Kitabı oku: «Double Trouble: Pregnancy Surprise», sayfa 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

‘ARE you sure?’

‘Yes.’

With a sharp hiss of indrawn breath, his eyes flickered briefly shut, then opened, locking with hers, burning in their intensity, and he got slowly to his feet and held out his hand, pulling her up so she was standing facing him, just inches away but not quite touching.

‘You don’t have to do this.’

‘I know.’

He closed his eyes and said something she couldn’t hear, then turned away. ‘We need to put this lot away and sort the dog out.’

‘I’ll do it.’

‘No. We’ll both do it. It’ll be quicker.’ He put everything back on the tray and carried it out to the kitchen, Murphy close behind him, and he took the dog out while she put the milk back in the fridge and checked that all the food was out of Murphy’s reach. It was—all except the chocolates.

Max came back in with the dog, picked up the truffles and met her eyes. ‘I’ll bring these,’ he said, and she was instantly taken back to another time, another place, when he’d brought chocolates to bed and fed them to her, one by one, as he’d made love to her.

She could still taste them.

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ he said, his voice taut, ‘or I’ll lose it completely.’ His lips quirked in a fleeting smile, but she could feel the tension coming off him in waves. It matched her own, and suddenly she couldn’t wait any more.

Turning on her heel, she walked out of the kitchen, flicking off the light and leaving him to follow.

She heard him murmur to the dog, close the door, and then she could feel him right behind her, the warmth of his body just a breath away.

‘Your room or mine?’

‘Mine. It’s further from the babies.’

Only just, but she wasn’t at all sure, after so long, that she’d be able to keep a lid on her reaction to his lovemaking—and the shower at work hadn’t been the only time he’d made her scream. Not by a long way.

She turned on the light, but he’d brought the candle, and he put it on the chest of drawers beside the chocolates, lit it and turned out the light. She was grateful for that, because it suddenly dawned on her that he hadn’t seen her body since she’d had the babies, and, between the ravages of breastfeeding, the scar from the C-section and the gain in weight, maybe he needed a rather more subtle introduction to the new her.

But it seemed he wasn’t in any hurry to take her clothes off after all. Instead he tunnelled his fingers through her hair, bent his head and touched his lips to hers.

Just a feather touch, the lightest brushing of skin on skin, but, as he moved his head from side to side, their lips clung, dragging gently, heightening the sensation, until she felt a whimper force its way out of her throat.

Oh, Max, kiss me, she begged silently, and, as if he’d heard her, he anchored her head more firmly with his hands and stroked his tongue across her lips, coaxing them apart.

They needed no coaxing. She opened to him, and with a ragged groan he slanted his mouth over her and plundered it, his mouth hungry on hers, searching, thrusting, his tongue duelling with hers, driving her wild.

Only when they had to break for breath did he lift his head, the air sawing in and out of his lungs, his eyes glittering in the candlelight. ‘Jules, I need you,’ he whispered, his voice rough and urgent.

‘I need you, too—please, Max. Now.’

And without any further delay he stripped off his shirt, shucked his trousers and socks and heeled off his shoes in one motion.

The boxers hid nothing, the soft jersey clinging faithfully to his erection, and she felt her mouth dry. It had been so long. Her body was trembling, the need so great she could hardly move, but it was all right, because she didn’t need to. He was there, his hands gently, carefully easing the top over her head—first the lace, then the little camisole—and when he saw the bra he closed his eyes briefly and she saw his lips move soundlessly.

‘Thank God you didn’t show me that in the shop,’ he said at last, and she laughed a little breathlessly.

‘There’s more,’ she said, and he groaned and slid the zip down on her trousers and eased them away.

She sucked her stomach in, but he tutted and ran his hand over it, his hot, dry palm flat against the skin, his fingers trailing fire. One finger flicked at the elastic of her little lace shorts. ‘What are these?’ he said, his voice unsteady.

‘I thought you might like them.’

‘You’re going to kill me,’ he whispered, and, drawing her into his arms, he brought their bodies into contact for the first time.

They both gasped, then sighed, and then eased closer, until finally he lifted his head and met her eyes.

‘Jules—I have to have you now, or I’m going to die, I swear it,’ he said unevenly. ‘I need you so damned much.’

His eyes were bright with fire, and his chest was heaving against hers, the candlelight picking out the sharp definition of his muscles and turning him to gold as he lifted her gently in his arms and laid her on the bed.

He followed her down, his eyes never leaving her face, and then finally he let them track over her, following the line of his hands as they stroked over her skin and left fire in their wake. He ran his knuckles over the edge of her bra, down the line of her cleavage, then turned his hand and cupped her breast, his thumb chafing lightly over her nipple until she thought she’d scream.

‘I want to taste you,’ he muttered gruffly. ‘Every day I watch the babies suckle from you, and…’

She wanted it, too. Ached for it. She undid the catch—front-fastening, she’d thought, for convenience, but she wondered now if she’d had this in mind all along—and he eased the cups away, then slid his hand inside and lifted one breast to his lips.

Milk dewed on her nipple, and he caught it on his tongue and tasted it, then closed his mouth over her and suckled hard.

She gasped, a shaft of white-hot need lancing through her with deadly accuracy, and he lifted his head, his eyes black now, his mouth taut.

For the longest moment they stayed like that, their eyes locked, and then with a desperate sound he stripped away her tiny lace shorts, ripped off his boxers and moved over her, his solid, muscled thighs hard against her legs as he nudged them apart.

‘Jules,’ he whispered.

And then he was there, inside her, filling her, and she felt the storm closing round them, the sensation overwhelming her until suddenly everything broke loose and her climax ripped through her.

He caught her scream in his mouth, trapped it against the savage groan that tore from his chest. And then he rolled her to her side and pulled her in close to him, their bodies still locked together, their hearts racing, and, when she finally opened her eyes, he was looking at her with wonder in his eyes, the lashes clumped with tears.

‘I love you,’ he whispered, and, drawing her close again, he tucked her head under his chin and wrapped his arms around her, his hands stroking slowly, rhythmically, against her spine until finally she fell asleep in his arms.

He’d missed her so much.

He’d never told her, hadn’t revealed just how hellish the last year had been. Oh, he’d said a few things, but nothing compared to what was locked up in his heart.

But she was back now, and, if it killed him, he’d make sure he didn’t fail her again.

His arm was going dead, but he didn’t want to disturb her. He was just enjoying the luxury of holding her, and he wasn’t sure how she’d be when she woke up. Distant? Full of regret?

Hell, he hoped not.

And then she stirred, opened her eyes and smiled at him, and he felt the tension ease out of him like a punctured balloon.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi,’ he answered, and feathered a kiss across her lips. ‘You all right?’

‘Mmm. You?’

‘Oh, yes. I’m very all right.’

‘My leg’s dead.’

‘Snap. My arm’s fallen off, I think.’

‘It’s going to hurt.’

‘Uh-huh.’

She grinned. ‘One, two, three—’

He gave a little groan and shifted further out of her way, then laughed and drew her back in to his side, so they lay with fingers intertwined and their heads together on the pillow. ‘Better?’

‘Mmm. Max?’

‘Yes?’

‘I love you.’

‘Oh, Jules.’ He rolled towards her, not caring about the pins and needles in his arm, and kissed her gently. ‘I love you, too.’

‘Good,’ she murmured, and, a second later, he heard a soft, almost imperceptible snore.

He smiled. He’d tease her about that in the morning, he thought, and, shifting closer to her, he curled his hand over her hip and went to sleep.

The babies woke her, and she rolled to her back, opened her eyes and blinked.

It was broad daylight, and she could hear Max’s voice in their room. Getting out of bed and wincing at the unaccustomed aches, she pulled her dressing gown on hastily and went out to them.

‘Hello, my lovelies,’ she said, going into the room, and they beamed at her from their cots.

‘Am I included in that?’ he asked, looking much too sexy for his own good in nothing but a pair of boxers, and she chuckled.

‘You might be. How long have they been awake?’

‘A few minutes. I’ve changed their nappies and given them a bottle of juice, but I think they want their mum and something rather more substantial.’

‘I’m sure they do. Come on, my little ones. Shall we go downstairs and say hello to Murphy?’

She lifted Ava out of her cot and handed her to Max, and then pulled Libby up into her arms and nuzzled her. ‘Hello, tinker. Are you going to be good today?’

‘Probably not, if she’s like her sister,’ he said drily, and carried her downstairs. ‘I’ll do that stairgate this morning.’

‘Mmm. Please. I’d hate anything to happen. Hello, Smurfs! How are you, boy? Find anything nice to eat?’

‘I’m sure he will have given it his best shot,’ Max said wryly. ‘Won’t you, you old rascal?’

Murphy thumped and wagged and grinned at him, and she laughed. ‘He’s such a suck-up. Horrid dog, aren’t you? Horrid. Here, Libby, go to Daddy.’

‘Da-dad,’ she said, and they both stopped in their tracks.

‘Did I dream that?’ she asked, and he laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

‘Only if I did, too. I thought Ava said “Da-da” yesterday, but then I thought she was just babbling.’

‘Da-da!’ Ava chirruped from the playpen, hanging onto the edge and grinning furiously at him, and Julia felt her eyes fill with tears.

‘They said your name,’ she whispered, pressing her hand to her mouth, and he swallowed and grinned, and looked as if he’d crow at any minute.

‘Well, girls. How about that?’ he said, and put the kettle on.

Breakfast was over, they were all washed and dressed, and Max was trying not to think about the fact that he couldn’t take Jules back to bed for hours. Unless the girls had a sleep in the afternoon, of course.

‘Shall we do some house-hunting?’ he suggested to take his mind off it.

‘Sure. If I get the computer we can do it in here. We’ve got wireless.’ And she disappeared and came back a moment later with a laptop. John Blake’s?

No. Don’t get funny about it. He’s given your family a home.

‘Shove up,’ she said, and settled herself down on the sofa with the laptop. She keyed in a password, and he hated himself for memorising it without thinking. Hell, she was right not to trust him, he thought.

‘OK. I’m on one of the big property sites. What are we looking for, and how much?’

‘I wouldn’t put an upper limit on it. Start at the top and work down.’

‘Really?’

‘Well—yeah. Why not? Do you want to live in something horrible?’

‘No! I want to live in something normal!’ she retorted, and he sighed.

Wrong again. Two steps forward, three back, he thought, and wondered why he could never seem to get it right for more than a few minutes at a time.

‘Just put in the area you’re interested in, and let’s see what there is.’

Nothing. That was the simple answer. There was nothing that wasn’t either too small or too remote or too pushed-in or just plain wrong.

And nothing, but nothing, matched up to Rose Cottage.

‘I wish I could stay here,’ she said unhappily.

‘He wouldn’t sell it?’

‘Would you want it?’

He smiled at her wryly. ‘It’s not really up to me, is it? We’re talking about your home, your choice, somewhere for you and the babies. And I guess all I’ll do is visit you.’

Her eyes clouded, and she looked hastily away.

Now what? ‘Unless I work away during the week and come back for weekends. I’m not really into commuting. I’d rather work a short week.’

‘What—only six days, you mean, instead of seven?’

He sighed. ‘Can we start again?’

She looked away and bit her lips. ‘Sorry. It’s just—we seem to be getting on so well, and then the future rears its ugly head and there’s no way round it.’

And the babies were fussing and bored.

‘Let’s dress them up and go for a walk,’ he suggested. ‘We could use the slings.’

They’d bought slings the day before, to carry the babies on their fronts so they could go for walks without taking the buggy, and so they sorted them out. He ended up with Ava and Julia with Libby.

They swapped them all the time, he realised, as if neither of them wanted to create a closer bond with just one of the twins. Odd, how it had just happened and they hadn’t talked about it, but then it had always been like that with them. They’d hardly ever needed to discuss things, they’d just agreed.

Until now, and it seemed that sharing the babies equally was the only thing they could agree on.

Well, out of bed, at least. That, he was relieved to know, was still as amazing as ever. And he wasn’t going to think about it now.

They strolled along the riverbank for a way, while Murphy rushed around and sniffed things and dug a few furious holes in search of some poor water-vole or other unfortunate creature, and then they walked back to the house.

‘Do any of these barns belong to the house?’ he asked, and she nodded.

‘Yes, all of them. It was a farm—Rose Farm—but the farmland was all sold off and they took the name, so it was renamed Rose Cottage. Which is silly, really, because it’s a bit big to be a cottage, but there you go.’

He looked around curiously. There were lots of buildings that were too small to do anything specific with, but others—like the range of open-fronted, single-storey brick cartlodges—could be converted into office accommodation.

If only they could find something like it for sale, then there was a possibility that he could work from home. Not just him, but one or two other members of the team—a sort of satellite office. He knew lots of people who’d scaled down their operations and ‘gone rural’, as one of them had put it, but he’d never seen the attraction.

Until now.

‘Come and see the garden,’ she said, and led him through the gate at the side.

He’d been out there with the dog, of course, but he’d never really examined it, and, as she walked him through it and talked about it, he began to see it through her eyes.

And it was beautiful. A little ragged round the edges, of course, in the middle of winter, but even now there were daffodils and crocuses coming up, and buds were forming on the rose bushes, and, if he looked hard, he could imagine it in summer.

‘I’ve got photos of it with the roses all flowering,’ she said. ‘It’s stunning.’

It would be. He could see that. And he remembered what she’d said, on the day that she’d left him.

I want…a house, a garden, time to potter amongst the plants, to stick my fingers in the soil and smell the roses…We never stop and smell the roses, Max. Never.

Well, she had her garden now, and her roses. Watching her talk about them, he could see the change in her, the glow in her eyes, the warmth in her skin, the life in her. Real life, not just the adrenaline high of another conquest, but genuine satisfaction and contentment.

And what shocked him more than any of that was that he wanted it, too.

‘Why don’t you have a day out with Jane?’

‘What?’ She shifted forward on the sofa and stared down at him on the floor; he was lying at right angles to her with his hands linked behind his head and Libby sprawled asleep on his stomach.

‘You heard. I’ll look after the girls. We’ll be fine.’

‘Are you sure?’ she asked doubtfully.

‘Yeah, we’ll be great. Don’t you trust me?’

‘Well, of course I trust you. I’m just not sure you know what you’re letting yourself in for.’

‘Undiluted hell, I expect, but I’m sure we’ll all survive.’

She thought about it, and shook her head. ‘No. But I might meet her for a coffee,’ she suggested, toning it all down a little and going for something more manageable. ‘Besides, she’s got the baby, and the others will need dropping off at school and picking up again, and she’s always really busy. But I’ll ask her. When were you thinking of?’

‘Whenever you like. Tomorrow?’

Tomorrow was Monday. One week since he’d arrived. It was two days since they’d ended up in bed. And it had been incredible, but she was letting herself get too addicted to it, and there were other things to think about. Like him in London and her here with the children.

Still, it could work. Lots of couples did it.

But she didn’t want to! She wanted it all! And she was realistic enough to know she wasn’t going to get it. Not with Max, and the thought of having a relationship with anyone else was just a joke. There was no way anyone could live up to Max. It wouldn’t be fair to ask them to. And, besides, she loved him. Desperately.

She just had to find a way to make it work, for all their sakes.

‘I’ll go and ring her,’ she said, tucking a cushion down next to Ava so she couldn’t roll off the sofa, and getting carefully to her feet.

‘Julia? How are you? I’ve been afraid to ask!’

‘Oh, a bit like the curate’s egg—good in parts.’ Very good, but she didn’t want to talk about those parts. And the bad bits—well, they were too difficult to contemplate. ‘Look, Max has offered to babysit for me so we can grab a coffee. What are you doing tomorrow?’

‘Nothing I can’t cancel. I’m dying to see you and hear all about it. Where, and what time?’

‘The Barn? Ten-thirty?’

‘Fine. How long will you have?’

‘As long as I want. He offered me the day, but I don’t want him having a bad experience so he’s put off for life.’

‘No, absolutely not. Clever girl. Right, let’s make it ten-thirty tomorrow, and I’ll tell Pete I’ll be home at one. He’s at home, so he can babysit. Does that sound OK?’

‘Fine,’ she said, and hung up with a smile. She was really looking forward to it. It would be the first chance she’d had to see Jane on their own since she’d left hospital with the babies, and she was ridiculously excited.

She went back to the sitting room and found him lying on his front, with Libby on her back just under his head, giggling while he blew raspberries on her tummy. He looked round over his shoulder, and she stopped admiring his muscular bottom and smiled at him.

‘It’s all arranged. I’m meeting her tomorrow at ten-thirty at a coffee shop by a craft centre just a couple of miles away, and I’ll be back at one. Is that OK?’

‘Fine. Good. We’ll be all right, won’t we, half-pint?’ he said, grinning and turning back to Libby, so Julia was free to admire his really rather gorgeous bottom without interruption.

‘So tell me all! I’ve been so worried about you.’

‘No, you just want the low-down,’ Julia teased, settling down with a proper, decent latte and a properly indecent slab of chocolate-fudge cake.

‘Well, of course I want the low-down,’ Jane said, exasperated, and, reaching over with her coffee spoon, she stuck it in the cake and stole a huge chunk. ‘Mmm. Oh, wow.’

Or something like it. Julia rolled her eyes and took a slightly less disgusting chunk for herself.

‘Well?’ Jane asked when her mouth was available again.

‘Well—I don’t know. Sometimes I think it’s going all right, and other times—Well, he cheats a bit.’

‘Cheats?’

‘Not like that. We had rules. Two weeks—no phone calls, no Internet access, no sneaking back to London or staying up all night working—and most of the time he’s been great. But he tried to sneak his phone back—he rang it from mine, and I think he was hoping to hear it and track it down, but I had it under my pillow on silent, and I answered it and told him off.’

‘Oops.’

‘Yeah. And we were looking on the Internet over the weekend for a house for me. Max is a bit funny about me living in another man’s house, and if he wants to buy me one…’ She shrugged. ‘But we couldn’t find anything round here that ticked all our boxes. Well, mine really, because, as he says, he’ll be in London and I want to be near my friends. And that’s the problem, of course. He won’t live here—can’t, really, working the hours he does—and I won’t go back to London until I’m absolutely sure that he’s in earnest about this and in it for the long haul. It’s a bit like going on a crash diet—you can do it for a few days, but then something crops up.’

‘Like chocolate-fudge cake,’ Jane said, eyeing it longingly, so that Julia pushed it towards her and handed her the fork.

‘Like chocolate-fudge cake, or an unmissable deal or a stock-market crisis, and he’ll be off, I know he will. And I don’t know if I can deal with it. I don’t want to be a single parent, but I’d rather do that than live in a constant state of flux.’

‘And have you told him that?’

‘Oh, yes. But what can he do?’

Jane shrugged, stole another bit of cake and handed it back. ‘Feel free to tell me to butt out and all that, but does he actually need to work? I mean, to live? For money?’

‘No. Absolutely not. He doesn’t ever need to work again. But he’d go crazy. He’s an adrenaline junkie. He can’t live without the cut and thrust.’

‘Talking of which,’ Jane said with a wicked twinkle in her eye, ‘you’re looking all loved-up at the moment. I take it that part of the reconciliation is going well?’

Julie felt a tide of colour sweep over her cheeks. ‘That,’ she said, stabbing her chocolatey fork at her friend, ‘is none of your darned business.’

‘That’s a yes, then. Thank goodness for that.’

‘Why?’

‘Because he’s the sexiest man alive! Don’t get me wrong, I adore Pete, but your Max is seriously hot, and it would be such a wicked waste.’

She sighed. ‘That’s part of the problem, of course. If he looked like the back end of a bus and couldn’t make love for nuts, it would be easier to leave him.’

‘But you don’t want to leave him,’ Jane pointed out reasonably. ‘You just want to live with him somewhere that isn’t in the flightpath of his next plane out. You just have to work out a way to keep him with you.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘And I can do that by…?’

‘How about him moving the office out here?’

‘What?’

‘You heard. Lots of people are doing it. Or he could work from home.’

‘If he could work from home, he wouldn’t be in New York or Tokyo all the time.’

‘Ah, but there’s a difference between wanting to and being able to. He’s able to work from home. He just hasn’t wanted to yet. That’s the crux of it. Are you going to eat any more of that?’

‘You should have just had your own,’ she said, sliding the plate back to Jane.

‘Nah-ah. I’m on a diet.’

‘Yeah, right. So—you think I should find a way to keep him in the country?’

‘Mmm. Apart from just handcuffing him to the bed, which of course is the other option.’

She laughed into her coffee, splattering herself with froth and getting the giggles. ‘You’re incorrigible. It’s so nice to see you again like this,’ she said with a sigh, mopping up the last of the coffee. ‘If only I didn’t have to move so soon. You know John’s coming back in a month or so, and I’ve got to find somewhere else to live?’

‘No,’ Jane said, shaking her head.

‘Yes, he is.’

‘No, he isn’t. He’s met someone. Hasn’t he told you? Some guy in Chicago who’s fifteen years younger and wants him to move out there permanently. But he’s torn.’

‘About the guy?’

‘No, that’s pretty certain. About Murphy, I think. If it wasn’t for the dog, he’d do it, but you know how he adores him. And the cottage. But the dog’s the real deal-breaker.’

‘So—if he stays,’ she said slowly, ‘Then what will he do with the cottage?’

Jane shrugged. ‘Sell it, I suppose. I don’t know. I didn’t speak to him, it was Pete who answered the phone last night while I was in the bath. That’s all I know. It was pretty late, that’s probably why he didn’t ring you. Why don’t you ring him?’

‘I might,’ she said. ‘I might very well do that. How far behind us is Chicago? Is it six hours?’

‘Something like that.’

‘So, by the time I get home, it’ll only be seven am. That’s a bit early.’

‘And you might want to talk to Max.’

‘Or not. I might want to present him with a neatly packaged solution, and see how hard he tries to get out of it. It’s easy to talk about in theory, but, when it comes to the crunch, I might get a more honest response if he can see it in black and white and has to make a decision one way or the other. If he feels cornered, then it won’t work, and at least I’ll know.’

And please God it wouldn’t come to that.