‘Were you really giving me the gift of yourself, sweet Briony,’ he whispered softly, ‘and not just teasing as I thought?’ There was a new deep timbre to his voice, his lips teased her skin gently.
Her body quivered against him, and although she tried to hide it from him she knew he had felt it. His tongue stroked gently along the delicate skin behind her ear, arousing all manner of delicious sensations, and her lips had to be clamped tightly together to prevent her small moan of pleasure escaping. His hands were stroking slowly along her body, pushing aside the thin silk of her nightgown and laying bare the satin flesh. His mouth touched her throat and then slid lower.
This time it was impossible to deny her reaction. Her throat ached with tension, her head falling back against the pillows as she begged him to stop.
He laughed softly, the sound feathering along her nerves. ‘You don’t really mean that, do you?’ he murmured against her. ‘That tantalising creature who came to me from the sea can’t have disappeared entirely.’ His arms wrapped round her, holding against his hardness, his mouth coaxing hers into slavish, mute subjugation as it parted for him.
His groaned satisfaction set off an answering chord deep inside her, and despite the promise she had made herself, never to betray her feelings to him again, she was reaching despairingly for him.
Her skin burned with fire, her mouth dry with tension. She touched the hard body with passionate demand, shuddering deeply as her fingers trembled over the flat hardness of his stomach, the powerful thighs and male loins pulsating so arousingly beneath her touch.
‘Dear God, Briony,’ Kieron protested harshly, pushing her away and substituting the soft warmth of her body for her straying hands, his arms clamping her to him, letting her know the effect her touch had had upon him.
‘This time there’s no turning back—for either of us,’ he warned her on a fierce mutter, parting her thighs insistently. ‘No teasing. No.…’ He shuddered slightly, cupping her face, and fastening his mouth on her parted lips, draining its sweetness, the weight of his body pushing her into the bed and keeping her there, while the deep agonising ache inside her built up to a crescendo of intensity.
‘Love me, Kieron,’ she moaned huskily against his throat, her skin hectically flushed. ‘Don’t leave me this time. Don’t stop.…’
His fingers tangled in her hair, his breathing harsh and laboured, the first moment of possession unbearably sweet as he stroked and enticed her body into melting surrender, the pleasure intensified by his unhurried response to her plea for complete fulfilment.
There was a moment when she thought he was going to withdraw from her, and she arched against him frantically, her arms clinging to his shoulders, but his hoarse, ‘It’s all right, darling…it’s all right, Briony,’ soothed her, and then his hardness possessed her completely, her gasped pleasure stifled against his mouth, his husky, ‘Let me have you completely, Briony, body and soul,’ sending her frantic with a desire which was only satiated when the world burst into flames around them, and Briony floated peacefully thousands of miles from earth on a cloud of pure heaven.
‘Did you enjoy that, darling?’
The words reached her from a distance, and she cringed faintly from them.
‘You wanted me,’ Kieron reminded her, ‘just like you did on the beach.’
On the beach! That recalled things she would far rather forget. ‘That was different!’ He had made love to her, but there was still so much unresolved between them.
The words were wrung from her, and Kieron cupped her face with his hands, his eyes searching it intently, feature by feature, lingering longest on her trembling mouth.
‘Why? Because Tante Marian had just told you about my illness? Oh yes, I know. She told me while you were ill. Is that what melted the barriers, Briony? Is that why you responded to me so passionately?’
His thumb was stroking her throat, and she tried to escape the small caress. Even now after their lovemaking her body was still frighteningly responsive to him.
‘You already know why I did,’ Briony responded tightly. ‘It was all part of your plan to reveal the “woman” in me, wasn’t it? And then to reject me like.…’
‘Like I thought you’d rejected me?’ Kieron prompted. ‘Is that what you thought? Is that what you’re thinking now?’
There was a long silence when she felt totally unable to speak, and Kieron moved restlessly against her.
‘Do you really want to know the truth?’ he asked at last.
Her throat was a tight ball of pain. She nodded, willing herself to endure whatever he said.
‘When you came to me out of the sea like that I thought you were the sexiest, most desirable thing I’d ever seen, and then, the way you responded to me.…I thought I must be going out of my mind.…Do you know how long I’ve dreamed of having you like that?’ he demanded savagely. ‘God, Briony, all through those months in Africa, and then when I got back and was so ill. I came very close to hating you then, my love. I could understand you being bitter, but I never thought you would reject me totally. I told myself I could forget you. I was offered a job in America and leapt at the chance. London was too tempting. I could easily have found myself haunting your flat, begging for crumbs from your table. And then I came back, and damn near the first thing I see is you, but you’d changed. You were cold, and more infuriating, you seemed to think I was the one who ought to be suffering from guilt. You were so hard and cold, I couldn’t believe you meant it when you accused me of making you like that. I thought you were just trying to make me feel bad, and then I found out about Nicky and it all seemed to make sense. This was your revenge for my leaving you with a child. But by then it was too lat
e anyway, I was as hooked as I’d ever been. It wasn’t just for the Myers story back then—you must try to believe that. I wanted you very badly, my darling, but I couldn’t confide in you. There was no way you were capable of concealing the truth from Susan Myers, so I told myself that once it was all over I would explain and that we’d laugh about it together once we were married. You gave yourself to me so sweetly, I couldn’t believe it when you rejected me. I didn’t marry you solely for possession of my son, Briony. I could have got that through the courts. No, I knew the moment I set eyes on you again that I had to have you, no matter what the cost, and then once we were married it wasn’t enough, I wanted to turn you into the warm, loving girl you’d been before.…’
‘I thought you were just tormenting me.’
‘I know—now. When Aunt Marian told me that you’d never had my letters I thought you must be lying, and then I asked myself why you would—what would be the point?’
‘Susan Myers must have taken your letter,’ Briony whispered. His hands were stroking over her ribs, cupping and moulding her breasts and suddenly she no longer wanted to talk.
‘I thought that you’d just left me, Kieron, and I was so bitter. We’d made love and it was the most beautiful thing that had ever happened to me. I kept fantasising about how you would come back, but you never did, and then there was the scandal, and when I discovered about Nicky.…I was so hurt to think that you would never see him, never know what a perfect child we had made together.’
‘I thought when I married you that eventually you might come to love me again.…’