Second-Best Husband

by Penny Jordan

  He said it so drily that it was several seconds before she realised what he meant.

  ‘You…you made it,’ she exclaimed in awe. ‘But how?’

  ‘Remember the wood you saw outside?’

  She nodded, and then said, ‘But the carving…it’s so intricate, so…’

  She moved closer to the bed, reaching out to touch one of the panels, unable to resist stroking her fingers over its surface. Stuart had carved a frieze of trees and flowers on the base and headboards, and the outside of the wooden over-canopy was carved in a traditional form of relief-work.

  ‘Stuart, it’s beautiful,’ she told him shakily.

  ‘You weren’t supposed to see it, at least not yet,’ he told her severely. ‘It was supposed to be my wedding present for you.’

  ‘You did this for me?’

  She turned from the bed to look at him. For some reason she felt shockingly close to tears, her emotions far too close to the surface.

  She could feel the tears filling her eyes, blurring her vision.

  She started to look away but it was too late. Stuart was coming towards her, exclaiming curtly, ‘Sara…what is it? What’s wrong? Have you changed your mind? Would you…?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No, not that…’

  ‘But something’s wrong,’ he insisted.

  ‘Not wrong,’ she denied, shaking her head. ‘It’s just…’

  Her hand touched the mattress. The bed was high and took two deep mattresses. Lying inside, it would be like being on a very private, very secret island, she reflected.

  ‘It’s just that what?’ Stuart pressed.

  He was, she realised, still standing very close to her. So close that when she turned her head she could feel the warmth of his breath brushing her skin.

  ‘Is it this that bothers you, Sara?’ he asked her quietly, his hand joining hers on the mattress. She focused on their hands; symbolically they were separate…apart…his hard and tanned, his nails clean and short, hers smaller, paler, her nails free of colour but somehow undeniably feminine and delicate in a way she hadn’t noticed before. Certainly they were nothing like Anna’s hands with their long polished nails, just as Stuart’s weren’t like Ian’s with their careful manicure and buffed sheen. Ian was a vain man…an almost effeminate man in some ways perhaps.

  ‘Are you worrying that when you share this bed with me it will be a poor substitute for what you had with him? Because—’

  ‘No… No… It’s nothing like that,’ she denied frantically, and then when he stopped and waited she blurted out, ‘There never was anything like that between me and Ian. In fact…’ She paused, and then before she could change her mind she rushed ahead, telling him with defiant anguish, ‘In fact, there hasn’t been anything like that with…with anyone…’

  She couldn’t bear to look at him. The tears were really blurring her eyes now. She tried to blink them away and focus on the bed. She was, she discovered with detached curiosity, actually physically trembling.

  She felt Stuart’s hand on her hair, his touch somehow soothing, comforting, warming her chilled tense muscles, even though her throat still ached with the effort of suppressing her tears.

  His hand slid to her jaw, cupping her face, turning her towards him. But she still couldn’t bring herself to look at him, even though she knew he was watching her.

  ‘And you’re afraid,’ he asked her gently, gesturing towards the bed as he added quietly, ‘Afraid of all that this represents, because it is unknown, unfamiliar.’

  He seemed so calm, so understanding…so…so comforting.

  She nodded and gulped. ‘Yes.’ Heavens, she was behaving like a complete fool. If he still wanted to marry her after this…

  He was silent for so long that she started to tremble again. His hand was still cupping her face. Now his thumb stroked her skin almost absently and then he said softly, ‘There really isn’t anything to fear. I promise you it’s all going to be all right.’

  She wanted to tell him that her fear was not of him, or even of the intimacies they would share, but of disappointing him, of ultimately being rejected by him when he discovered that she simply wasn’t woman enough to make their marriage worthwhile and well founded, but, before she could find the courage to do so, astoundingly, she heard him saying slowly, ‘Here, let me show you.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  SHOW her.

  Now she did look at him, her head jerking upwards, her eyes wide with confusion and shock, her sudden movement causing his thumb to press firmly against the corner of her mouth.

  Whether because of that pressure, or whether because of her own shock, she wasn’t sure, but her lips parted, her tongue-tip touching them in nervous apprehension.

  He was going to kiss her. Already he was lowering his head towards her. She looked wildly into his eyes and then away, conscious of how dizzy the steadiness of his gaze was making her feel. She focused on his mouth instead, but that was even more of a mistake. Her heart started to hammer and trip with frantic haste; she made a small instinctive sound of protest…but made no effort to resist him when he took her in his arms.

  He had kissed her before, so she should have known what to expect, but somehow this time the effect on her senses was even more intense, even more shockingly erotic, her lips parting helplessly, eagerly almost beneath the warm moist pressure of his.

  She heard the sound he made against her mouth and her body trembled in response, logic and rationality put to flight by the storm of sensation sweeping through her.

  She could feel Stuart’s hands on her body, smoothing down over her back, encircling her waist as he urged her closer to him, so close in fact that her breasts were pressed flat against him. Her legs started to tremble as she became engulfed by his heat and scent. She made a small helpless sound beneath his mouth and instantly the pressure of his kiss changed, softening, deepening as though she had called out a message to him and he had responded to it.

  His hands moved back up over her body, tangling in her hair as they spread against her scalp, holding her a willing captive.

  He said her name, breathing it into her mouth with a kind of hungry urgency that made her body quiver.

  He was kissing her less intensely now, biting gently at her mouth, his fingers moving against her scalp like a cat’s paws weaving, the motion relaxing…soothing.

  He was also, she realised, easing himself away from her body. She wanted to protest, to tell him how much she now needed the heat and power of him against her, but it was impossible for her to voice such words, and so instead she clung silently to him, her fingers curling into the solid muscles of his upper arms, her eyes huge and dazed, her mouth softly bruised from his kiss.

  He lifted one hand from her head, his body flexing slightly in a gesture of gentle denial, and then as she started to shrink back from him, her eyes registering her pain, he said rawly, ‘Sara… No… You don’t…’

  Her mouth started to tremble. Stuart made a sound deep in his throat. His hand touched her face; his thumb stroked gently against her swollen bottom lip.

  The heat that shot through her made her cry out loud in shocked panic, her lips parted, and Stuart’s thumb slipped inside the moist warmth of her mouth.

  She touched it with her tongue-tip, an automatic and instinctive reaction. The texture of his skin felt rough, and tasted slightly salty. She licked it again, surprised to discover how pleasurable it was. She closed her eyes and made a soft sound of pleasure, sucking experimentally on his thumb, and finding the sensation so addictive that it took Stuart’s fierce shudder, and the explosive sound of denial he made as he called out her name protestingly, to make her realise what she was doing.

  ‘Sara!’

  She released his thumb and stared helplessly at him, guilty colour flooding her face as he cupped it, this thumb making a damp imprint against her skin.

  ‘You haven’t any idea what you’re doing to me, have you?’ he asked her, his voice softening slightly. ‘
You haven’t any idea how much you’re…you’re turning me on…making me want you.’

  Her shock showed in her eyes.

  ‘You don’t believe me, do you? Let me show you.’

  He was unfastening the buttons of his shirt, pulling it out of his jeans. His torso was tanned and firmly muscled. A line of soft dark hair angled downwards, disappearing beneath his belt.

  Her mouth had gone very dry, but her pulses were racing, and it wasn’t fear she felt when he took her hand and placed it on his chest against his heart.

  Her eyes widened as she registered its frantic fierce beat. She lifted her gaze to his face and saw that there was an unfamiliar flush of colour burning up under his skin, that his eyes looked darker…that they were glittering in a way that made her own body react as immediately and as physically as though he had actually touched it.

  Beneath her sweater her breasts swelled and ached. Guiltily she looked away from him. He was breathing raggedly, the muscles in his throat tense, his skin slightly damp. She wondered whether, if she licked it, it would taste the same as his thumb. She could feel her own breath constricting in her throat. She tried to look away but couldn’t, helplessly captivated by the irregular rise and fall of his chest.

  Was his body like hers, filled with heated excitement at the thought of being touched, being caressed? Did he long for her hands, her mouth against him as much as she…?

  ‘You see,’ she heard him saying roughly. And then he was lifting her hand towards his mouth, his thumb caressing the pulse in her wrist, and, before she realised what he intended to do, he was caressing her fingers with his tongue, slowly, tantalisingly licking and sucking them while her heart turned over inside her and the heat she had felt before was nothing compared with the sheet of burning, exquisite agony and need that ripped through her now. She actually thought for a moment that she was going to faint, and it seemed that Stuart thought so too, because he released her hand and caught hold of her, picking her up off the floor and holding her tightly, comfortingly, rocking her slightly as though he knew how ill-equipped she was to deal with the sensations he had aroused.

  She was shaking so much that she was afraid if he put her down she wouldn’t actually be able to stand, but he showed no inclination to put her fear to the test.

  His hands were resting on her skin beneath her sweater, their touch firm…comforting.

  ‘I ought to stop this right now before it all gets out of hand,’ she heard him murmuring against her ear. ‘But somehow I don’t think I’m going to be able to.’ He gave a small sigh, and she wondered achingly if he already knew how little she wanted him to stop, how much she…

  ‘Do you know what I want right now?’ he whispered to her. ‘I want to take off your clothes, and lie here with you, your body against mine, your skin caressing mine. I want to kiss you and hold you…to stroke you and love you. And I want those things more than I’ve ever wanted anything before in my life.’

  It wasn’t true, of course, it couldn’t be true, because after all, as she already knew, he loved someone else, but the words were like a magical salve, soothing and healing the wounds Anna had inflicted.

  She wasn’t conscious of saying anything, or doing anything in response to what he had told her, but there must have been something, some softening of her body, some secret subtle message which passed between her flesh and his, because the next minute he was kissing her, not quite as gently as he had done before, his body moving urgently and erotically against her own, his hands caressing her back beneath her sweater, hesitating when they reached the barrier of her bra, pausing for a second and then unclipping it so that the fragile silk of her bra fell away, and when he moved the rough abrasion of her cotton-knit sweater against the sensitive arousal of her breasts was a stimulation that made her want to cry out to him to touch her there, to stroke her, to kiss her.

  She trembled beneath the tempest of sensations assailing her, making a small sharp sound of bewilderment that caused Stuart to break off his kiss and murmur against her mouth, ‘Ssh… It’s all right… Everything’s all right.’

  Only it wasn’t. She ached so badly inside; wanted him so much, yearned to reach out and touch his skin, to explore and caress his body with an intensity she had never imagined she could ever feel.

  She tried to tell him, struggling to formulate the words, to get him to stop what he was doing right now before she embarrassed him and humiliated herself, but before she could get any further than ‘I want…’ he was easing her out of her sweater and then her jeans, picking her up, kissing her with a slow tenderness that made her forget everything other than her need to respond to him.

  When he stepped back from her to remove his own clothes, she was trembling so much that she had to sit down, perching on the edge of the bed, hardly able to comprehend that this was actually happening; that Stuart was actually making love to her…that he actually seemed to want her…to desire her.

  She shivered again, suddenly self-conscious and nervous, causing Stuart to kneel down at her side.

  Without his clothes his body was taut and strong-muscled, narrow-hipped and flat-buttocked in contrast to her own softer curves.

  His hand touched her knee in a brief gesture of reassurance and comfort.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he told her quietly. ‘Everything’s going to be all right, and I promise you that if you…if you want me to stop, I shall.’

  If she wanted him to stop. She shivered, wondering what he would say if she were to tell him that that was the last thing she wanted. She bent her head, so that her hair swung forward to conceal her expression from him.

  His head, she realised, was on a level with her breasts.

  She wondered if they looked as swollen and tautly eager for his touch to him as they did to her, shamelessly flaunting their desire.

  He lifted his hand, gently cupping their silken swell.

  ‘You feel like satin,’ he told her huskily. ‘The purest, richest satin ever made.’

  And then his thumb brushed against her nipple, causing it to ache and throb so much that she couldn’t suppress the taut moan of need that burned her throat.

  His response was immediate, as he gathered her closer to him and started to caress the satiny flesh of her breasts with tender kisses, although it wasn’t tenderness she wanted, Sara discovered on a sharp thrill of need. It was… It was…

  She made a high sharp sound of release as his mouth opened over her nipple, her back arching, her head going back, her hands gripping him, digging into the muscles of his shoulders and neck as her whole body responded to the pulsing pleasure of his mouth suckling on her breast.

  When she felt the sharp unexpected rasp of his teeth she shuddered, causing him to release her and to apologise.

  Her eyes dark with arousal and new self-knowledge, she shook her head, telling him jerkily, ‘No… It wasn’t… It didn’t… It wasn’t pain.’

  As she heard herself stammering the admission she went hot and cold with embarrassment, but Stuart quite obviously wasn’t judging her as she was now judging herself, condemning her as wanton and over-demanding.

  Instead he buried his face between her breasts, holding her so tightly against him that she could scarcely breathe, his voice rough and unfamiliar as he told her thickly, ‘You’re perfect, do you know that? Perfect. I still can’t believe I’ve been lucky enough to find you. Sara…’

  She felt the thrill of reaction engulf her as she heard the urgency in his voice. When he caressed her other breast as he had done the first, she stopped fighting against the sensations he was evoking, too bemused by the intensity of what she was feeling to realise that it was her own almost delirious words of pleasure and praise that were encouraging and inciting him to suckle on her tender, sensitive flesh until the pleasure he was giving her filled her so completely that she couldn’t contain it any longer, crying out to him, reaching out to him.

  The sensation of his mouth on her skin, hot, moist, so powerfully stimulating that everywhere he
touched her she pulsed and burned, made her oblivious to everything other than the feelings she was experiencing.

  She felt him moving her; felt the bed depress beneath their joint weight, felt his hand on her thigh, stroking gently upwards; felt the soft brush of his hair against her belly, the warmth of his indrawn breath as he felt her tremble, her skin so sensitised by his touch that merely to feel his breath against it made her arch eagerly towards him.

  ‘You’re like velvet,’ she heard him saying thickly to her as he had done before. ‘Satin and velvet, so soft, so warm.’

  She tensed, shock coiling through her as the slurred sound of his voice ceased and she realised that the heat, the pleasure, the need that made her both tremble with the tension of aching need, and at the same time relax into its narcotic delight, was caused by the delicate lap of his tongue against the most intimate part of her body.

  Her brain, her mind; they were shocked and distraught not only by what he was doing but even more so by her reaction to it, but her body…

  Her body overruled their fears and apprehensions, sinking into a languorous sensual delight in the pleasure he was giving her, the compliment he was surely paying her in wanting to pleasure her so intimately.

  A compliment she knew instinctively she would like to return, she recognised dizzily as she moved against him, allowing her body to control her reactions, her responses, so that when she moved against him Stuart moaned and turned his head, biting almost roughly into her thigh, and then pulling her down against him so that he could tell her huskily, ‘The way you react to me is driving me out of my head. My God, how could you ever, ever have imagined that you weren’t desirable? You’re the most desirable woman I’ve ever known.’

  He was cupping her face, kissing her fiercely…demandingly, his body hard and eager against her own, its movements rhythmic and erotic.

  ‘Sara, I never intended things to go this far. I should stop. I should…’

  She silenced him by biting sharply into his bottom lip and then wrapping her arms around him, opening herself so completely and deliberately to him that she felt the shudder that ripped through him as she acknowledged the wanton temptation of her body.