did she want him to. But he must have gleaned that she liked him a little at least—or why would she have accepted to come here today?
Jermaine found then that she could not sustain her anger against Lukas, and it departed as swiftly as it had arrived. But she felt restless again, and was taking her fourth shower of the day when she paused to wonder—had Edwina been speaking the truth? Or was this just some more of her poison?
It was a fact that her sister had seemed riveted by every word Lukas had been uttering to her over by the drinks cabinet. But then Edwina could bat her eyes for England if she wanted something. Could it be that, perhaps from some small word Lukas had said, Edwina had picked up her crewel needle and begun yet more fabricated embroidery?
Jermaine recalled the way Lukas had taken her in his arms and kissed her when she'd earlier left her room. She remembered also the moments during dinner, when he would look over to her, and had appeared to enjoy having her there.
She was nightdress-clad and in bed when she wondered if she could trust her instincts. Could she trust that feeling that—well, that Lukas sort of liked her—well, a lot—in the romantic way?
But that was when she also remembered how she had trusted his brother. Ash, and Jermaine came down to earth with a very hard landing. Oh, great! Realising that she must be the biggest chump going, and that the philandering Tavinor brothers were having a fine old time at her expense, Jermaine was all set to leap out of bed, get dressed and get out of there right that minute.
Someone tapping lightly on her door took the moment from her. She picked up her watch—it was comparatively early; not quite ten-thirty yet. She didn't think this Boxing Day night that anyone else was retiring yet, and in the next second she was out of bed. Rapidly tying in her robe as she went, she streaked over to answer the door. It wouldn't be Edwina. She wouldn't knock, but would come straight in. But if this was one of the Tavinor twosome, she was ready for him—the one who wanted
to be her friend or the other one, who'd said he'd 'missed' her and called her 'my dear.'
Angrily she pulled back the door—and her ridiculous heart wobbled. 'Yes?' she demanded coldly—and for her sins had to stand there and endure his scrutiny.
'I knew I'd upset you,' Lukas said quietly.
'buff!' she exhaled on a careless breath.
Lukas smiled deep into her stormy violet eyes. 'According to my old nanny, one should never go to sleep on an argument.'
'We didn't argue!' Jermaine reminded him pithily. She didn't want him to smile; it weakened her.
'Are you going to let me apologize?' he asked nicely, and she was weakened further. She wanted time alone with him, she so desperately wanted to be back the way they had been.
'Forget it,' she said stubbornly, and started to close the door.
'You kissed my brother!' Lukas reminded her urgently.
'When?' she answered, startled, the door still open.
'Not long since—in the drawing room.'
She stared at him. He'd been aggressive, cold to her—because of that kiss? Her heartbeat picked up speed. Somehow she managed to get herself back together. 'I didn't kiss him. He kissed me.'
'You're not going to have lunch with him, are you?' Lukas asked winningly, and a staggering thought suddenly stunned her.
'You're— not...' she hardly dared voice the word '...jealous?'
'Me?' Lukas scoffed. But when she was ready to run at the mortification she felt from what she'd just voiced, Lukas answered, self-deprecatingly, 'Just because my brother was sitting chatting to you, just because he was kissing you?'
He Was jealous! Her heart started to thunder, and any anger she had felt melted into nothing. Oh, he couldn't be jealous—could he? She tried hard to keep both feet firmly on the ground. 'He—Ash—wants us to be friends,' Jermaine replied, having been through the agonies of jealousy herself, not wanting that pain for the man she loved.
'Ah!' said Lukas—just as though that explained everything.
But Jermaine was starting to backtrack on her notion that Lukas might be at all jealous in any way—and began to feel awkward that
she had actually suggested to his face that he might be.
'Goodnight, then,' she bade him, and would have closed the door, but again his words stopped her.
'Don't you want to see your Christmas present?' he asked, and while Jermaine stared witlessly at him Lukas bent to the side of the door that had been hidden from her view and picked up a square, flattish parcel. 'Happy Christmas, Jermaine,' he wished her softly, handing her the gold-wrapped parcel.
'Oh, Lukas!' she wailed. 'I didn't get you anything!'
'Don't be upset. My gift is supposed to make you happy,' he teased.
'May I open it?'
He nodded, a warm light in his grey eyes as he studied her face, but as a welter of emotions began to fluster her Jermaine had to turn from him. She didn't want him looking into her eyes, seeing her very soul. She walked back into her room, her fingers busy with the gold wrapping.
She removed the first wrapping to find that, whatever her gift was, it was protected by a firmer second wrapper. But once that had been done away with a gasp of utter astonishment
broke from her. 'Lukas!' she cried, and spun round to
stare at him open-mouthed. 'You...' she gasped, but was rendered speechless by the unexpectedness of his gift.
He had closed the door and had stepped a little way inside her room. 'You like it?' He smiled, her incredulous expression already telling him that 'like it' was an understatement.
Jermaine's violet gaze went from him and back to the painting he had given her. 'It's the Boy With A Barrow' she told him what he already knew. 'We saw it at that art gallery...' Her voice tailed off. 'I can't take it!' she exclaimed suddenly.
'You don t like it?'
'Oh, Lukas, you know that I love it. It's the most marvellous Christmas present ever,' she replied honestly, huskily. 'But it must have been expensive, and I can't...'
'Oh, my lovely girl, you can,' Lukas interrupted gently. 'May I not have the pleasure of seeing you enjoy your picture?' Her picture! Jermaine's eyes grew dreamy. That sounded so personal, somehow. As if—as if whenever Lukas had looked at the picture he had thought of it as her picture. 'I promise you it wasn't so very expensive,' Lukas went on to assure her when she still looked uncertain. And, for a killer punch, 'You must know, sweet Jermaine, that I couldn't possibly allow anyone else to have it.'
Her backbone went to water. 'Oh, Lukas!' she cried tremulously.
'You're not going to cry?' he asked, looking a shade worried and coming further into her room.
She laughed. 'I'm going to kiss you,' she said.
'Of the two, I can bear that better,' he grinned—and held his arms out to her.
Jermaine took one last look at the blue and pink, and the touch of red in the painting, then carefully put it down. With the whole of her being starting to tremble, she went into Lukas's outstretched arms.
His mouth against her own was the salve she needed for her earlier unhappiness. In the harbour of his arms all feeling of restlessness vanished. One kiss became two, and as Lukas held her firmly to him so she wanted more and more of him. He did not seem in any hurry to let her go.
Soon passion began to flare between them, going from warm, to hot, to fire, as Lukas traced kisses down the side of her throat and pressed her to him. She arched to him, and a murmur of wanting left him. She felt him, his body heat through the thinness of her robe, felt his hands low on her waist, at the curves of her behind as he pulled her into him.
'Lukas!' she gasped, delight such as she'd never experienced shooting through her body.
Lukas pulled back to look into the depths of her lovely violet eyes, his grey ones shouldering with his desire for her. 'We should stop?' he asked her throatily.
She swallowed hard. She didn't want to stop. She wanted more of his kisses, more of his touch. 'Do—we have to?' she asked.
'My darling!' he breathed, and as Jermaine's heart leapt, so she knew that she was ready, eager, to go wherever he led.
She smiled up at him, and as she leaned forward and kissed him so Lukas lifted her up and carried her to the bed, and gently laid her down upon it. She knew that he would join her. It was what she wanted.
She closed her eyes, her heart full. She felt the bed go down, and as Lukas came to lie beside her she opened them again and saw he had shrugged out of his jacket. He took her in his arms and they clung to each other. It was bliss, pure and simple, to be this close, to feel his body heat.
Again and again they kissed, and, as his hands caressed her so her hands seemed to roam of their own vohtion over his back and shoulders. Gently his seeking hands moved to her breasts, and she realised he must have heard her shaky breath.
'You're not frightened, sweetheart?' he asked.
'No,' she whispered. 'No,' she repeated, fearful he might not have heard the first time and might stop making love to her. 'Just a bit—um—shy, I think.'
Gently, tenderly, he laid his lips on hers. 'Sweet, Jermaine,' he breathed against her mouth, parting her lips with his own. Slowly, as if not to hurry her in this momentous happening for her, Lukas's hands went to the tie of her robe. 'May I?' He was still giving her all the time in the world to back away if she was in the least unsure.
'Yes,' she answered, and loved him, loved him, loved him, as gently he removed her robe.
Her nightdress had ridden up and Jermaine felt her face flame when she felt Lukas's hands underneath her nightdress, felt his warm touch on her bare upper thigh.
'L-Lukas!' she whispered tremulously.
His hand stilled, but there was nothing but tender understanding in his sensitive grey eyes. 'You're not quite so sure?' he asked, looking down into her lovely violet eyes, her love-flushed face.
'I am,' she assured him as quickly as she could, given that her throat felt dry. 'It's—it's just—it's all a bit—um—new, that's...'
'I know, sweetheart,' he said. 'It will be all right. Trust me.'
'Oh, I do,' she sighed, and kissed him lovingly, and had not the slightest demur to make when his stilled hand moved upwards under her nightdress, and, taking her breath with the delight of his touch, his warm, searching hand roamed her belly and upwards, to capture the swollen globe of her breast. 'Oh!' she sighed.
'You're not afraid?'
She wanted to tell him that because she loved him so everything seemed so right. 'Not with you,' she said shyly.
'My darling!' Lukas breathed exultantly, and for long, delicious moments he kissed and caressed her. Apart from a natural shyness, Jermaine was in utter rapture when he carefully took from her her last covering. 'You are a delight, sweet love,' he murmured as he gazed into her eyes, a moment before he
feasted his eyes on her pink-tipped breasts. 'Oh, my Jermaine,' he murmured throatily, and Jermaine knew yet more bliss when he trailed kisses down to her breast. While one hand held, caressed and molded her right breast, he caressed her left breast with his mouth.
Jermaine knew further enchantment when, with one arm holding her close, his sensitive fingers at her breast teased the hardened peak, cupping her breast, while his tongue at her other breast made a nonsense of her as he tasted its sweet fullness.
Again they kissed, and held and kissed, and caressed and kissed—and suddenly, in her enchanted world, Jermaine all at once became aware that Lukas had removed his clothes and was lying completely naked next to her.
'Lukas!' she cried shakily, instinctively pulling back.
'You're shocked?' he asked.
'No, no. I...' She didn't know where she was, what to do, what to say. 'Help me,' she begged.
He pulled a little away from her. 'You want to make love with me, little darling?'
'Y-yes,' she answered on a thread of sound.
'But?' He seemed to sense there was a hint of hesitation there.
'But nothing,' she answered, and swallowed hard a moment before she begged, 'Kiss me, please kiss me.'
'Sweet love,' Lukas murmured, and bent to kiss her, their bodies close once more. Jermaine clutched hard on to him, the physical feel of him, his skin, next to her on-fire skin, causing her to need a second to adjust. Biology lessons had never prepared her for this moment of being so acutely aware of a man and his need.
'Lukas,' she breathed his name jerkily. But just then the crash of a door slamming somewhere, so out of place in this moment of deep and sensitive loving, caused her to jump in alarm. And all at once Lukas was making a decision which she didn't want him to make. He sat up fast, pulling away from her. While she hadn't a clue what was happening, he began to speedily don his undergarment and trousers—so speedily it was as if, if he didn't hurry, he might change his mind. 'What?' Jermaine questioned, sitting up too.
'This isn't right, for you, my love,' Lukas said, turning to look at her, his glance flicking down to her breasts and hastily away again.
'It isn't?'
She saw a muscle jerk in his jaw. 'I thought it was. I thought we...' He broke off, and then, obviously referring to the banging of the door that had made her jump, 'But there's too much traffic... We need to be totally alone somewhere, w
here I can...' He broke off again, his glance seeking hers. 'Do you l...care for me?' he asked, and suddenly his eyes were steady on hers.
Jermaine wanted to tell him that he was the whole world to her, but, sitting there as naked as the day she was born, she was suddenly overwhelmed by shyness.
She realised that Lukas had seen her shyness when, 'Come here,' he breathed, and took her gently into his arms and held her, her breasts pressed against his hair roughened naked chest. Then, gently, he put her from him. That wasn't such a great idea,' he admitted with a crooked kind of grin. And holding her firmly by her upper arms, he admitted, 'Being with you here, like this, is just too much, sweetheart. I'm having trouble thinking straight.' Determinedly he moved away from her, and, when all Jermaine wanted to do was to lie with him through the night, he said, 'If you care anything for me, my love, meet me tomorrow—away from this room...' He paused, then
smiled. 'I'll wait for you on our bench. Do you know where I mean?'
'By the bridge, the brook?' she answered huskily.
'Nine sharp,' he said, then changed his mind. 'No, I can't wait that long. Eight-thirty?'
Jermaine desperately wanted to say 'eight,' but her heart was pounding wildly and—was Lukas saying he cared about her?—she wasn't thinking very straight herself. 'Half past eight,' she agreed.
'Oh, my darling,' he groaned, every bit as if he had gleaned from her agreement to meet him that care she did. 'I'm going,' he said firmly. 'While I still can.' He looked at her, and Jermaine folded her arms defensively in front of her bare breasts. 'You're absolutely exquisite,' he said softly, quickly kissed her— and was gone.
CHAPTER NINE
Jermaine barely slept that night. Yet even awake she felt as if she was dreaming. 'Our bench' Lukas had said. Their bench. If she was dreaming, what a wonderful, wonderful dream it was.
A suitable husband Page 14
