by Miranda Lee
They ate the oysters in silence, Scott clearly not happy with her decision. Or her lack of it. When the waiter came to clear their plates, he ordered another beer for himself and a second mineral water for her.
‘For a girl who wanted to talk,’ he said after the waiter departed, ‘you’ve gone quiet all of a sudden.’
If he knew the reason behind her fraught silence, she’d be in big trouble. With great difficulty, she refocused her heated brain on why she’d agreed to this dinner date in the first place. Unfortunately, this meant she had to look across the table at Scott, and into those sexy eyes of his. Her casual shrug was a sham. There was nothing casual going on inside Sarah.
‘I guess I’ve told you everything I wanted to tell you,’ she said, doing her best to stay calm. ‘I needed you to understand what has made me the way I am. Why I react to things the way I do. If we’d talked more before we married, things might not have gone so wrong last Friday. You would have trusted me more. You would have known that it would have been impossible for me to be an unfaithful wife.’
‘Yeah, you’re probably right. I rushed you to the altar. But damn it all, Sarah, I don’t regret it. I do regret not trusting you and I regret what I did last Friday night. But you have to admit, what we did, it was pretty amazing. You were something that night! I’m crazy about that girl and I want more of her.’
Sarah felt his hunger right through every pore in her body. Felt her own desire too, from the tips of her erect nipples right down to the melting heat between her thighs. Thank God the waiter arrived back with their drinks, breaking the dangerous moment and letting her have a breather.
‘Well, I’m not so crazy about that girl, Scott,’ she managed to say once they were alone. ‘She’s way too much of a pushover for my liking. Now could we kindly get back to discussing things that really matter?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like why did you rush me to the altar? Why did you marry me at all?’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
SCOTT WAS SO taken aback by her questions that he was speechless for a few seconds.
‘Well?’ Sarah prompted.
He finally found his tongue. ‘You know very well why I married you,’ he threw back at her. ‘I was madly in love with you, woman. Trust me when I say it wasn’t just a matter of lust. I know how lust feels and that wasn’t what I felt for you.’ He’d fallen madly in love with her. Absolutely. But what he’d also felt was fear. Fear that he’d somehow lose this incredibly beautiful, bright creature if he didn’t marry her quick smart; that if he didn’t put his ring on her finger then one day soon some other better-looking, more charming, more sophisticated man would come along and win her away from him. He couldn’t risk that so, yes, he’d rushed her to the altar whilst she was still as bewitched with him as he was with her.
But ultimately, it hadn’t worked, had it? That man he’d feared had come along, and even if Sarah hadn’t fallen into his arms, he’d believed she had. And in doing so, he’d risked the one thing he feared most of all. Losing Sarah.
But you haven’t lost her yet, you fool, whispered the voice of reason. Use your brains, man.
Scott knew women liked to talk, but it hadn’t been a big part of his upbringing. His father only opened his mouth to show him something or impart knowledge. Scott only knew a handful of details about his father’s past life, and quite frankly this hadn’t bothered him, but it seemed women just had to know everything about everyone. Scott had learned this over time. He’d had girlfriends before Sarah. But confiding didn’t come naturally to him and Sarah had seemed to understand this. In the beginning, that was. Clearly, she no longer liked his close-mouthed reticence. It was time to talk about the one subject he hated talking about. The past.
But first he had to answer her question over why he’d rushed her to the altar.
‘If you want me to be brutally honest,’ he began, ‘I married you because I wanted to have you all to myself, twenty-four-seven. I didn’t know the reason then for your wariness about the opposite sex, but I could see you weren’t the sort of girl who’d live with me, or become my mistress. So marriage seemed the only course of action, and the sooner the better. Like I said, I was crazy about you, Sarah. I’d never felt anything even close before to what I felt for you. To be totally honest with you I wasn’t too fond of women for a good while after I found out the ugly truth about my mother.’
‘Your mother?’ Sarah queried, startled.
‘Yes. You see, she didn’t die when I was a baby. That’s just a lie I tell to hide the truth.’
Sarah sat up straighter in her chair, stunned by this highly unexpected revelation.
‘She also wasn’t married to my father,’ Scott went on. ‘She was a good-time girl Dad picked up when he struck gold once. Their fling finished once the money ran out and Dad took off again for the outback. He didn’t realise at the time that he’d left behind a piece of himself. Anyway, to cut a long story short, a couple of years later, when he was flushed with finding some black opals, he looked her up again. She was living on some kind of hippie commune by then, up near one of the Northern NSW beaches. Imagine his surprise when he came across a little toddler who was the spitting image of him, running around the front yard, stark naked, whilst she was inside totally out of it in a pot-smoking haze.’
‘Good Lord! What did he do?’
‘Paid her some money and took me away with him.’
‘Didn’t she fight him for you?’ Sarah couldn’t imagine any mother letting her child go that easily. She certainly wouldn’t have. She’d have created bloody hell!
‘No. She told Dad he was welcome to me—that I was an uncontrollable brat and she’d never wanted me anyway.’
‘Oh, Scott,’ Sarah said sadly, her heart going out to him.
‘No need to feel sorry for me,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘I don’t remember her or miss her. And Dad was a great dad. A little unconventional but he loved me to death and I felt the same way about him. He didn’t tell me the truth about my mother till I was a grown man and could take it.’
Sarah blinked back her tears but didn’t say a word.
‘I did look my mother up a few years ago,’ Scott went on, ‘more out of curiosity then need. But she’d died a decade or so earlier. Too many drugs, I guess. The funny thing was this old junkie who’d known her said she was never the same after Dad took me away. That all the life went out of her. So maybe she sort of loved me after all.’
‘I’m sure she did,’ Sarah said soothingly.
* * *
Scott wasn’t sure of any such thing. Women liked to romanticise situations, he’d found. Still, perhaps it was a nice thought, but not one that he wished to dwell on.
‘Enough of this,’ he said a bit sharply. ‘I’ve never seen the point of rehashing old hurts. Let’s just concentrate on the here and now, which is enjoying each other’s company, and our next course.’ Which he spotted being brought to the table.
They did enjoy the barramundi. Sort of. Sarah’s mood remained a little sad, however, Scott frustrated that she refused to have even one glass of wine with the main course. He knew the directions always said you couldn’t drink alcohol with antibiotics, but surely one glass wouldn’t hurt. It might relax her; put some joy back into her.
Of course, there was another way to relax her...
‘I think we might skip dessert,’ he said, glancing across the table at her, his eyes glittering as he made his meaning clear.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
SARAH TRIED NOT to blush. But it was no use. The image of Scott doing wicked things to her sent heat zooming up from her chest to her neck and into her face. Her throat was parched as her heartbeat quickened.
‘Are you trying to turn me on, Scott?’
‘Am I succeeding? Be honest now.’
‘Yes,’ she choked out.
‘Let’s go, then.’
‘I am not going back to our apartment with you, Scott. Not yet.’
‘I didn’t ask y
ou to. Cory’s place will do just as well for tonight.’
Sarah knew she was fighting a losing battle but she refused to relent easily. ‘Cory might have brought someone home by now,’ she said in a desperate defence.
‘Not very likely. He’s at a conference in Melbourne.’
Sarah gasped. ‘How did you know that?’
‘He texted me this afternoon and told me so, something which seemed to slip your mind, Miss Honesty.’
Sarah gritted her teeth. ‘I’m going to kill him.’
‘I wanted to kiss him.’
‘Oh, really?’ she said archly. ‘I didn’t think you cared for him in that way.’
He grinned. ‘Neither did I. Maybe it has something to do with my wife neglecting her marital duties this past week.’
Sarah rolled her eyes at the cheek of him. But it was no use. A smile grabbed her mouth and soon she was laughing. ‘What chance did I have, with you two conspiring against me?’
‘No chance at all. I’ll just get the bill and we’ll go.’
‘I need to visit the powder room first.’
Scott scowled gently. ‘Is this another delaying tactic? You won’t make a dash for it out of the back window, will you?’
‘Maybe I should.’ And she meant it. For nothing would be solved by going to bed with Scott. They still had a lot of talking to do, on both sides.
But the compelling nature of her desires would not be denied. Sarah wanted Scott to make love to her tonight, all night. And maybe all tomorrow. She wanted him to take her to that hot, heady place again where logical thinking ceased and the only thing she cared about was her next orgasm, along with all the wild dizzying pleasure in between. That was where she’d been that fateful Friday night. And she wanted to experience that again.
Her legs almost didn’t support her when she rose and made her way unsteadily to the powder room. As she washed her hands she didn’t dare look at her reflection in the wall mirror, afraid of what she might see. Her mother perhaps, that poor tragic creature whom Sarah physically resembled but who didn’t have one ounce of willpower when it came to her husband.
I will not be like that, Sarah vowed as she left the room. I will not!
Scott was waiting for her, the bill paid, wasting no time ushering her outside and into the small car park set aside for patrons of the restaurant. The touch of his hand in the small of her back sent little shivers running up and down her spine. They didn’t speak during the short drive home, Sarah not even glancing over at him. She didn’t want to see smugness in his face, or desire. She had enough to contend with trying to handle her own.
This time, Scott was able to park close to Cory’s house, some of the other inhabitants of the street obviously having gone out.
‘It’s a bit chilly in here,’ he said once they entered the hallway.
‘Cory hasn’t installed heating or air-conditioning yet,’ Sarah told him. ‘It’s to go in with the renovations. But that’s been delayed. There’s a great little heater in here though,’ she said, leading Scott into the downstairs living room.
‘And a great big sofa,’ he added, turning her in his arms and kissing her before she could do a single thing. Not a slow, tender, loving kiss. A hard, hot, hungry kiss, which echoed the frustration both of them had been feeling all week. She accepted his tongue avidly, sucking on it as she wanted to suck on him. When he wrenched his head away she moaned in protest.
‘Don’t worry,’ he growled. ‘I feel exactly the same way.’
Sarah extricated herself from his grip to turn on the heater and take some of the cushions from the sofa and throw them on top of the thick shag rug that lay in front of the heater. Because no way was she going to have sex with Scott on that lounge like a pair of horny teenagers.
‘Good thinking,’ he said, tossing aside his jacket before pulling her into his arms again.
Another savage kiss completely obliterated any lingering doubt Sarah might have had about doing this, confirming in her mind this was what she wanted. There was no question of being seduced, or in any way coerced.
‘Too many clothes, sweetheart,’ he muttered when his head finally lifted.
‘Yes,’ she agreed throatily, her hands going to the buttons on his shirt.
He laughed and just yanked the shirt off over his head, exposing his magnificent chest to her touch.
And touch him she did, her fingernails scraping over his skin as they slid through the sexy matt of curls that covered the middle of his chest. When they moved over his nipples, he groaned a raw animal groan. When she did it again, his hands lifted to grip her wrists.
‘Best stop that,’ he muttered. ‘It’s doing dreadful things to me.’
‘Good,’ she said, and bent her lips to them instead.
‘You’ve turned into a witch,’ he growled. ‘But I love it.’
She lifted her head, determined not to let him think she was his again, just because she desired him. ‘This isn’t love, Scott. This is just lust.’
‘That’s a matter of opinion, sweetheart. But if you want total honesty, then right now I don’t give a damn what it is. I want you as I’ve never wanted you before, and if I don’t have you in the next twenty seconds, I think I’m going to explode.’
Without further discussion and with little finesse he stripped her of her clothes then spread her out on the rug, ogling her naked body whilst he took off the rest of his own clothes, at which point it was Sarah’s turn to do the ogling.
Scott was all man, she thought breathlessly. Big and strong, with a body that was as powerful as it was intimidating. She stared at the size of his erection and wondered how it ever fitted inside her. But it always did. Beautifully. Wondrously. Bringing her pleasure without even having to move.
But when it did...
He lay down and surged into her without preamble, the way he’d done the other day. Everything happened just as quickly as then too, both of them climaxing in no time, shuddering and shaking with the intensity of their rapid releases.
‘Geez, Sarah,’ Scott groaned as he collapsed across her, his weight making her groan in protest. He quickly rolled off her, Sarah gasping with relief.
‘Sorry,’ he said from where he lay beside her, his breathing still ragged. ‘Didn’t mean to squash you. When I’ve got my breath back we’ll go have a shower together and I’ll show you some more interesting moves.’
‘More interesting?’ she echoed, trying not to sound as instantly excited as she was.
‘That’s what you want, isn’t it? Or would you prefer we do it the way we used to do it? Under the bedcovers with the lights off.’
Sarah winced. Surely she hadn’t been as boring as that, had she?
Not quite, she conceded, but things sure hadn’t been as adventurous as this. She’d never said no to Scott when it came to sex, but she’d been a passive partner, possibly because her lack of experience made her feel less confident. She’d always left everything up to Scott. Maybe he thought she was too shy for more adventurous activities. Just thinking of standing up naked in a shower with him and having him wash her all over was doing her head in. Not in a bad way, either.
She looked over at him and he smiled.
‘I love it when your eyes go all smoky like that. I know you were angry with me for last Friday night, but the sex was great, wasn’t it? You were great. A bit naughty. But hot as hell.’
‘You were the one who was naughty,’ she pointed out, desperate to stop her mind from unravelling with desire.
He laughed. ‘Oh, sweetheart, you are such an innocent! But that’s what makes you so attractive to me. And why I fell in love with you. Because you were different from all the other women I’ve ever dated, none of whom I ever wanted to marry.’
Sarah levered herself up on one elbow to stare down at him. ‘Are you saying you married me because I was a virgin when we met?’
‘Partly. But I also wanted to be in a position to protect you.’
‘Protect me?’
‘
Sure. A woman of your obvious attractions needs protection from the big bad wolves in this world.’
Sarah had to admit that when she was with Scott, she did feel safe and secure. Till recently...
‘Too much talking,’ Scott said, and abruptly sat up. ‘Come on. Let’s go shower.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SARAH SHIVERED AS Scott led her from the warm living room, down the cold hallway and into the rather ancient bathroom that hadn’t been updated in years. It was very clean, though, Cory meticulous when it came to housework. There was a small strip heater on the wall, which Scott immediately turned on, followed by the taps in the shower.
‘Not exactly built for two, is it?’ Scott said drily as they waited for the water to get hot enough.
‘At least it d-doesn’t have a shower c-curtain,’ she stammered, her teeth beginning to chatter.
Scott gave her a droll look whilst he rubbed her goosebumped upper arms with his large hands. ‘Just think. We could be at home right now, with ducted air-conditioning and a huge two-headed shower stall.’
‘Don’t tempt me,’ she replied.
‘Could I?’
‘No.’
‘We’ll see, Miss Stubborn. We’ll see.’
* * *
Scott loved the way her lovely blue eyes widened, then glittered with an intoxicating mixture of shock and excitement. This new sexy Sarah bewitched him even more than the shy virgin, because she promised a lifetime of erotic pleasure with her as his wife. He refused to believe that she had any intention of actually leaving him...that she would let one rotten misunderstanding ruin their relationship. Yes, he’d hurt her badly by not trusting her. He could see that now. But surely she would forgive him. She wouldn’t have come to dinner tonight at all if she hadn’t been having second thoughts about her actions. Neither would she have let him have sex with her if she didn’t still love him. Sarah thought it was lust driving her but he knew differently. It was love. It had always been love. He was sure of it, he thought as he followed her under the jets of hot water, resolving to leave no stone unturned in seducing the woman he loved into coming back home with him.
