by Anne Weale
Being James, whose reactions were never predictable, he didn't deny it, nor did he lose his temper with her. For some seconds, which seemed like minutes, he sat in silence, looking at her, his eyes narrowed almost to slits, the muscles of his jaw bunched under the taut brown skin, showing how tightly his teeth were clamped together.
When at last he spoke, his voice was quiet and controlled.
'You're ready to marry me... believing me to be in love with Emily?'
She nodded. 'You see I've changed as well.' Unconciously she lifted her chin and squared her shoulders before she gave away her own secret. 'I've discovered I love you. I've known it for quite some time and... and it seems to me that, if you can never have the person you really want, you might as well settle for me, as you once intended to.'
For a few ghastly moments she thought he was searching for the least humiliating way to reject her proposal.
Then, slowly, he rose to his feet and came to stand towering above her.
'It seems to me that we don't know each other well enough to marry. I was under the impression that you'd never been at ease in my presence since the night I tried to take you to bed. And if you seriously believe I'm nursing an incestuous passion for my teenage niece, you're way off beam about my feelings. The girl I want isn't Emily?'
'She isn't?'
He reached down and grasped both her hands. 'Of course she isn't... you dumb blonde.'
The next instant she was in his arms, held close to his tall strong body with her face pressed against his shoulder.
'Oh, God—it seems like a decade since I held you... touched you,' he exclaimed hoarsely. 'How could you possibly believe that I felt this way about Emily? Not only is she my niece, but she's years too young for a man of my age.'
'But she isn't fully your niece... and she is such a darling.'
She felt him tense slightly. 'What do you mean? Not fully my niece?'
Summer lifted her face to look up at him. 'I know you and Lord Edgedale were only half-brothers... that you're the son of a high-ranking American army officer.'
His face didn't darken with anger as she feared it might. He seemed no more than surprised. 'Where did you hear that?'
'I went to see Diana Kendall. After I'd admitted that I loved you, she told me. Oh, James, I can't believe you care for me.'
'I thought I was making it plain enough by spending most of my time with you. How was I to know you'd dream up the crazy idea that Emily was the magnet who drew me?'
'I feel I may be dreaming this... being in your arms at long last. Kiss me before I wake up.'
He bent his head and pressed a soft, tender kiss on her upturned mouth. Her lips quivered under his. She couldn't believe that it was happening; that one simple act of courage had brought this amazing reward.
The kiss deepened, igniting the passion which had blazed between them those precious times before. This time her response wasn't forced from her. She gave it willingly, eagerly.
'We've wasted so much time already. Need we waste any more?' he asked, in a husky murmur, a little later.
For answer she pressed herself closer, as impatient as he was to give full rein to their desire. 'Not a single minute,' she whispered, against his hard cheek. 'I want to sleep in your bed... in your arms. I never want to sleep alone again.'
Holding her by the hand, he switched out the sitting room lights and led her swiftly to his room. There he locked the door and crossed the room to close the curtains, shutting out the faint glow from the street lamps and plunging the room into deeper darkness. But only briefly.
A few seconds later a pool of light from a reading lamp illumined the wide double bed. James took hold of the linen cover and flung it back. With another strong jerk of his wrist the blanket and top sheet were thrown back exposing the smooth white undersheet, clean on that day.
Then he beckoned her to him.
It was neither shyness nor last-minute uncertainty which made her move forward slowly. After waiting so long for this night and never really believing it would ever come about, she wanted to prolong every blissful second of it.
When she reached him, he took her face between his hands and his thumbs gently traced her eyebrows and the slanting line of her cheekbones.
'How lovely you are,' he said quietly. 'The first time we met I was struck by the colour of your eyes—even though they were glaring suspiciously at me.'
'I thought you only noticed how... enormous I was.'
'That, too, but it didn't obscure the beauty of your eyes and this exquisite skin'—caressing her cheeks.
She closed her eyes, the better to enjoy his touch. From the lobes of her ears to the centre of her chin, his fingers brushed lightly back and forth. Instinctively she let her head fall back, exposing her throat. His fingertips left her jawline and trailed softly, slowly down to the base of her neck and from there to her nape and back again in a necklace of delicious sensation.
For her solitary evening she had changed into a loose velour robe, buttercup-yellow with a long white zipper down the front. She felt the slight tug as he started to open the fastener, sliding the tag down till it was level with her navel.
Still without haste he pushed the robe off her shoulders. The loose sleeves slid down her arms and the whole garment fell to the floor, leaving her naked except for a lacy white bra and matching briefs.
She heard James give a kind of low groan and opened her eyes to find him looking as if he wanted to tear them off her. But his hands remained gentle as he fondled her waist and hips for a moment or two before pulling her against him and giving her a long, hungry kiss.
Summer twined her arms round his neck and returned the kiss with abandon. She felt him unloose the ribbon which tied back her hair. Then his hand glided over her back to the clip between her shoulder-blades. Next she found herself lifted and placed in the middle of the bed and her loosened bra peeled away.
He took her breasts in his palms as if they were ripe, perfect fruit which would lose their bloom if not handled with the utmost care.
'The last time I did this you seemed to hate it,' he said, as he stroked her.
'Only seemed. I wanted to hate it... but I didn't really. I could never hate anything you did to me.'
He smiled and his dark head swooped, but not to kiss her on the lips. She gasped as his warm, sensual mouth brushed lightly over the soft flesh he held plumped into pale golden domes, each one topped by a circle of pink with an unfolding bud at its centre.
When his lips touched her there, she stifled a cry of delight at the lovely sensation which shot from the tip of her breast to the deep inner core of her body.
'Oh, God! That's divine,' she muttered, clutching his head, beginning to shiver with excitement.
Pausing halfway to her other breast, he said, 'We've hardly begun yet,' and she wondered what could be in store if she felt so much pleasure in these first moments of her first night of love.
'I—I can't stop shaking,' she gasped, a little while later, when he paused once again to glance at her flushed, bright-eyed face.
'Don't worry... you will,' he assured her, the once unreadable eyes now warm and loving.
His hands glided down past her ribs and her quivering belly to take hold of her flimsy briefs. She lifted her bottom to help him, and he pulled them down over her thighs and then past her knees till he could throw them away.
'Why don't you take off some clothes?' she murmured, watching him look at her now naked body.
His response was to loosen his tie and, when that had been discarded, to unbutton his shirt and pull it out of his pants. A moment later she was looking at the muscular torso so often admired but rarely touched.
'Oh, James...' She sat up and flung her arms round him, pressing her breasts to his chest. 'I didn't know what I was missing.'
'You still don't.' He kissed her mouth. 'But we're going to make up for lost time.'
They kissed for a long time, his hands still exploring her body and hers roving over his sh
oulders, feeling the strength underlying the chamois-soft skin.
Presently, still sitting up, embracing him, she felt his hand on her legs, first stroking her outer thigh from hip to knee and back again; and, after some moments of that, moving to the inner side of her leg, his fingertips brushing slow circles from her knee to where her thighs joined.
The last time his hand had been there, she had tried to resist, and what had followed her surrender had been a few guilty seconds of ecstasy before they had been interrupted by Raoul's telephone call.
Now there was no need to resist or to feel any guilt. Tonight she had no inhibitions, only a longing to yield herself utterly to him, giving all that he asked, receiving all he could give her.
Although she could feel his heart pounding an urgent tattoo, he had his own feelings under steely control as his fingers searched for and found her most sensitive spot. When he touched it she shuddered convulsively, her head falling back and her whole body shaking and twitching.
She was vaguely aware of being propped against his raised knee while he pulled the pillows together and lowered her against them. Then, with hands and lips, he launched a gentle but relentless attack which soon had her writhing and jerking in uncontrollable abandonment, the back of one hand pressed over her mouth to muffle the groans of pleasure which rose in her throat.
When it was over, when the final paroxysm of delicious feeling had engulfed her body and left her limp and panting, she opened her eyes and saw by the fierce gleam in his how much he wanted her.
'But you didn't... you haven't...' she whispered.
'We have all night. I can wait.' He took a tissue from the box on the night table and lightly blotted the moisture which had broken out on her forehead and under her eyes. Her breasts were wet from his tongue. Very tenderly, he dried them.
'I want you to be drunk with love before I hurt you, my darling,' he told her softly.
'I don't mind if it hurts for a moment. I want you to take me... now,' she pleaded softly, lifting her arms to pull him down to her.
He shook his head. 'Not yet. Just lie still and rest for a minute.' He moved down the bed and, picking up one of her feet, began to play with her toes. 'You have very pretty feet. I noticed it at the beach at Nantucket.'
'You have nice feet, too... nice everything,' she said admiringly.
He gave her a wolfish grin. 'You haven't seen everything yet,' he reminded her.
She looked at him through lowered lashes. 'If it matches what I can see I should have no cause for complaint. You remind me of that bronze at Cranmere, "The Dying Gaul".'
She remembered once furtively stroking the statue of the magnificently naked wounded man; imagining what it must be like to have such a man as a lover, never dreaming one day she would.
James nibbled her smallest toe between his white teeth and flicked his tongue slowly along the backs of the others. She closed her eyes, filled with lazy, luxurious well-being.
It was when he was kissing her knees that she felt her half-drowsy enjoyment become recharged with excitement. She glanced down and saw the dark head between her knees and felt his palms under her calves and the slightly rough feel of his cheeks against the smooth flesh of her thighs as he inched his way higher. His lips seemed to burn her skin, or was it her skin which was burning? She lay still, almost not breathing, her eyes tightly shut, her clenched hands gripping the sheet as she waited for him to come closer. Would he bypass the centre of her body and follow the line of her hip, or would that hot sensual mouth...?
When she found out, a cry burst from her. Her spine arched in a spasm of intense, electrifying sensation which zinged through her whole nervous system, followed by another and another as he quickened the delectable friction.
When it suddenly ceased, her eyes blinked open in dismay.
'Why have you stopped?' she asked faintly, her body throbbing and aching with the need for him to go on.
In a rapid continuous movement James removed his shoes, socks, pants and undershorts. She had a brief glimpse of his hard aroused maleness but, before she had time to be nervous, he was making love to her again, swinging her legs over his shoulders, his hands snaking upwards to enclose her quivering breasts and force her to new heights of rapture.
At the peak there was a fleeting instant of such paradisiacal feeling that, when it was ebbing, she wanted to burst into tears. But then, while that wonderful wave of erotic delight was still in her mind and her bloodstream and every last cell of her being, another wave came; and this one was James surging upwards and plunging into her body with one swift decisive thrust which gave her a second of pain immediately succeeded by the joy of having him as close as it was possible to be.
What followed was not, for her, as physically blissful as what had gone before, but she knew that was only because it was the first time. Emotionally, the experience of holding this long-adored man in her arms and learning the rhythm of love was something she would never forget.
There was a moment, when they were still and he lay with his face buried against the side of her neck and his weight pressing on her, when she thought she wouldn't mind dying, not now she had known the high point of living.
Then James raised himself on his arms and began to kiss her softly on the eyelids.
'Shall I let you go? Are you hurting?' he whispered tenderly.
'No, no... stay with me, please... it's lovely like this.' She caressed his broad back and pressed little feathery kisses along his collar-bone. 'How can people who've done this together ever turn against each other?' Then, before he could answer, she added, 'I guess it isn't like this for everyone, and the first time can be a disaster. You made it wonderful. Thank you.'
He was silent for a while before he said, close to her ear, 'It was a first time for me, too. I love you very much, Summer. There's no way to describe the difference. I didn't know what I was missing either.'
Presently they had a shower together and James went to the kitchen for a bottle of wine which they drank sitting up in bed with Summer leaning against his chest while he wound silky strands of her hair round his fingers.
'I think I was in love with you when I asked you to marry me in Nantucket, but I didn't want to admit it to myself,' he told her. 'Love makes people vulnerable and that's a condition I've tried to avoid.'
'Because your mother rejected you when you were a small boy?'
'No, I don't think that was as painful as Diana Kendall walking out on me. I was nineteen and as crazy about her as a kid of that age can be if an attractive older woman exerts herself to be nice to him. It was one hell of a shock to come home one day and find her gone. Of course it was the right decision. I wasn't sufficiently mature to be anyone's permanent partner. But it hurt like hell for a long time, and from then on I tried to avoid giving anyone the power to repeat the process.'
'Sometimes being hurt can be good for people. It was for me. You don't know it, but you hurt me terribly soon after you arrived at Cranmere. I overheard you talking to Dr Dyer about me. But although I hated you for them, the cruel things you said were the spur I needed to change myself. If you hadn't said them, I probably shouldn't be slim, and I certainly shouldn't be here in your bed.'
'I wouldn't say that. It isn't only your body I love. It's the inner you... the girl who made Emily happy and whom everyone at Cranmere liked, regardless of the way you looked. You didn't often show that side of yourself to me, but I heard things from Mrs Hardy and many other people which indicated there was a very sweet, warm personality behind the prickly defences you put up when I was around.'
'All the same, love is partly a physical thing and you wouldn't have enjoyed making love to me the way I was.' She had finished her wine and she put the glass on the night table and wriggled herself round to face him, sitting back on her heels. 'How long does it take for men to recover their energy?'
He grinned. 'It depends,' he said, putting his own glass aside. 'For a boy of seventeen maybe not more than ten minutes. For a man of seventy maybe fo
ur or five days.'
'And for someone of your age?'
He cupped her left breast in his palm and took one of her hands and placed it upon his own body. Then he put his hand behind her neck and pulled her towards him, at the same time leaning towards her.
Before their mouths met, he said, 'Not long.'
From the nest of dark curls at the base of his flat, hard belly she felt his resurgent power stirring, strong and warm, under her fingers; and, inside her, a melting readiness to make him as welcome in her body as he had long been in her heart.
On a morning, two weeks after Christmas, she opened her eyes and saw on the pillow beside her the sleeping, beard-shadowed face of the man who was now her husband.
He had been her lover every night since that first night in London, making slow, ravenous love to her and teaching her how to please him. When not locked in each other's arms, they had opened their minds, finding as much delight in that as in freely exploring each other's bodies.
From that first night on they had been married in spirit, but because of their different nationalities there had been minor complications attached to making the bond official. For two reasons they had decided to postpone their legal marriage till after Christmas; the first being that it was unthinkable not to spend Christmas with Emily, and the second being to spare her the uncomfortable feeling of intruding on their honeymoon. Whether she had guessed they were sleeping together in Austria, Summer wasn't sure. But it would have been impossible for them to spend their nights apart.
Now Emily was in Palm Beach with Cordelia Rathbone and this was Summer's first awakening in the place James had chosen for their official honeymoon.
She still didn't know where they were. It had amused him to make a mystery of their destination. All she knew was that they were on a small island somewhere in the Caribbean, having spent the previous night at an hotel in Barbados before flying from there to St Vincent and transferring to a specially chartered boat for the final lap of the journey. It had been dark when they arrived and a taxi had brought them from the jetty to an isolated house on a headland which she hadn't yet explored because James had been impatient to make love to her.
