She felt weak and shaken, but she balled her hands into fists and pushed feebly at his chest. He ignored her childishly ineffectual blows and scooped her up off her feet. ‘You’re physically and emotionally exhausted,’ he told her in a matter-of-fact near monotone as he carried her towards the door to her bedroom. ‘I’ll see you into bed and ask Room Service for warm milk and toast. That should help you sleep. You were far too hyped up to eat anything at dinner.’
She didn’t want his spurious kindness, his warm milk, or his dratted attention to what he would see as his precious duty! She wanted... She needed...
A fierce rush of adrenalin pushed all caution to the winds. She squirmed hectically against him, struggling to get back on her own two feet, shrieking, ‘Let go of me! Stop being such an odious holier than thou, pompous, prattish little gentleman!’
She squirmed more furiously, wriggling and pushing against him, her narrow skirt riding high on her thighs, her face scarlet with temper, outrage and frustration, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps, unaware until it was too late—far too late—of the fine tremors that shook his lean, hard frame, of the dangerous glitter of fiery intent in eyes that were suddenly narrowed, black with savage emotion.
‘I can be as ungentlemanly as you like, sweetheart, believe me!’
His hands tightened on her body as he shouldered open the bedroom door and strode to the bed. He tumbled her onto the covers, one hand fastening her wrists together above her head, his darkly glittering eyes making a quick inventory of her body, sweeping up the length of her silk panty-hose-clad legs to the scrumple of champagne satin
around her hips and on to the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, their swollen peaks thrusting against the slithery satin that barely contained them now.
And back down again, more slowly. Much more slowly. Caressing her. Elena shuddered helplessly as desire made a pool of liquid heat inside her. She stopped breathing as she followed the journey his eyes were making, her flesh quivering in mindless anticipation because each slow stroke of his eyes was like the physical touch of his lean, sensual fingers.
She could feel the tension in him, almost feel the tremors that shook his taut frame, smell the raw, hot male scent of him. Slowly he released her wrists, and her body conquered what was left of her mind and moved luxuriously, sensuously, beneath the burning drift of his eyes, drugged eyes, that swept slowly up to lock with hers.
‘Yes,’ he said softly. ‘Now.’ He removed his jacket and tossed it carelessly aside, ripping away his shirt to reveal muscles clenched with need, a need that raged tempestuously through her, too. A need she understood, found impossible to deny, a need she answered as she lifted her arms to him in silent invitation.
With boneless grace he joined her, taking her hands and winding them around his neck, groaning deeply as her fingers stroked his nape. Lovingly, they feathered down his throat, down to the hectic pulse-beat at the base.
She loved him, always would. Her body craved him with a hunger that was out of control. With a tiny mew of rapture she wriggled closer, pressing her breasts against his naked chest, feeling the race of his heartbeats as he slid one tiny strap away from her shoulder and then the other.
Yes! She needed skin to skin, flesh to burning flesh. And, as ever, he knew what she wanted because that was what he wanted, too.
He closed the tiny gap between their mouths and she opened for him, inviting the raging hunger of his kiss, shuddering all over. Her fingers were digging into his back as he slid a hand up the length of her thigh and tugged impatiently at the waist of her panty-hose, sliding the silk away from her body, his breath catching as his touch revealed she was wearing nothing else beneath her dress.
She hadn’t dressed for seduction. The lines of a bra and panties showing beneath the clinging satin would have spoiled the svelte impression. Yet seduction was happening here, she thought muzzily. But who was seducing whom?
It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered now but this, this togetherness. He reached behind her to find the concealed zipper of her dress, turned her over and stripped the fabric from her heated body.
She endured the slow stroke of his hands as they moulded her from her shoulders down to her thighs for as long as she could bear the deliriously rising excitement inside her, then turned with a sign of frustrated need, arching her body into his.
He kissed her slowly, her mouth, her eyelids, the hollow of her neck, taking his time, making her take hers, just as he had done so many times before, not rushing things in spite of the urgency of his body’s response.
A wild coupling to assuage an urgent need had never been his way with her. He was finding the most circuitous route to heaven, making sure the arrival would be as sublime for her as it was for him, just as he had done in the days when he had loved her.
‘Sweetheart,’ he murmured throatily as he lifted his head from her breasts, his eyes hazed with desire. ‘This is so unbelievable. What you do to me...’
Even the words were the same, almost incoherent endearments, words that told her of the depth of his love. Only this wasn’t love.
A tiny icy shiver froze her veins. It congealed her blood, shocked her into recognition of what was actually happening here.
She still loved him, couldn’t stop no matter how she tried. Physically and emotionally she would always be his. But he hated her—not enough to wish her harm, he’d said—but implacably, eternally.
This, this happening, was simply sex. Perhaps, right now, he believed they could use each other and survive the encounter unscathed.
But she knew differently. Tonight, for all sorts of reasons, she’d pushed him beyond endurance. Lots of men lost sight of their scruples as soon as they dropped their trousers. But not Jed. He would despise himself. And she would despise herself for letting it happen, actively encouraging him.
They would despise each other and fatally spoil the memories that were left of how they had loved each other once.
As his fingers found the sweet moistness that told him she was more than ready for him she knew she had to stop this, for both their sakes.
Wriggling away from him was the hardest thing she’d ever do, but she had to do it. Pushing herself back against the heaped pillows, reaching for her discarded dress, she held the satin against her breasts and lied recklessly, ‘If you want sex, just go ahead. I won’t stop you. But I’m warning you, there’ll be a difference. You see, I don’t love you any more. How can I love a man who thinks I’m a liar? It will be just like scratching an itch.’
Being cruel to be kind just wasn’t in it, she conceded bleakly as she watched his features display at first blank incredulity, followed by black anger, then cold contempt.
And then he swung himself to his feet, and she watched him walk away and ached to call him back, retract those hateful, hateful words, and pushed her knuckles against her teeth to stop the anguished cry escaping.