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She climbed reluctantly out of it some time later, conscious of being forced to part from a dream that had been intensely pleasurable. In it, she had not been lying alone, she thought drowsily; someone else had been with her, holding her, touching her… Rick, of course… No, not Rick. Rick had been in her dream but he had been an irritant, a barrier which stood between her and the man whose arms she so desperately wanted around her. The man. What man? Jonas!

Like tiny ripples quickly growing on the stillness of a millpond, the shock spread outwards through her body, until she was confused by what was reality and what was not. Her head felt muzzy, her thoughts disordered and vague. Her ankle ached, but not badly. The room was unfamiliar to her, the curtains making it dark and clothing unfamiliar objects in deep shadows.

Gradually reality crept back. She had been dreaming about Jonas, dreaming that Jonas was making love to her, but then Rick had come between them, and Jonas had gone away from her. She shuddered deeply, caught up in a fierce spiral of physical desire. She tried desperately to cling to the fading image of Rick, but, like a talisman that had lost its power, his features no longer had the ability to blot Jonas out of her mind.

Instead, Jonas’s were the features that formed within her skull, his the touch she remembered against her skin. Jonas’s touch…impossible, and yet there was no denying the very real ache deep inside her, the almost gnawing need she had to be kissed and caressed by his mouth and hands.

Beneath the bedspread she moved restlessly, trying to escape from what her body was telling her, her hand accidentally catching the heavy lamp beside the bed and sending it crashing to the floor.

Luckily it was unharmed, but Sara was still crouching on the floor, looking at it, when the bedroom door was thrust open and Jonas strode in.

‘I’m sorry… I woke up and knocked the lamp over.’

How constrained and tense she sounded! She dared not look at Jonas in case he should somehow divine her state of mind.

‘I’ve no idea what time it is,’ she said jerkily, keeping her back to him, trying to fill the thick silence with something…anything that would stop her from turning round and throwing herself into his arms. What on earth was wrong with her? She didn’t love him…she didn’t even like him. But she wanted him. Oh God, how she wanted him! Crouching here on the floor, she only had to close her eyes to feel the satin-smooth glide of his skin against her own, to taste the hot savagery of his kiss, to…

‘It isn’t that late. You’ve been asleep for an hour or so, that’s all. By the way,’ he added casually, ‘Sam rang and suggested you spend the night here.’ When she made no comment he added drily, ‘I dare say that’s more for his sake than yours. He and Vanessa don’t get many opportunities to be alone.’

‘You know they’re getting married?’

She kept her voice low so that he wouldn’t hear the panic in it. She was to stay the night. Oh God, how on earth was she going to endure it? She barely recognised herself in the woman she had suddenly become, a woman who ached so much for the physical possession of the man standing behind her that it took a concentrated effort of will not to stand up and beg him to make love to her.

‘Yes.’ His voice was clipped, giving her no indication of his feelings on the subject, although his curt, ‘What will you do when they do?’ reminded her that she couldn’t rely on having a home with her brother for ever, no matter what he might say.

Turning round and standing up slowly, like an old person, she said carefully, ‘I’m not sure. Go back to London, I suppose. I’ll have a better chance of finding a job there.’

He swore so unexpectedly and graphically that she swayed where she stood, grabbing hold of the bed as she inadvertently put her weight on her bad ankle.

It all happened so quickly, Jonas’s arms coming round her to support her, that she wasn’t sure if he had cursed first, or if she had stumbled.

‘You shouldn’t be out of bed,’ he told her harshly.

A tremor of intense excitement ran liquid heat through her veins, the pleasure of having him so close to her so intoxicating that it blinded her to everything else. In a voice she barely recognised as her own, she whispered provocatively, ‘Then you’ll just have to put me back, won’t you.’

She felt the tension grip his muscles in the same second as it hit her what she was doing. And then the panic that clutched at her stomach was gone as she remembered what he had said about not wanting merely sex from her. It must surely be her overcharged imagination that told her that the intensely passionate look in his eyes meant anything, but when he slid his hands slowly down her bare arms, and asked huskily, ‘Does that mean what I think it means?’ she wondered if she hadn’t been extremely foolish after all.

It bemused her that she, who had managed to stay so sensible and controlled in Rick’s arms, should feel this irresistible urge to abandon common sense completely whenever Jonas touched her. And when he touched her the way he was doing now, the merest stroking of his fingertips against the quiveringly sensitive flesh of her inner arms, she felt as though

she would rather die than let him stop what he was doing to her.

‘I want you to make love to me.’

She could hardly credit that she had actually said the words, until she felt the sudden slam of Jonas’s heart against his ribs, its fierce kick registered by her own muscles.

‘Do you know what you’re saying to me? No, don’t bother answering that,’ he said thickly as he dragged her into his arms and held her there.

As she felt the heat coming off his body, reality intruded sharply into her dream world and she tensed, saying huskily, ‘I thought you didn’t want this. That you didn’t want sex from me…’

‘Is that what I said?’ He held her slightly away from him, looking down into her eyes with a faintly brooding expression while his hands cupped her face, his fingers stroking behind her ears and down her throat.

His mouth hovered close to hers, and, shamingly, Sara knew that she wanted its heat and possession, to the extent that she was quite wantonly urging her body forward, and parting her lips.

She heard him groan as his mouth closed over hers, the sound intensely exciting. One of them was shaking, or was it both of them?

‘Perhaps you’re right after all,’ he muttered, taking his mouth momentarily from hers. ‘Perhaps it is just sex. You’ll have to overlook my foolish romantic yearnings; they obviously blinded me to reality.’

Was that bitterness or contempt that ran through his voice like a thread of steel?


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