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Chrissie had been in emotional turmoil before he’d touched her and once that physical connection was made, she couldn’t break it and she wrapped her arms round his neck, needing that security. Feverish kiss built on feverish kiss, stoking the fire flaming at the heart of her only to increase the ache there.
‘If you let me have you now, I’ll never let you go.’ Jaul growled out that husky threat, staring down at her with compelling intensity. ‘I can’t fight the hunger you arouse in me.’
Chrissie gazed up at him and felt extraordinarily light-hearted for the first time since Jaul had come back into her life. He had not chosen to leave her: events had chosen for him. He had not condoned his father’s interference and if he had been guilty of misjudging her on the question of that money, she needed to remember how newly married they had been and how vulnerable such ties could be in any untried relationship. Did she now punish him for his father’s sins? Did she hold him to blame for having wanted to love and trust his only surviving parent? Although both Chrissie’s parents had hurt her and held views contrary to her own, she had still loved them. She, more than anyone, should understand how basic and strong ran the need to love and trust a parent, she reasoned painfully. With a fingertip, she traced the fullness of his sensual lower lip and gloried in the stormy gold of his gaze, rejoicing in his innate passion.
‘You don’t have to fight it any more,’ she told him softly.
‘We’re not going to rush this, habibti,’ Jaul decreed, peeling off his shirt and depriving her of her breath in the same moment.
‘Rush...’ she urged, dry-mouthed, as he stripped with no more self-consciousness than a child. But then he didn’t have a vain bone in his beautiful body, had absolutely no appreciation of the fact that he was a masculine work of art, a very aroused work of art, she recognised, her face warming as she momentarily stopped staring to kick off her shoes and run down the side zip on her dress. Jaul was all sleek, lean muscle, honed by exercise, lines indented across his six-pack, the vee at his hips rising out of the waistband of his boxers and dissected by the silky furrow of black hair that trailed down to the jutting hardness at his crotch.
‘I rushed the last time...you walked out on me afterwards,’ he reminded her wryly.
‘But not because you were anything less than...er...perfect,’ Chrissie framed in a rush of candour. ‘But because I was all mixed up and I felt even worse after you presented me with that insane pre-nuptial contract I’d signed—’
‘That’s in the past...leave it there,’ Jaul urged. ‘We’re making a new start.’
A new start. Disconcertingly, Chrissie found herself savouring that declaration. He didn’t want the divorce. He wanted them to stay married and raise the children together. There was nothing wrong with that as an aspiration, was there? How could she fault him for that? If she let go of the past, could she too move forward into a more promising future? Why shouldn’t she try? Why shouldn’t she give their marriage another chance? What did she have to lose?
‘A new start...?’ she repeated unevenly.
‘We’re together again with our children. What could be more natural?’ Jaul positively purred as he strolled towards the bed like a glossy prowling panther.
It did feel so natural to be with Jaul again, Chrissie acknowledged, studying his lean, extravagantly good-looking features while arrows of piercing heat surged through her in an intoxicating wave that left her boneless. No matter what he believed about her character, Jaul still wanted her, but then he had always wanted her and that was, at the very least, a foundation for the future.
Jaul feasted his eyes on her. ‘Come here. We only have one more problem to solve. You’re wearing far too many clothes,’ he husked, sinking down on the bed and leaning closer to lift the hem of her dress and flip it deftly up over her head.
Chrissie emerged from the folds of the garment with luminous turquoise eyes, wide and bright against her flushed complexion. He unclasped her bra and tossed it aside. ‘I want to look at you.’
Her breathing rupturing in her throat, Chrissie fought an instinctive urge to cover herself and her colour heightened as she leant back against the pillows.
