One Night in His Arms

by Penny Jordan

  Sleepwalking. Sylvie focused distractedly on Ran’s face.

  It had been years since she had last walked in her sleep, but she didn’t for one moment doubt that Ran was telling the truth. After all, there was no reason why he should have spirited her from her own bed and carried her here to his—was there? If he had wanted to take her there, all he had to do... But even so... She started to shiver.

  She only walked in her sleep in times of intense personal stress...intense personal distress...

  ‘It’s all right, Sylvie,’ she heard Ran saying gently. He was still holding onto her. Sylvie could feel the warmth of his arms, his body through the robe he was wearing and through her own fine cotton nightgown. Bemusedly she looked at him, her eyes huge and shadowed in the small oval of her pale face.

  Outside a peafowl, one of the small colony which had migrated from Haverton Hall to the Rectory, its slumber no doubt disturbed by the mating call of the fox, screamed loudly, causing Sylvie to go rigid with tension.

  ‘It’s all right, Sylvie,’ Ran repeated soothingly. ‘It’s only a peafowl.’

  She knew that, of course—their noise was, after all, familiar to her—but for once she felt too weak to bother arguing the point with Ran.

  His bedroom was on the opposite side of the house from hers and furnished very differently, with heavy early Georgian furniture that looked imposingly traditional and masculine. The room suited Ran, she thought abstractedly; it suited his maleness, his completeness. A wave of longing swept over her. Unable to stop herself, she turned in towards his body, lifting her hand towards him.

  Later she wasn’t even sure if she had actually meant to touch him or if the gesture had simply been one of longing, but as he turned his head towards her her fingertips grazed his mouth. She felt his breath against them, warm, tormenting her with all that could never be. She started to look away and then, to her shock, she felt Ran taking hold of her wrist, circling it with his thumb and fingers, holding her hand where it was whilst he very deliberately pressed a kiss to each of her fingertips in turn.

  Wild-eyed, Sylvie watched him, almost forgetting to breathe in her shock.

  ‘Ran,’ she protested half-heartedly, but as she said the word she was already moving closer to him, instinctively seeking the warmth and the comfort of his body heat, his body.

  If it felt like heaven to have his arms close around her, that was nothing compared to what it felt like to have him lift his hands to her face and cup it whilst he oh, so gently kissed her mouth, a slow, tender, lingering kiss...a lover’s kiss. Silently Sylvie pressed even closer to him, lifting her own arms to hold him, her mouth and then her whole body, trembling with the effort it took her not to give in to what she was feeling.

  She could feel her eyes fill with tears, feel them, too, starting to flood over and roll down her face.

  ‘Sylvie.’ She could hear the emotion in Ran’s voice as he lifted one fingertip to touch them. ‘Don’t cry...please don’t cry. No man is worth your tears...’

  ‘It just hurts so much,’ Sylvie told him, unable to hold back what she was feeling any longer. Somehow the night and their seclusion had stripped away the barriers she had fought so hard to erect against her love for him.

  ‘I hate feeling like this,’ she whispered. ‘I hate loving so much and so...so...unwontedly... It’s so demeaning and it hurts so badly.’

  She heard Ran groan as though something about her agonised and honest admission touched him very deeply and then he was holding her, rocking her in his arms as he told her huskily, ‘You mustn’t be hurt, Sylvie. Please, don’t be hurt...’

  And then, totally unexpectedly, he was kissing her, not with the gentle tenderness he had shown her before, but with a fierce sensual passion that took her breath away and with it all her resistance. Her body went weak, pliable, compliant, yearning towards his as his mouth moved demandingly on hers. She could feel the fierce, heavy thud of his heart, the sudden swift betraying arousal of his body.

  He was and always had been a very male man, she reminded herself. He might not love her, she might not be the woman he wanted, but she was here in his arms, loving him, wanting him, and she could sense how little it would take to overturn his self-control.

  Swiftly, dangerously, stabbing right at the most intimate female heart of her, came the thought that she might never have his love but she could have tonight...her memories and perhaps even more. A woman alone need not feel ashamed to give birth to a child these days...she need not even name its father... A child...Ran’s child... Already she was responding to him, inviting him, inciting him, her hands reaching out to move under his robe, shaping the hard muscles of his shoulders, his arms.

  This time when the peafowl cried neither of them paid any attention to it. Beneath the insistent thrust of Ran’s tongue, Sylvie’s lips parted.

  She just wanted comfort, that was all, Ran warned himself as he felt her mouth tremble beneath his. She didn’t want him...love him...

  But it was already too late. He wanted her, he loved her, and, God forgive him, he couldn’t stop himself from giving in to his need to show her all that a man’s love for a woman could and should be.

  He kissed her face, her throat, her shoulders as he slid the soft whiteness of her nightdress from her body, only partially managing to stifle his groan of longing as he looked at her clad only in moonlight.

  Beneath Ran’s heavy-lidded gaze, Sylvie felt her will-power melting. He wanted her; she could see it in his eyes, feel it in the fierce tremble of his fingertips as they traced the outline of her body. Even with her eyes closed, she could feel how much he wanted her.

  Shakily Sylvie mirrored his touch on his body, tracing the deep V left by the open neckline of his robe. When she touched the knot which secured the robe she lifted a love-dazed glance to his and commanded huskily, ‘Take it off.’

  Silently Ran did so, never removing his gaze from hers as the robe slid to the floor.

  Before, the last time, the only time, she had been too caught up in the intensity of what was happening and her own needs and emotions to do anything more than register the fact that he was there, that his body was...his... But now, this time...

  Like a gourmet examining a banquet, a sumptuous repast which had been set out before her, she studied every bit of him, feasting her eyes and her senses on him. He was magnificent...he was perfect...he was Ran. Her love, her life, the father of her child, their child... A fierce thrill ran through her.

  ‘Ran.’

  She said his name urgently, almost harshly. As she stepped towards him he stopped her, circling her wrists with his hands, holding her slightly away from him whilst he looked at her in turn. She could see the fierce hunger in his eyes as he focused on her breasts and an excited kick of pleasure gripped her.

  There was something so dangerously erotic about standing there naked in front of him, her hands virtually pinioned, that it fed her own senses, her own need...to the point where she could feel her arousal beating a heavy pulse of longing so strongly within her body that she was forced to surrender to it.

  Her eyes, soft with emotion, echoed the need, the feeling that was pulsing through her body, touching her, she felt, to her very soul as she looked deep into Ran’s eyes. The huge wave of emotion that caught her up and rendered her powerless to do anything to withstand it contained far, far more than just physical desire or the immediacy of the moment. She felt a sense of fate, of destiny almost, as though all the previous emotions, all the love she had known for him had brought her here, to this moment. He might not share her love but he was here with her; she could see in his eyes that somehow something within him was aware of her and responsive to her, even if it was only man’s most basic need for a woman that drove him, and against all logic and rational thinking Sylvie knew that what happened between them tonight would be something precious and almost sacred, that the child she now longed so deeply to conceive would be special and loved, so very, very loved.

  Odd to think how fate
worked, and she could see as clearly as though she were there the small pack of pills in the bathroom, still containing the ones she had accidentally omitted to take since her arrival in Derbyshire, not by design or plan and certainly not because she had had any intention, any pre-warning that this was going to happen.

  ‘You’re beautiful, do you know that?’ she heard Ran declaring rawly as, still holding her wrists, he leaned forward and slowly kissed her face, her eyelids, her lips, each one in turn, with something that was almost reverence. Then he moved on to her throat...her breasts...before releasing her wrists and scooping her up in his arms as though he couldn’t bear not to have the full length of her held tightly against his body any longer. He slid his hand into her hair and opened her mouth with a kiss so intense and passionate that Sylvie felt as though she was dissolving into him, becoming a part of him.

  Just how long they stood like that, how long they kissed, she had no idea; all she did know was that when his mouth finally lifted from hers the room was full of the charged sound of their breathing, the oxygen content of the air somehow diminished so that she felt positively light-headed and dizzy, aching from head to foot with need and longing.

  But Ran was ignoring her body language, her silent plea for the intimacy of his body weight lying heavily and sensuously against hers on the bed behind her. Instead he was picking her up and gently placing her on the bed.

  ‘It’s all right,’ she heard him saying softly to her. ‘Everything’s all right.’ And he was cupping her feet in his hands, slowly massaging them so that tingles of sensation and heat shot through her veins like liquid fire. The feeling of his lips brushing her toes, so unexpected and shockingly intimate, made her gasp in shock, but when she instinctively tried to pull away he stopped her, his tongue weaving a rainbow patter of sensation against her skin as he caressed her toes, the narrow indentation of her fine-boned ankles, the exquisitely sensitive place just behind her knees and then the soft, quivering flesh of her thighs. All of them felt the slow, lingering touch of his mouth whilst the heat of an arousal so intense that she could hardly endure it covered her body in a soft sheen of reaction to what he was doing.

  Only when she heard him groan as her thighs trembled in involuntary and uncontrollable response to his touch did she feel him remove his mouth from her, and only then did she realise too that the sound she could hear, had heard, whilst he caressed her was the raw, sobbed sound of her own breathing.

  ‘Ran...’

  Unable to stop herself, she moaned his name with all her pent-up need and longing openly displayed, but although he raised his head and looked sombrely at her, although she could see quite plainly as he moved the evidence of his own need, his response to her wasn’t to cover her, to move over her and within her as she so longed for him to do, but instead to slide his hands along her thighs, holding, parting, lifting them and then moving round her. His thumbs traced the V between her thighs, following the line of soft hair that grew there before he buried his head against her, breathing in her scent, moaning her name over and over again as he caressed her sex with his tongue and his lips.

  The hot molten weight of her own need completely swamped her. The pulse she had felt before had become a thunderous roar, an avalanche of frantic need that gathered and tightened until it overwhelmed her completely, exploding inside her in a series of sharp bursts of pleasure that left her trembling and panting, dizzy and elated, and yet somehow not quite fully satisfied...not complete. She was driven instead to reach for Ran, to cover him with kisses as she drew him closer to her, his torso, where his body hair felt slick and damp with his passion, his throat, where he groaned as she ran her tongue-tip hungrily over his Adam’s apple, his jaw, his ears, his mouth.

  Fiercely she wrapped herself around him. Her arms, her legs, holding him in an embrace that went back to Eve, knowing instinctively that he would be unable to resist it...or her...

  The feeling of him moving against her was just as she remembered it only more intense, like comparing a faded photograph to the sharp colours of reality. Sylvie caught her breath on a cry of primal female pleasure as he moved within her, her body urging him deeper, her eyes liquid with emotion as she whispered to him how much she wanted him, how much she needed him.

  ‘Yes, Ran, yes,’ she said, twisting and turning, volubly as well as physically inviting him to possess her as deeply and intimately as only a woman in love did invite a man.

  Instinctively she knew that what they were experiencing and sharing went far, far beyond mere sex, that each thrust of his body within hers brought them both ever closer to eternity, to creation itself.

  As she felt her body open up completely to receive him, Sylvie gripped him tightly, her eyes open wide, fixed intently on his as she begged him, ‘Now, Ran; let it be now...’

  And as he responded to her, as she felt the hot liquid pulse of his release within her, her own cycle of rhythmic orgasmic contractions began again, only this time they were so much deeper and stronger; this time they weren’t for mere pleasure, she decided, half dazed with the intensity of what she was experiencing. This time they were harvesting the gift he had given her, the precious gift of life.

  As his body subsided within hers, Ran still held her, stroking her hair, brushing his lips against her forehead, whilst she breathed in the hot, satisfied male scent of his skin.

  ‘It’s been a long time,’ she heard him saying unevenly as his heartbeat still thundered against her body.

  ‘Yes,’ she agreed quietly. There was no need for her to lie, to pretend; even if it was only temporarily, the barriers between them had been swept to one side by what she had experienced. Oddly she almost felt proud of the truth, of loving him so intensely that she had never been able to share herself with anyone else.

  ‘I’m not... Sex for sex’s sake just isn’t for me...’

  There was a brief silence. She lifted her head and looked uncertainly at Ran. What was he thinking? Was he wishing she had been less open and honest, that she had pretended that what they had just shared meant nothing, that he meant nothing? But when she looked into his eyes they were too dark for her to be able to read his expression properly. All she could see was his faintly twisted smile before he touched her face gently and told her, ‘I meant that it had been as long a time for me, Sylvie...that I hadn’t...couldn’t... I was trying to explain... to excuse the fact that...that I wasn’t as controlled as I should have been.’

  ‘You were...you felt good to me,’ Sylvie told him simply and truthfully, compelled to add, ‘But then, I don’t have...you have...’

  ‘Been less thankfully in control on either of the occasions we’ve been like this...?’ Ran suggested ruefully. ‘You’re very kind, Sylvie, and...’ His body suddenly tensed and when he moved she could see in his eyes something that made her own stomach muscles lock in sensual expectation.

  ‘And I’m afraid I am likely to give you another demonstration of just how lacking in self-control you make me,’ he told her with a soft groan as he took hold of her hand and placed it on his body, commanding her huskily, ‘Feel.’

  Instinctively Sylvie let her touch become a soft caress, her heart thudding as she felt him grow and harden still further beneath her fingertips.

  ‘Oh, God, Sylvie, Sylvie,’ she heard him protest, and he took hold of her, kissing her passionately as their bodies immediately and instinctively moved closer together.

  It was fully daylight when Sylvie eventually woke up, her face flushing with hot colour as she opened her eyes to find Ran propped up on one elbow watching her.

  ‘How long have you been awake?’ she asked him, nervously clutching hold of the bedclothes, her colour deepening as she started to remember in full the events of the previous night.

  ‘Long enough to know that you snore,’ Ran told her ungallantly.

  ‘Snore? I do no such thing,’ Sylvie protested indignantly, letting go of the duvet in her ire.

  ‘No? Well, then, you growl...’ Ran teased her.

&n
bsp; ‘I do not growl! I don’t make any kind of noise at all,’ Sylvie protested.

  ‘Oh, yes, you do,’ Ran told her immediately, his manner completely changing, the amusement in his eyes replaced by a look of shockingly burning intensity as he leaned closer to her and half whispered against her mouth as his fingertips brushed the tip of her breast

  ‘When I touch you here you make a little sound deep in your throat, and...’

  ‘No. No, I don’t want to listen to any of this,’ Sylvie cried out frantically as the full reality of her situation hit her.

  Last night she and Ran had made love...last night she had ignored all the rules, all the laws of dignity and common sense and self-preservation which she had sworn she would adhere to, and...

  And last night, lost in the fathomless deep waters of love and longing, she had prayed that she might conceive Ran’s child, had prayed for it and ached for it. A deep shudder racked through her. Logic told her that it was far too soon for her, for anyone, to know that she had done so, but somehow she did; somehow she sensed that already the seed that would be Ran’s child was growing there, implanted deep within her.

  Immediately tears filled her eyes, tears of love for the child she knew would be her whole life, and tears also for the fact that he would never know the love of his father, for already she had decided that this child must be her child, her responsibility, that Ran must never know of its existence, that her child must not be a child whose father only acknowledged him out of duty, a child who knew that its mother was not and never had been loved by its father.

  ‘You’re crying.’ She could hear the accusation in Ran’s voice and immediately tried to blink away her tears. ‘I’m sorry about last night,’ she heard Ran telling her gruftly. ‘I do understand... It must be hard for you loving a man who doesn’t...’

  ‘Love me back,’ Sylvie supplied chokily for him. If, in the past, she had thought that his anger and contempt were hard to bear, they were nothing now that she was faced with his pity and compassion. ‘Yes. It is,’ she agreed. ‘But I’m a woman now, Ran, not a child, and if I choose to love the wrong person, then that is my choice and my right. The last thing I want or need is your pity,’ she told him sharply, pride making her hold up her head.