‘Love me, Jonas. Please love me.’
She was barely aware of moaning the words against his skin, or of repeating them over and over again until he silenced them with his mouth, his body reestablishing its mastery over her own as it set the pace for their lovemaking. He took her to a climax that made her cry out in astonishment and pleasure, her lips whispering his name over and over again until the sound was drowned out by his harsh cry of release, the heat of him deep within her so unbearably poignant that for a moment she felt she wanted to cry.
CHAPTER NINE
WHERE on earth was she? The angle of the light coming across the bed was unfamiliar, and so was the curious lethargy that filled her body. And then, shatteringly, she remembered. Sitting up with a cry, Sara snatched up the bedclothes as she remembered that she was naked, but she needn’t have bothered; she was completely alone.
Hardly daring to believe the previous night had actually happened, she glanced fearfully at the pillow next to her own. Sure enough, it still held the indentation of another head.
Jonas. Where was he? There was no sound from the adjoining bathroom. She glanced at her watch, appalled to discover how late she had slept; Jonas must be outside working. Thank God for that. At least that meant she would be able to leave without enduring the humiliation of having to see him again. In fact, she decided as she gathered up her clothes and locked herself in the bathroom, she intended to make sure she never had to see him again. Her mind was a mass of seething feverish thought as she tried to make plans. She would tell Sam that she needed to spend some time in London looking for accommodation and a job; he would protest, but she would convince him, and Vanessa was there to take care of Carly. It wouldn’t be long before he and Vanessa married. The wedding… She would have to attend the wedding and Jonas would be there. She winced as she put her full weight on her aching ankle; she would have to overcome that hurdle later. For now she must put as much distance between herself and Jonas as she could.
On her way through the bedroom she caught sight of her flushed face and hurriedly averted her eyes. She even looked different—more alive…more feminine somehow.
She was just reaching for the door handle when it turned and the door opened inwards. Confronted by the reality of the man who had been her lover, she blushed a warmer pink, all the mental images she had been trying to blot out from the moment she had woken up now surging into her mind. She almost cringed as she remembered how Jonas had made her say his name and plead for his lovemaking. In the cold light of day she ought to have been wondering how on earth it had ever happened, but even that refuge was denied to her. By admitting her real feelings towards him she was forced also to admit that if he were to touch her now, to take her in his arms…
But he did no such thing. Instead he folded his arms over his chest and stood in front of the door glaring at her in an uncompromising fashion while he demanded curtly, ‘Just where the hell do you think you’re going?’
‘Home,’ she told him coolly. ‘Sam will be expecting me.’
‘Sam will be expecting you when I drive you back after lunch.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘It’s now only eleven o’clock. Before you leave here, you and I have some talking to do.’
Fear crawled through her. Had he guessed the truth? Was he going to confront her with it, to make her admit it as last night he had made her…
‘Sara!’ His voice was rough with anger, and something else. Compassion? She looked at him and saw the grimness of his mouth. No, she must have imagined it.
‘For God’s sake stop looking at me like that! I’m not going to hurt you.’
The harshness of his expression was unconvincing.
‘I’d never use force against a woman.’
‘No?’ Somehow she managed to keep her voice light and dry. ‘What about last night?’ She was amazed to see the momentary heat stinging his skin. ‘You forced me to…’
‘To admit that you wanted us to make love? That wasn’t the sort of force I was talking about, and you know it. Sara, for God’s sake why do you fight me like this? You wanted me, I wanted you.’
‘No… No, I didn’t want you. I wanted Rick,’ she lied huskily. ‘I told you that last night but you wouldn’t accept it, so I let you believe you were right, and I let myself believe it was Rick who held me in his arms. The fact that he and I had never actually been lovers made it easier somehow. There were no comparisons I could make. You might have possessed me physically, Jonas, but that was all it was; emotionally, mentally, in all the ways that count, it was Rick who was my lover.’
She said it fiercely, trying to convince herself as much as she tried to convince him, only she knew too much to be able to accept the lie. Jonas, obviously, did not. All the colour drained from his face; his eyes when they focused on her were a blank, opaque grey, his body so tense that her throat suddenly ached with her need to recall her cruel words. But what good would it do?
‘You were right,’ said Jonas flatly, confirming all her own private thoughts. ‘It was just sex between us after all. That’s what I came up here to tell you. I realised last night that the woman I thought you were just doesn’t exist. Still,’ his mouth curled slightly, ‘it has to be admitted that it was very good sex. I’ve never had a virgin before. It was quite an experience; all that pent-up frustration. Perhaps we ought to repeat it some time?’
His crudeness stunned her. It was the very last thing she had expected, but she saw as she stepped past him to walk through the door that, despite his cool voice and rigid stance, inwardly he was ragingly angry. She could see it in his eyes.
She had been right not to let him guess the truth, she decided shakily as she hobbled to the top of the stairs. He would have enjoyed tormenting her with it.
* * *
In the event, none of her plans for making sure she did not need to see him again could be put into effect. The day after Sara’s return to the cottage, Vanessa went down with a ‘flu bug which made it impossible for her to take charge of Carly, and in fact Sara found she was spending a good deal of her time at Jonas’s house nursing her sister-in-law to-be.
Jonas, she noticed, kept well out of sight whenever she was in the house, and in the third week of her convalescence Vanessa complained that she was worried that Jonas was working far too hard.
‘He’s out almost from dawn to dusk,’ she told Sara worriedly, ‘and I know it’s taking its toll on him, because he’s so grim. The one thing you could always rely on Jonas for was his sense of humour, but when I started to tell him about how you almost jumped out of your skin when Peter drove the Land Rover into the yard the other day, he almost bit my head off.’
‘You should be worrying about Sam now, not your brother,’ Sara advised, wanting to get off such a potentially dangerous subject.
‘Mmm. I do wish Jonas would settle down and get married. He needs a wife, and he’d make such a good father. He loves kids, you know. You should have seen him with Carly the other day when Sam brought her round. Do you know, that’s the first time I can remember him taking any time off since I’ve been ill, and it would have to be the day you weren’t here, too. At one time I really hoped that you and he… Sara… what on earth’s wrong?’ Vanessa asked worriedly, as Sara suddenly went pale and clutched on to the back of a chair for support.
She had got up quickly, unable to bear listening to Vanessa talking about Jonas any longer, and had suddenly felt dreadfully faint.