Part 14 (1/2)

Obediently she did as he said, unaware of the effect that her languorously enlarged pupils were having on him.

He touched her face with his hands, cupping it, not daring to let himself touch her body. If he did!

He could feel his own physical response to the thought of touching her, of smoothing his hands over the silky warmth of her skin, of caressing every single inch of her with his mouth, of showing her... giving her all the pleasure she had never known, of helping her to be proud of the sensuality that nature had given her.

He could feel his heart hammering against his ribs, his throat aching with tension and need... He buried his mouth against her throat, feeling her tremble violently against him, seeing in the golden shadow of the lamplight the sudden thrust of her nipples against her clothes.

Heat swamped him. Before he had registered what he was doing, never mind stopped himself, his hands slid to her waist, holding her, his head dipping down, his mouth covering her nipple, caressing it, his mind haunted by his memories of how often he had dreamed of touching her like this.

After one violent shudder of shock, Rosie simply clung quiescently to him, too stunned, too devoured by the physical and emotional sensations his pa.s.sionate caress had aroused to do anything else.

How could it happen that simply the heat of his mouth, its dampness against her skin, the rough brush of his tongue even through the layers of fabric that separated her flesh from it could cause such a frenzy of sensation inside her, could unleash such an aching, a need, a pulsing, that it was all she could do to stop herself from pressing his head against her breast, from wrenching aside the intrusive fabric that prevented her from experiencing his heated, pa.s.sionate suckle against her naked flesh?

She wanted to feel him touching her like that, kissing her like that, all over her body, but she had no idea she had voiced that need until he lifted his mouth from her breast and whispered to her, ”Do you, Rosie? Do you? Come here, then, and let me show you how much / want to love you like that...”

He had just started to unfasten her blouse when she suddenly shook her head. Immediately his fingers stilled, his eyes watching her, waiting.

”Not here...” she told him huskily, her skin flus.h.i.+ng as she looked beyond him towards the half-open door.

It was so hard for her to say the words to explain to him how she felt... what she wanted, to tell him that, although she knew already that what she would experience with him would be nothing like that other time, she still wanted it to be upstairs in her own bed where, no matter what might happen after wards, or what the future might hold, she would have the memory of being physically wanted and desired, of being shown tenderness and joy, of knowing what this physical thing between a man and a woman really should be, to destroy for ever the tainted memories of the past.

As she struggled to find the words to ex press what she was feeling and what she wanted, it seemed that somehow Jake had read her mind for her,

because he watched her sombrely for a few seconds and then said quietly, ”No. Not here.”

As she walked nervously towards the door, the light fell on the damp patch of fabric pulling tautly against her breast.

Heat flooded through her, weakening her, making her sway slightly on her feet.

Instantly Jake was holding her, supporting her, his arm wrapped round her.

They went upstairs in silence.

Outside her bedroom door she paused, hesitating, suddenly filled with doubt and panic. What if he didn't really want her after all? What if he was simply doing this because he felt sorry for her... what if?

As she looked towards him, she saw that he was very obviously physically aroused; her skin flushed, her body responding to what she had seen, filling her with a longing that made her tremble openly.

She didn't realise Jake had misinterpreted the reason for that tremor until she heard him saying softly, ”It's all right, Rosie. You don't have to do this.

If you'd prefer me to leave...”

Her eyes gave her away before she could speak, filling with such anguish that Jake felt as though someone was physically tearing at his guts.

He was close to forty years old. He had promised himself he wouldn't rush her, wouldn't panic her, wouldn't let his own needs, his own love, get in the way of his de sire to help her, to put her first... but when he saw the look of helpless aching, longing dilating her eyes... ”I want to see you,” she told him shakily.

”I want you to see me...”

She stopped speaking, unable to explain that she wanted their intimacy to be open and free, clean and wholesome... shared. That she didn't want it to be something covert and hidden, dark and furtive.

”I want to see you,” she had said, and Jake had heard beneath the defiance in her voice the tiny thread of all her past fear.

He ached in helpless anger and pain for her, but knew that if he voiced what he was feeling she would immediately reject his emotions, driven by pride and the need to protect herself.

Instead he told her wryly, ”There isn't an awful lot to see.

A man's body doesn't possess the same beauty as a woman's...” As he spoke he looked down at her, and Rosie felt her heart thud frantically against her ribs as she recognised his desire for her.

Was he saying that he found her body beautiful--the swollen curves of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, the swell of her hips, the roundness of her body with its female mysteries?

And he was wrong when he said a man's body did not possess beauty.

His did for her, she recognised as her glance skimmed hesitantly over him. His skin was tanned from the time he had spent in Greece, his arms and legs tautly muscled where hers were more gently structured, his nipples smaller, natter but, like hers, taut and hard. If she touched them, kissed them, suckled on them, would he experience the same thrill of sensation that his mouth had given her?

Her skin burned at the thought, her hand clenching against her side as she resisted the urge to reach out and touch him, to stroke her fingertips through the soft silk of his body hair, to breathe in the scent of him, to release all her inhibitions and to show him with her hands and her mouth just how much she wanted and needed him.

”Rosie...”

She looked at him, her expression open and unguarded. What he saw in her eyes made Jake reach out for her, groaning helplessly under his breath as his senses reacted to that un spoken message of longing and need.

”Hold me, Rosie,” he whispered against her mouth.

”Hold me... touch me... love me...”

Perhaps after all this was what she needed most: not to be shown the power of her own s.e.xuality, but to be allowed to discover the weakness of his, its vulnerabilities and needs, to be allowed to discover that a man's body was just as vulnerable as a woman's, that she had just as much power to wound and hurt him as he did her, to discover what her touch could do to him.

Against her mouth he whispered thickly, ”Whatever it is you want, Rosie... whatever it is you need, you can have...”

I want you, Rosie wanted to tell him. I need you ... I love you ... but she didn't say the words. Instead she reached out tentatively and touched him, tracing the shape of his shoulder, exploring the warmth of his skin, feeling the way his flesh responded to her touch, seeing in his face that he had told her the truth when he said he wanted her.

What she was learning now... experiencing now were things she should have known years ago, Rosie acknowledged as her heart filled with wonder at the way he reacted to her, at the way he let her see just what she was doing to him, but more unexpected than all of that was the way her own body responded to what she was doing, the way touching him, watching him, kissing him, just simply watching him, aroused her.

When she pressed her lips to the flat plane of his stomach and hesitantly caressed it with the tip of her tongue, the shudder that went through him made her own body ache so sharply that she immediately froze.

”Rosie... it's all right,” Jake started to rea.s.sure her, but she shook her head, her face burning with the force of what she was feeling as she took his hand and placed it against her body, and then watched him, uncertainly wondering if she had done the right thing. If she should have waited for him to touch her.

As soon as he touched the moist, intimate heat of her body, Jake knew what was happening to her.

”Rosie...” He kissed her mouth, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and then her stomach, all the time gently caressing her, trying to fight down his own need so that he could let her body tell him what it wanted... take its own pace.

When he kissed the inside of her thigh she trembled and tensed, but she didn't try to push him away.