Now he was gently smoothing her damp hair off her face, watching her a little gravely as he spoke to her.
‘I...we should be at work,’ she told him huskily.
For some reason that made him laugh.
‘To judge from the sound of your breathing, you have been,’ he teased her gently, and then, suddenly sobering, he asked her rawly, ‘Have you any idea of just how much I still want you?’
‘Show me,’ Debra whispered; suddenly, unbelievably, she wanted him again. He read that knowledge in her eyes and touched her slowly, stroking her sensitive skin, his tongue lapping at the damp hollow of her throat, its actions mimicking the far more intimate way in which he had caressed her earlier.
Her desire for him flowed through her in a sweetly slow tide. Hunger and immediacy had been softened, tamed a little by what had gone before, and now she could add to her own desire to touch and know him, the knowledge she had already learned of what most pleased and aroused him.
He too, though, had also learned what pleased her, and very soon she felt the sure touch of his hands, the sensation of his mouth at her breast, slowly caressing the taut peak at its centre, and then, when she quivered in an uncontrollable response to what he was doing, pausing to groan softly against the satin dampness of her body before drawing her nipple back into his mouth and suckling so rhythmically and fiercely on it that she knew what he was doing was as arousing to him as it was to her.
Her fingers slid into his hair, holding him against her body, her soft gasps of pleasure an uninhibited response to his lovemaking.
Before, he had urged her to caress him in the same way, his back arching, his eyes closing, his whole body shuddering in an open expression of his pleasure when she did so.
He had shown her so clearly, told her so vocally not just how much he desired her, but how much it pleased him when she touched him.
She had never realised that a man could be so open, so potentially vulnerable about his needs, and it had helped her to push aside her own caution and restraint; to tell him shyly how much the touch of his hands and mouth delighted her.
But not all the time. There had been moments, sensations so devastating, so overpowering that she had lost herself too completely in them to do anything other than let her body speak for itself.
Now, as his hands spanned her waist and his mouth nuzzled the soft flesh there, as he told her that she tasted of honey and roses, and the husky tension in his voice made her tremble inwardly in anticipation of the strong thrust of his body within her own, she marvelled that she could ever have believed she could deny them both this intimacy; this sharing... this loving.
The hand stroking the nape of his neck stilled.
Loving. That was what it had been for her. But for him? In his lovemaking there had been all the things she had ever wanted to find in such intimacy, but he had not actually said that he loved her.
But then neither had she said that she loved him.
He made a soft sound of pleasure against her skin, his fingers slowly stroking the inside of her thigh.
A thrill of sensation and urgency ran through her, the swift resurgence of her physical desire overwhelming her ability to think.
She moved closer to him, holding him, whispering to him that she wanted to touch him, to hold him, to caress his body with the same intimacy with which he was pleasuring hers.
She fell asleep in his arms, her mouth still curved in a soft smile of completion.
Marsh watched her for a long time, and then gently tucked her hair behind her ear.
There had never been a woman in his life like this one. In his twenties he had been wary of commitment, of allowing himself to love. He had seen too many of his friends marry young, their relationships falling apart under the pressures placed upon them.
But now... now things were different. Now, with this woman, he was ready to make every commitment there was. But was she equally ready to commit herself to him?
He touched her mouth sombrely. She had wanted him, he knew that, and it had been easy for him to see that her awareness of her own sensuality was very limited.
But wanting someone was different from loving them.
Downstairs he heard the telephone ring.
Gently he eased himself away from her, pulling on his robe.
He went downstairs and picked up the receiver, frowning as he listened to the voice of the policeman at the other end of the line.
They had found the boy Kevin Riley, he was told, but there had been some confusion at the police station and unfortunately he had run off and disappeared. He was ringing, he added, to suggest that Debra should not attempt to return to her house on her own just in case Kevin went back there.
He would make sure that she did not, Marsh assured him.