Lovers Not Friends

‘You’re my family,’ he said softly, his eyes gentle. ‘I told you that when we were first married when I explained about Mom and my father and Todd. If it’s just you, and no kids, then I’ll take that and be damn grateful—’

As the flood finally tore out of her she shook them both with her sobs, the months of heartache and loneliness and black terror escaping from her eyes and nose and mouth in a torrent of weeping that filled the small room with its agony, and he was wise enough to let her cry for long, long minutes as he held her close to his heart.

And later, as they talked, he still held her close as though he would never be able to make up for all those lost days and nights when they could have been together. She told him it all and the sun was finally rising in the small copse behind the house before she had finished.

And then they went to bed, to love and touch and feel until that same sun was a high golden ball in the flawless blue of the sky and the sunlight flooded rich and bright into the tiny bedroom where she lay wrapped in his arms as they both slept.

And much later, as evening shadows coloured the room a soft grey, he explained about the flowers, his voice painful and taut. ‘My father never brought flowers or any little gift to Mom while he was alive. Todd and I used to pick bunches of wild lilies and buttercups on our way home from school sometimes, and her face used to light up. She’d keep them until they were dead and faded before she could bear to throw them out. And later, when I had left home, I sent her a bouquet every week no matter where I was.’ He stopped, his face constricting, and she hugged his bare chest tight as she gazed up into his face dark with memories.

‘Don’t go on, Blade, I don’t care about the flowers—’

‘No, I want to.’ He glanced down at her lying by his side and smiled gently. ‘I should have told you months ago but I still find it hard to talk about. I found her, you see. I’d called in on a flying visit for the weekend and she must have died the previous day, a heart attack, the post-mortem revealed. There were bouquets all around the room, old and dead and faded, with all the little cards in a pile. When I visited I never went in the bedroom and that’s where she’d kept them, hordes of them.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘The sight of all those dead flowers with her lying there did something to me I’ll never forget. And she looked so peaceful, even happy. The ultimate irony.’

‘They must have given her a lot of joy,’ Amy said softly as the picture he painted rent her heart.

‘Yes, I suppose they did.’ He wrinkled his brow as he moved restlessly. ‘I never looked at it like that before. It just seemed so sad, such a waste of a life.’

‘It just depends how you look at it,’ she said quietly.

‘So do lots of things.’ He stroked the soft silk of her hair thoughtfully. ‘Can we go home now? At last?’

‘But Mrs Cox—’

‘Has been in residence for the last twenty-four hours.’ He looked down at her expressionlessly. ‘That was what I had come to tell you last night. Arthur was going to ring her after we’d left and explain you were with me.’

‘You never said.’ She wriggled slightly in his arms. ‘I could have gone back there last night.’

‘Over my dead body,’ he said grimly. ‘I had the sense to realise I wouldn’t get another chance like that one to get to the bottom of things.’

‘You took advantage of a situation like that?’ she began indignantly, even as a small smile touched her mouth.

‘Too true.’ The dark deep voice held no remorse whatsoever. ‘I was getting desperate. And now you’re coming home, Mrs Forbes, where you belong. But first …’

This time he made love to her slowly, lingeringly, his eyes hot with passion and his big masculine body hard and commanding. She trembled at the feel of his skin next to hers, warm and pulsating, at the fierce need his mouth and hands were drawing from her quivering form. ‘I could eat you alive …’ His voice was a dark growl of passion. ‘How could you have stopped me doing this for so long?’ She tried to answer, to offer some solace, but in a few seconds no words were necessary as she melted into the exquisite fire that was consuming them both.

His mouth was flagrantly erotic, coaxing her on and on into new intimacies that she met eagerly, wantonly, her whole being concentrating wholly on the delicious sensations that had her trembling helplessly in his arms. The past, the future, counted as nothing. All that was real was Blade. Just Blade.

CHAPTER TEN

THEY had been home for three days when Blade had to leave on a trip he explained it was impossible to postpone. Their time together had been bittersweet, each moment intense and precious and threaded through with the knowledge that they had to compress a whole lifetime of loving into just a few short years.