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‘Mmm, I was responding to a very basic instinct.’ He nibbled down the side of her throat and over the top of her breastbone. ‘I obviously have a natural talent for pleasing you.’
‘And yourself,’ she pointed out, shifting so that her breasts moved enticingly within his area of interest.
‘Oh, no, that’s entirely your doing.’ He blew experimentally on her soft pink nipples, a warm, moist zephyr that caused them to pucker and rise eagerly from the surrounding creamy flesh. He rewarded their jaunty salute to his authority with a soft rain of kisses around the dusky areolae. ‘You make love the way you do everything else—with courageous strength and a fiery spirit.’
His ardent praise ignited the passionate sizzle of her senses into a blazing conflagration. ‘You mean like this?’ she said, kicking away the sheet and rolling over to mash herself against his length.
He growled, and they wrestled across the bed, Rachel somehow ending up easily overpowered and pinned face-down beneath him. He grunted as she arched her spine, pushing her wriggling bottom into his groin.
‘Why, you let me win, didn’t you? You little cheat,’ he panted in realisation as she pushed up on her knees, his voice thickening with excitement as he recognised the erotic potential of her submissive position. ‘Do you want me to take you like this? Is that it?’ he murmured, stroking her bottom and the curvature of her spine with a possessive hand.
He sank his teeth into her shoulder, gently holding her captive as he reached for the replenished supply of protection beside the bed. His chest braced her back, his hands slipping underneath her, one to fondle her swaying breasts, the other to splay across her taut belly, adjusting her to his thrust as he discovered a new and intensely pleasurable thrill to add to his expanding repertoire.
Afterwards he took her in his arms and kissed her damp forehead. ‘I thought you might not like the feeling of being sexually dominated like that,’ he said, explaining the constraint that he had shown through the dark hours of the night, when he had proved eagerly experimental in most other ways.
She tilted her head back and looked at him with clear eyes. ‘You mean because of the rape?’
A painful tautness entered his body, his irises darkening with a haunting uncertainty. ‘I know it’s not a trauma you’ll ever be able to forget or forgive.’
‘No, but time is a great healer. I learned that to keep yourself safe doesn’t mean to bury yourself out of the way of life.’
Responding to his tender concern, she lay in the safety of his embrace and told him all about the ugliness of the rape, the bitterness it had created with her parents, the pain and joy of bearing an illegitimate child.
She sensed his silent search for words and wondered if she had misinterpreted his compassion. She tried to ease herself out of his embrace. ‘But I suppose some people might think I’m tarnished for life—death before dishonour and all that…’
He was swift to disabuse her. ‘Oh, no! God, Rachel, no—you can’t believe I’d think that of you. Still affected by it, yes—tarnished, never!’ His hands tightened around her back as he said grimly, ‘In fact, if either of us is tainted by the past, it’s me—’
Her hand over his lips stopped the words in his mouth. ‘Don’t. It doesn’t worry me that you had a wife with HIV,’ she said, assuming he was talking about Leigh. ‘You’ve always been honest with me, and I know you wouldn’t put me in danger. I’ve worked around health professionals—I’m not susceptible to scare mongering.’
‘Rachel—’
‘The past is the past. It’s what we are now that matters.’ She didn’t want to mention the future—that seemed, as yet, too fragile.
‘And what are we?’ He smiled wryly, accepting her philosophy with a mixture of reluctance and bitter relief.
One step at a time, she told herself. ‘Why, lovers of course!’ she purred.
A ping sounded from the bedside table and she peeped over his shoulder at his electronic watch and sighed. ‘I think it’s time we got up.’
‘I’ve been up all night,’ he said, grinning.
He looked so splendidly cocky he made her laugh. ‘I hope you’re not going to be this insufferably self-satisfied all day!’
‘Of course I’m not; now I have you to satisfy me, I don’t have to rely on myself,’ he said with a leer.
When she swatted him a stinging reproach on his bare chest he chased her into the shower, which delayed them another half-hour.
Over a rather rushed breakfast, he said, ‘You know, watching you at the gym, it occurred to me that we could do with some sort of corporate fitness programme at Ayr Holdings. We have a fully-equipped executive gym, and someone to oversee the equipment, but no one providing expert help or supervised workouts. How about it? Would you be interested in submitting a proposal?’
Rachel stared at him over her coffee. ‘Me? But I already have too many jobs, remember?’
‘In fact I know quite a few companies that might be interested in sponsoring employee fitness programmes,’ he went on. ‘It could be the basis of a whole new career for you.’
‘I have a career: at Westons,’ she stressed. ‘Why else have I been struggling to learn the trade, working for virtually nothing in an effort to help salvage David’s dream—’
‘David’s dream,’ he picked up. ‘Not yours?’
‘Not at first, but now—well, it’s opened new doors for me. The work is always challenging, always different.’
