‘Your property?’ For the first time since he had come back in her life undiluted burning rage swept all the darkness out of her mind. ‘How dare you say that?’
As she raised her hand to strike him he moved swiftly, grasping her upraised hand in an iron hold at the same time as pushing her backwards while he opened the gate with his legs, joining her in the small front garden before she could draw breath.
‘You don’t like my terminology?’ he said tauntingly. ‘Well, how would you describe yourself, then?’
‘I’m your wife, not your property,’ she said hotly as she struggled against the sheer hard bulk of his body. ‘How dare you say that, how—?’
‘Ah, so you’ve remembered at last.’ As his lips descended on hers for the second time that night she began to fight, really fight, with her arms and legs kicking and writhing in desperate panic as she twisted her head this way and that to avoid his searching mouth. She heard him swear once, softly, as her foot made brief harsh contact with his shin-bone, and then he had pinned her arms at her sides as effortlessly as though she were a child, moving her backwards into the shadows of a gnarled old lilac tree that was scenting the cool night air with its heady perfume. ‘You need to be taught a lesson, my girl,’ he said thickly.
She knew, even as she continued to struggle, that it was a hopeless battle. It wasn’t really him she was fighting after all, there might have been some hope of success if it were, but it was her own weakness where he was concerned that was sending her whole system into hyper-drive.
His mouth was warm and firm and sensual on hers and she knew instinctively he was seeking to break down her resistance with persuasion rather than force. And to what end? she thought desperately. He didn’t really want her any more, he had made it perfectly clear that he considered her damaged goods. No, this was a cruel revenge of the worst kind because once it was over he would leave her without a second thought. But that was what she wanted, surely? her mind ground on as his hands and mouth worked their magic on her shaking body. She’d made the decision three months ago that she had to leave and face the fury and hatred such an apparently motiveless action would bring down on her head; she couldn’t back out now, she just couldn’t. But she hadn’t envisaged this sweet torture, not in her wildest nightmares.
‘I could kill you for what you’ve done …’ His voice was a thick frantic murmur against the smooth white column of her throat as he groaned her name before devouring her lips again in a kiss that was endless.
She was powerless to hide the shudders that were coursing through her body, the touch, the taste of him was intoxicatingly delicious and she felt drunk with the pleasure his lovemaking induced. She knew she ought to continue to fight him, that it was madness to wind her arms round his neck and return his kisses in heated desire, but nevertheless that was exactly what she found herself doing.
The light jacket she had been wearing was at her feet—how it had got there she didn’t know—and now his hands were on the silky skin beneath her open blouse, his fingers gentle but firm as they moulded the soft fullness of her breasts. There was a moment of startled protest as his head lowered to take possession of what his hands had found, and then she was lost completely and utterly in the sensations his lips drew.
She loved him, so much, but she couldn’t—couldn’t …
‘Amy?’ Mrs Cox’s voice cut into the moment like a rapier-sharp blade. ‘Is that you out there, Amy? I heard a noise …’ They were hidden from sight behind the overgrown foliage in the small front garden, but as Blade stiffened and his hands and mouth froze Amy felt a deluge of icy water wash through her veins.
She glanced down at her dishevelled clothing. What on earth had she been thinking of! What she’d been thinking of moved quickly, his voice light and pleasant with just the right touch of embarrassed warmth in it to appeal to an old woman’s motherly instincts. ‘It is Amy, Mrs … Cox?’ Blade moved out of the shadows and walked a few steps into the shaft of light from the open front door. ‘I walked Amy home from the restaurant, Mrs Cox. We were just saying good-night.’
‘Is that right?’ Mrs Cox’s normally slow Yorkshire drawl was tight with suspicion. ‘Where is she, then?’
‘Here, Mrs Cox.’ Amy moved out of the shadows as she pretended to tidy her hair, her clothing now in place.
‘You know him?’ The plump little woman gestured towards Blade’s large masculine figure that dwarfed her by a good foot, looking for all the world like a fat little ruffled hen prepared to face an intruder that had threatened one of her chicks.