His hands were on her hips, holding her against him. She felt the tension in his fingers as he gripped her, and then he was caressing her, tracing the narrow indentation of her waist, cupping her breasts. She could feel her nipples pressing eagerly against his palms, seeking his touch.
‘Lewis.’
She whispered his name achingly against his skin, need overcoming reason as her defences came crashing down, her body pliant and eager against his, her mouth trembling as she caressed his skin.
He tensed abruptly, and let go of her.
‘Lacey, I can’t.’
Immediately she was shocked back to reality, her own arms falling to her sides, her face ashen with shock and humiliation. What on earth was she doing?
She felt sick with self-disgust, immediately stepping back from him, seeking the protective shadows of the hallway in which to conceal the physical effect he was still having on her.
‘Go. Just go,’ she demanded brokenly, adding, when he simply stood where he was without moving, ‘Go, Lewis. Can’t you see that I just can’t take any more?’
Her pride was in rags. She didn’t care what she betrayed to him any longer. It was too late for that now anyway. He must know from the way she had responded to him how much she still wanted him. Tears blurred her eyes. She heard him moving behind her and turned round.
He was walking towards the door. He paused before opening it and then turned to give her one last look. She averted her head, unable to meet it. He had gone. She was safe. Safe. She laughed bitterly. Dear God, she would never be safe again.
She felt raw inside, still aching for him at the same time as she hated and loathed herself for doing so.
She went upstairs and walked into the bathroom, closing the door behind her. She was shaking so much she had to stand there for almost five minutes before she could move.
She looked at herself in the mirror and flinched at the image it threw back at her. She looked, she decided in disgust, exactly what she was—a woman who had been sexually aroused to the point where that arousal was plain for everyone to see.
There were, she discovered, tears pouring down her face, and she felt alternately hot and cold, her body convulsed with frantic shudders of reaction.
She turned on the shower and pulled off her clothes, dropping them on the floor with a gesture of disgust. It astounded her that she, who was normally so fastidious, should have wanted any man so much, never mind one who had hurt her as Lewis had done, that she had been oblivious to the paint-stains on her skin, the sweat that was now drying between her breasts, the general dustiness and scruffiness of her appearance.
She stepped into the shower, welcoming its powerful sting on her bare skin as though somehow, by punishing her flesh and subduing its physical ache, she could also subdue its yearning for Lewis. She scrubbed angrily at her skin to remove the green stain, ignoring the painful sensation it gave.
She washed her hair as well, ignoring the sting of the shampoo in her eyes, welcoming the excuse it gave her to let them fill with tears.
By the time she had finished, her skin was pink and glowing with the friction, and her hair so squeaky clean it sounded like a demented mouse.
She felt sick inside, her nervous system so knotted and cramped that she felt she would never be able to relax again. She was filled with shock and self-disgust, unable to comprehend properly what had happened…knowing that if Lewis hadn’t stopped when he did…Jerkily she reached out for a towel to wrap around herself, missing it, and having to bend down and pick it up off the floor before she could tie it around her body.
She towel-dried her hair and then ran a comb through it, wincing as she tugged on it too hard.
She felt too exhausted, too battered emotionally to even think about doing any more work, all she wanted to do was to hide herself away from the world, to hide herself away from herself, she admitted with a small shudder, as she walked into her bedroom. Dear God, how could she ever face Lewis again?
She discarded the towel and crawled into bed, falling asleep almost immediately.
Her dreams were sharp-edged and uncomfortable, making her move restlessly and cry out against them.
When she eventually woke up the room was in shadow, and she was, she realised muzzily, not alone in it.
She turned her head to stare at the figure standing by the window.
‘Lewis!’
She couldn’t believe it.
‘How…? What…?
He came towards her. ‘I had to come back. You’d left the door unlocked. I came up here and found you asleep. There’s something we have to discuss…something I have to say, especially since it seems as though in future there may be some contact between us…as Jessica’s parents. This won’t be easy for either of us, but it may help clear the air.’
Lacey shook her head. Was she dreaming? Was this real? A sharp thrill of misery coiled through her. It was real all right, and it didn’t take much intelligence to guess what had brought Lewis back…what it was he wanted to say to he