The shock of seeing him racing towards her across the lawn, and then taking hold of her, cradling her, whispering her name, stroking her hair, treating her with such tenderness and concern, coming so unexpectedly on top of her bleak thoughts had left her with no defences to withstand him, but now suddenly she was shocked back to reality.
She could hear the anguish in his voice, and, knowing it was for their daughter, she was torn between her instinctive need to reassure him that nothing was wrong, and the shocking awareness of her jealousy of her daughter, that she should be the one to arouse him to such concern…such emotion.
She trembled in his arms, disgusted by her own emotions. How could she resent the fact that he loved Jessica?
As he felt her tremble, the pressure of his arm around her tightened. She heard him give a small groan and felt the deep shuddering breath he took.
‘Lacey…darling. Look at me. Tell me.’
Darling…he had called her darling. Confusion swirled through her, lifting her head from his chest so that she could focus on him.
‘It isn’t Jessica,’ she managed to tell him huskily. ‘She’s…she’s fine.’
‘Not Jessica?’ He was frowning now, and she tensed, waiting for him to release her, to step back from her, to repudiate and reject her; but, although the pressure of his arm relaxed a little as the tension left him, it still stayed firmly round her, and the hand which had been in her hair now cradled the back of her neck, his fingers stroking her tense muscles. ‘Then what…?’
He was looking at her…searching her eyes so intently that she had to look away, unable to sustain the scrutiny. His glance dropped to her mouth, and lingered there. She was as acutely conscious of it as though he had actually touched her.
The tender flesh of her lips burned and felt so unbearably dry that she just had to moisten them, just had to open her mouth and touch the burning dry heat of her lips with her tongue tip.
‘Lacey.’ The harsh protest shocked her into looking directly at him. ‘You’ve been crying.’ His fingertips touched her face, tracing the path of her tears. ‘What is it? What’s wrong?’
She shook her head, unable to answer, just as a large fat bumble bee flew dozily towards her. As she ducked her head to avoid it, her hair swung against Lewis’s skin. He raised his hand, his fingers entangling in its silkiness, and then as she looked at him, her eyes round and startled, he said her name in a low jerky voice and bent his head towards her.
Mesmerised, she waited, unable to withdraw her body from within the circle of his arm, nor her gaze from his mouth.
Only when it finally touched her own did she close her eyes, her whole body trembling with aching anticipation.
His hand touched her face, cupping it gently, his fingers skimming her skin before sliding into her hair, supporting the weight of her head while he kissed her.
His skin carried the hot musky scent of an active male body, intensifying her own arousal, making her snuggle closer to him, her body pressing against his.
‘Lacey.’
The sound he made as he said her name thrilled through her. It needed no translation, no explanation, its message as clear as the one given by the fierce hardening of his body.
She aroused him and he wanted her. Her senses trembled with exultant joy that he should so clearly feel what she herself was experiencing.
‘I want you so much,’ she heard him whispering shakily to her. ‘So very, very much.’
He was still kissing her, and she opened her mouth beneath his, pressing herself closer to him, sliding her hands up under his jacket, her heart beating furiously fast as the tenor of their kiss changed, the slow gentle pressure of Lewis’s mouth giving way to something else, something more demanding and emotionally charged.
As she responded to it, welcoming the intimacy, she knew that she was responsible for what was happening, that she was the one who had subtly encouraged and invited the passion they were now sharing.
Her mind screamed a volley of warnings and objections to her, but her senses screened them out. They weren’t what they wanted to hear. What she wanted to hear was the erotic counterplay of Lewis’s breathing, the soft sound of his hands as they moved against her body, the delirious control destroying the messages her senses and her emotions were relaying to her.
All around them the garden was full of the rich evening scent of the roses and growing things. The week had been dry, and when Lewis lowered her on to the grass she was conscious of the earth’s warmth and the clean green smell of the grass, long where it edged towards the trees and soft against her face as she turned blindly towards Lewis, seeking a renewal of the kiss they had been sharing.
When he hesitated, cupping her face, smoothing his thumbs over her skin, searching her eyes, she read the question he had not yet asked her. Her heart trembled inside her body. There were a hundred—no, a thousand reasons why she shouldn’t be doing this, but none of them mattered.
As she reached towards him her hands trembled as they slid up over his arms, free of the restriction of the jacket he had shrugged off.
She watched as his eyes betrayed the effect she was having on him, dizzy with the knowledge that she should be able to call up so much desire from him.
‘Common sense tells me that we shouldn’t be doing this,’ he told her huskily as he leaned over her. ‘But right now there’s nothing that I want more than to hold you in my arms. Do you remember how it used to be between us?’
Did she…? Her eyes grew huge and dark, reflecting his desire. Her hands trembled as she held him.
‘So many, many times I’ve dreamed of holding you like this.’