His question sent a shock of awareness thrilling through her. ‘Yes… That is… we still share the same bed,’ she told him huskily. ‘But…’
‘But you don’t make love… you don’t have sex,’ Kenneth prompted softly.
‘I… we… Joel wants to, but…’ She closed her eyes, guiltily aware that every word she said increased her betrayal of Joel and their marriage, but it was such a relief to talk to someone who understood her, someone with whom she could be open and honest about her feelings. If Daphne had not been so antagonistic towards Joel she might have felt more able to confide in her, but with Daphne she was always uncomfortably aware that her sister was looking for faults in Joel, for something to criticise.
‘I suppose it’s just that men and women have a different attitude towards sex,’ she told him ruefully. ‘Joel just can’t seem to understand that it isn’t something I can… that I can’t make myself…’ She stopped, shaking her head.
‘That you can’t what?’ Kenneth prompted. ‘That you can’t make yourself want him? And he still tries to force himself on you, knowing…’ Kenneth began disgustedly, but Sally stopped him.
‘It isn’t like that,’ she protested defensively. ‘Joel doesn’t…’
She stopped again. How could she explain to Kenneth… admit to him that the diminishment of her sex drive had meant that she almost preferred to have Joel get the whole thing over and done with rather than attempt to arouse her?
‘You don’t want him, and he has to know it,’ Kenneth insisted. ‘In my book that makes him…’ He stopped, shaking his head. ‘There’s an awful lot more to a relationship, to loving someone, than sex…’
‘Yes,’ Sally acknowledged sadly.
‘You know how I feel about you,’ Kenneth told her. ‘Leave him, Sally, and come to me…’
‘I can’t,’ she protested, panicky. It was too soon… too much… she wasn’t ready yet for that kind of decision, that kind of commitment—and besides, how could she leave Joel?
Kenneth watched her. He could afford to wait, to enjoy the pleasure of anticipation, and sooner or later she would come to him, he was sure of it.
If her husband was as sexually driven as she was implying, Kenneth doubted that he would be content to live a semi-celibate life for very long. Sooner rather than later there would be another woman, Kenneth reflected cynically, and once there was…
‘I can’t bear to think of you going back to him,’ he told Sally after they had gone round in circles for another ten minutes. ‘Being with him… sleeping with him…’
‘Don’t,’ Sally protested, her eyes filling with tears. She felt as though she was being pulled apart, her body and her emotions wrenched into aching sickness by her conflicting needs.
Talking with Kenneth had underlined the emptiness of her marriage and her relationship with Joel, and yet he was her husband; she had committed herself to him. If she left him…
‘Don’t look like that,’ Kenneth told her. ‘It’s not your fault. He’s the one who’s to blame for losing your love, Sally, not you.’ He turned her towards him, releasing her hand to cup her face and look down at her. They were alone in the garden, but Sally still looked anxiously over his shoulder as Kenneth bent to kiss her. The sensation of his mouth brushing delicately against hers with a gentle control instead of the intense passion she had expected filled her eyes with grateful tears.
‘Right now there’s nothing I want more than to take you home with me and make love to you until you agree to leave him and stay with me, but I can’t do that… my conscience wouldn’t let me. Just as I can’t take hold of you now and force the issue between us by making us lovers.
‘That isn’t the way I want it to be between us, Sally,’ he told her quietly. ‘You are going to be mine, but I want our coming together, our sexual intimacy to be a celebration of our feelings for one another, not some frantic, urgent sexual coupling which leaves us both feeling as though we’ve been cheated… You mean too much to me for that.’
He had her now, Kenneth exulted. He could see from her face just how much his words were affecting her.
As a student he had won a commendation for his powers of oration. His ex-wife had derided him as a verbal poseur, a show-off, who enjoyed talking about sex more than he enjoyed doing it.
‘I won’t rush you,’ he promised Sally. ‘But I won’t let you go, either. I need you, Sally…’
* * *
‘Joel, we mustn’t,’ Philippa repeated shakily, but there was no real conviction in her voice, no real desire for his fingers to stop their gentle stroking of her scalp nor for his eyes to stop gazing down into hers, recognising her desire, responding to it, promising…
Her brain, her mind, her conscience told her one thing, but her body clamoured wildly for another, and if she really wanted him to stop then why was she turning her face up towards his, moving closer to him, staring at his mouth while her body shivered in sensual excitement and arousal?
He shouldn’t being doing this, Joel recognised; he should have more restraint and more control… No matter how much he wanted her… ached for her, no matter how intense his desire… no matter how cold the bed he shared with Sally, he could not… should not. But then she moved against him, an unintentional, oddly innocent but wholly sensual small frisson of sensation that touched his own flesh and destroyed his will-power.
She was so caring… so warm and yielding, so responsive, and he ached so badly with his need for her.
Nothing else mattered other than what was happening between them now… Nothing… nothing…
His hands cupped her face… He could feel her trembling, see her throat muscles move as she swallowed nervously. He bent his head to kiss her, and her lips felt soft and full, moist, the trembling of her body increasing.
It seemed a lifetime to him since a kiss had felt like this: exciting, arousing, making him ache until he was almost in agony.