‘What? Love you?’ He pulled her up and into his arms, kissing her hard.
She knew she ought to object, to fight him, to pull away. She knew it in her head but her heart and body were saying something else. She’d missed him so much—for ten long months she had tried to pretend she hated him, but all along she’d known she was fooling herself. Jay was the only man she had ever loved and would ever love. She didn’t want it to be that way—in fact, she would give everything she possessed for it to be different—but that was the way she was made. A one-man woman. And the man was Jay.
‘I—I can’t…’
He kissed the words from her lips, his tongue rippling along her teeth and then taking the sweetness of her mouth. Almost immediately the kiss changed in tempo, his mouth moving with more pressure over hers, parting her lips, demanding she respond to him.
Miriam felt the little needles of pleasure his kisses had always induced, tiny electric currents she knew from experience would increase and increase until she was helpless and mindless under his sexual expertise. As a throbbing heat began to creep through her body she tried to pull away but he merely shifted his position in response to the halfhearted attempt, holding her more firmly and kissing her again and again, his lips creating shudders of desire.
His hands moved to cup her breasts through the thin material of her vest top, his voice husky against her lips as he murmured, ‘You aren’t wearing a bra…’
The pads of his thumbs traced an erotic circle round her nipples, bringing the tips into hard peaks, and Miriam moaned; she couldn’t help it. Her body aching from the sexual tension of months, she knew she wanted him to make love to her properly. She needed him, she thought raggedly, sucking in a shaky breath as his mouth left hers and moved to her throat and then the swell of her small breasts above the vest top. He was the only man she would ever love and she was only human…
When his hands moved down to her waist and the kisses became lighter she didn’t realise at first what was happening. It was only when he raised his head and stepped back slightly, still holding her, that she understood he had stopped his lovemaking. Trembling, she stared at him. The hard, handsome face was showing the faintest trace of colour across his chiselled cheekbones but apart from that he was totally controlled.
She didn’t ask him why he had stopped. She didn’t have to. Jay provided the answer when he said softly, ‘We’re not going down that route for now; I don’t
intend to give you any more ammunition to use against me.’
‘What?’ She continued to stare at him, her eyes cloudy with desire and her hands clenched at her sides to prevent herself reaching for him.
‘It would be so easy to take you to bed this minute.’ He took another step away from her, turning and sitting down at the table again, his long legs stretched out in front of him as he surveyed her broodingly. ‘But it would be a temporary thing, wouldn’t it? And afterwards you’d tell yourself I used sex as a weapon to get you back, to control you or any of the other crimes laid at my door. You see, I’m beginning to understand the way your mind works, my love.’
She wanted to come back at him with an acidic retort to put him in his place but all she could manage was to say weakly, ‘You flatter yourself if you think it would be easy to take me to bed, Jay. I’ve absolutely no intention of sleeping with you again.’
A faintly sardonic expression curled the firm mouth. ‘I could shatter that argument to smithereens in moments and we both know it.’
His male ego was colossal, she thought bitterly. Unfortunately in this case she couldn’t afford to challenge him and put it to the test because the last minutes had proved she couldn’t trust herself where Jay was concerned. It was humiliating but it appeared she couldn’t match him in the self-control game. And this was just a game to Jay, she told herself. He had never had the experience of a woman leaving him before. Before he had met her the boot had always been on the other foot. Jay had been the typical love-’em-and-leave-’em male animal, as he himself had admitted.
‘Sex is only one ingredient in a successful marriage,’ she said flatly, turning from the lazer-sharp gaze and pouring herself more coffee for something to do to break the cycle of desire that still held her in its grip.
‘My sentiment exactly. Arguably the one that knits everything else together but, as we have no problem in that area, it’s a moot point,’ Jay said calmly. ‘It’s everything else we need to work on.’
She swallowed the coffee hot and black, not the way she normally drank it but she needed the caffeine boost. When she raised her head and looked at him again he was watching her, the golden eyes unreadable. Her heart lurched drunkenly. He was so handsome, she thought despairingly. So self-assured and together.
She had never meant to fall in love with him; for a little while after they’d met she’d told herself what she was feeling was a temporary attraction, something that would burn itself out very quickly simply because it was so intense. She had known a man like Jay was not for her but at the beginning she’d convinced herself he was interested in a brief, light-hearted romance, no strings attached, as he had been with his other women in the past. And then one day after they’d been seeing each other for a few weeks he had told her he loved her, that what he felt was no passing fancy but the real thing. A forever commitment. She’d thrown herself into his arms and said she felt the same and that had been that. Before she had known it she was walking down the aisle in a frothy creation, orange blossom entwined in her hair and her mother crying happy tears.
Thoughts of her mother caused the suspicion which had been niggling at the back of her mind for the last days to surface. ‘Have you been speaking to my mother recently by any chance?’ It seemed strange Jay had chosen the very week she’d told her mother she was going to set the divorce in motion to contact her.
For a long moment he studied her face. ‘We talk often.’
That didn’t surprise her. Far from there being any mother-in-law problems in their marriage, Jay and her mother had had some sort of mutual-admiration society going from day one, Miriam thought acidly. ‘I see.’
‘What do you see, my formidable little wife?’ Jay drawled mockingly, a faint smile twisting his lips.
‘She told you I was going to ask for a divorce.’
‘Did she?’ He settled himself more comfortably on the chair and took another croissant.
‘Well, didn’t she?’ He could do the calm, cool and collected thing better than anyone she knew and it had always had the power to get under her skin.
His expression changed and when she looked into his eyes they were no longer amused. ‘Why ask me when you’ve already made up your mind?’ he said, spreading blackcurrant preserve on the pastry. ‘You won’t believe me if I answer contrary to what you’ve decided, I know that.’
It was irritating how often he was right. ‘It must be nice to know everything about everyone,’ Miriam said in a staccato voice.
He refused to get annoyed. ‘It is.’ He finished the croissant, licking his fingers appreciatively.
Miriam’s eyes followed the action and something hot and pleasurable flickered in the core of her. She remembered the times his mouth had pleasured her to the point of oblivion and shivered. Her voice sharp, she said, ‘I don’t want to be rude but I’ve got masses to do today. If you’ve said all you intended to say…’