‘It’s a setback,’ he said. ‘But I hope we’ve caught it in time.’
Molly watched as he rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. He grimaced as if his muscles were in knots. ‘You look tired,’ she said.
‘Yeah, well, eighteen-hour days do that.’
‘I could massage your neck for you if you like,’ she offered.
‘You’d break your fingers working on my golf balls of tension,’ he said. ‘I’ll be fine. I just need a couple of hours’ sleep.’
‘I’d like to do it for you,’ Molly said. ‘It won’t take long. I’m pretty good at it. I used to do my dad’s neck and shoulders all the time.’
He looked at her for a long moment. ‘You sure you want to get that close to me?’ he asked.
‘Will you bite if I do?’ she asked with an arch look.
‘Guess there’s only one way to find out,’ he said.
A few minutes later Molly had him sitting on one of the sofas in the sitting room. She stood behind him and started kneading his neck through his shirt. His muscles felt like concrete and his shirt wasn’t helping matters as it kept bunching up. ‘I think you’d better take your shirt off,’ she said. ‘I can’t get into those muscles the way I want to.’
‘It’s been a while since a woman’s asked me to strip for her,’ he said as he unbuttoned his shirt.
‘Ha ha,’ Molly said. ‘Now, stay put while I get some massage oil.’
When she came back with some perfumed oil he was sitting bare chested on the sofa. She drank in the sight of his broad tanned shoulders and the leanness of his corded muscles. She poured some oil into her hand and emulsified it before placing her hands on his shoulder.
‘I’m sorry if my hands are cold,’ she said. ‘It won’t take long to warm them up.’
‘They’re fine,’ he said with a little groan. ‘Perfect.’
‘You’re so tense.’
‘You should feel it from my side.’
Molly smiled and kept massaging. She loved the feel of his warm male skin underneath her hands. After a while he started to relax. She worked on his neck muscles right up to his scalp, turning his head to the right and then to the left to loosen the tension.
‘You missed your calling,’ he said.
‘When was the last time you had a massage?’ she asked as she worked on his scalp with her fingertips.
‘Can’t remember.’
Molly kept stroking and gliding her hands over his shoulders. Over time the movements of her hands became less vigorous and more like caresses. She breathed in the musky scent of him as she worked her way down over his pectoral muscles. She heard him draw in a breath as her fingers skated over the top of his abdomen. It was daring and brazen of her but she couldn’t leave it at that. She inched her way down, taking her time, stroking each horizontal ridge of toned male flesh.
The air became loaded with sensual intent as she found the cave of his belly button surrounded by its nest of coarse masculine hair.
He suddenly captured her hand and stilled it against the rock-hard wall of his stomach. ‘Molly.’ His voice was as rusty as an old hinge.
‘Yes?’
He pushed her hand away and got to his feet, turning to face her across the sofa, his eyes dark and full of glittering desire. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’ he asked.
‘I was massaging you.’
‘The hell you were,’ he said. ‘Do you have any idea how hard this is for me? Do you think I don’t want you? Of course I do. I can’t think of a time when I’ve wanted someone more.’
‘Then why are you fighting it?’
He flicked his eyes upwards as he turned away. ‘For God’s sake, you know why.’
Molly came from behind the sofa to stand in front of him. ‘No, I don’t know why,’ she said. ‘We’re both adults. There’s no reason we can’t have a relationship. This has nothing to do with anyone else but us.’
He dragged a hand over his face in a weary fashion. ‘I can’t promise you a future because of the past. The past I’m responsible for.’
‘We can make the future in spite of the past,’ Molly countered. ‘Haven’t we both suffered enough? Why should we spend the rest of our lives grieving over what we’ve lost instead of celebrating what we still have?’
‘It will always be there between us,’ he said. ‘It won’t go away. It will fester in the background until one day it will blow up in our faces. I can’t risk that.’
‘Life is full of risks,’ she said. ‘You can’t protect yourself from every one of them. Loving and losing are part of what a rich human life entails.’
‘I lost everything when Matt died,’ he said heavily. ‘I lost my best mate. I lost my family. My community. The future I’d envisaged for myself. It was all gone in the blink of an eye.’
‘So you’re going to punish yourself for the rest of your life because you don’t feel you deserve to be happy?’ Molly asked. ‘But what about my happiness?’
He closed his eyes briefly. ‘I can’t make you happy.’
‘You’re not even prepared to give it a try, are you?’ she asked. ‘You’ve made up your mind. You’re going to live a life of self-sacrifice. But it won’t achieve anything. All it will do is make you end up lonely and isolated. Pretty much as you are now. You’re jammed on replay. Lonely, lonely, lonely.’
He gave her an irritated look. ‘I’m not lonely. I like being alone. I don’t need people around me all the time.’
Molly rolled her eyes and turned away. ‘Good luck with that.’
He snagged her arm and turned her back to face him. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
She gave him a direct look. ‘Why did you ask me to stay here with you?’
‘You needed a place to stay in a hurry,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t see you tossed out on the street. I wasn’t brought up that way.’
‘I think you asked me to stay with you because deep down you’re tired of being alone,’ Molly said. ‘You’re sick of rattling around in this big old house with no one to talk to. The occasional dates and one-night stands aren’t cutting it any more. You’re yearning for something more meaningful.’
‘You’re wrong,’ he said, snatching up his shirt and shoving his arms through the sleeves.
‘Am I?’
‘I don’t need to be rescued, Molly,’ he said, glowering at her. ‘I’m not going to be another one of your lame-duck projects. Find someone else to rehabilitate.’ He turned and strode out of the room, closing the door with a snap behind him.
* * *
Over the next few days Molly only saw Lucas at work. He barely seemed to spend any time at home at all. He left in the morning before she got up and he came back when she was already tucked up in bed. She didn’t know when he ate or slept. She found herself listening out for him at all hours of the night, not really settling until she heard him come up the stairs and close his bedroom door. He drove himself relentlessly. She wondered how long he could keep doing it. The job was demanding at the best of times, but he had taken on extra shifts as if work was all he wanted to do.
Molly had the weekend off and spent it shopping and sightseeing. But on Sunday night she felt at a loose end. She hadn’t seen Lucas all weekend, although she had noticed he had fed Mittens and cleaned his litter tray.
After watching a movie she wasn’t really interested in, Molly took a long soak in the bath before preparing for bed. She spent a couple of hours trying to relax enough to go to sleep but she kept jolting awake when she thought she heard Lucas’s key in the lock.
Finally, at three in the morning, she gave up and came back downstairs for a drink. On her way back up she noticed there was a light on in the library. It seemed she wasn’t the only one having trouble sleeping. She padded to the door, which was ajar, and gently pushed it op
en. Lucas was sitting on the comfortable sofa in the middle of the room with his head resting against the back, his long legs stretched out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. His book was lying open on his lap and his eyes were closed, as if he had fallen asleep in mid-sentence.
He looked much younger in sleep. His features were less harshly drawn and the normally grim set of his mouth was relaxed. His hair was tousled as if his hands had been moving through it, and his shirt was crumpled and the first three buttons undone, showing a glimpse of his sternum.
She walked over to him but still he didn’t stir. She watched his chest rise and fall on each slow and even breath. After a moment she carefully took the book from his lap and placed it on the nearby side table.
Still he slept.
Molly reached out with her hand and ever so gently brushed a lock of hair off his forehead. His eyelids flickered momentarily but didn’t open. He made a small murmuring noise and let out another long exhalation.
She picked up the throw rug that was draped over the end of the sofa and gently spread it over him.
He didn’t stir.
She touched his face with her fingertips. His stubble caught on her soft skin like silk on coarse-grade sandpaper. She sent her fingertip on an even more daring journey to trace over his top lip and then his bottom one. His lips were dry and warm and so very, very tempting...
She hesitated for a moment before she leaned down and pressed a soft-as-air kiss to his mouth. His much dryer lips clung to hers as she gently pulled back. But then he gave a little start and opened his eyes, his hands wrapping around hers like a snare captured a rabbit.
‘I was just...making sure you were warm enough,’ she said.
For a moment he said nothing. Did nothing. Just sat there with his eyes meshed with hers, his warm strong hands holding hers captive.
The silence swelled with sensual promise.
‘I didn’t mean to wake you...’ Molly said. ‘You looked so...peaceful.’
He gave her hands a gentle little tug to bring her down beside him on the sofa. ‘Why aren’t you in bed?’ he asked.
‘I couldn’t sleep.’
His eyes moved over her face as if he was memorising every tiny detail. He paused longest on her mouth. ‘Isn’t it the handsome prince who’s supposed to kiss Sleeping Beauty to get her to wake up?’ he asked.
Molly moistened her lips with a quick dart of the tip of her tongue. ‘Yes, but I’m already awake so what would be the point?’
His eyes smouldered as they came back to hers. ‘This thing between us...it’s not going to go away, is it?’
‘Not in this lifetime.’
A corner of his mouth lifted.
‘Hey, you almost smiled,’ she said, touching his lip with her finger.
He captured her finger with his mouth and sucked on it erotically while his gaze held hers. Molly felt her stomach drop. The sexy graze of his teeth and the rasp of his tongue made her shiver with delight. He tugged her closer, a gentle but determined tug that had a primal element to it. His eyes were dark with desire as he pressed her down against the cushioned sofa, his long lean body a delicious, tantalising weight on her.
His eyes made love with hers for endless seconds. ‘I told myself I wasn’t going to do this,’ he said.
Molly looped her arms around his neck. ‘I want you to do this,’ she said. ‘And I’m pretty sure you want to do this too.’
His mouth tilted wryly. ‘I guess I can’t really deny that right now, can I?’
She moved against the hard press of his erection. ‘Not a chance.’
He brought his mouth down and covered hers in a hungry kiss. It was a kiss of longing and desperation, a kiss that spoke of deep yearnings that hadn’t been satisfied for a long, long time. His tongue stroked the seam of her mouth to gain access, thrusting between her lips to meet her tongue in a sexy tangle. Molly clasped his head in her hands, her fingers threading through his hair as he worked his sensual magic on her mouth. Her breasts were tingling against the hard wall of his chest, her pelvis on fire where his erection probed her boldly.
One of his hands lifted her hips to bring her even harder against him. She gave a little gasp of pleasure as his other hand cupped her breast through her wrap. But it wasn’t enough for him. He tugged open the wrap and went in search of her naked flesh. She shivered as he bent his head to suckle on her. Her nipple was sensitive and tightly budded but he seemed to know exactly what pressure to subject it to. He swirled his tongue around her areole before moving to the exquisitely reactive underside of her breast. He kissed and stroked and suckled in turn, until she was almost breathless with want.
Molly pushed his shirt back off his shoulders, smoothing her hands over the muscled planes of his chest, delighting in the feel of him, so hard and warm and male. He groaned as she slid her hands down over his taut abdomen, his kiss becoming more and more urgent against her mouth. She wriggled out of her wrap and then set to work on the waistband of his trousers. She finally uncovered him, stroking and cupping him until he was breathing as hard as she was. He was gloriously aroused, thick and swollen, hot to her touch, already moist at the tip. She rubbed the pad of her thumb over him, her insides quivering when he gave a low, deep groan of pleasure.
After a moment or two he pulled her hand away and pressed her harder back against the sofa cushions. He kissed his way down her body, lingering over her breasts, down to her belly button, dipping in there with his tongue before moving to the feminine heart of her.
Molly drew in a sharp breath as his warm breath skated over her sensitive folds. She clutched at his head, her fingers digging in for purchase when his tongue gently separated her. ‘I don’t usually do this...’ she said. ‘Can we just...? Oh...oh...’ She closed her eyes as the delicious sensations barrelled through her like a set of turbulent waves. Once it had subsided she opened her eyes and looked at Lucas, suddenly feeling shy. ‘That was...amazing... I’ve never let anyone do that before.’
He leaned his weight on his elbows as he looked down at her. ‘You haven’t?’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve always felt a bit uncomfortable about it. I know this sounds ridiculous but it always seemed a bit too intimate.’
He brushed back her hair from her forehead. ‘You probably weren’t with the right partner,’ he said. ‘Trust is just as important as lust.’
‘Speaking of lust...’ She stroked her fingers over his erection. ‘Don’t you want to...?’
‘I haven’t got a condom on me right now,’ he said.
‘Do you have any upstairs?’ she asked.
‘A couple maybe.’
Molly caressed his lean jaw with her fingers. She was used to men who were always prepared. ‘Let’s go upstairs,’ she whispered softly.
Lucas carried her in his arms, stopping now and again to kiss her deeply and passionately. Finally he laid her on his bed and came down over her, his weight balanced on his arms so as not to crush her. Molly lifted her hips towards his, her whole body aching and yearning for his deep possession.
He kissed her lingeringly, moving from her mouth to her breasts and back again until she was whimpering and writhing. She clawed at him with her hands, digging her fingers into his buttocks to hold him close to the pulsing heat of her body.
He paused for a moment to apply a condom, and came back over her, his strong thighs imprisoning hers. His first thrust was gentle, almost tentative, as if he was uncertain of whether or not to proceed. But her body gripped him hungrily and with a deep groan of pleasure he surged forward, again and again and again. Molly clung to him as the delicious friction sent her nerves into a frenzy of excitement. He went deeper, his breathing harsh against her neck as he fought for control, his lean, athletic body taut as a bow with the build-up of tension. She caressed his back and shoulders with her hands, feeling the gravel of g
oose-bumps break out along his skin as he responded to her touch.
He slipped a hand between their rocking bodies to find her most pleasurable point as he continued his rhythmic thrusts. The touch of his fingers, so gentle, so intuitive, triggered her orgasm within seconds. It was like a tumultuous wave that tossed and turned her over and over and over until she was gasping and sobbing with the aftershocks. She had never felt such powerful, all-consuming sensations before. Her body reverberated with them as he laboured towards his own release. She held him tightly against her as he finally let go. She felt every deep pumping action inside her, heard his desperate groan, a primal sound that made her shiver all over in feminine response.
Molly held him to her, unwilling to break the intimate connection. To lie there with his body still encased in hers, to have his arms hold her close, to feel the rise and fall of his chest against hers as his breathing gradually slowed, was too precious, too special to sever just yet.
‘I’m sorry if I rushed you,’ he said against her neck where his head was resting.
She toyed with his hair with her fingers. ‘You didn’t,’ she said. ‘It was perfect.’
He lifted himself up on one elbow to mesh his gaze with hers. It was hard to know what he was thinking. His expression wasn’t shuttered but neither was it totally open. ‘I guess I should let you get to bed and get some sleep,’ he said.
Molly felt a little frown pucker her forehead. ‘You don’t want me to stay here with you?’
He eased himself away and dealt with the disposal of the condom, his eyes not meeting hers. ‘I’m a restless sleeper,’ he said. ‘I’ll disturb you too much.’
She watched him as he shrugged on a bathrobe, but the thick terry towelling fabric was not the only barrier he had put up. A mask had slipped over his face as well.
‘I guess I’d better get out of your hair, then,’ Molly said, and got off the bed, taking the top sheet with her to cover her nakedness. Hurt coursed through her like a poison. How could he dismiss her like that? As if she was a call girl who had served her purpose and now he wanted her gone. She had expected more’wanted more’from him. Tears prickled and burned behind her eyes as she shuffled to the door in her makeshift covering, almost tripping over the fringe of the Persian rug.
Their Most Forbidden Fling Page 9
