She darted him a quick glance, her heart suddenly starting to beat far too fast.
‘The way I remember it, it wasn’t…’
He was standing far far too close to her. She felt dizzy from her awareness of him, from her wretched over-responsiveness to him, and it galled her that even now she seemed completely unable to control her body’s physical compulsion for intimacy with him. She could feel herself edging closer to him, feel the soft melting sensation within her, urging her to turn towards him, to…
She must have moved, she realised with sickening disbelief, because suddenly there was no distance between them at all, and the hand which Lewis had been resting against the wall behind her was now touching her shoulder, turning her, holding her.
‘Lacey.’
As he whispered her name the warmth of his breath feathered across her mouth, so that immediately her lips softened and parted, her throat tight with tension and need.
As his mouth settled gently on hers she closed her eyes, her whole body melting yearningly into his, her arms wrapping round him as he drew her closer to him.
He kissed her slowly and lingeringly as though he were savouring the taste and feel of her, his lips caressing hers as though his only purpose in life was to cherish and pleasure her.
She tried to resist, to remind herself that in return for this pleasure now she would pay over and over again in time to come in terms of anguish and loss, but her senses were too overwhelmed to listen to reason.
Beneath his mouth she made a soft little sound of appreciation and need, and immediately he responded to it, his arms tightening around her, his body hardening with arousal, his tongue probing the warm depths of her mouth as she clung to him, holding him, wanting him, her breasts aching for the touch of his hands, her body—
‘Hey, come on, break it up, you two!’
Lacey wasn’t sure which of them was the more shocked by the sound of Jessica’s laughter, but when she tried to pull away from him Lewis held on to her, and muttered in her ear, ‘No, not yet. I can’t.’
She was starting to tremble as reaction set in, but the urgency in his voice made her look at him.
His eyes were very dark, the pupils huge and almost black. There was a thin film of colour under his skin, sharpening the angle of his cheekbones. She could feel the tension in his muscles.
‘Just stand here for a minute until…’
Lacey frowned, confused by the blend of irritation and wryness in his voice until he explained bluntly, ‘I’m still aroused, Lacey, and, while Jessica obviously knows that we are lovers, I’m still old-fashioned enough to feel a little uncomfortable as her father, for her…’
He broke off as Lacey started to blush, a small smile touching his mouth. He lifted his hand to her face, his fingertips cool against her hot skin.
‘So you can still do that. Amazing. Do you remember the first time we made love? How you refused to look at me, and how embarrassed you were when…?’
‘I really think the sooner you two set a date and get married the better,’ Jessica told them both mock severely as she reached them. ‘You’re right, Dad,’ she added to Lewis. ‘It wasn’t a fish after all…’
Lewis was still standing next to Lacey one arm draped casually around her shoulders, her body turned in towards his own.After what he had said to her, she did not dare to move away; her embarrassment would be even greater than his if he was still as obviously aroused as he had indicated.
A tiny frisson of sensation coiled through her, a sweet ache of mingled pride and loss that she could actually have that kind of effect on him.
Don’t be ridiculous, she chided herself bitingly. It’s a physical reaction to sexual stimulation, that’s all. Any woman could have done it. It means nothing in any personal sense…nothing at all.
It was almost ten minutes before Lewis let her go, and even then, as the three of them walked back to the house together, he kept her by his side, his arm still around her shoulders. No doubt such pretend intimacy was for Jessica’s benefit, but, since they had already agreed that the sooner they could start to intimate to Jessica that things were not after all working out between them the better, it seemed illogical of him to be promoting this image of intimacy between them.
The afternoon had tired her. She told herself as Lewis drove them back home that it was the effect of the fresh air that was making her feel so drained and sleepy, but she knew in reality that it was the emotional strain that was exhausting her, draining her to the point where she felt that all she wanted to do was to go to bed and stay there, waking up only when it was all over and her life was back to normal. When Lewis had disappeared from it.
But if that was what she really wanted, why did the mere thought of a life without him make her feel so miserably bleak and full of despair?
She had got over loving and losing him once, she reminded herself grittily later on when she was changing for the evening. She would get over it again. Or would she? She had been younger then, stronger…with a very definite purpose in life. She had had to think of Jessica, her child. She still had to think of Jessica, of course, but not in the same way. Jessica was an adult herself now.
Her small house only had two bedrooms, fortunately, so Lewis was staying at a local hotel instead of driving home after their meal. Jessica had teased them both about it, remarking that, since she had already caught them in bed together, there seemed little point in Lewis’s returning to his hotel.
‘I’m going to miss you both once I’m back at university,’ Jessica commented as she walked into Lacey’s bedroom. ‘Still, it won’t be long. We’ll all be together again at half-term, and Ian has arranged for me to have my tests then as well…which reminds me, I must ring him and check on exactly when my appointment is.’ Her face shadowed a little. ‘I was thinking only the other night how lucky I am. Not just in being born, but in living now, when I will have a choice, when I don’t have to make the kind of decision Dad had to face. I was wondering, Ma. The other woman…the one he left you for—’
‘Jess…please, I don’t want to discuss it.’ Her hand shook as she tried to fasten her earring. ‘Jess, don’t get too…too excited about the thought of Lewis and me getting back together. I mean, it’s early days yet…it may not…it may not work out.’
‘What?’ Jessica stared at her and then laughed. ‘Don’t be an idiot, Ma. It’s plain to see that the pair of you are madly in love. The way Dad looks at you when he thinks no one can see him reminds me of a hungry dog eyeing up a very, very delectable bone.’