‘I…I’d better see to the bacon.’
As she turned blindly away she thought she heard him murmur something along the lines of, ‘Damn the bacon,’ but in the next moment the twang of the sofa told her he had sat down, and she decided she must have imagined it.
‘You have been very unhappy in this marriage, haven’t you?’ It was more a statement than a question, and the way he said it made her blood run cold, but before she could respond he continued flatly, ‘And now the very thing I feared the most has come to pass; I’ve made it come to pass.’
She breathed deeply and then turned to face him. She didn’t understand this conversation, she didn’t understand him, and whatever else she wasn’t going to play games. Things were so bad they couldn’t get any worse, so she might as well be honest. ‘Zeke, you might know what you are talking about but I haven’t a clue,’ she said tightly. ‘You’ve just told me you’re happy to have a separation—’
‘Happy?’ he bit savagely.
‘Well, aren’t you?’ she shot back angrily, suddenly furious at how easily he could manipulate her emotions. She had given him everything when they had married—her heart, soul, mind and body—and it made his power over her frightening.
‘Marianne—’ He stopped abruptly and then rose, flinging the duvet away irritably before walking to stand at the window, the towel low on his hips and his back to her.
The quiver of sexual excitement she had felt in spite of everything that was happening made her voice brittle as she glared across the room and said, ‘Zeke, talk to me, for goodness’ sake! Shout, scream, do what you want, but I’m sick of the long cold silences that happen every time we discuss us. All the months we’ve been married and I’ve tried to talk to you about the house and children and a job and whatever; you do this to shut me up. Well, I won’t shut up, do you hear? You can’t intimidate me any more because I won’t let you!’
‘Intimidate you?’ He turned to face her then, and his face was as white as a sheet. ‘Is that what you think I’m trying to do?’
‘Well, what, then?’ she shouted despairingly. ‘If not that, then what?’
‘I can’t…’ He raked back his hair and she saw, with absolute amazement, that his hand was shaking. ‘I can’t explain,’ he ground out bitterly, ‘and not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t know how to. I’ve never had to talk to anyone, explain anything. All my life I’ve had to be self-sufficient and one step ahead of everything else. I don’t know how to let go.’
‘But I’m your wife!’
‘I know that. Hell, I know that,’ he bit out, so harshly she took an involuntary step backwards and almost tipped the frying pan off the stove.
It startled them both, and with a muttered oath Zeke was at her side. ‘That’s all I need on my conscience,’ he said with bitter irony, ‘for you to end up in Casualty with first-degree burns on the coldest day for years.’ He swiftly turned off the gas.
Quite how she came to be in his arms Marianne wasn’t sure; she only knew she wanted to be there. His body was hard and strong, and as she put her hands on his upper arms, felt the hard, bunched muscles beneath her fingertips, she felt such a fierce surge of desire she couldn’t contain it.
She met his hungry mouth with a fervent passion that matched Zeke’s, and as his hard male body ground into her she moved against him with equal voracity.
One hard thigh pushed between her legs and she folded herself round the thrusting need, his chest creating a voluptuous, crushing pressure against her aching breasts that was pure, exquisite pain.
He was devouring her with his body, his mouth and tongue creating their own magic until she moaned for more.
The towel had long since slipped to the floor and now, as her clothes followed it, Marianne was too bewildered with pleasure to resist.
There was a tight, hot congestion at the core of her and she knew what it portended, and then, as he moved her to the sofa and began to caress every inch of her with his lips and tongue, she arched against him, relishing the familiar feel of his mouth and body.
He was a master of his craft, and as his mouth worked slowly and provocatively over her taut breasts, her belly and down towards the V between her thighs, she shuddered, every muscle straining in the release of ecstasy only he could bring.
Zeke was hugely aroused, but even as she spread slender, supple limbs and urged him into the silken path of her his control held. He continued to touch and taste her until she was almost fainting with the pleasure of it, the rhythmic undulations that began at the core of her gathering greater and greater impetus.
And then he was inside her, possessing her so completely that nothing else in the world existed but the moment, and like an explosive trigger the contractions deepened and swelled until she was floating in another time, another universe, where all was blinding light and sensation.
Zeke gave a fierce groan of shattering gratification at the moment of their mutual climax and their fulfilment was total, their satiation absolute.
They lay for long, indolent minutes wrapped in each other’s arms as their flesh cooled from the feverish intoxication, but as reality rushed in with all its crystal-clear brutality Marianne became tenser.
What had this meant to him? she asked herself silently. She knew what it had meant to her—a complete giving of herself, a union so elemental as to be all-consuming. But Zeke? Zeke was a man; he could separate the sexual act from his emotions much more easily.
‘Zeke?’ It was a tiny whisper, and then Marianne said the words she would normally never have voiced. ‘What are you thinking?’
She felt him tense, she even thought his lips touched the tangled silk of her hair for a moment, and then he said very softly, which somehow made it all the worse, ‘That this was totally unfair. I’m sorry, Marianne, I should never have touched you.’ And then he lifted himself off her, and she felt a desolation so profound as to be indescribable.
CHAPTER SIX
MARIANNE forced herself to eat a bacon sandwich before she left for the supermarket, although every mouthful felt as if it was sticking in her throat.