by Sara Wood
He smiled back. ‘I am,’ he said softly. ‘I feel I’m putting something back. I want to see where else this can be done. The only thing stopping this happening all over the country is lack of funding. The bishop wants local firms to contribute—’
‘I could help there!’ she said with a laugh. ‘I sell pork pies to vegetarians, remember?’
‘Would you?’ He caught her arms, his eyes searching hers as if he hardly dared to believe her commitment. ‘Jodie… We could set this up. You could meet the bishop, make contact with the Chamber of Commerce—’
‘I’d love to!’ she said, dizzy with happiness.
‘Jodie.’ He kissed her hard. Then drew back. ‘Sorry! But…I’m pleased,’ he said more soberly.
She forced herself to calm down too. Lifting an eyebrow, she said, ‘I hadn’t noticed.’
And, nonchalant to a fault, she sauntered over to the tea tray and cut herself a slice of cake. But inside she was fizzing with delight. They were becoming closer than she’d dared to hope. And now she would be working on something that enthused them both.
Later that day they had their usual walk. She skipped along beside him, chattering away, holding his hand and loving its warm, dry enclosure. And a while after he even allowed her to help bath Jack, an honour she valued more than anything.
Under Morgan’s guidance she undressed the baby and learnt how to hold him safely, her happiness almost complete.
‘It’s been a lovely day,’ she said softly, when they both tiptoed out of the nursery. ‘I’ve enjoyed every single moment.’
‘Coffee?’
She should refuse. Offer a friendly smile and take the newspaper to bed. But she wanted him desperately and the flesh was weak.
‘OK,’ she said recklessly, hoping her croak sounded vaguely casual.
In the drawing room, softly lit by candles, he poured the coffee and she felt her hunger rising. Her fingers itched to trace his smooth jaw; her mouth quivered in expectation of exploring the golden skin between collar and hairline. And that tempting dark taper of hair in front of his ear…
He stood in front of her, gazing down. The liquid was slopping in the cups he held.
‘It’s not going to work,’ he said thickly, his eyes burning through her fevered body.
‘What?’ she pretended, her voice hardly hers.
‘If you want us to be friends and nothing else then you must go to bed now,’ he warned, his deep voice soft as a whisper, flowing over her like liquid velvet.
She couldn’t move. Didn’t want to. She knew full well what he meant—and what would happen if she remained.
‘Trouble is, I’m not sleepy,’ she breathed.
He grunted. ‘I keep thinking of you and bed—and sleep doesn’t figure in the equation at all,’ he said huskily.
‘We can’t fight the inevitable, Morgan,’ she murmured.
‘I feel I should try.’
‘Not on my account.’
He drew in a sharp breath. ‘Jodie! This is beyond me! I can’t think, can’t behave normally when you’re around. You’re in my head and in my body and I think I’ll go mad if I can’t touch you!’
In answer, she lifted her face, her lips parted avidly for his kiss. The pain of her passion etched itself in her eyes and through her entire body as she waited for the inevitable.
Slowly, without taking his eyes off her, he put down the two cups and knelt in front of her. His fingers lightly smoothed over her hands where they lay on her knees. And then he was pressing his mouth to each palm, first one and then the other, his bone structure infinitely beautiful in the flickering firelight.
Adoring him, she surrendered everything—caution, sense, security, restraint. ‘Morgan,’ she purred, and slid to the floor, her skirts pooling around her.
‘I can’t believe I’m doing this!’ he said, looking dazed.
‘We tried. We did our best to talk ourselves out of it. Who can stop the urging of fate?’
‘I don’t want you to think that I—’
She stopped him, her finger on his protesting lips. ‘No thinking.’
He kissed her fingertip, his eyes burning. ‘Hear me out. It’s not just sex. Not just comfort.’
Love flowed through her, melting her very bones. ‘I know,’ she whispered. ‘Or I wouldn’t be here.’
‘No going back this time.’
‘No…’
His hand brushed back her hair. His lips touched her forehead, her temple, and the pulse in front of her ear. And she sat there shuddering as if he had spent an hour arousing her instead of a second or two, every part of her alive and humming with electricity, her heart throbbing with happiness.
A finger caressed her mouth. With a groan she took the finger between her teeth and nibbled gently, moaning as her need filled every cell of her body. His mouth came down hard on hers, pushing her back till she lay on the floor, moving like a temptress.
‘I want you…’ he growled.
She jerked with longing. ‘Yes.’
‘I shouldn’t—’
Impatiently she pushed him away and slid back, a feeling of intense satisfaction rippling through her when he stared at her, appalled, his chest heaving hard.
Lowering her head and flirting with him from beneath her brows, she shimmied out of her dress, exulting in Morgan’s inhalation of breath when he realised what she was doing.
‘No,’ she agreed provocatively. ‘You shouldn’t. I shouldn’t.’ She moistened her lips and unhooked her bra. ‘Stay!’ she ordered when he made an involuntary movement towards her. She smoothed her hands over her breasts, watching his tortured face. He’d never forget her, she thought exultantly, reaching for his hands. ‘Touch,’ she whispered.
Instead, his tongue slipped wickedly around one turgid nipple, making her buck as the needle spasms flicked like lightning through her body. Her eyes closed as tiny thrills built upon one another, driving her crazy with impatience.
His actions told her that he felt the same. Roughly he stripped off his clothes and slid away her briefs. He was beautiful. His sheer masculinity took her breath away. He wanted her.
Hot-eyed and intent, he let his hands move over her shivering skin—curving around her breasts, enjoying their firmness, finger and thumb tantalising the hot, dark centres.
Her back arched, demanding in the only way she knew how that he satisfied the desperate emptiness within her. She couldn’t speak, could barely move her leaden limbs, all her mind obliterated by everything but that one fierce need.
Obeying some deep and primal message, she bent her head and tasted him…heat, silk and throbbing muscle slithering in her warm, moist mouth in a heady combination.
Morgan groaned, close to losing control. He muttered something to her, gently but firmly lifting her away. He wanted this to be for her. To give her something he’d never shared before. His whole self.
‘Jodie!’ he husked, his eyes brilliantly intense. ‘Come here!’
His mouth devoured hers. She felt soft and giving beneath him and he ground his body against hers, letting himself slide against the warm, welcoming tremble of her pelvis.
Their tongues meshed, mimicking what they both desired. A rhythm beat in his pulses, his heart, the movement of their tongues, their hips. He rolled away slightly to allow his hand to explore, hushing her when she jerked and cried out, whimpering and panting as he relentlessly moved a delicate finger across the wet, firm nub between her legs.
Jodie thrashed around, her hair skimming out like burnished gold, her face more beautiful than he could believe possible. He covered it with kisses, suckled her breasts with a tender ferocity, his hands, arms, legs trapping her, forcing her to accept his caresses as the velvet of her skin and the receptive moistness of her body under his fingers built up a friction and a promise that he could no longer refuse.
She seemed possessed. Beneath him her body writhed and lured, the flick of her nipples across his chest infinitely pleasurable. Without inhibition she had parted her legs
for him and was intent on slipping her hand to his waiting shaft.
But he stopped her, knowing he couldn’t hold back if she did.
‘Wait,’ he muttered.
‘Won’t!’ she scowled.
‘You’ll like it better if you do,’ he murmured shakily.
Angrily she lurched against his fingers, her eyes dark with frustration. Her sleek hair whispered over his breast-bone as she leaned forwards and nibbled ruthlessly at his nipple.
She wouldn’t wait much longer. Nor could he. Her hands were raking across his back and there was a desperate fury in the sinuous demands of her body. Briefly he reached out, searching for what he needed. Now he was safe—and she too.
‘I’m ready for you. Is this what you want?’ he whispered.
He allowed himself just to touch the entrance to her body, his hands holding her back. But she flashed him one siren look and jerked her hips in a swift movement, her silky heat enclosing him with a suddenness that left him gasping.
And she groaned with him, a long, urgent release of long-held passion. His bones seemed to melt. Something painful jerked in his heart and he found himself totally unaware of where he was; he felt as if he was floating, slipping slowly and inexorably into paradise.
‘Watch me,’ she moaned.
He realised his eyes had closed. With difficulty he opened them and saw her fevered face, her gaze intent on the intermingling dark and chestnut coils of hair where their bodies met.
Amazed at what that sight did to him, he found himself thrusting, incapable of restraining himself any longer. And she looked, crying, moaning like him, fiercely intensifying each stroke with the supple thrusts of her own impassioned body.
For a moment he stopped, knowing that the pause would heighten her orgasm. She glared, grabbed his head and kissed him till he felt the pressure of exquisite torture exploding within him.
‘Don’t stop!’ she ordered, her thready voice trembling.
He wanted to make this last. To imprint this moment on her. Hot and hungry, he stemmed his own need and concentrated on kissing her while she did everything she could to entice him onwards.
Sweat slicked on their bodies and she licked at him with her cat-like tongue, causing his skin to shiver and tremble as every nerve responded. He felt the edge of her teeth as frustration drove her to more desperate measures and so he moved again, with the utmost leisure, each gliding movement making him hotter, more swollen, more violently sensitive to her sweetness.
In the back of his dazed mind he was afraid that he would hurt her, but she surged against him and clung with such greed that he banished that fear from his mind, and in a moment of extreme emotion he kissed her tenderly, then increased the tempo of his body.
Jodie whispered with delight, her eyes sparkling as she gazed at him as if… He faltered, then, urged by her frantic writhing, drove firmly into her… As if…she loved him, he thought.
Morgan cried out loud, their rhythm hot and fast, bodies as one, hearts, minds, emotions…who knew? He couldn’t think, only his senses were operating, and most of those were focused on the slippery heat in the core of her body.
‘Morgan!’ she gasped, gripping his shoulders. Her head rolled back, her throat creamy and smooth.
He kissed the pulse there, murmured words…silly words, telling her she was wonderful, beautiful, wicked, luscious…
And then they both shouted, clinging to one another as the violence of their orgasms crashed through them. For the first time he felt the incredible force of her contractions as they squeezed and released the intensely sensitive shaft deep within her. It was a moment of astounding pleasure that almost drove him into orbit as each wave rolled through and around him, the whole of his body seemingly one giant organ of gratification.
It lasted for ever. Hours. Almost as soon as she subsided, with little sighs of deep satisfaction, he was aroused again. Her eyes opened wide in amazement as he began to move. A smile curved her sensual mouth and he smiled back, his eyes glittering with excitement.
This was something else. Something special. He felt like a god. Invincible, all-powerful, able to pleasure his woman. He could no more stop himself from giving himself what he wanted than he could stop breathing.
Gently he hauled her onto his lap. The firm peaks of her breasts swung to him in supplication and he took each in his mouth in turn, savouring the sweetness of them and revelling in what it did to her.
‘Ride me,’ he muttered.
She stretched her lovely body, and in that moment when she looked at him, her eyes soft and adoring, he felt a crushing sensation in his heart.
‘Jodie.’ His ragged attempt to articulate his volcanic emotions failed as she slid onto him, her mouth insistent on his.
She swayed, twisting so erotically that he couldn’t think at all. There was only the proud carriage of her ribcage, the hollow beneath and the tiny waist, the shine of sweat on her honey skin and the unbelievable fire burning in his loins.
Through half-closed eyes he watched her come, thrilled at her abandon and the wantonness of her frenzied hands as they clutched at his hard, tight buttocks and forced him deeper into her. He slid with agonising exhilaration into that darkness again, where the pleasure was in his head and in his manhood for one magnificent explosion, before rocketing fiercely into every vein and nerve he possessed.
His arms enfolded her lovingly. He held her close to him, her face nuzzled in his neck and his in hers. Inhaling her. His lips pressed to her salty skin, feeling the heat, the satiny fire that quivered and leapt across her entire body as aftershocks trembled through them both.
‘Jodie.’
She stirred, but otherwise remained limp in his arms. ‘Mmm.’
‘’Swonderful.’ He was slurred. His mouth didn’t match up with his brain.
‘Mmm.’
Her arms tightened around his neck. Conscious that she might soon be cold, when their heated bodies cooled down, he slid her into his arms and staggered for a moment, then found his balance and strength.
He looked down at her blissful face and knew he was smiling idiotically. ‘Bed.’
‘Mmm.’
Trustingly she snuggled against his naked chest. He felt like a king. Carrying his precious burden, he made it up the stairs and to his room, his heart thudding so loudly that it alarmed him.
‘Shower,’ she mumbled.
His loins stirred. ‘Shower,’ he agreed hoarsely.
He set her on her feet and closed the cabinet door. His shower was vast, the showerhead enormous. Lovingly he supported her wilting body, seeing that she was barely aware of what was happening. She seemed to be where he was—on Cloud Nine, he thought with a smile.
The water cascaded over them and he gently smoothed his gel-soaked palms over her glorious dips and curves. She raised her arms in the air in a sensual stretch and took the gel from the rack. He closed his eyes.
The feel of her fingers exploring each muscle of his shoulders was tantalising in the extreme. Her wet thumb dipped into the hollow of his collarbone. Anticipation set him on fire.
‘Oh, Morgan! You’re just greedy!’ she breathed.
‘I can’t help it,’ he said jerkily. ‘I only have to look at you to want you! And this…is more than I can bear!’
Her hands massaged his spine and splayed out to his hips, and he was acutely aware of where he wanted her to touch next. Hungry, he reached out to touch her, but she slapped him down.
‘My turn,’ she murmured.
And then he rocked on his feet as she knelt, the wet pelt of her hair against his pelvis as she took him in her mouth again, and he felt the pressure increase as her lips slid up and down with a sure skill and sensitivity which came close to driving him insane with ecstasy.
But as she suckled he found it wasn’t enough. He wanted to be with her. In her. His hand snapped off the shower. He ignored her protests, wrapped her in an enormous warm bath towel and gently, sensually dried her. Paying close and extended attention to her most
erotic areas.
‘Bed,’ he purred when they were both dry and she was trembling with need.
‘Mmm!’ she squeaked.
They lay together, looking at one another for a long time. Jodie felt as if her heart had stopped. She loved him. Really loved him.
Gently they explored, learning one another. She felt a great happiness steal over her. Euphoria alternated with elation and then settled on her in a deep serenity. He was smiling, his whole face alight with joy.
She had done it, she thought, hardly daring to believe it. Morgan had come out of mourning. He’d found someone of flesh and bone and their coming together had been little short of miraculous.
Everything between them had resonated with deeper vibrations. This hadn’t been pure sex. It had been a celebration of two people passionately involved in one another, two hearts beating as one.
She knew that from the way he looked at her now, in a bemused, dazzled, wonderfully amazed delight.
Their lovemaking was gentle and slow this time. Each movement Morgan made was considered and yet deliciously tentative. They knew one another. Her fingers unerringly descended on a muscle here, a pulse there. His head swooped directly to her breast…to the tiny wet bud between her legs.
Luxuriantly she relaxed every muscle, while the heat of his mouth prepared her. And then with one accord they moved to one another, her heart soaring as he took her beyond any place she’d ever visited, far away to where her love could expand and fill her body and every movement of her hands, every breath she took and every sigh that escaped her bruised mouth.
After, they clung to one another, as if fearful that it had all been a dream. And slowly it became just that: their muscles easing, their heartbeats slowing from their hectic rhythms, their expressions serene and peaceful.
CHAPTER NINE
SHE woke in the night, her hand sleepily reaching out for him. It encountered just the rumpled sheet.
‘Morgan?’ she mumbled, disorientated.
A kiss brushed her cheek and she saw his dim figure looming over her.
