They lay together, their heated bodies limp now, sated, a tangle of limbs half wrapped around each other.
He cradled her to him, murmuring in his own language words she could not tell. But his hand was warm, splayed around the back of her head, holding her. Her breathing slowed and she felt an echoing slowing in him as well—a slackening of his embrace. Wonder washed like the sweetest wine through her fading consciousness as sleep finally overcame her, and she lay cradled and encircled within the embrace of his arms.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT WAS THE distant, distressed crying of an infant that awoke her from heavy sleep. Fully waking, she heard Georgy’s wailing. Instantly she was up, fumbling for her long-discarded nightdress and stumbling from the room towards her own. Stricken, she lifted his squalling body and clutched him tight. She never let him cry—never! Guilt smote her and she hugged him, swaying, soothing his little back until he eased, comforted and reassured finally that she was there and all was well. Slowly, very slowly, she eased him back into his cot, stroking his head.
A sound in the doorway made her turn. Anatole was there, naked but for a towel twisted around his hips, a questioning look on his face in the early light of the dawn.
‘Is he all right?’ he asked.
His voice was throaty, the timbre of it resonant.
She nodded dumbly as memory swept over her, hot and vivid. Dear God, had it really happened? Had she been swept off into Anatole’s arms, his bed? Could it be real? True?
Then he was walking up to her, enfolding her in his arms.
‘Come back to bed,’ he said.
The voice was huskier than before. Its message clear.
Desire was in his eyes.
He kissed her. Soft, then not so soft. Slipped his hand into hers, leading her away...
Much, much later they surfaced.
This time they did not sleep. This time pale daylight edged past the folds of the curtains, proclaiming the day. She lay in the crook of Anatole’s arm, half propped on soft pillows, drowsy. Fulfilled.
Hazed still with disbelief.
‘Georgy will be waking,’ she said. ‘He’ll be hungry.’
Anatole reached to the bedside table to glance at his watch. ‘The day awaits,’ he said. He turned back to kiss her softly. His eyes gazed down at her.
‘My lovely Lyn,’ he said. His eyes caressed her. ‘So very lovely.’
Then, with a decisive movement, he threw back the coverings and got to his feet. His nudity was overwhelming, sending her senses into overdrive. Ruffling his hair, as if to wake himself further, he disappeared into the bathroom. Lyn hurried to her bedroom, swiftly showering before Georgy awoke.
In the shower, her body seemed fuller somehow—more rounded. She was still in a daze, yet it had happened. Her body felt it in every stretched and extended muscle, felt it in the warm, deep glow within her. Her breasts were crested, and she could see with amazed wonder the soft marks of his caressing.
As warm water sluiced over her, the shower gel gliding sensuously over her skin, she felt again the echo of the heat that had consumed her.
She dressed hurriedly, pulling on a pair of leggings and shouldering her way into a long, dark blue jersey wool top, loose and comfortable. She dried and brushed her hair out rapidly, not troubling to tie it back, and it tumbled around her shoulders—wavy, wanton. For a moment she caught sight of herself in one of the long wall mirrors in the room, and her reflection stayed her.
Her eyes glowed with sensual memory. Her breasts strained against the soft fabric of her top. She felt desire stir.
Then, with a rattle of cot bars, Georgy was pulling himself up to a sitting position and holding out his arms to her. With a smile, she scooped him up and out, and bore him off to the kitchen for his breakfast.
Anatole was there already, wearing a bathrobe, his hair still damp, fetching cereal and milk, and a baby yoghurt for Georgy. A sudden overpowering sense of shyness swept over Lyn. But he came towards her, bestowing a kiss on her cheek.
‘Your tea is brewing,’ he told her, smiling, and settled himself on a stool at the kitchen bar. He nodded at Georgy, still held in her arms. ‘How is our infant prodigy today?’ he enquired humorously.
Georgy responded to his attention by gurgling, and evincing a desire for his yoghurt, which he’d just spotted. Lyn took her seat, Georgy on her lap, and poured milk into her cup of tea, taking a first sip before reaching for the yoghurt. Somehow her shyness was gone.
‘So,’ said Anatole expansively, ‘what shall we do today?’
He knew what he wanted to do. What he had wanted to do, he acknowledged, since the moment she’d walked out of the beauty salon, transformed and revealed. What had been building since then, hour by hour, until last night it had seemed the obvious, the only thing to do. Follow his awakened instincts to their natural fulfilling conclusion.
He was not about to question it, analyse it, challenge it. It was, after all, incredibly simple. Desire—simple and straightforward. And overwhelming.
Quite, quite overwhelming.
He had not expected it. He knew that. Had not thought that it would happen—could happen. But it had and he was glad of it! Totally, incredibly glad! It made sense on every level.
He let his gaze rest on her now. Georgy was snuggled on her lap as she spooned yoghurt into his gaping mouth, hungrily gulping it down, ready for more. Her features were soft, tender, as she smiled fondly at her charge.
Well-being filled him.
‘How about,’ he suggested, ‘we take Georgy swimming this morning?’
It proved an excellent idea. Excellent not just because it was so enjoyable to see the fun that Georgy had—his little body safely held in the water with water wings, bobbing merrily as he chuckled gleefully at all the splashing, fully enthusiastic about the exciting inflatable pool toys acquired especially for him—but also because it afforded Anatole the considerable pleasure of seeing Lyn in one of the several new bathing costumes he’d insisted on her buying. True, it was a one-piece, but it was quite sufficiently revealing for him to feel desire stir all over again.
A desire that, when Georgy finally conceded defeat after lunch and succumbed to his nap, Anatole had no reason to defer any longer, and he swept Lyn off to bed.
‘We have to take ruthless advantage of Georgy’s sleep patterns,’ he justified, overcoming Lyn’s slight sense of shock at such diurnal amorousness.
But as she journeyed with him to that wondrous place of union she could only agree.
Anything that Anatole wanted was wonderful! Anything at all! She was ardent, adoring, her eyes lit with wonder and pleasure.
I can’t think beyond this! It’s impossible—impossible! All I can do is go with what is happening.
She was in a haze—a daze of happiness. And beyond each day, each night, she would not think.
* * *
Anatole walked out of his office to see Lyn sprawled on the floor with Georgy, who was on all fours, lurching forward in his newly developing crawl.
‘The lawyers have just phoned me,’ Anatole announced. He took a breath. ‘Georgy’s passport is being delivered by courier this morning. We fly to Athens tomorrow.’
He came to Lyn, whose eyes had flown up to his, and hunkered down beside her. Her expression was mixed.
‘I know you are nervous,’ he said, taking her hand and pressing it reassuringly, ‘but once we are there you will find it less alarming, I promise you.’
His eyes met hers, but even as they did so they slid past, down to Georgy, intently progressing towards the teddy bear that Lyn had deliberately left out of his reach, to encourage him to try and crawl towards it. Thoughts swirled opaquely in his head. Thoughts he did not want to put into words. Thoughts he banished with the words he always used to reassure her.
‘Trust me,’ he said. He leant forward and brushed her mouth with his lightly. ‘This is the right thing to do,’ he said, his voice low, intense. ‘It is the best way forward for Georgy—that is all you have to hold on to.’
Yet doubt, unease, still flickered in her face. He kissed her again, more deeply, and felt her shimmer with response. When he took his mouth away the doubt had gone from her eyes, replaced by the glow that was always in them when he kissed her, made love to her...
‘That’s better.’ He smiled a warm, intimate smile and got to his feet. ‘Now, do not worry about packing,’ he instructed her. ‘The maid service here will do that—both for you and for Georgy. We’ll enjoy our last day here. Then, tomorrow, we’ll be off!’
He headed from the room.
‘I’m going to phone Timon—tell him we’ll be there tomorrow and get an update from his doctors. They tell me the drugs are kicking in and starting to work, which is just the news I want.’
Lyn watched him go, and as he went from view she felt again that jittery feeling of unease return. It was such a big, frightening step—to leave the UK, to go to a foreign country and put herself entirely into the hands of a man who, such a short time ago, had been a stranger to her.