by Kim Lawrence
Jack was struck by the ragged truth of Caroline’s impassioned words. He should just walk away and forget her, as she’d advised, and spare them both further agony. But even as his lips stilled, scant inches from hers, he knew that trying to curtail his increasing desire for her was like hoping to douse an inferno with a mere thimbleful of water. His senses were held in thrall by her.
In the gently dimmed light that flooded out into the hall from the living room, she looked like the impossibly beautiful heroine from a fairy tale. Her dark gaze was sleepily soft, even though her eyes danced with anger, and her hair felt like gossamer as it glanced against the back of his hand. God help him, but Jack had dreamed of holding her like this so many times over the years! But then usually, after he’d surrendered to the impulse to think about Caroline, he’d be infused with agonising hurt about her having the abortion and betraying both him and their unborn child. He’d hate her then, and the impulse—the tormenting, feverish longing to recall how she had felt in his arms—would abruptly leave him.
But right now it wasn’t hatred that was dominating Jack’s senses but a ravenous, almost obsessive compulsion to know her again in the most libidinous and intimate way. Everything about her put him under a spell of longing.
‘I know what we had is long over,’ he intonated throatily, his compelling blue irises darkening as he stared into Caroline’s startled gaze. ‘But what if—what if I asked you to share just one more night with me? What then, Caroline? Would you turn me away out into the rain again when right now I need to hold you more than anything else I need in this entire world?’
He didn’t play fair. He found her most vulnerable spot and ruthlessly exploited it. Right from that very first moment, when he’d arrested her curious, aroused gaze with his lazy and bold examination of her when she was with her schoolfriends, Jack had assumed an early and definitely powerful advantage over Caroline’s captivated senses. Now she was once again besieged by his blatantly sensual masculinity, and the incessant throbbing yearning that surged through her heart at his seductive words made her realise that she was too weak to deny him…to deny herself.
Feeling herself sway, all the strength in her legs seemed to treacherously desert her as Jack caught her feverishly in his arms and with devastating thoroughness laid voracious claim to her lips. Drenching heat and exquisitely male flavours burst over her mouth, and Caroline heard herself making small betraying sounds of shameless longing. Jack swept her mouth with his tongue, stroking and teasing hers with unbelievably erotic torment as he gathered a fistful of her soft silken hair in his hand and massaged her scalp with his fingers. His lean hips increased the torment he was delivering as he pressed them demandingly into hers, hinting at a wild white-water ride of incalculable pleasure and rediscovery that made Caroline breathless.
‘Jack…’
Every ounce of longing she had in her entire being was in the soft, heartfelt whisper of his name. She had lost so much…her baby and Jack…How could she pass up the chance for them to be together again for even a short while, she asked herself desperately, when she ached so hard for him that it was unthinkable to ask him to leave?
‘Have mercy,’ he replied, his warm breath caressing the side of her neck, closely followed by his lips. ‘Please don’t tell me you’ve changed your mind…I want you so badly I’m shaking. Can you feel it?’
She could. Although there was humour in his wry remark, there was an underlying fear and desperation there too. Extricating herself firmly from his ardent embrace, Caroline swept back her dishevelled golden hair with her fingers and glanced nervously towards the open door that led into the living room.
‘There’s a fire…it needs—it needs building up, but the embers are still burning.’ She could have been talking about their relationship and the irony was not lost on her.
Jack’s piercing gaze examined her for so long that Caroline momentarily feared that he was the one who had changed his mind about making love to her. Glancing anxiously away, she felt her breath catch in her throat when he suddenly moved closer and slipped his arm possessively around her waist, bestowing a smile so dangerously beguiling that she was reminded of the eager, devil-may-care, youthful Jack—who had so determinedly and doggedly pursued her in spite of the dire warnings and threats from Caroline’s father. There was a big part of her that still grieved for the innocent passion they had lost so cruelly…
He made up the fire again while Caroline watched, silently begging him to finish quickly and join her again. When he did, he drew her down to the patterned colourful rug, with its tones of burnished copper and warm reds, that adorned the space in front of the fire. Then, lifting his dark green lambswool sweater over his head, he carelessly discarded it before slowly undoing the tie-belt of Caroline’s dressing-gown that was fastened around her small hourglass waist.
She couldn’t stop shivering as his hands first touched her clothing, then her skin—his intensely blue eyes making her a slave to his increasingly heated glance. When she did manage to tear her gaze free, it was only for it to linger on the taut, well-formed display of muscle at the tops of his arms, so temptingly revealed by his fitted T-shirt.
A hot, melting flurry of acute awareness dispersed through Caroline’s insides when she saw the dark tattoo of a raven carved into his left bicep. He must have acquired it after he had left her, she realized, curious as to what it was supposed to symbolise. And there was no doubt in her mind that it meant something. Something that very few people would know outright. That was one of the things about Jack that had been such a magnet for Caroline. He’d always been almost frighteningly inscrutable and unpredictable—had always left her with the sense that he knew things about life that no one else knew…
‘Let’s take this off, shall we?’
Relieving her of her dressing-gown, Jack directed his attention to the perfectly beautiful delineation of her slender shoulders in the flimsily strapped white cotton nightgown, to the temptingly bountiful swell of her full breasts and the noticeable imprint of her puckered nipples behind the pristine cotton. With her hair tumbling and curling like golden flame down her back, highlighted by the vivid colours reflected from the fire, her expression was focused totally on him and entirely serious. Jack guessed how King Solomon must have felt when the Queen of Sheba had revealed herself to him from a rolled-up carpet. Her incandescent beauty stunned him.
A powerful memory surfaced inside Jack from long ago, when they had made love for the very first time. Her loveliness had left him dry-mouthed in awe then too.
The venue for the occasion had been a cheap hotel on the outskirts of town where no one would know them, and when Jack had eagerly helped Caroline undress he had finally seen her the way he’d been hungering to see her since the day they’d met. She’d been the most breathtakingly beautiful girl he’d ever set eyes on, and she had wanted to be with him—not some ‘upper class aspiring doctor’ that her father picked out for her. That very gratifying realisation alone had helped cement Jack’s already strong feelings for her. His spirits had soared to the sky at the knowledge that she wanted to share her beautiful body with him…that he was going to be her very first lover and, if Jack had his way, her only lover.
Now the denial of that fervent wish twisted his heart with unbelievable hurt. To imagine her giving herself in that way to somebody else…Caroline was his.
Faced with the extraordinarily jealous urge that swept him, Jack could no longer pretend even to himself that his possessive feelings towards her had grown less passionate or intense throughout all the years of separation.
‘What’s this?’ With a shy smile that caught him completely off guard, Caroline gently touched the outline of his tattoo.
Capturing her slender, fine-boned wrist between his fingers, Jack made a gruff noise in his throat, then smiled. ‘It’s a raven. The Native Americans believe that it has the power to shape-shift—to move from one dimension to another. It can also symbolise visiting the darker parts of your soul.’
Shivering as he raised her hand to his lips and gently kissed it, Caroline longed to be able to convey to him how desperately she regretted perpetrating the act that had finally forced them apart. In that moment she realised that Jack was still harbouring a wealth of animosity and pain in his soul because of her. And, although she definitely intended to let him know that she was no longer going to be a willing victim of that animosity and pain—no matter how regretful she was—Caroline also experienced an overwhelming urge to demonstrate to him her intense sadness that their love had been dashed to the rocks and splintered for ever…
‘I’ve done that too, Jack,’ she whispered, studying him intently. ‘Visited the darker part of my soul. But despising what I found there didn’t help me. We have to learn to forgive, don’t we? I mean…even ourselves. Then we can move on and hopefully make something of our lives. I’m so sorry about what happened between us. If I could turn back time and undo all the dreadful hurt I would.’
Learn to forgive? For a moment his jaw tightened with overwhelming emotion. Jack didn’t know if he would ever be able to do that. Because of what Caroline had done, he had not sought to father another child with a woman. He had been far too fearful of a repetition of the past. But—deep in the far reaches of his soul—Jack still longed to experience fatherhood. Else what had all his hard work and driving ambition been for? Having a child of his own would help make up for every excruciating splinter of hurt that his own disastrous family life had driven into his heart…
‘I think you’ve grown even more lovely over the years.’ Deliberately diverting the conversation from things that were too painful to reflect upon, Jack kissed Caroline softly on the mouth, contact with her moist, sultry lips fuelling his desire once more into restless burning flame.
How could she do anything other than dissolve in his arms at such a heartwarming statement? Even though she was crushingly disappointed that he hadn’t responded positively to her suggestion of forgiveness, Caroline nonetheless couldn’t deny the increasingly restless need that was building inexorably inside her body at Jack’s closeness.
His kiss deepened devastatingly. The pleasure it wrought inside her took Caroline to such heights of unimaginable joy that she knew that when Jack was long gone she would remember the intensity of those feelings for the rest of her life.
Feeling his hands drop to her shoulders to guide her gently onto the rug beneath them, she watched him undress—her mind registering his undoubted masculine perfection with growing anticipation, seeing for herself that her girlhood lover had definitely turned into the most awesome man. Yanking his T-shirt over his dark head, Jack let it drop where it fell. Then, kneeling down, he joined Caroline on the rug.
As he bent towards her, she was taken aback by the slender ridged scar she saw on his chest. Glancing up into his unfathomable blue eyes, she felt her stomach tighten as a bump of fear pulsed through it. If he saw that she was curious, Jack chose to ignore it. Instead his warm breath fanned across her mouth as he lowered his head to kiss her again.
‘What happened? How did you get this?’
Her words interrupted his all too clear intention. As the firelight flickered across her illuminated and concerned features, Jack silently cursed. ‘It’s nothing,’ he answered dismissively.
When he would have touched his lips to hers, Caroline put her fingers haltingly across his mouth. ‘Tell me. I know it’s not nothing,’ she said astutely.
Sighing, and unable to conceal his frustration, Jack felt his own expression harden a little as he scanned her anxious, expressive eyes. To admit his heart attack to Caroline, of all people, would be tantamount to admitting that he wasn’t the great success he’d gone out of his way to prove himself to be. Having always striven to keep himself in A1 physical condition, he would expose the kind of vulnerability that he deliberately guarded against, and it would drag him right back to being the boy her father had so despised from the wrong side of the tracks who in other people’s eyes, was ‘destined to fail’.
‘Do you mind if we don’t discuss my physical defects right now?’ he replied somewhat bitterly, and he watched surprise and hurt infiltrate her lovely face.
‘A scar isn’t a defect,’ Caroline protested softly, her fingers curling into her palm to stop herself from reaching out and gently inspecting the so-called ‘defect’ that clearly engendered such strong emotion in him. Of course she wanted to know how he had acquired it—was frightened at the idea that it had been caused by something serious—but right now all she could do…all she longed to do…was bring him comfort in whatever way she could.
Underneath the outward show of undoubted success, elements of the angry young man Caroline had met and fallen in love with still existed, and it still clearly haunted him. She sensed it deep down in her very bones.
‘Besides…you look amazing,’ she breathed softly, venturing a smile up into that suddenly sombre face of his.
‘Are you telling me that you like what you see, sweetheart?’
A smile broke free from his lips that was like a precious glimpse of the sun glimmering through a dark raincloud and, as he ran his palm up the side of her bare leg until it reached the curve of her hip and bottom, she felt his electrifying touch induce a stunning shower of hot little shivers inside her that made her urgently reach towards him, to bring his head down to hers.
Their mouths clashed heatedly, greedily tasting each other as if the world was running out of time, and all thoughts were suspended while pure, uninhibited sensation assumed powerful command.
Pulling down the front of Caroline’s nightgown with sudden impatience, Jack fastened his mouth to one tight velvet nipple, then the other, finally surrendering to the insistent demanding need to touch her in the way he had long dreamed of—that tonight had caused him to put his foot down on the accelerator as if his life depended on it all the way back from London, just to be with her.
As his tongue swirled over and hotly dampened the softly quivering flesh, a thunderclap of heat exploded straight into his groin and his swiftly unashamed arousal caused him to emit a hoarse and ragged groan. Exploring her body beneath her thin gown, Jack impatiently pushed the material out of the way before purposefully directing his hand between her thighs, and gently but firmly coaxing them apart.
Her eyes closed of their own volition, to experience the full devastating wave of erotic pleasure that washed over her as Jack’s fingers entered her body—unashamedly stoking the searingly provocative damp heat that flooded into her centre. Caroline silently rejoiced that her most secret heartfelt wish to know the magic of his touch again had come true. But her body tensed as he pressed deeper, her hand instantly grabbing onto his to still it, her heart pumping hard against her ribcage at the realisation that she was still maybe a little too tight for his erection to follow.
Jack wouldn’t know that no other man had ever been invited to enjoy the intimacy of touching her as he was doing now, since he had left her seventeen years ago. Her most feminine muscles were not used to being aroused the way he was arousing them at this moment. And then there was Caroline’s deep abiding fear that the termination she had had could have somehow damaged her in some way—even though she’d been given the all-clear by her doctors.
She didn’t doubt that the tremendous guilt she had suffered over the years had played its part in fuelling this fear. It was one reason why she had never allowed herself to get really close to a man in all this time. Besides…there was only one man she had ever loved. And even though Jack was here now, doing all the things she yearned for him to do…he didn’t love her.
‘What’s the matter?’ His deep voice thick with arousal, Jack withdrew his hand and softly touched her face. ‘Nothing’s wrong, is it?’
Feeling like a terrible fool, Caroline stared up at him, her soft brown eyes unable to cont
ain their fear.
‘It’s…it’s just that it’s been such a long time since—’ She broke off, feeling her cheeks burn with heat and her throat tighten.
‘I know how long it’s been, Caroline…seventeen years.’
Jack’s searing glance didn’t leave her face for even a moment. But just when Caroline was about to express her relief that he understood, he went on…
‘But I’m sure you must have had plenty of practice in between, sweetheart.’
Unable to keep the inevitable derision from his tone, Jack felt half crazy that their lovemaking had been temporarily thwarted, as well as furious that he had been inadvertently forced into thinking about the inevitable fact that Caroline had known other lovers since they had parted. Why shouldn’t she? She was a stunningly attractive single woman. Now, as he regarded her with undeniable frustration, he saw her throat convulse with obvious distress, but he hardened his heart against the sight.
‘You—you think I’ve had other lovers? I know this might be hard for you to believe, Jack…but the truth is I haven’t been this intimate with another man since you left.’
The heat from the fire gathered noticeable force and ejected a glowing burning coal that sizzled on the tiled surround.
The impact of her words finally computing in his stunned brain, Jack’s gaze narrowed with disbelief.
‘You’re trying to tell me that I’m the only man you’ve ever had sex with?’
Hurting abominably that he’d referred to their intimacies so crudely as ‘having sex’, and not ‘making love’, Caroline despondently pushed her nightgown back down over her hips and sat up. Threading her trembling fingers through the tumbled golden strands of her long blonde hair, she adjusted the straps of her gown back onto her shoulders and looked suddenly pale.
‘Yes, Jack…that’s what I’m telling you.’
‘I don’t believe it.’
‘I have no reason to lie.’ She shrugged, and her mouth quivered a little.
