‘If you’re kidding me with this stupid game, I’ll kill you, Guy Frabosa!’ she muttered, watching his relaxed face for any hint that he was just feigning sleep.
His breathing was light and even, his mouth parted slightly and relaxed, eyes closed so the silken brush of his long dark lashes lay in a perfect arch across his high cheekbones.
She studied him closely for long, suspicious minutes, his face bare inches away from her own, waiting for the slightest hint that he was only waiting for her to relax before he pounced. But he hardly moved, his body completely relaxed beneath the soft warm duvet, and as the minutes ticked by her own body became used to having his wound so intimately around it, legs tangled, the comforting feel of his arms folded so possessively around her, her breasts brushing lightly against his chest as she breathed.
The only man ever to hold her like this, she thought sadly. Guy. The man she loved to hate and hated to love.
‘Why do you still do this to me?’ she whispered to his sleeping face. ‘Why does this feel so right?’
She sighed softly, her eyes full of a kind of tender tragedy as she closed the few small inches between them and gently kissed him on the mouth. He did not respond; was too deeply asleep to have even noticed.
Sighing again, she relaxed back on to the pillows, her expression open and vulnerable as she continued to watch him sleep in her arms until slowly her own eyes began to droop, her body growing heavy until it relaxed tiredly into his.
Then she too slept.
The morning wasn’t so easy to accept when she awoke to find herself still curled cosily into his warm body. She opened her eyes to find his brown ones watching her lazily.
‘This is nice.’ Guy obviously felt no qualms about voicing what she was guiltily thinking. ‘I did consider waking the Sleeping Beauty with a kiss,’ he teased her wryly. ‘But I am afraid I feared the reprisals.’
She droped her gaze from his, then wished she hadn’t when her gaze fell on to her hand, still lovingly curled around his satin shoulder. Carefully, she removed it, then let it hover, not knowing quite what to do with it now, since the only other places she could rest it involved the warm flesh of the man lying beside her.
‘Here.’ Reaching out, he took the hand in his own, his fingers closing around hers as he brought them up to his mouth to brush a light kiss against them then folded them beneath the duvet into the narrow gap between their bodies. ‘Do you know how peacefully you sleep?’ he murmured questioningly. ‘You barely move, barely breathe—I used to lie watching you for hours, you know,’ he confessed, ‘envying you that blissful peace.’
‘You’re too over-active-minded to sleep with any hope of peace,’ she threw back drily, smiling, despite her discomfort with the situation.
‘Over-active other parts of me as well, if I recall,’ he teased.
Marnie blushed and quickly changed the subject. ‘You have more of these,’ she noted, freeing her captured hand so she could comb a finger through the silvered hairs at his temple.
‘My father was completely grey by his fiftieth birthday,’ he informed her, sounding gruffly defensive suddenly.
Marnie glanced into his guarded eyes. ‘It wasn’t a criticism,’ she told him quietly, realising where the defensiveness had come from. ‘I like the silver. I always did. It makes you look so distinguished. I like Roberto’s hair, too,’ she added quickly to defuse any hint of intimacy he might have read into the remark. ‘It makes him look distinguished.’
Guy just smiled, moving his gaze to her own hair, lying like a rippling red-gold stream out across the pillow behind her. Reaching over her, he picked up a silken tendril and brought it to his face, his eyelids lowering as he inhaled the rose-scented smell of it in a way which made her stomach curl. Guy could always make the simplest gesture seem so exquisitely sensual.
The heavy lids lifted again, catching her expression. ‘I…’ she floundered, not sure what she wanted to say, not sure if there was anything she could say to stop what was actually beginning to happen between them.
His own eyes darkened, his hand moving to her shoulder, and slowly, giving her more than enough time to realise what he intended to do, he gently pushed her on to her back, then came to lean over her.
‘Say no, if you want to,’ he murmured huskily, then brought his mouth down warmly on to hers.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE night’s stubble on Guy’s chin rasped lightly against Marnie’s more sensitive flesh. Their warm bodies gravitated instinctively towards one another; her limbs parted to accommodate him, and Guy obliged by covering her completely, sending a thrill of pleasure rushing through her as she languidly accepted his weight.
The kiss went on and on, neither deepening nor receding. No tangled tongues, no desperate surge of passion to force her to make the unwanted decision as to whether she let them continue further down the road to ultimate union.
It was as though they were content to just recapture a poignant moment from the past when they could exchange kisses like this, warm, tender, giving kisses that did not necessarily need to tumble into the heated fire of sensuality to give satisfaction.
Marnie lifted her hands to his throat, then slid them to his nape, her fingers burying themselves in the jet-dark mass of his hair.
Guy let out a short, breathy sigh, and tangled his own hands in her hair, cupping her head, lifting her closer to him, his body beginning to move slightly, just the merest hint of a thrusting rhythm that made her stomach clench and begin to churn.
She wasn’t sure whose mouth parted first, or whose tongue went in sensual search of the other, but suddenly their mouths were straining, the kiss becoming heated, their breathing agitated enough to make them both move restlessly against each other. She felt the hardened thrust of his arousal, gasped and arched as it moved pleasurably against her.
‘Guy,’ she whispered feverishly.
‘Ssh,’ he said, sliding his moist mouth across her cheek to begin sucking seductively at her earlobe, while his hand slid between their bodies, finger sliding buttons free, parting her top so he could bring his chest back down upon her naked skin.