by Penny Jordan
‘She told me you’d been to see your solicitor about a divorce.’
‘Oh, Nell, she lied to you. There was no way I would have let you go, even if my conscience was telling me that was exactly what I should do. You see, I thought that once I’d made love to you I’d be able to break through your barriers; that if we could share physical pleasure, in time you might come to feel an emotional bond with me. What I didn’t bargain for was how guilty making love to you made me feel. I suddenly realised exactly what I was doing to you; that by forcing you into marriage with me, I’d stolen from you your right to fall in love.’
‘But I’d already fallen in love,’ Nell told him huskily, and then added, ‘Joss, you haven’t made love to me once since our wedding night.’
‘Because I dared not. I couldn’t without telling you how much I loved you, and I was terrified that if I did that, I’d frighten you off for ever. The title … the house … none of it mattered, Nell. It was just you. Did you really think I was so shallow? If I’d just wanted a title for my son, there were other women I could have married.’ His hands cupped her face, his thumb tracing the curve of her bottom lip and then probing the trembling corner of her mouth, parting her lips so that she felt the roughness of his flesh against their softness. She drew a shaky breath, intending to tell him how much she loved him, but the words were lost as he bent his head and said slowly, ‘Oh, God, Nell, if you only knew how I’ve dreamed of doing this … and this …’ He kissed her slowly, and then added rawly, ‘Of making love to you until you cried out my name with pleasure … Ah, Nell …’
She felt him tremble as she reached up and kissed him, a little uncertainly at first and then with growing confidence as she felt his unchecked response.
When they broke apart, she said breathlessly, ‘I hope you won’t need champagne to make love to me tonight, because I don’t think we’ve got any.’
There was a silence while he looked at her in a way that made her body burn, and then he said quietly, ‘That wasn’t so that I could make love to you. It was so that I wouldn’t. Only, when I saw you in that nightdress, I knew I was wasting my time … Nell, do you think a husband suffering from jet-lag might quite reasonably go to bed at four o’clock in the afternoon?’
‘It’s Mrs Booth’s afternoon off,’ Nell told him obliquely, willingly letting him draw her out into the hall and up the stairs to their room.
‘Oh, Nell, she’s so beautiful. I’d forgotten how adorable new babies are. It makes me feel quite broody. What about Joss, though? I thought he’d set his heart on a boy.’
‘Joss spoils her to death,’ Nell grinned as she and Liz both looked down at the baby in her ribbon-festooned crib.
‘I heard that,’ Joss announced, coming into the nursery in time to hear Nell’s comment, and then unwittingly confirming what Nell had just said by bending over the crib and crooning nonsense over his sleeping daughter.
‘See, I told you,’ Nell said wryly. ‘I’m barely allowed to touch her.’
Picking up the baby and cradling her against his shoulder, Joss turned to look at her and said softly, ‘Nell, as much as I love our daughter, I could never love her as much as I do her mother.’
‘Hey, you two, break it up,’ Liz demanded. ‘You’re making me feel quite weepy, and in front of your daughter, too … Joss, if you and Nell want to be alone …’
‘An excellent suggestion,’ Joss agreed, ignoring Nell’s protest to grin at Liz, and hand over the soon-to-be christened Charlotte Louise to her doting godmother—to—be.
‘Why don’t Nell and I leave you to become acquainted with your god-daughter to be, while I become re-acquainted with my wife?’
‘Joss, what on earth must Liz be thinking?’ Nell protested huskily as Joss deftly whisked her out of the nursery and closed the door firmly behind them, silencing Liz’s amused laughter.
‘Oh, I expect she thinks I want to make love to my wife, and do you know something?’ he murmured against her ear, taking her in his arms. ‘She’s quite right.’
Half an hour later, when Robert walked into the nursery in search of his wife and hosts, he asked Liz curiously, ‘What’s happened to Nell and Joss?’
‘Umm … that, I believe, is a rather indelicate question.’ She grinned up at him, and said thoughtfully, ‘Robert, she’s adorable, isn’t she? Now that Lucy is two …’
‘Another baby? God, Liz what are you trying to do to me? Do you realise that would mean we have four children? It’s positively indecent …’
‘Ah, yes, but think what it would do for your image,’ she teased him.
In their bedroom, sunlight fell across the bed, bathing Nell’s body in its warmth.
‘We really ought to go downstairs,’ she protested drowsily as Joss drew her down against him.
‘Later …’ Joss told her, and, looking into the golden heat of his eyes, Nell didn’t demur.
ISBN: 978-1-4089-9927-1
LOVERS TOUCH
© 1988 Penny Jordan
Published in Great Britain 2015
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited
Eton House, 18-24 Paradise Road, Richmond, Surrey TW9 1SR
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