She bit into the luscious sweetness as he held the strawberry to her lips, feeling a little like a femme fatale from the old silent movies. Jay licked a remnant of juice from her lips. ‘Delicious.’ His tawny eyes were glittering. ‘Why haven’t we done this before?’
‘Spent a fortune on a hotel suite for an hour or two?’ she said with an attempt at mockery to hide what being close to him like this was doing to her.
‘Stepped out of life and said to hell with the rest of the world.’
‘Is that what we’re doing?’
‘Oh, yes.’ He took the empty glass from her hand and placed it on the bedside cabinet before taking her mouth again, kissing her until she was melting. His hands slid beneath the covers, drawing them back and exploring her soft curves until a searing heat flowed through every nerve and sinew.
It felt so good, so right to be this close to him. As she let her senses take over, Miriam wound her arms round his neck, pulling him closer. ‘You’ve still got your clothes on,’ she whispered plaintively, needing to be able to touch his bare flesh and feel him, alive and virile beneath her fingertips.
‘Undress me.’ He brought her hands to the buttons of his shirt. ‘I’m yours to command.’
Her hands shook as she undid the tiny buttons but then she was peeling the cloth from his wide shoulders, exulting in the warm, supple skin and muscled strength beneath. Her fingers tangled in the short, soft hair on his chest and she sighed, bending and letting her mouth savour the slightly salty taste of one erect nipple.
She felt the involuntary jerk of pleasure and licked her way across the roughness of his chest to the other nipple, sucking and teasing as he groaned raggedly.
She was aware of him moving back to loosen his belt and then he dragged his thighs free of his trousers, his briefs following a second later along with his shoes and socks. Stark naked, he settled beside her, reaching to enfold her against him as he muttered, ‘I don’t know how long I can wait, Miriam. It’s been a long time…’
She didn’t want him to wait. The wantonness was part of the unreality of it all. She wanted him to take her, making her flesh join with his until they were one perfect whole. She needed to feel him inside her, carving a place that was all his own.
As though in response to her thoughts Jay eased her thighs apart, but instead of the quick, urgent coupling she’d expected he began to kiss and taste her with a warm sensuality that brought her to fever-pitch. She writhed and arched as pleasure became unbearable in its intensity and she moaned in pure ecstasy. His lovemaking was as mind-blowing as it had always been but somehow different. Or perhaps she was different, she thought with a stab of reason, now she had stopped fooling herself and pretending this was for ever. Knowing this was the last time they would be together like this made it bitter-sweet and infinitely precious.
‘You’re beautiful, do you know that? Inside and out, you’re beautiful,’ he whispered huskily as he raised his head to look at her flushed face.
‘I’m not beautiful,’ she murmured shakily. Not like some of those other women he had dated.
‘You’re so beautiful you take my breath away.’ His lips claimed hers, urgent and searching, and she gave herself up to the desire that was making her tremble uncontrollably.
When he finally entered her he filled her completely, devouring her with the need to make her his. And she met him thrust for thrust, wanting to give him pleasure as he was pleasuring her. They moved together in a rhythm as ancient as time but still Jay paced himself, building the intensity of their shared passion until she thought she would explode in a million pieces. The crescendo of sexual need for release increased, her internal muscles contracting to a point where she was stunned by the savagery of what she was experiencing. It was pain and pleasure and exquisite torment, their long months apart heightening every movement.
Her body tightened as she reached her peak and at the same moment she felt Jay’s response, their climax violent in its wild fulfillment. She drew in sobbing gasps of air, his name on her lips as their two bodies blended as one.
She couldn’t stop trembling in the aftermath of their passion but Jay’s body was shaking too as he drew her closer against him, kissing her lips, her closed eyelids, her forehead. ‘So many nights I’ve dreamt of this,’ he murmured softly as her body slowly quietened, ‘wondering if you were awake too, what you were thinking, whether I featured in your thoughts or dreams. I’d smell the scent of you, hear you whisper my name…I thought I was going crazy…’
She curled into him, settling herself more comfortably in the circle of his arms. She was gloriously, achingly, satisfyingly tired, content to drift into the warm haven of his closeness without the real world intruding. She kissed the warm skin at the base of his throat, inhaling the scent of him. ‘You smell the same,’ she murmured throatily.
‘Is that good?’
‘Oh, yes.’ Miriam raised her head slightly and he took her mouth in answer to the silent request, kissing her gently until she pressed her body against his arousal. By the time he moved his body over hers again she was ready to receive him, the slow sensuality of his lovemaking achingly tender. As she felt him inside her she moaned softly, relishing the feelings he evoked and the way the need to please her always came first with him. He had always been the same in that regard but she knew from listening to the other women at work talking amongst themselves that not all men were so considerate.
Their joining became more intense and passionate, an exquisite physical pleasure taking her into a world of sensation and light where nothing mattered but Jay and what he was doing to her. She wouldn’t think beyond this stolen afternoon. Not now. Time enough for that later.
They stayed in bed all afternoon, making love, eating the strawberries and chocolates and finishing off the champagne. Outside the hotel window the sky drew dark with snow and then big fat flakes began to fall, whirling and dancing against the glass. A
t some point Miriam had pulled back the curtains so she could watch the storm and she knew she would never forget this day; Jay’s arms about her, the warmth of his flesh against hers, the cosiness of their hideaway and the taste of their shared passion on her tongue.
They didn’t talk about their yesterdays or their tomorrows, they didn’t talk much at all and when they did it was mostly soft murmurings and lazy nothings. They simply existed in each precious minute as it ticked by.
It was nearly five o’clock and completely dark outside when Jay nudged the top of her head with his chin, whispering softly, ‘I have to go. I don’t want to—hell, that’s the understatement of the year, but I’ve got a plane to catch.’
Miriam had been lying curled into him, her fingers stroking the supple, smooth skin of his back and her cheek buried against the hair on his chest. She closed her eyes tightly for one moment and then opened them to move slightly and gaze up at him. ‘I know.’
He kissed her hungrily. ‘I don’t want to leave you but there’s a lot hanging on my sorting things out in Germany, not least men’s jobs.’
‘It’s all right, really.’ She forced a smile. ‘I know you have to go, Jay. It’s not a problem.’
He smiled, kissing her once more before sitting up, one hand lingering on her silky flesh for a second. Then he swung his feet off the bed and padded across to the en suite. ‘I’ll shower quickly,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Would you mind having a cup of coffee waiting for me? Black, please.’