Philippa was not watching the television, as he had imagined, but was instead fast asleep on the sofa, curled up on it like a small child—only the slim bare legs and the softly curved body revealed by the thin nightshirt she was wearing were not those of a child.
The speed of his physical response to her caught him off guard. What had happened to the self-control his lovers had congratulated him on—and complained about when their relationships had drifted to their inevitable close?
He started to back out of the room, but something had obviously alerted Philippa to his presence, for her eyes opened. She focused on him and then blinked slowly.
‘Blake.’
Still groggy with sleep and the shock of seeing him standing there, Philippa sat up, her face flushing as she realised how she must look, fair hair tousled, face free of make-up, and wearing nothing but a thin piece of cotton which had ridden up while she slept so that it was now wrapped tightly round her thighs, making it impossible for her to move properly without revealing far more of her body than Blake could possibly want to see.
‘I… I thought you weren’t coming back until tomorrow…’
‘I wasn’t.’
‘The children have missed you,’ she told him awkwardly, relinquishing her battle with her nightshirt to give in to her need to look properly at him.
He looked tired, haggard almost, and her heart ached with love for him.
‘I’ve missed them too.’ She could tell from his voice that it was true.
‘Blake, please come back,’ she begged him. ‘We can work something out; I’ll…’
‘Can we? How?’ he demanded harshly. ‘My God, I’ve been back in the house five minutes and already——’ He broke off abruptly, rubbing his hand along the side of his jaw in a betrayal of what he was feeling.
‘I can’t come back, Philippa,’ he told her roughly. ‘I thought being away from you would make it easier, not…’ When he saw the shock in her eyes his mouth twisted bitterly.
‘You see what I mean? Look at the way you’re reacting to just the words. How do you think you’re going to feel if I try to put them into action?’
Please, please don’t let me cry, Philippa begged herself. The smile she forced her mouth to frame felt as brittle as old glass, mirroring every aching crack in her heart.
‘You’re quite safe, you know,’ she told him, trying to keep her voice light. ‘I promise you that I’m not going to invade your bedroom the way I once invaded your flat…’
‘I’m quite safe? What the hell are you talking about?’
Strangely, his anger didn’t even make her flinch. She had come too far now for that.
‘I’m talking about us, Blake, you and me, and the fact that I’ve stupidly gone and fallen in love with you—again. But my feelings are my problem, my responsibility, and I promise you that… Blake, what are you doing?’ she protested huskily as he crossed the distance between them and physically lifted her off the sofa and into his arm
s.
‘I am doing,’ he told her thickly, ‘what I should have done years ago and what I’ve certainly wanted to do from the moment you opened your front door to me…’
There wasn’t any time for her to question or protest. Blake’s arms were wrapping her tightly against his body, his mouth touching hers, caressing it with delicate tenderness.
Caught between disbelief and desire, Philippa moaned his name against his mouth. She was trembling so violently she could hardly stand up. Blake was shaking as well. His mouth left hers, his lips whispering a husky reassurance before he reclaimed hers, his earlier delicacy abandoned as passion overwhelmed him.
His hands stroked her hair, her face, her body as he kissed her and told her how much he needed her, loved her and wanted her… how much he always had done, the words running helplessly into kisses that turned her responses into incoherent soft murmurs of pleasure and response.
‘I love you so much.’
His hand touched her breast and she shivered in anticipatory pleasure. ‘No, not yet,’ he told her thickly as he bent his head to brush his mouth against her cotton-covered nipple. Leaning against him, shivering in helpless delight, feeling the hard arousal of him against her, she closed her eyes on a shudder of sensual pleasure.
Blake’s mouth returned to her breast, his hand sliding the fabric aside.
As the sharp, high sound she made arced across the silence she could feel the deep shudders of response racking his body.
‘Eighteen years ago, I wanted you like this,’ he told her thickly. ‘You were sixteen, a child still, a child who looked at me with the eyes of a woman. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. The last thing I had expected, the last thing I had wanted was to fall in love, but it was too late. And so I waited and watched you, knowing that I had to give you time to grow up, that I couldn’t, must not take advantage of what I could see in your eyes.’
‘But you rejected me,’ Philippa reminded him huskily. ‘When I came to you, you sent me away…’