She didn’t know, and if she asked he wouldn’t tell her. He had refused to believe her when she’d truthfully said that she and Sam had never made love, closed his mind when she’d tried to explain, cut her out of his life and his heart.
Whatever it was that had troubled his relationship with Sam had risen up and cut out his love for her as surely and completely as a surgeon expertly wielding a very sharp knife.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE smooth rhythm of his breathing agitated her beyond bearing, set every nerve-end tingling. Lying as far from him as she could get, practically on the edge of the big double bed, she held her body stiffly, every muscle aching with tension.
How could he instantly fall into a healing, untroubled sleep? she thought resentfully. Why couldn’t she? Why was she the one to lie awake, body aching, mind burning, every inch of her flesh craving his?
Why couldn’t she write him off and calmly get on with her life as he obviously had?
If he’d truly loved her he’d have listened to her, trusted her. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t even loved her enough to do her the courtesy of at least listening to her explanations of what had happened between her and Sam. So why couldn’t she stop loving him?
Unanswerable questions made jagged circuits of her brain, tormenting her, but just as she decided she’d be better off downstairs in her study, reading through those neglected faxes from her agent, she slid abruptly into exhausted sleep, and woke to find herself cuddled into Jed’s naked body.
Hardly daring to breathe, Elena gingerly opened her eyes. Grey pre-dawn light was filtering through the partly closed louvres, and at some time during the night they had unconsciously moved together.
Who had first reached out for the other was not the issue. It had happened. The only question was what to do about it.
Jed’s arm was curled around her shoulder, his hand splayed against her back; one of her arms circled his taut waist while the other was tucked against his hardmuscled chest. Her fingers were touching the softly vulnerable hollow at the base of his throat, and their legs seenied to be inextricably twined together.
Her heart punched, heat crawling through her veins as the flood of desire she had no control over pooled heavily, sweetly, inside her.
He was deeply asleep, the rise and fall of his chest slow and steady, the motion lazily brushing the hardening globes of her breasts. She struggled to control the instinctive response and failed, holding her breath until she thought her lungs would burst.
She knew she should try to extricate herself, gently and carefully, so as not to wake him, end the bittersweet torment of this stolen intimacy, put an end to the frightening immediacy of this terrible aching need.
But her body seemed to be growing heavier, sinking deeper into the soft mattress, pressing more closely into his, electrical currents sparking from the contact of flesh against flesh, setting up convulsive shudders low down inside her. And his skin was damp, slicked with perspiration; it felt like warm sleek satin.
She ached to run both her hands over his body, reclaim all that had been hers until that terrible day just over a week ago. But she couldn’t do that, she mustn’t do that, mustn’t give in to the intolerable temptation.
Physically, he was wrapped around her, but mentally and emotionally he had gone away, far away...
She knew the moment he woke, heard the deeper tug of his breath, the muted, feral sound he made at the back of his throat as his hand slid down from her shoulder to spread across the curve of her buttocks, pulling her onto his immediate arousal.
Too late now to creep away without waking him. Much, much too late. Elena scarcely dared breathe, her eyes filling with sudden emotional tears.
There was no denying his urgent physical need. Or hers. But would he make love to her? And if he did would it be lust, a loveless using of her body, or would it signal a change of heart, a desire to cast out the havoc of contempt and distrust, to start again with a willingness to listen, to understand?
But shouldn’t she signal her willingness to make a fresh start, let him know that for her love hadn’t ended with his cruel words?
A heartbeat away from lifting her head to find his lips, whisper the words of love against them, she felt his body go rigid, heard the low-voiced self-deprecating profanity as he twisted off the bed, then padded around pulling garments from drawers before heading for the en suite bathroom.
She felt like dirt, and scrambled up against the pillows, wrapping her arms tightly around her body to contain the pain. The moment he’d reached full consciousness, realised what he was doing and who he was doing it with, he’d acted as if he’d found himself in bed with his arms round a bundle of evil-smelling slime!
Pushing the pain of that as far out of sight as it would go, she blinked the moisture from her eyes, controlled her breathing and swung her long legs out of bed, reaching for her wrap.
She tied the belt tightly about her small waist, the full-length mirror throwing back a wanton reflection. Rumpled blonde hair, the filmy robe doing nothing to hide her nakedness. She didn’t care. There was no room for false modesty in this hateful situation. Much as she’d tried during the past long, lonely week, she hadn’t been able to stop loving him. She’d been fooling herself if she’d thought for one moment that she had. But that didn’t mean she’d lost all her pride.
Jed was under the shower, a cold one by the looks of things. She averted her eyes from his perfect male body, raised her voice above the sound of pounding water. ‘This situation’s impossible.’
‘I’m not over the moon about it, either.’ The gush of water stopped, and after a split second Elena steeled herself to look at him. He was wrapping a towel around his lean hips, his mouth taut, water plastering his hair to his skull, droplets gleaming on his fantastic body.
Elena clenched her hands at her sides, forbidding the instinctive, self-destructive need to touch. ‘Then do something about it,’ she ordered around the lump in her throat. ‘Or I will.’
The towel he’d been using to rough dry his hair dropped to his side, narrowed grey eyes lacerating her. ‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’
She lifted her chin. He didn’t frighten her. After the loss of his love, nothing could ever frighten her again. ‘You could listen to me, for a start. Let me tell you exactly what happened between me and Sam.’