A Virgin for a Vow

by MELANIE MILBURNE

  Surprisingly, he did as she said and lay on his back on the bed, his long legs stretched out, his feet splayed outwards. Abby left him lying there while she went to his en suite bathroom and rinsed a facecloth under the cold water tap. She squeezed it out and came back to him and, perching on the edge of the bed, laid the cool cloth gently across his clammy forehead. He made a low sound of appreciation but his eyes stayed closed.

  After a while, Abby realised he was drifting in and out of sleep, his body twitching and his closed eyelids flickering as if trying to combat pulses of searing pain. She stayed beside him, reluctant to leave him until she was sure he was resting peacefully.

  Her eyes started to flicker, not from pain but tiredness. She was still dressed in nothing but a bath sheet and, while it covered her adequately, she longed to slip between the sheets and close her heavy-as-dumbbells eyelids.

  Just for a few minutes.

  Once the thought was inside her head it was impossible to resist the lure of the comfortable bed. It was a king-sized one, surely big enough for him not to even notice her there. Or maybe it was an emperor-sized one. Did such a thing exist? It was certainly big enough for a football team, plus some spectators.

  He wouldn’t even know she had been here.

  She carefully peeled back the covers and slipped in, well away from Luke’s sleeping form. Her head went down on the feather pillow and everything that was tense and tired inside her body began to slowly relax, as if she was a tightly wound ball of wool and someone was starting to unravel her.

  Luke made a soft noise and rolled over to his side, facing away from her. Abby held her breath, her heart hammering until she was certain he was soundly asleep, and then she finally closed her eyes and the ball of wool in her tense muscles slowly and blissfully unwound the rest of the way...

  * * *

  Abby woke to find one of Luke’s strong arms across her body and his legs brushing up against hers from behind. Slats of bright sunshine stole through the gap in the curtains, indicating it was well past dawn. What time was it? How long had she been sleeping?

  Eek! She was sleeping in Luke’s bed!

  She suddenly realised she was naked and, even though she moved a foot experimentally to search for it, there was no sign of the bath sheet she had wrapped around herself the night before.

  How had she ended up naked in his bed with her limbs tangled with his?

  Had they fooled around? Had she made a sleepy pass at him? Surely if they had made love she would remember it? She would most definitely remember it. She might occasionally forget to buy milk or bread or to pay the minimum payment on her credit card but she would never forget making love with Luke.

  Abby closed her eyes again and tried to recall anything from the time after she’d slipped in beside him. Nope. Nothing but a blank...although there was that delicious little dream where someone had kissed the back of her shoulder. A prickly, stubbly sort of kiss followed by a lazy lion-like lick of the tongue that had sent a shiver over her skin.

  Right now the back of her neck was being tickled by Luke’s rhythmic breathing, and she could feel the rise and fall of his chest between her shoulder blades. She stayed perfectly still, not wanting to disturb him, mainly because she was sure he would spring away if he knew what he was doing.

  How nice was this? How cosy and sexy and slightly wicked. She liked the feeling of being held, of being spooned as if she was treasured, special. She lay there quietly registering all the sensory hot spots on her body where it was touching his. The differences between their bodies, his hard-muscled frame and her softer one, made her feel womanly and feminine in a way she never had felt before. Even the scent of their bodies was different, but the thought of those intimate smells mingling with each other was strangely, excitingly arousing.

  Luke made a sleepy sound that was part murmur, part groan and gathered her even closer, his face nuzzling into the side of her neck, the graze of his morning stubble making her skin shiver like a filly trying to shake off a fly.

  Abby closed her eyes, feigning sleep, trying to get her breathing as rhythmic as his, which wasn’t easy given her heart was stuttering like an old tractor engine.

  One of his legs came over the top of hers and he pulled her against his morning erection. Abby had never felt anything so erotic and exciting in her life. Her girly bits clapped their hands in glee and her breasts tingled from the soft prickle of his masculine hair where his strong forearm was resting just below them.

  ‘Mmm...’ Luke’s voice was a sexy hum against her neck that made her nerves fizz and flicker.

  Abby was wondering how far she could push her luck when he suddenly jerked away from her with an expletive. ‘What the freaking hell?’

  She turned over to see him staring at her in abject horror. So much for her self-esteem. Off to the corner with you to suck your thumb and rock.

  ‘What did I do?’ Luke asked in a tone she hadn’t heard him use before. It was strangled and hoarse as if he had swallowed a pineapple. ‘Did we—? Tell me we—I didn’t—’

  ‘Nothing happened, Luke,’ Abby said, letting out a frustrated sigh. ‘I think we just somehow gravitated together while we were sleeping.’

  He threw off the covers and stood up by the side of the bed, his expression dark and frowning. ‘Why are you sleeping...naked in my bed?’ His stress over the word ‘naked’ was like a skewer through the balloon-thin skin of her self-esteem.

  Abby pulled the bed sheet over her body and sat up. ‘I was worried about you. I didn’t want to leave you until I was certain you were asleep. But somehow I—’

  ‘Thought you’d whip off your clothes and jump into bed with me?’ His tone couldn’t have been more scathing than if he was reprimanding a rebellious teenager. ‘For God’s sake, Abby. I could have—’ He scraped his hair back off his forehead, his mouth snapping closed as if he couldn’t bear to say out loud what he could have done.

  ‘I was wearing a towel—a big one—but it must have slipped off.’ Abby glanced at the foot of the bed and saw a lump under the covers. ‘There it is. See? It must have got pushed down there when we—’

  ‘When we what?’ His voice cracked like an egg on concrete. ‘Damn it, Abby, I could have hurt you.’

  ‘You didn’t do anything I didn’t want,’ Abby said. ‘I liked being spooned. No one’s ever done that to me before. I liked the feel of your body behind mine. It was—’

  ‘Stop.’ He held his hand up as if he was stopping traffic. ‘Stop it right there. This is not happening.’

  ‘It is happening, Luke.’ She clutched the sheet around her breasts to keep it secure. ‘You want me.’

  ‘It’s a reflex,’ he said. ‘It happens to every man in the morning. It means nothing.’

  Abby decided it was time to test a little theory of hers. She swung her legs off the bed and stood up and let the sheet slip so more than half of her breasts were showing. His eyes ran over her cleavage and the upper swell of her breasts, his throat bobbing up and down over a swallow.

  ‘I’ll just be going then.’ She moved past him to leave the room but his hand reached for her and came down on her forearm. She stopped and turned to face him, her arm buzzing with sensation where his fingers lay. ‘Am I really so unappealing to you?’

  He frowned. ‘God, no. I want you but—’

  ‘Then why not have me?’ Abby moved closer. ‘I want you.’

  His hand fell away from her arm. ‘You want more than I can give.’

  ‘I’m asking you to sleep with me, not marry me and have your babies. Why is having a fling with me so unthinkable to you?’

  ‘I don’t want what happens between us to get in the way of your relationship with my sister,’ he said. ‘Or for that matter for my relationship with her to be damaged.’

  ‘It won’t be,’ Abby said. ‘Ella knows you went to the ball with me. She’s probably seen the photos of us last night all over social media. She’ll be happy for you that you’ve moved on and she’ll be happy for
me as long as I’m happy.’

  ‘And how long will your happiness last?’ he said. ‘I know how this works. The longer two people have sex together, especially if the sex is good, the harder it is to let go. Particularly for women.’ Something about his expression made Abby wonder if there was more to that last comment than there appeared at face value.

  ‘What if we were to set a time limit on it then?’ Abby said. ‘We could draw up an agreement so we both agree on the terms.’

  His mouth opened and closed as if he were going to say something but changed his mind. Then he let out an exasperated sigh. ‘Will you please get dressed? I can’t think straight with you standing there like that.’

  Abby stroked her hand down the length of his chest, stopping just above the waistline of his tented pyjama pants. ‘Do you really want me to get dressed?’ She channelled her inner sexy siren with a whisper-soft voice.

  He swallowed again and took her by the hips almost roughly. ‘No, damn it, I don’t.’ He brought his mouth down to hers in a blistering kiss that shot a bolt of lightning through her flesh.

  She pressed closer, her barely covered breasts crushed against his chest, his sprinkling of hair intensifying the sensation like all her nerves were on the outside of her skin. The sheet was slipping but she didn’t care. She was too caught up in the moment. The thrilling moment of feeling Luke’s flaming lust. For her. His erection jutted against her as if his body was taking control, going on impulse not reason. His tongue came in search of hers in a smooth sexy slide and another hot spurt of longing darted through her.

  He groaned against her mouth, a groan that sounded as if it had come from deep inside him. Somewhere deep and dark and closed off but now finally creaking open. His hands moved from grasping her hips to mould her to his body, one arm a steel band around her back, the other gliding up the back of her neck to splay his fingers into her hair, making her scalp tingle as if sherbet was trickling through her hair.

  But just as suddenly as the kiss started, it was over.

  Luke pulled back from her and released her, his expression a contorted mixture of lust and disgust. ‘That should never have happened. I’m sorry.’

  Abby wasn’t one bit sorry. Her lips were buzzing, her inner core was fizzing and every cell in her body was clapping their hands for an encore. But there was only so much rejection her self-esteem could take. Was the disgust she’d seen on his face for him or for her?

  She had offered herself and he had said an emphatic no. His body might want her but the rational part of him didn’t.

  Both parts of her wanted him. Every part.

  Every throbbing, aching part.

  Abby gathered the sheet more securely around her body, avoiding his gaze. ‘I’m going to have a shower. I guess I’ll see you downstairs.’

  ‘I have to go in to work for most of today.’

  ‘Do you usually work on Saturdays? No, don’t answer that. I already know. Of course you do because you have no life other than work,’ she said in a teasing tone, desperately wanting him to see how damaging it was to deny himself any longer.

  ‘I took you to the ball as agreed, okay?’

  ‘Which you enjoyed.’ Abby eyeballed him. ‘Didn’t you? Go on, admit it, Luke. You had a good time.’

  His gave an indifferent shrug. ‘The ball was important to you so I took you. End of story.’

  ‘What about that kiss?’

  Something flickered over his features like a glitch in a film reel. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Actually, there were two,’ Abby said. ‘The one last night in the car and this one just now. You seemed to enjoy those too.’

  He did something with his mouth, a sort of twitch and sideways movement of his lips, as if to remove the memory of those kisses. But his gaze was as shuttered as a beach house in winter. ‘I’ll be back around six this evening.’ He took a couple of strides for the en suite bathroom.

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

  He turned and frowned. ‘What?’

  She pointed to the sheet she was wrapped in. ‘I don’t have any clothes.’

  ‘What about the dress you wore last night?’

  Abby rolled her eyes like the ball bearings in a child’s puzzle maze. ‘Duh. That would be akin to the walk of shame to be seen out in public in a ball gown in broad daylight. Very morning-after-the-night before-ish. I hate feeling so...so vulnerable. So exposed.’

  He seemed to be having some trouble getting his voice to work. He kept opening and closing his mouth as if he were having some sort of internal debate. ‘Right, then I’ll show you Kimberley’s things and maybe there’ll be something you could make do with until you go home.’

  But when Luke pulled back the sliding door of his wall-to-wall wardrobe there were only a few female items hanging to one side, well away from his neatly ordered shirts and ties and crisply seamed trousers.

  ‘Help yourself,’ he said, stepping away as if even looking at the clothes was painful.

  Abby worked her way through the half dozen or so coat hangers but it felt a little creepy to be handling a dead woman’s clothes. They were beautifully made and she didn’t have to peep at any of the labels to know they were all from high street designers. What must Luke think of her jumble sale assortment compared to these gorgeous things?

  She sighed and stepped away from the wardrobe. ‘I’m sorry but I don’t think I can wear any of those.’ She turned to face him. ‘Why do you keep them there? Why not put them in another cupboard, or pack them up in a box or something?’

  Luke slid the door back across, his expression as closed as the door. ‘I haven’t had time.’

  ‘You’ve had five years, surely that’s long enough to—?’

  ‘I’ll get to it eventually.’

  ‘Like when you’re moving into a retirement home?’ Abby said. ‘It’s not healthy to keep that stuff for so long. It’ll hold you back from—’

  ‘I hardly think you’re the one who should be lecturing me on how to live my life.’

  Abby recognised his shot over the bow for what it was. A defence mechanism. She backed down. ‘I’m sorry for prying, Luke. It’s none of my business why you’ve still got those clothes there. And you’re absolutely right. I have no right to be criticising you on how you live your life when mine is such a shambles.’

  He drew in a breath and then let it out in a staggered stream. ‘I keep them there to remind me.’

  ‘Of...of her? Kimberley?’

  He moved to the other side of the room to stare out of the window, his back turned towards her.

  The silence was as intense as an unexpected music interval...the audience poised, waiting, waiting, waiting for the next note to be struck.

  Abby wanted to prompt him, to encourage him to share whatever he was holding back, but she knew it would be better for him to be the one who broke the silence.

  ‘Kimberley died the night I ended my relationship with her.’

  Abby’s heart gave a painful spasm and her breath caught on a thorn in her throat. ‘Oh, no... I’m so sorry...’

  He turned to face her, his expression a picture of regret and self-recrimination. ‘I’ve thought about that night thousands of times, wondering if I’d said things differently, waited another day or two, a week even to call things off between us, if she would still be alive.’

  Abby stared at him in shock. ‘You feel...responsible for her death? But—’

  His gaze was suddenly direct. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  She would. She very definitely would. Didn’t she still blame herself for her mother’s death? She still blamed herself for not being able to unlock the front door of the flat in time for help to be summoned for her mother, despite only being a child. ‘Luke... I think it’s perfectly understandable you would feel that way. I’m so sorry you’ve been carrying that guilt for so long. It must be unbearable.’

  There was a slight relaxation of the muscles on his face as if her sympathetic words had eased some of his in
ner tension. ‘It never goes away. The guilt of how I handled the breakup. How I handled the whole relationship, when it comes to that.’

  ‘Were you ever happy with her?’

  ‘Not particularly.’ He let out a rusty-sounding sigh. ‘We met when I was dealing with yet another one of my father’s spectacular marriage failures and she was rebounding from a long-term relationship. With hindsight, I can see neither of us was in a good place. But we got on okay and we drifted into a relationship that probably looked more stable from the outside than it actually was. But I guess I wanted everyone to think that. I didn’t want to be seen to be switching partners faster than I changed shirts.’

  ‘But you were together for three years. No one would’ve accused you of being fickle if you’d ended things at two years or even at a year,’ Abby said.

  ‘I know, but there never seemed to be a good time,’ he said. ‘I almost called an end a couple of times earlier but then Kimberley got news of her ex getting married and then of him becoming a father. It was a tough time for her.’

  ‘Oh, Luke, you sound like you were an amazing partner.’

  ‘That’s me.’ His voice was both self-deprecating and bitter. ‘A regular Mr Perfect.’

  Abby decided it was time to share some of her own guilt, so he didn’t have to feel so alone and isolated. Nothing was more isolating than guilt. She should know—she had graduated with Honours from the Academy of Guilt. ‘I have a few regrets on how I handled things with my mother. I wish I’d been able to get help for her sooner but she died before I could.’

  ‘I didn’t realise she’d actually died. What happened?’

  Abby let out a long breath, wondering if she was wise to reveal any more. People were funny about drugs and prostitution. Would it make him see her differently? Make her appear even more unacceptable to him than she already felt? But in the end she decided to tell him because of the trust he had shown in telling her about his guilt over his ex. ‘Drug overdose. Heroin. She stuck the needle in her arm and died in the next room.’