How long before he cut his losses and moved on?
Mrs Jones called them into the house for their meal in the next moment but, even as they walked back through the lazy evening hand in hand, Robyn was forcing herself to recognise this could only end one way. She mustn’t hope for anything else.
As usual the meal was wonderful, and Robyn grimaced ruefully after she finished the last of Mrs Jones’s rich chocolate-fudge cake topped by whipped cream and flakes of dark chocolate. ‘I’m putting on weight, this has got to stop,’ she said regretfully. ‘But it’s so tempting when it’s placed in front of you like this.’
‘Quite.’
She looked up and his eyes were smiling, laughing into hers, and she knew he wasn’t talking about the dessert. She wrinkled her small nose at him, smiling herself as she said, ‘I must phone Cass after we’ve finished coffee, if that’s all right? Guy has had to pop across to France with his job and I promised him I would check Cass is all right each night until he’s back. He’ll only be gone three days but you’d think he was disappearing on an expedition up the Nile the way he worried about her. She’s got weeks to go yet but she’s been having the odd niggling pain for the last few days, which the midwife assures her is perfectly normal.’
‘No problem.’
He was leaning back in his chair, his pose relaxed and indolent, and Robyn didn’t know why her heart suddenly felt as though it was breaking as she looked at him. She loved him so much. She had fought against it since she was sixteen and these last weeks had told her that without Clay in her life the world was a grey place, uninteresting and mundane. And that frightened her more and more as time went on.
She didn’t doubt Clay wanted her and was prepared to be patient…for now. But his patience would run out soon; that comment in the garden earlier had confirmed he was getting tired of coaxing her along. Sooner or later there would be a confrontation between them and then this would all end, because she knew now, more than ever, that she could never give herself to him knowing her love wasn’t returned. She would simply not survive the aftermath of their affair after he had said goodbye, and each moment they were together before that happened would be tainted by the knowledge of what was to come.
And she didn’t want to be one of those sad, jealous women who were for ever looking over their shoulder at every young attractive woman who came within their partner’s vision. Suspecting this nubile flirt or that, watching for the moment when something sparked between Clay and someone else, anticipating it, dreading it. Maybe she would last a month or two, even a year or two—who knew? But eventually would come the day when he would begin to retreat from her, become preoccupied…
‘What’s the matter?’ Clay leant forward suddenly across the table, taking her hand in his before she could draw away. ‘What were you thinking about just then?’
‘Nothing.’ It was quick and defensive, and Robyn was heartily thankful when Mrs Jones chose that precise moment to bustle in with the coffee pot and a plate of her delicious shortbread. A heart to heart tonight was definitely not what she needed.
Clay looked up at his housekeeper, his voice pleasant and his expression easy when he said, ‘We’ll have a tray in the sitting room please, Mrs Jones, and then you get off to bed. Leave the clearing up till the morning.’
As they walked through to the sitting room he said in an undertone to Robyn, his breath on her ear making her insides curl with sexual tension, ‘Mr Jones was unwell last night and she was up half the night with him.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘Just in case you thought I had an ulterior motive in getting rid of her,’ he added smoothly, his warm hand on her elbow sending shivers flickering down her spine and causing her to miss her step so she fell against him, twisting her ankle in the process.
It wasn’t a bad sprain, hardly anything at all, but once Mrs Jones had delivered the coffee tray Clay insisted on settling her on one of the sofas before kneeling down in front of her and taking off her sandal, despite Robyn’s protests that she was perfectly all right.
‘Does that hurt?’ he asked softly.
He had been running his fingers over her foot, his flesh warm against her silken skin, and in her reclining position Robyn felt extremely vulnerable and ridiculously excited. His touch was delicate, sensual, and with his dark head on a level with hers and his broad muscled shoulders flexing and moving under the silk shirt she found her mouth had gone dry.
She wet her lips surreptitiously, trying to speak normally when she said, ‘It’s fine.’
‘Are you sure?’ he drawled, his accent lazy on the air.
Oh, for crying out loud, stop. She was only human wasn’t she? He must know what he was doing to her. ‘Yes.’
His hands had slid just above her ankle, continuing their slow massage of the tight, locked muscles they encountered, but even though Robyn was aware he must realise she was as tense as a coiled spring she couldn’t relax an iota.
She wanted to moan at what his hands were doing as they travelled further up her leg, caressing her calf, her knee, and then stroking over the soft skin on her lower thigh.
‘Clay, please.’ She gasped the protest that wasn’t a protest at all, as he stretched over her, both hands now sliding to her thighs as his eyes locked with hers.
‘You’re so beautiful, Robyn.’ His voice was husky and uneven and she felt her heated skin would catch fire if he didn’t stop. ‘I dream about you, do you know that? The smell of you, the taste of you, how it will be. I want you, I want you now.’
Twilight had fallen while they had been eating and the open French windows allowed the faintest of breezes to gently waft the scent of roses into the room, the shadows of the dying day creating a warm intimacy that was intoxicating. Robyn was unable to move, unable to stop what she knew was going to happen next.
He rolled in one swift movement and she found herself lying on top of him on the sofa, the thrusting arousal of his body hard and very real against the softness of her belly. He captured the gasp of shock on her half-open lips with his mouth, his hands sliding over her hips and holding her fast against him.
His tongue flicked against her teeth before slowly and surely exploring the sweet, secret places of her mouth, and in spite of herself Robyn was kissing him back, her hands coming up to cradle his face as her lips became as hungry as his.
She was aching and melting inside, her breasts painful with the swollen need she was feeling and she could feel herself shaking against the hard wall of his chest. Her fingers fumbled with the small buttons in the silk, and then the broad expanse of his tanned, muscled chest was exposed as the shirt swung open. The light covering of dark silky body hair was soft beneath her fingers as her hands explored his body, tentatively, wonderingly at first, and then, as more and more sensation built, she became bolder.
His hands and mouth were fuelling and feeding the abandonment, his thighs hard against hers as he branded her with his maleness and then he stilled, his whole body tensing as she lowered her head and shyly ran her warm tongue over the taut, pea-sized nodules of his nipples.