Kitabı oku: «The British Bachelors Collection», sayfa 19

‘Same goes for the underwear...’

‘But it’s beautiful lacy underwear...’ Violet protested with mock hurt. ‘Brand new! And very expensive...not the sort of underwear a hard-working teacher can afford too much of...’

‘I’ll buy you the store. Then you can save your hard-earned salary for other things...’

Violet traced the outline of his flat brown nipples, moistened her fingers with her tongue, traced them again, and relished the way he flexed in immediate, gratifying response.

‘I like the underwear,’ Damien asserted huskily as he looked down at the lacy lavender piece of nothing. ‘I just don’t like it on you at this particular moment in time...’ He pointedly tugged the lace, then, without giving her time to protest, knelt in front of her.

Looking down with a little gasp, Violet saw the dark bowed head of a supplicant. Even if he was very far from being one. It was an incredible turn-on.

He gently urged her thighs slightly apart and then peeled the underwear back, revealing the lushness of her hair.

With a shudder, she braced herself against the counter, head flung back, knowing that if she wasn’t careful she would come in seconds. As his tongue slipped into the groove of her wetly receptive sex, she could hear the faint slick sounds as he licked and explored, with his finger still holding the underwear to one side.

She clenched her fists and gritted her teeth in a mammoth effort not to come against his questing mouth.

She reached down to tug his hair and, on cue, he straightened. Her hands scrabbled helplessly at his trousers and he gave a deep throaty laugh and began to unzip them.

‘We haven’t made it to the food,’ he murmured.

‘But at least we’re not on the staircase...’ As if that said anything, as if it implied any more restraint. It didn’t. She was as desperate for him now as she always was when he came through her door.

‘No. The kitchen. Lots of scope for being inventive...although would you rather we ate the food than tried playing with it...?’ Damien laughed at her shocked expression. She had only had one other lover. He had managed to get that out of her ages ago and, from the sounds of it, that one lover had hardly been sizzling in the bedroom stakes. Every time they made love, he felt as though he was coming to her as her first and the feeling that generated was beyond satisfaction. ‘Okay,’ he drawled, ‘maybe next time. I could teach you some very inventive things that can be done with champagne and cherries...’

He removed his trousers and underwear in one smooth movement. The kitchen was warm and fragrant with the food that had already started cooking. Outside, night had finally drawn in. With the lights off, they were just two shadows touching, feeling and responding to one another.

He breathed in her uniquely feminine scent, something to do with a light floral perfume she wore. It wouldn’t have suited everyone but it damn well suited her. Even when they were apart, he could recall the smell and it always managed to get him aroused. How was that possible? He half closed his eyes and was relieved that she couldn’t witness that momentary lapse of self-control.

For a few seconds a streak of anger flared inside him. A confused, chaotic anger that resented the peculiar hold he sometimes thought she had over him. He lifted her, taking her by surprise, and sat her on the counter, shoving aside the remnants of food and cutlery still to be cleared.

‘What are you doing?’ Violet’s voice was breathless as her rear made contact with the cool surface of the kitchen counter.

‘I’m taking you.’

‘But...’

He didn’t say anything, instead holding her with one hand while he bent to retrieve the wallet from his trousers, home of at least one extremely useful condom if memory served him right. He was hard and erect, throbbing with an urgent need to sink into her body and feel it wrap itself around him like a glove.

Her hands were on his shoulders and her short pearly nails were digging into his flesh. Leaning back, her breasts were thrust out, nipples standing to attention. He paused briefly to take one into his mouth, sucking hard on it until she was whimpering and crying out and could no longer keep still. His leisurely lovemaking plan had taken a nosedive. Pushing open her legs and angling her just right so that she was ready to receive him, he entered her.

Pleasure exploded in her like a thunderbolt. She could feel every magnificent inch of him as he moved inside her, strong, forceful and with deepening intensity.

This was almost rough and yet it felt so good. She heard herself crying out and the sound seemed to be coming from someone else.

‘Talk to me!’ he demanded, curling his long fingers into her hair, tugging her into looking at him. Which she did, through half closed eyes because she was pretty much beyond focusing on anything but what he was doing to her.

‘Damien!’ He talked dirty to her but it was something she had not done in return. Some lingering element of prudishness always seemed to stand in the way.

‘Tell me how you’re feeling with me inside you!’ He emphasised the order with a powerful thrust that made her slide a little way back on the counter.

Violet shivered with heady abandon. She clutched him and told him exactly what he was demanding to know. How it felt to have him in her, filling her up, taking away her ability to think. Her breasts ached for him. She wanted his mouth on them. She just couldn’t get enough of him...

To her own ears, every word she uttered seemed to plunge her deeper and deeper into a vulnerable place. Would he pick that up? Was that finely tuned instinct of his sharp enough to pick up what wasn’t being said behind the graphic descriptions? That she literally couldn’t get enough of him, and not just on the physical, carnal plane, addictive though that was? That, for her, want was very much interlinked with need, which was dangerously close to...

Violet clamped shut her mouth, allowed herself to be carried away to oblivion. She cried out mindlessly as wave upon wave of glorious, unstoppable sensation ripped through her perspiring body, and he echoed her.

When he withdrew from her, turning to deposit the used condom in the bin, she scrambled off the counter and, for a few seconds, barely remembered the train of thought that had been running through her head just before she had climaxed.

It was a luxury that wasn’t destined to last long. She went upstairs for a quick shower. She desperately needed some time to herself, time for her thought processes to be followed through to their natural conclusion, even though the conclusion might not be one she wanted to reach.

She had fallen in love with him. How had that happened? Shouldn’t there have been a natural progression of steps to get from A to B? Where was the calm, peaceful contentment she had always associated with falling in love? She had been swept along on a roller coaster ride and now she felt ambushed by an emotion that had crept in without her noticing, without her being able to take the necessary precautions. Whilst she had been racing with the devil and calling it experience, a one-off, love had been quietly settling like cement and now she felt constricted, unable to move and as fragile as a piece of spun glass.

She went downstairs to find that he had tidied the kitchen, which surely must have been a first for him, and waiting for her with a glass of wine in his hand. His trousers were back on, as was the shirt, although he hadn’t bothered to do up the buttons on the shirt which hung rakishly loose, revealing a sliver of bronzed torso.

‘Full marks for the appetiser...’ Damien sipped some of his wine and regarded her over the rim of the glass. If she had used a shower cap, it hadn’t done its job. Damp tendrils clung to her cheeks. She looked clean and rosy and unbelievably sexy, especially with the V-necked striped T-shirt she had put on, which allowed a generous view of her cleavage. It was a constant source of mystery that her appeal hadn’t diminished over the course of time. Why was that? Was it because he was fully aware that they came from opposite ends of the pole? That, for a man like him—a man who didn’t want commitment—he had found his match in a woman who probably did want commitment but not with a man like him? Could that be it?

Violet’s eyes skittered away from his beautiful, sinfully sexy face. Every compliment he paid her had to do with sex, with her body, with the physical. She could see now that that had been the start of her downfall. Those husky words of rampant appreciation, delivered with intent, had arrowed in on a part of her that had always been insecure and found their mark. Like a flower coming into bloom, she had opened up and grown in an area of her life that had been stunted and underdeveloped. He had made her feel like a woman, a powerful, beautiful, engaging woman, and she had run with the sensation. She had let him in and, without even realising it, had seen beyond their differences to all the things about him that were strangely endearing.

‘Damien...we need to...to talk...’

He continued to smile that crooked little half smile of his but his eyes were suddenly watchful. Women wanting to talk was usually synonymous with women saying things he didn’t want to hear.

‘I’m listening.’ He strolled across to one of the kitchen chairs and sat down, looking at her carefully as she shuffled to the chair opposite him, so that the width of the table was separating them.

‘It’s been a while, Damien. Your mother has responded really well to treatment and is out of the danger zone. I agreed to all of this...pretending, the charade...for my sister and then I carried on with it for myself, because I was talked into putting sexual attraction above everything else...’

‘Ah. I get it. Are we going to start on a blame game, Violet? With me cast in the role of seducer of innocent girls? If that’s the case, then I suggest you have a rethink before you get on your soapbox.’

Violet had forgotten this side to him, the side that could withdraw and grow cold. The fact that it was still there, right beneath the surface, was a timely reminder of why it was so important to begin detaching herself from this relationship, if indeed relationship was what it could be called.

‘I wasn’t going to do that.’

‘No?’ Damien drawled. He hadn’t been expecting this, not after having had mind-blowing sex, and tension lent a hard, mocking edge to his voice. ‘Because no one pointed to a bed and then held a gun to your head while you got undressed.’

‘I know that! Why are you being so...so horrible?’

‘I’m just waiting to hear what you have to say and reminding you that you were an eager and willing volunteer when it came to sex.’ She couldn’t meet his eyes. What the hell was going on? How could everything change in a matter of seconds? His confusion angered him because it was yet another niggling reminder that he was not as much in control with this woman as he would have liked to have been.

‘I’m saying that I think it would be a good idea if we...we...took a step back...’ Violet lowered her eyes and frowned into the glass of wine which had somehow found its way in front of her.

‘A step back...’

‘Your mother is more than stable enough to deal with our relationship hitting the rocks. She’s back to doing stuff with Dominic, can go out in her garden now and again... I feel that the time has come for us to get back to our normal lives...’

‘And between us making love in the kitchen and you going to have a shower...you’ve reached this decision when...? Exactly...?’

‘I don’t have to give you any explanations of when or why I’ve reached my decision, Damien. It’s over. I’m not like you. I can’t carry on sleeping with you, knowing that it’s something that’s not going anywhere.’

‘Where do you want it to go?’ Damien asked, as quick as a flash.

‘I don’t want it to go anywhere!’

‘And what if I tell you that I don’t want what we have to end yet? Doubtless my mother is strong enough to recover from a crash and burn relationship, even if she’s unduly fond of you, but it’s long ceased to be about my mother, as you well know.’ Suddenly restless, he vaulted to his feet, glass in one hand, and began to pace the tiny kitchen. He’d never been dumped by a woman. Pride alone should have had him gathering his jacket and heading for the door. Hadn’t he made it his mission to avoid the hassle of the demanding woman? And what was she demanding anyway? She had always made it quite clear that they were poles apart, that he was not the blueprint of the kind of man she would ever consider settling down with.

So...was it money? Underneath all the protestations of not being materialistic, had she become used to the opulence that surrounded him wherever he went? Had she glimpsed a vision of how life could be if she could get access to his? He stifled a sudden feeling of intense disappointment. He was a realist and this was the explanation that made the most sense.

His brain locked into gear. He still wanted her and, whether she admitted it or not, she was still hot for him. So maybe she didn’t feel as though she had a stake in their relationship. She made a big song and dance of not wanting to accept anything from him but, in so doing, did she feel that she was utterly disposable? That, despite his offers to buy her no less than he would have bought for any of his lovers, he found her in any way less attractive? If only... Just thinking about the way her breasts spilled heavily out of her bra was enough to engage his mind for a few seconds on a completely different path. If he had felt, in any way, that the sex was beginning to wane, he might have shrugged and taken his leave but he was an expert when it came to gauging responses. He couldn’t remember a time when the woman had been the flagging partner and it wasn’t the case now. Nor was he about to give up a sex life that was second to none.

‘There’s something I want you to see.’

Violet was taken aback by a remark that seemed to come from nowhere. ‘What is it?’

‘Wait here.’ In the heat of the moment, he had forgotten the costly item of jewellery nestling in its classy black and gold box. His fait accompli present. Whoever said that the Great One didn’t work in mysterious ways?

She was still sitting in the same position in the kitchen when he returned and extended his hand. ‘For you,’ he informed her solemnly. ‘I hear what you’re saying and this is just a small measure of what you mean to me...’

Violet took the box but already she could feel her skin beginning to get clammy. What he meant to her. How many times had she told him that she didn’t want anything from him? She lifted the lid of the box and stared down at an item of jewellery that she knew would have been spectacularly expensive. What she meant to him would never be love, it certainly wasn’t durability. She was his willing plaything and her worth could be counted in banknotes. She fought down the stupid urge to cry over a piece of jewellery that would have had any other woman shrieking in delight.

‘I don’t want it.’ She stuck it back in the box, snapped shut the lid and handed it to him.

‘What do you mean? I know you’ve made a big deal about not accepting anything from me, but you want to know what this...what we have...means to me...take it in the spirit with which it was given.’ He obviously wasn’t about to relieve her of the necklace.

‘I think it’s time we called this a day, Damien.’ It hurt just saying that but say it she knew she had to. In that single gesture he had made her feel sordid and cheap.

‘Where the hell is this coming from?’

‘I can’t be bought for a few weeks or months of sex until you get tired of me and send me on my way with...with what...? Something even bigger and more expensive? A really huge pat on the back, it was nice knowing you goodbye gift?’

Damien wondered how long she had been contemplating the outcome of their relationship and working herself up to wanting more. Was she holding him to ransom or did she genuinely want out and if she did genuinely want out, how was it that she was still on fire for him? No, that made no sense.

But if she wanted more, if she wanted a passport to a lifestyle she could never have attained in a million years, then was it so inconceivable that he give it to her...?

‘I don’t want to buy you,’ he murmured. ‘I want to marry you...’

CHAPTER NINE

‘SORRY?’ THERE WAS a rushing sound in her ears. She thought it might have temporarily impaired her hearing.

‘You say you can’t be in a relationship if you think it’s not going anywhere. Curious considering we embarked on this relationship in the expectation that it wouldn’t go anywhere.’

‘I didn’t think a game of make-believe would...would...’ Violet was still grappling with what he had said. Had he actually asked her to marry him? Had she imagined the whole thing? He certainly didn’t have the expectant, love struck look of a man who had just voiced a marriage proposal.

‘Nor did I. And yet it did and now here we are. Which brings me back to my marriage proposal.’

So, she hadn’t been imagining it. And yet nothing in his expression gave any hint that he was talking about anything of import. His eyes were unreadable, his beautiful face coolly speculative. Violet, on the other hand, could feel a burning that began in the pit of her stomach and moved outwards.

Marriage? To Damien Carver? The concept was at once too incredible to believe and yet fiercely seductive. For a few magical seconds, her mind leapfrogged past all the obvious glitches in his wildly unexpected proposal. She was in love with the man who had asked her to marry him! Even when she had been going out with Stu, even though they had occasionally talked about marriage, she had never felt this wonderful surge of pure happiness.

Reality returned and she regretfully left her happy ever after images behind. ‘Why would you want to marry me?’

‘I’m enjoying what we have. I’m not getting any younger. Yes, at the time we started out on our charade, I had not given a passing thought to settling down, even though I realised that that was what my mother wanted...’

Too hurt by past rejection to go there again...went through Violet’s head.

‘Now I can see that it makes sense.’

‘Makes sense?’

‘We get along. You’ve bonded with my family. They like you. My mother sings your praises. Dominic tells me that you’re one of a kind, a gem.’ He paused, thought of Annalise with distaste, wondered how he could ever have been so naive as to think that only idiots viewed disability as an unacceptable challenge. He remembered how he had borne the insult delivered to his brother as much as if it had been directly delivered to him. Annalise might have been attractive and clever, but neither of those attributes could have made up for her basic inability to step out of the box. Her neatly laid out future had not included hitches of that nature. Over the years, he had bumped into her, sometimes coincidentally, occasionally at her request. She never mentioned Dominic but she always made a point of informing him how much she had grown up. The fact that Violet naturally and without trying had endeared herself to his mother and his brother counted for a great deal.

‘You’ve asked me to marry you because I get along with your family?’

‘Well...that’s not the complete story. There’s also the incredible sex...’ He scanned her flushed cheeks with lingering appreciation.

‘So let me get this straight. You’ve asked me to marry you because I’ve been accepted by your family, because we get along and because we’re good in bed together. It’s not exactly the marriage proposal I dreamed of as a girl.’ She kept her voice steady and calm. Inside, her heart was hammering as she absorbed the implications of his proposal. This wasn’t about love or a starry-eyed desire to walk off into the sunset with her, holding hands, knowing that they were soulmates, destined to be together for the rest of their lives. This was a marriage proposal of convenience.

‘And what when we get tired of one another? I mean, lust doesn’t last for ever.’ And without love as its foundation, whatever was left when the lust bit disappeared would crumble into dust. When that happened, would he decide that being stuck in a loveless marriage was maybe not quite the sensible option he had gone for? Would his eyes begin to wander? Would he see that other options were available? Of course he would and where would that leave her? Nursing even more heartbreak than if she walked away now with her pride and dignity intact.

‘I don’t like hypothesising.’ Why hadn’t she just said yes? He was giving her what any other woman on the planet would want. He knew that without a shred of conceit. He had a lot to offer and he was offering it to her, so what was with the hesitancy and the thousand and one questions? Would he have to fill out an informal questionnaire? To find out if he passed with flying colours?

‘I know, but sometimes it’s important to look ahead,’ Violet persisted stubbornly. In some strange way, this marriage proposal was the nail in the coffin of their relationship. At least as far as she was concerned. She might have wondered aloud where they were going, but she knew, deep down, that she would have been persuaded to carry on, just as she knew that, in carrying on, she would have clung to the belief that her love was returned, that it was just a question of time. She would have allowed hope to propel her forward. But he had proposed what would be a sham of a marriage and she knew, now, exactly where she stood with him.

He liked her well enough but primarily he liked her body. And the added bonus was that she got along with Eleanor and Dominic. When the scales were balanced, he doubtless thought that they weighed in favour of putting a ring on her finger.

‘It’s not necessary to look ahead,’ Damien countered, but sudden unease was stirring a potent mix of anger and bewilderment inside him. ‘And I’m not sure where the cross-examination is leading.’

‘I can’t accept your offer,’ Violet said bluntly. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Come again?’

‘You might think we’re suited, but I don’t.’

‘Do we or do we not have amazing sexual chemistry? Do I or do I not turn you on until you’re begging me to take you?’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘So you’re back to this business of looking for your soulmate. Is that it?’

‘There’s nothing wrong in thinking that when you settle down you’ll do so with the right guy...’

‘Do you know the statistics when it comes to divorce? One in three. May even be one in two and a half. For every woman with stars in her eyes and dreams of rocking chairs on verandas with her husband when they’re eighty-four with the great-grandchildren running around their feet, I’ll show you a hundred who have recently signed their divorce papers and are complaining about the cost of the lawyer’s fees. For every child at home with both parents, I’ll show you a thousand who have become nomads, travelling between parents and inheriting an assorted family of half-siblings and step-siblings along the way.’ He raked impatient, frustrated fingers through his hair. She had made noises about wanting more, and he had blithely assumed that the more she claimed to be wanting was with him. It hadn’t occurred to him that the more she wanted was with someone else. There was still this amazing, once in a lifetime buzz between them. Was it his fault that he had interpreted that in the only way that seemed possible? And yet here she was, turning him down flat.

‘I know that,’ Violet said, her mouth stubbornly downturned. Of course, every argument he might use to persuade her that tying the knot was a sensible outcome to their relationship would be based in statistics. In the absence of real emotion, statistics would come in very handy.

She was also aware that sex was only part of the drive behind his proposal. Eleanor’s illness had shattered the complacent world he had established around himself and forced him into re-evaluating his relationship with his brother and, by extension, his mother. It had been easy for him to justify his interaction with them and convince himself that there was nothing out of kilter by throwing money in their direction. They had wanted for nothing. Damien had not told her that himself. She had garnered that information via Eleanor, passing remarks, rueful observations... However, as everyone knew, money was not the be-all and end-all when it came to relationships and he had been helped in his fledgling attempts to rebuild what had been lost thanks to her. She knew that without having to be told. She had not entered this peculiar arrangement ever thinking that it would extend beyond the absolutely necessary and yet it had and now all of that had entered the murky mix of logic and rationale that lay behind his proposal.

She didn’t want to end up being the convenient other half in a relationship where she would inevitably be taken for granted, nor was it fair on either Eleanor or Dominic for her to slot into their lives where she would eventually pick up the slack, enabling Damien to return to his workaholic life which had no room for anyone, least of all a wife. Even a wife he might temporarily be in lust with.

And yet when she thought of waking up next to him, being able to turn and reach out and touch his warm, responsive body...every morning...

When she half closed her eyes she could recall the feel of his mouth all over her body, kissing and licking and exploring, and a treacherous little voice in her head insisted on telling her that that could be hers. Lust could last a very long time, couldn’t it? It could last for ever. It could turn into something else. Couldn’t it?

And yet he had approached her the way a person would approach a mathematical equation that needed solving. And that wasn’t right. Not when it came to marriage.

But she still had to take a deep breath and steel herself against being sidetracked. Especially when he was sitting right there in front of her, his hands loosely linked, his body leaning towards her, his dark, sinfully beautiful face stirring all sorts of rebellious thoughts inside her.

‘But—’ she inhaled deeply ‘—I’m on the side of the minority who actually have working marriages and kids with both parents.’ She plucked at her jumper with nerveless fingers. ‘And please stop looking at me as though I’m mad. There are some of us out there who prefer to dream rather than just cave in and think that we’re never going to be happy...’

‘No one’s talking about being happy or not being happy...’ Damien interrupted impatiently. ‘Where did you get that idea from? Did I ask you to marry me with the sub-clause that you shouldn’t hold out for happiness?’ He wondered why he was continuing to pursue this. She had turned him down and it was time now to take his leave. And yet, although he could feel the sharp teeth of pride kicking in, something was compelling him to stay. Was it because he was keenly aware of how awkward it was going to be breaking the news of their break-up to his mother and Dominic? Made sense. Who liked to be the harbinger of bad news, as he undoubtedly would be? Were it any other woman, he would have left by now. Actually, were it any other woman he would not have proposed in the first place.

‘We’re not suited. Not in any way that makes sense for a long-term relationship. We might enjoy...you know...the physical side of things...’ At this point, she felt faint at that physical side of things no longer being attainable. No more of that breathless excitement. No more melting as their bodies united. But, much more than that, no more heady anticipation knowing that the man she loved was going to be walking through her front door, taking her in his arms... How had she only managed to now work out what should have been obvious from the start? That so much more than just her body looked forward to seeing him? That he had awakened a side to her that she never knew existed and something like that didn’t happen in a vacuum? That she just didn’t have the sort of personality that could lock away various sides of herself and only bring them out when appropriate?

She had sleep walked herself into loving him and it was a feeling that would never be returned. No amount of persuasive arguments about divorce statistics could change that.

‘You’re repeating yourself. I don’t think there’s much point to my remaining here to listen to any more of the same old.’ He made to stand and a wave of sickening panic rushed through her at speed, with the force and power of a tsunami.

‘But I know you agree with me!’ Desperate to keep him with her just a little bit longer, Violet sprang to her feet and placed a restraining hand on his arm.

He looked down at it with withering eyes. ‘Our days of touching are over. So...if you don’t mind?’ He raised one cool eyebrow and Violet removed her hand with alacrity.

‘We would end up in a bitter, corrosive relationship if we got married,’ she gabbled on, clasping her hands tightly together because she wanted to reach out again and pluck at him to stay. His face was stony. ‘I’m sorry I ever said anything about...about... We’d be far better off staying just as we are...’ Violet knew that she was backtracking and that there was desperation in that but there was a void opening up in front of her that she knew would be impossible to fill. It was dark and bottomless and terrifying. So what if they just carried on the way they were? Would it be the end of the world? And wouldn’t it be better than this? Being a martyr? Hadn’t she agreed with him once that martyrdom was cold comfort?