by Penny Jordan
Claire knew that she should say something, do something, but somehow she couldn’t, didn’t, her body shocked into immobility as Brad breathed the last three words against her lips before gently brushing his own against hers in a kiss that was so tenderly sweet with gentle promise that Claire felt her whole body ache with yearning for him.
This was no brutal, selfish assault on her body, fuelled by a male sexual desire that was completely without emotion or any recognition of her as a person, a woman with needs and emotions of her own.
This was the kiss of a man who knew, who understood, who even in what Claire could only suppose was some fever-induced physical desire for her was still carefully tender and mindful of her vulnerability.
Claire could feel her body start to tremble as Brad cupped her face in his hands and continued to caress her lips with his, brushing gently over them again and again until they felt softly moist, pliantly eager for a more lingering and intense caress.
Without knowing that she had done so Claire moved closer to him, her lips parting on a small breath of shocked pleasure as she heard the low sound of hungry need that Brad made deep in his throat.
She could feel the sensual stroke of his fingertips against her skin as he massaged the delicate flesh behind her ear, his mouth leaving hers briefly as he looked down into her eyes, and then returning to it to kiss her with fierce passion—once and then a second time and then a third, until, unable to bear to be without the hungry contact of his mouth on hers, Claire reached up and wrapped her arms around him, holding him tightly, making small moaning sounds of pleasure deep in her own throat, her whole body on fire, trembling with the aching need she felt for him.
Like someone in a trance, Claire watched him as he released her and gently eased the robe back off her shoulders, her skin as hot and flushed as his as she saw the look in his eyes when his gaze caressed the slender nakedness of her upper body—her slim, narrow shoulders, the creamy smoothness of her skin, the round fullness of her breasts, her nipples flushed and flauntingly erect.
No man had ever seen her naked body before. He watched her with such obviously skin-tingling, erotic thoughts and in such a way, with such an expression in his eyes, that she instinctively responded to his subtle message and to the full-blooded male approval and appreciation of his lingering appraisal of her by arching her spine slightly, her eyelids dropping to conceal her own expression as she watched him back with parted lips and the sure, delicious knowledge that he found her desirable—and, more, that as a man he was just slightly enthralled, slightly and satisfyingly in awe of her womanhood.
It was a heady, aphrodisiac, potent mixture of new emotions for a woman whose only previous feelings towards her sexuality had been a corrosive blend of shame and self-judgement.
Nothing in the way Brad watched her made her feel ashamed. Nothing in the way he looked at her, nothing in the expression in his eyes, made her feel self-conscious or ill at ease, but her mind only absorbed these facts distantly, her senses, her emotions, her concentration focused instead on the way her body was responding to the subtle signs of sexual responsiveness to her in his.
Something about the way his chest rose and fell with increased urgency made her muscles tighten with delicious awareness.
Something about the hot, fiercely controlled smoulder in the way he looked at her mouth and then her breasts and tried not to flooded her body with feminine arousal and pride.
And, most especially, something about the way he moved the lower half of his body beneath the bedclothes, protectively and oh, so betrayingly trying discreetly to bundle the thickness of the duvet cover over the betraying, strong jut of flesh that it couldn’t quite disguise made her smile a soft smile of secret pleasure and power to herself.
She deliberately leaned forward to kiss delicately first one and then the other corner of his mouth before teasingly circling the whole outline of his lips with her tongue-tip, her weight supported on the splayed hand she had oh, so accidentally placed provocatively between his open thighs.
Claire had never behaved with such sensual aggression before—had never dreamed that she could, never mind that she would actually want to and, even more mind-stretching, take actual pleasure in doing so.
The reason why she had come into Brad’s bedroom was forgotten; the slow, hungry way he had kissed her had seen to that. It wasn’t just her mouth that he had sensitised and aroused with his shatteringly erotic kisses, it was her mind, her emotions, her senses and her whole body.
She felt as though she was wrapped in a soft, sensual cloud of physical and emotional pleasure—a sensation both so elusive and so intense that it couldn’t be examined or analysed, simply accepted and enjoyed.
The slow groan that built up in Brad’s throat as she teased his mouth made her shiver with delicious pleasure, her eyes narrowing to soft, cat-like slits that made his darken to a fiery furnace of strong male desire as she focused on them.
His hand lifted to her throat, slowly stroking it, his thumb on the pulse, flooding her body with heat as her breathing deepened and quickened in response to his reaction to her.
Claire could feel her breasts swelling and tightening, and somewhere on the edge of her awareness she was conscious of a small sense of outraged shock from her real self that this new, sensual and very wanton part of her should take such obvious self-confident feminine delight in his reaction.
Her body tautened and arched with provocative sensuality, silently calling to Brad to absorb visually the effect that he was having on her and to respond to it by reaching out to stroke and caress the warm, taut flesh so tantalisingly within his reach and yet at the same time denied to him as Claire copied his own, earlier caress, cupping his face in both her hands, gently holding him slightly away from her body as she started to kiss him.
There was a wonderful sense of control and power in knowing how much he wanted her and yet knowing at the same time that he wouldn’t break the gentle restriction that she had placed on him. A sense, too, of wanting to push him that little bit further, of wanting to test just how much he did want her, of wanting to prove to herself that his desire for her was just as fiercely intense as hers for him.
She heard the sound of frustrated protest that he made deep in his throat, a thrill of sensual excitement running down her spine as he suddenly turned the tables on her, taking control of the kiss from her, the swift thrust of his tongue between her open lips making her shudder in heated arousal, her body softening, swaying closer to his as though the flushed, hard tips of her breasts ached for the intimate contact of his body.
She wanted, Claire recognised dizzily, to press herself tightly against him, to rub her body against his as sinuously and sexily as a small cat; she wanted to feel the hard heat of his flesh against her own, the erotic rasp of his body hair against the nerve-shattering sensitivity of her desire-flooded breasts; she wanted...
She gave a small, shocked gasp of surprise as Brad suddenly bit her bottom lip erotically, his hands sliding down her arms to manacle her wrists as he lifted her arms gently above her head.
A thrill of pure, hot, womb-tightening sensation ran through her body in a powerful current as she sensed what he was going to do. The heat that flooded her lower body was at once fiercely and control-shatteringly new and yet somehow so familiar that she knew that it... that he was something her body and her emotions had secretly yearned for all her adult life.
She felt no sense of being constrained or afraid, no sense of discomfort or threat at the way he was holding her, only a hot, aching surge of sensual knowledge, an awareness of the deliberateness with which he moved. A tight, aching sensation of intense need made her eyes start to close in shivering appreciation of the way his mouth slowly caressed the sensitive flesh of her throat before moving downwards.
It seemed like an aeon before his mouth reached its first destination, before she was able to expel her pent-up breathing—a sharp, high cry of physical release as she felt him slowly and gently lapping the hard,
swollen flesh of her nipple.
Unable to stop herself, Claire heard herself moan with pleasure, her whole body shuddering as Brad dropped her arms and gathered her close, her frantic response to him destroying his own self-control as his mouth, which had initially almost teased her with too gentle kisses, now suckled on her breasts with a fierce sensuality that made her move urgently with rhythmic longing against him, her body possessed of instincts and responses that she had never, ever imagined it might know or exhibit.
Brad’s mouth moved with fierce urgency over her midriff and then her belly; his hands held her and stroked her and finally lowered her onto the bed, where not even the sight of him pushing away her robe as he knelt over her and slowly, with sensual deliberateness, slid his hands caressingly up over her parted thighs had the effect of making her feel self-conscious or apprehensive.
She could feel the faint tremor in his hands as he touched and held her, seeing the aching male hunger in his eyes as he lifted his head and looked deeply into her own before looking back at the soft, shadowed, exposed triangle of silky hair that not so much concealed her sex, Claire recognised as her heart started to race with feverish longing, but rather emphasised its feminine sensuality and allure.
She could see the way Brad’s eyes darkened with open desire as he placed one hand over her, his fingertips stroking the silky hair, parting the softly fleshed lips which were already signalling their longing for his touch.
But as he knelt over her Claire’s attention was suddenly caught by something. ‘No, wait,’ she demanded huskily.
‘What is it?’ he asked her. ‘I won’t hurt you, Claire. I won’t do anything you don’t want... I won’t...’
Quickly she shook her head. ‘No,’ she whispered fiercely. ‘It isn’t...’ Her fingers touched his wrist, marvelling at the strength of bone and sinew that his flesh covered. ‘I want to see you...’ she whispered huskily. ‘I want to look...to watch...’
For a moment she thought that he didn’t understand what she meant, but then, as his eyes met hers, she saw that he did, and her breath caught on a small, fierce stab of pleasure as she saw, too, how much her whispered plea had aroused him.
Silently she watched as he pushed aside the duvet, aware not only of the tautly male eroticism of his body but of the way he was trembling slightly as well, of the way he paused, hesitated almost nervously, as he watched her watching him.
That he should exhibit such nervousness filled her with female tenderness. Gently she reached out and touched him, running her fingertips from his breastbone right down to where the fine line of body hair became a silky male tangle, openly, thickly sexual, that cushioned the power and promise of what lay over it.
This was her first self-chosen intimate contact with male arousal, but somehow to Claire, as she slowly looked at Brad and absorbed the physical reality of him, it was as though a part of her had known him and known this for always.
Even before her fingertips ran slowly and exploratively along the length of his taut arousal she knew exactly how his whole body would stiffen and shudder beneath her touch...how he would moan softly beneath his breath and close his eyes, arching his spine as he submitted to her exploration, only the fierce rigidity with which the flesh she was touching swelled just that little bit more against her touch betraying how much it craved the pleasure of her caress.
A man’s body was at once both so sexually powerful and dangerous and so vulnerable, Claire marvelled, watching Brad’s jaw clench as he tried to control his reaction to her. If just this, her lightest touch, had the power to affect him so intensely, how would he react if she were to bend her head and press her lips to his tautly sensitive skin—to kiss and caress it, to slide...?
She gave a tiny gasp of shock when she heard Brad saying something savagely fierce under his breath as he removed her hand and then lowered his head over her body, kissing her stomach and then her thighs with a frenetic urgency, touching her, stroking and caressing her, first with his fingers and then with his mouth until she was turning and twisting beneath the unbearable pleasure of what he was doing to her, alternately shuddering with the seismic convulsions that engulfed her and pleading with him to stop, crying out to him that she couldn’t endure such sensual ecstasy.
. Only Brad wouldn’t stop, and it wasn’t until he was finally buried deep inside her, his body moving with rhythmic urgency within hers, his voice thick and guttural with praise and pleasure as he finally succumbed to his own desire, that she recognised that physical ecstasy and female fulfilment could be even more intense a second time than it had been the first.
Half an hour later, still feeling blissfully euphoric from the intensity of their lovemaking and emotionally dizzy from the unexpectedness of what had happened, Claire struggled to fight off the waves of sleep washing over her, murmuring a soft sound of appreciation as Brad drew her closer to his body and kept her there, unable, it seemed, to relinquish her, his lips feathering gently against her hair as Claire drifted off to sleep.
When she came awake abruptly later in the night, at first she had no idea where she was, but the physical sensation of Brad’s hot body next to hers and the sound of his voice as he cried out something unintelligible in his sleep froze her into shocked awareness as she realised what she had done.
Her body shaking with reaction, she started to ease herself free of Brad’s still constraining arm.
At some stage Brad must have switched off the lamp because the room was now almost in darkness. However, there was still enough light for Claire to be able to see that the fever which had originally brought her into Brad’s room, anxious for his health, had disappeared. Still trembling, she eased herself out of his bed, her eyes widening as she caught sight of her discarded robe lying on the floor.
As she shrugged herself into it, her hands were trembling so much that she couldn’t fasten the tie-belt.
Hot shame scorched her skin as she remembered how eagerly, how unbelievably provocatively she had silently encouraged Brad to remove it... As her mind relayed flickering, unwanted images of what had happened to her she shrank inwardly from what they were revealing to her. She didn’t recognise the image of herself they were giving her, the message about herself that they were giving her. She didn’t want to recognise them.
In her anxiety to get out of Brad’s room she almost stumbled, holding her breath as he moved in his sleep, his forehead furrowing as he reached out an arm across the bed as though searching for her. For her...or merely for a woman...any woman...?
Had he known it was her when...when he had behaved in that incredibly sensual way, or had he simply been in the grip of some fevered state of semi-consciousness? Claire fervently prayed that it was the latter as she hurried back to her own bedroom.
But then, as she climbed into her cold bed, she stiffened. Brad had called her by her name...He had opened his eyes and looked at her, recognised her. He had whispered to her, made it clear that he wanted her.
How on earth was she ever going to be able to face him again? she wondered miserably. For a man to make love to a woman without being committed to her, without loving her, was still, in the eyes of a too cynical world, socially acceptable. For a woman to do the same thing...
But she had not done the same thing, had she? She...
Claire sat up in bed, hugging her arms around her knees, forcing herself to confront the truth.
She was not permitted the merciful excuse of being able to blame her behaviour on male hormones or a deep fever, and she knew that underneath the sheer sensuality of what she had done, the fierce intensity of a physical desire so strong that it had caught her off guard like an unexpectedly strong current in a previously placid stretch of calm water, she was emotionally drawn to Brad—emotionally responsive to him.
Emotionally drawn... A bitter sound of smothered hysterical laughter rasped at the back of her throat.
Be honest with yourself, she jeered inwardly; you’re in love with him. You, a woman of your age, are making a foo
l of yourself with emotions more suited to a girl in her teens.
A woman of her age maybe, but she did not have the experience, the knowledge of herself as a sexual being, that other women of her age enjoyed, Claire admitted painfully. In that regard she was as naïve and unknowing as a girl in the throes of her first adolescent love affair. And her age made those feelings more painful, more hard to bear, not less.
‘Admit it,’ she whispered as she bent her aching head to her raised knees; ‘you were attracted to him right from the start but you pretended not to know it, and tonight when he touched you...’ She swallowed painfully.
She hadn’t tried very hard to resist, to stop him, had she? On the contrary...
Why was it so hard for her to face the truth about her feelings for Brad?
Did she really need to ask herself that question?
Claire’s mouth curled into a small, bitter expression of pain. No, of course she didn’t. It was hard because she knew already the pain that loving Brad was going to cause her.
To love a man who didn’t love you back when you were seventeen was bad enough, but at seventeen life still had the power to heal the hurts it inflicted. There would inevitably be another man, another love. But at thirty-four it was for ever, for life—a once-and-for-all love.
As Claire closed her eyes, willing the tears she could feel gathering at the back of her eyes not to fall, she reflected on how very little she actually seemed to have known about herself. All those years of believing that it would be impossible for her ever to share true physical intimacy with a man, all those years of believing that the trauma of her youth and the inhibitions, the doubts about her own sexuality...about herself...
Tonight had shown her just how wrong she had been. In Brad’s arms, beneath Brad’s touch, her body had flowered into the full bloom of its sensuality...of its sexuality.
What was going to happen when he woke up and remembered...? As Claire fought to suppress the pain that she could feel seeping relentlessly through her body she reflected that Irene was not going to be pleased when she learned that Brad had moved out, which she knew already was what was going to happen.
