The Secret Father

She lay curled up, one arm under her head, the other thrown out in an oddly defenceless gesture. One leg was tucked up underneath her, the other dangled over the edge of the seat. Her head thrashed restlessly and she gave a faint, inarticulate moan. The silk of her shirt rose rapidly, in time with her escalating respirations. The tranquil appearance of her sleeping features was disturbed by a deep frown line between her eyebrows. As he watched, her lips moved silently.

Maybe, he reflected, she can sense I’m here. My per-fidy can even disrupt her sweet dreams. His lips curved in a viciously bitter smile. God help me, but I hope she doesn’t have too many of those at the moment, he thought to himself. He didn’t feel inclined to be generous! When the thrashing movements of her head became more violent he bent closer. She was talking—mumbling really, saying the same thing, over and over. He knelt beside the sofa and strained to catch the words which fell from her lips.

‘Not the baby…not the baby…please!’

He straightened up, a frown on his face, and at the same moment Lindy shot upright, her eyes wide and filled with horror. Her piercing cry drowned out the hysterical clamour on the TV set, but didn’t impinge on the noise in the other room.

Panic engulfed her and she was fighting for air. Her memory held no record of the nightmare, but the feeling of dread persisted.

‘Oh, Sam,’ she breathed, laying her head against the broad chest so fortuitously close. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt and she trembled as his hands ran softly down the length of her back. Suddenly she stiffened. ‘No!’ With a sharp cry of rejection she pushed hard against him.

He caught hold of her upper arms as she jerked upright. The look on his dark face paralysed her. Stark and needy, his compulsive gaze moved over her face, before sliding lower to examine her body with the same hungry urgency.

Her mind was too numbed to try to work out how she came to be here, with her in his arms. A need just as stark and basic as his was coursing through her veins. The words of rejection never left her tongue as he took her face between his two strong hands. His thumbs moved over the downy flesh of her cheek and his eyes followed the motion. Lindy was mesmerised. His eyes met the luminous glow of hers before he moved in to touch her lips.

Softly—so softly, then his flicking tongue teased, tracing the outline of her lips, tasting the moist sweetness of her mouth. Lindy’s hands stopped clutching at empty air and clutched at his shoulders.

‘I can’t stand this…’ she moaned raggedly. Lindy was conscious of the brief flare of ferocious satisfaction in his eyes. Sam let out a deep, shuddering groan and his mouth covered hers. A kiss wasn’t enough to satisfy the hunger that drove them both, even a kiss that was as all-consuming as this. Sam’s fingers slipped the buttons on her shirt free as his teeth tugged at the inside of her bottom lip, her earlobe. He flicked the front-fastening catch on her bra and levered himself up on one arm to look at her. She could feel the deep shudder that rippled through his long, lean frame.

Lindy pulled him back down. She needed to feel his body against her and she delighted in the slow, erotic thrust of his hips. Her body arched frantically beneath his and her hands tugged at his clothes, impatient to be rid of the barrier between them.

Sam shrugged off his jacket. Lindy rained small, wild kisses on his face, his brown corded neck. Her fingers tangled deep in his dark, sweat-dampened hair. A series of soft pleas fell from her lips, but Sam remained silent. The wildness in his tense features gave her a moment’s hesitation—there was none of the tenderness she had grown to expect in him, just blind, relentless instinct.

Her hoarse cries were drowned as his mouth fused with hers. Lindy felt as if they were sealed together and she wanted it that way. She wanted to taste him on her tongue always. She wrapped her legs around him as their movements became frenzied and frantic. The air was abruptly expelled from Sam’s lungs as they rolled off the sofa and landed on the floor.

Positions reversed, Lindy looked down into his face, all sharp angles and slitted eyes—the face of a stranger. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked breathlessly.

She pushed back the silky strands of hair that hampered her vision. Sam’s shirt had come adrift from the waistband of his trousers and several buttons were ripped off. She could see his ribcage rise and fall in time with his rapid inhalations and the concave hollow of his muscled, washboard belly. Her dazed glance registered these facts slowly.

Sam didn’t reply. He caught either side of her unbut-toned shirt in each hand. The muscles in his throat worked as his eyes followed the gentle sway of her pale breasts. He pulled until the pink tips of her breasts touched the skin of his hair-roughened chest.