‘I know that… I’m not that naive!’ Tansy protested breathlessly.
‘And you’re very, very sexy,’ Jude growled. ‘Because I did intend to keep my hands off you for at least a few weeks!’
‘Well, the best-laid plans…’ Tansy chided with a face-splitting grin of pride, relieved that she wasn’t the only one tempted in their relationship, the only one surrendering to that hunger she had never really felt until that moment.
Jude laughed, brilliant, dark, golden, heavily lashed eyes spectacular in his lean, sun-darkened face. He wondered how long it had been since he had last relaxed to that extent with a woman in bed. He couldn’t remember because all his more recent dealings with women had been of the most basic variety, consisting of nothing more than casual encounters.
He kissed her again with more passion and less restraint as he shifted against her, allowing her to feel the hard thrust of him against her tender core. Her heart hammered as he crushed her lips under his and she strained against him, seeking that pressure, that friction, every fibre of her demanding more sensation.
Jude pushed into her narrow channel very slowly, lifting her slight body up to him. His stunning eyes stayed welded to hers even as a low groan of sensual pleasure escaped him. ‘Thee mou…you’re so tight, moraki mou.’
Melting within at the erotic enjoyment he couldn’t hide, Tansy tipped up more to him and he slid in deeper and faster than he might have intended and she jerked as a sharp sting of pain shot through her lower body. Betrayed into a muffled moan, Tansy briefly froze. ‘It’s all right. Don’t stop now,’ she mumbled, red-faced.
Jude shifted his lithe hips and sent sweet, seductive sensations shimmying through her pelvis to replace the discomfort. Her heart thumped faster, her body quivering from that shock invasion that came with a stark jolt of pleasure and left her wanting more.
‘Still hurting?’ Jude pressed.
‘Not any more,’ she proclaimed breathlessly, rocking up into him in helpless invitation.
His fluid movements controlled her with mounting pleasure, tiny little tremors coursing through her as her tension and the ache of need built ever higher. The pace increased and her heart raced, her nails digging into the smooth skin of his back as the excitement took over, urging her hips up to his, her body jolting in satisfaction from his every powerful thrust. And then the tension splintered, and fireworks burst inside her and she was overwhelmed by the blissful convulsions of pleasure that flooded her.
Jude released her from his weight and lay back.
Tansy breathed in deep and slow, all the tension that had wound her up tight for days drained away. For the first time she felt truly close to Jude and even more regretful of the fact that she had concealed her sister’s existence, starting off their marriage on a wrong note. In an effort to diminish that sin, she murmured, ‘You know…er… I would have told you about Posy upfront if Calvin hadn’t warned me not to.’
‘At what stage did he decide to dump his daughter as well as his stepdaughter on me?’ Jude enquired smooth as glass.
Tansy stiffened and compressed her lips, taken aback by his tone. She turned her head to study his taut, perfect profile. ‘Nobody has been dumped on you! You needed a wife. Posy needed me. It’s kind of ironic too that you’re lukewarm about her, because she’s truly the only reason I’m here with you now.’
Ebony brows drawing together, Jude locked narrowed dark golden eyes to her. ‘How so?’
Tansy sighed, deciding to tell him the truth because she saw no point in concealing it any longer, and if she could improve his view of her, it could surely only make their relationship run a little more smoothly. ‘It was never your money I was after. I’m not a gold-digger,’ she murmured tightly. ‘It was Calvin’s idea. I had to agree to marry you and give my stepfather that initial financial settlement for marrying you before he would agree to sign over my sister into my care…’
Jude absorbed that bombshell in total silence because it plunged him deep into shock and into thoughts he did not want to have. ‘Are you seriously telling me that you’re planning to give him that money?’ he demanded rawly, his lean, dark features taut with anger and incredulity. ‘And that that little baby was the price of your compliance?’
Unable to grasp why that seemed to annoy him when she had naively believed that information would improve his opinion of her, Tansy sat up, hugging the sheet to her. ‘Yes, and it’s already done. I wouldn’t have married you for any other reason… I mean, why else would I agree to marry a stranger? Particularly one who wanted sex included in the deal?’ she countered ruefully. ‘Calvin had no idea at all about that aspect. He believed you only wanted a paper marriage. But let’s face it, he didn’t care about the details. All he saw was an opportunity to profit.’
Jude sprang off the bed, dark colour overlaying his sharp cheekbones, rage and consternation leaping through him. ‘You had sex with me because of that baby?’ He stared down at her in irate disbelief.
Tansy went even more red in the face, annoyed that he didn’t appear to be listening to anything she said or reacting as she had expected. ‘No, I wouldn’t put it that way. I wouldn’t say that,’ she mumbled uneasily, shying away from that too personal and private subject. ‘I mean, how is that worse anyway than me being a gold-digger willing to do anything for money?’
Contrary to that protest, outrage was filling Jude to overflowing. He could see, however, that her green eyes were clear and steady on his. She didn’t get it, she really didn’t get how offensive what she had just told him was. ‘You let that creepy bastard pimp you out to me like a hooker!’ he accused rawly.
‘How dare you?’ Tansy snapped back at him in disbelief. ‘How dare you say that to me?’
‘You think I feel any warmer towards you knowing that you only let me bed you because a child’s welfare was at stake?’ Jude roared. ‘It didn’t occur to you that that is more than a little sleazy?’
Tansy stared back at him in a fury, green eyes bright as gemstones while she struggled to conceal her hurt from him. ‘Well, maybe it didn’t occur to me that someone like you would be that sensitive, since you believe that you can buy anything you want…and you proved it with me,’ she completed less boldly, still shamed by that awareness. ‘But I’m not one bit sorry either!’
‘I can see that,’ Jude seethed, thrown off balance by her unapologetic defiance.
‘Good. Then we understand each other perfectly,’ Tansy told him, ripping at the sheet to wind it clumsily round herself and slide off the bed to head for the door she reckoned led to a bathroom. ‘I didn’t care what it cost me to get Posy out of that house and away from Calvin and his girlfriend. And unless you plan on going back on your word like he did, we’ll adopt her now and she’ll be safe, and he’ll never be able to use her the way he’s used me!’
And with that ringing assurance and tears blinding her, Tansy plunged through the door only to find herself in a large dark cupboard, fitted out as a closet.
‘Bathroom’s next door,’ Jude informed her gently as he lounged back against the tumbled bed, clad only in his unbuttoned, ripped jeans, the dark dangerous rage still smouldering in him but restrained by the innate caution of a man who had seen, growing up, what a man’s unfettered ire could do to a woman. ‘Couldn’t get permission to knock a door through in a protected building.’
Feeling even more foolish, Tansy stalked down the corridor, trailing the sheet and stifling a sob. Her first sexual experience had come complete with a distressing aftermath. There had been no reassuring physical closeness, no show of affection. That was stuff a woman could only hope to receive from a guy who cared about her. Jude had treated her like a one-night stand because he didn’t see her as being any different, indeed might even see her as being less after what she had revealed about Calvin and Posy. Her heart squeezed inside her as she worried about what the future might hold with Jude when he was that furious with her…