Eve only wished she knew what was for the best! Like many people before her, she wished she were able to see into the future and know that things had worked out for them all. If that were possible!
‘Would you like to talk about it?’ her grandmother suggested seeing the uncertainty in her eyes.
‘Not yet.’ She gave a rueful grimace. ‘It’s all still such a nightmare.’
‘Whenever you feel ready.’ She squeezed Eve’s hand understandingly. ‘Now,’ she added briskly, ‘you can help me with the problem of what we’re to do with Adam while Marina disa
ppears back to London!’
* * *
‘My grandmother isn’t quite sure what to do with you,’ Eve murmured softly against Adam’s chest, enveloped by his masculine warmth.
He chuckled softly, the sound vibrating against her ear as he played with silky tendrils of her hair. ‘Tell Evelyn she doesn’t need to worry about it, you can take very good care of me.’
Eve grimaced, shaking her head. ‘I think she’s confused enough already, without that.’
He shrugged beneath her, lightly kissing her brow. ‘She likes me; that should make it easier.’
There could be no doubting the fact that her grandmother liked him. But then, hadn’t Eve known the first time she looked at him that Adam would find favour in her grandmother’s eyes? Eve’s own grandfather had been a similar type of man, tall and handsome, and as strong inside as he looked on the outside; and her grandmother had been married to him for thirty happy years before his unexpected death. Adam and her grandmother were like kindred spirits!
‘This shouldn’t be happening.’ Eve turned her face into Adam’s chest with a groan.
‘When it comes to love, the words “shouldn’t”, “couldn’t” and “wouldn’t” cease to exist,’ he murmured softly against the creaminess of her cheek.
She couldn’t think straight with him touching her like this, her heart racing, her breath coming in ragged gasps. ‘But that can’t happen between us,’ she protested feebly.
‘ “Can’t” is just another way of saying “couldn’t”,’ he dismissed harshly.
‘Adam, listen to me,’ she pleaded, trying to stop the destructive path of those marauding lips down her throat to the sensitive hollows of its base, hollows that Adam had already discovered were highly sensitive to his slightest touch.
She looked down at his face, which was slightly flushed with passion; the blush that came to her own cheeks was for quite another reason—as she knew the rakish disorder of his hair was due to her caressing fingers at the height of their passion.
‘I’m not like this,’ she groaned. ‘This isn’t me!’
‘Of course it’s you,’ he reproved gently. ‘The woman you become in my arms.’
She had lost track completely of how long she had been in his arms, had shut herself away in her studio earlier in the hope that she could lose herself in her work, only to have Adam come up to join her. She hadn’t been able to resist when he’d taken her in his arms, laid her down on the sofa and joined her there, his mouth and hands knowing her intimately.
Once again she had known the aching dismay of not being able to say ‘no’ to him, and once again Adam had been the one to be strong for both of them, assuring her that they had time, that there was no rush. He had been the one to soothe and calm her until desire throbbed only dully, holding her in his arms as she had begun to talk of her grandmother’s confusion.
Could this really be her, as he said, the real her, this vibrantly alive woman who only seemed to exist for the times she could be in Adam’s arms like this?
It didn’t seem possible this other woman, a woman she didn’t really know, could have been inside her all the time. Why couldn’t she have come alive like this in Paul’s arms?
‘Sweetheart, don’t dwell on what should have been but wasn’t,’ Adam urged softly as he read the pain in her eyes. ‘Just think about the two of us, here, together, now.’
‘But——’
‘Let’s talk about the arrangements for Christmas,’ he put in lightly.
‘Christmas?’ She gasped; if he had been hoping to disconcert her, he had succeeded! ‘But you just said we should only think of now.’
‘And us, here, together,’ he reminded with a soft reproving tap on the end of her nose. ‘And things like where to spend Christmas can be the cause of friction between a lot of couples.’
Eve sat up abruptly. ‘We aren’t a couple. And Christmas is months away yet!’
‘I may be a thirty-eight-year-old liberated man,’ Adam continued as if she hadn’t made the protest, ‘but when it comes to Christmas I’m pretty old-fashioned; I always spend the festive season with my folks in New York. But I’m sure that this year, as you always have Christmas here with your family, it would be easier if my parents just flew over and stayed here for a few days. They’re really looking forward to meeting you, by the way,’ he added teasingly.