Force of Feeling

Her face burned as she realised what she had just said.

‘By accident, rather than choice.’ The look he gave her was direct and firm. ‘I was engaged briefly when I was twenty-two, but she changed her mind when she realised how long it would be before we could marry. I couldn’t leave Ma to cope on her own. Ian was still at school at the time, and the girls just about to start university. Don’t look like that. It wouldn’t have worked anyway…’

She couldn’t tell him that the tears shimmering in her eyes were for own stupidity in so nearly denying herself this precious time with him. He was such a very special man, and she was still marvelling that he could actually want her. Beautiful, he had called her, and he had touched her body with slow reverence, as though he did indeed find it worthy of such worship.

‘No pudding, I’m afraid.’

‘I couldn’t eat another morsel,’ she told him, and it was true. She ached to be back in his arms, wanted only the voluptuous, heady delight of feeling his skin against her own. Perhaps it was the wine that had brought on this feeling of wantonness, or perhaps it had always been there, buried deep inside her, waiting for his touch to release it.

‘Coffee?’

‘Please.’ She had to get herself under control. Guy might not want to make love to her again so soon…

‘I thought we might go over the work I did this afternoon…’ Her voice shook slightly, and she wondered if he could detect how she was really feeling.

‘Fine. Coffee in the sitting-room, then?’

‘I ought to make it. You made dinner.’

‘You can make breakfast in the morning, instead.’

Her heart missed a beat, and she found that she couldn’t look at him. Breakfast. Would he spend the night with her? Would he…her body went hot with desire, while her mind shrank from the intensity of her feelings. Instead of easing her need for him, their lovemaking only seemed to have increased it.

When he came in with the coffee, her head was bent over the newly typed pages, but she wasn’t reading them.

She passed them over to him, and watched as he sat down. He read them quickly and thoroughly, pausing every now and again to re-read a few lines. Tension invaded her. What if it wasn’t any good? What if the re-writes were every bit as unsatisfactory as her initial attempt? She had found this afternoon that she was no longer able to judge her own work; all she could do was to pass on to Lynsey her own feelings and experiences.

‘That’s good,’ he said quietly when he had finished. ‘Now I really feel that Lynsey is alive. I like the way she reacts to Dickon, the way she fights against her physical desire for him and tried to deny it. It makes an interesting point of conflict. You get very involved with your characters, don’t you?’ he asked softly.

For no reason at all, her throat had gone dry.

‘Well, yes. I suppose I do. But what makes you say so?’

‘The other night, when you fell asleep in the chair, when I picked you up and carried you upstairs, you called me Dickon.’

All at once she remembered that elusive, nagging sense of unease. Her face burned and she wanted desperately to look away from him.

‘Don’t be embarrassed. I like knowing that our lovemaking inspired you to write like this. In fact, I find it very arousing to know that I gave you so much pleasure. I did give you pleasure, didn’t I, Campion?’ he murmured. ‘You certainly pleasured me. So much that I wanted to experience that pleasure again.’

‘Now?’ Campion quavered, unable to believe that that tiny, husky whisper of sound c

ame from her own throat. What was it about this man that could reduce her to this mass of quivering, desirous flesh?

She wasn’t aware of standing up, of moving at all, in fact, but she must have done, because she was in his arms and his hands were going under her sweater to find her breasts. She moaned as he touched them, her nipples instantly responsive.

He undressed her quickly, almost desperately, stripping off his own clothes with swift economy of movement. They made love in front of the fire.

Guy’s mouth touched her everywhere, teaching her new things about her sexuality, arousing her to the point where she knew nothing other than her overwhelming need for him.

She reached out to touch him in turn, but he stopped her gently, and as he moved over her in the firelight she realised the reason for his visit to the village.

He saw her glance and said quietly, ‘It seemed safest. I didn’t think you’d be…protected in any way.’

‘No. No, I’m not.’

She ought to have felt relieved and pleased, and she did, of course, but a tiny part of her registered the fact that he didn’t want there to be any risk of her conceiving his child, and therefore that he didn’t want their relationship to be anything other than transitory.

She had expected that this time the intensity of his possession would have lessened, but it was just as fierce, just as tumultuous.