between his long fingers with delicate eroticism, and she moaned her delight. She felt like some Eastern slave girl, spread on the bed for her master’s delectation, but surprisingly she didn’t care…
But soon the hedonistic pleasure was not enough. She wanted to kiss him, touch him, rouse him to the same all-consuming need that engulfed her.
She stretched her hand to his shoulder, her slender fingers clawing his hard flesh. ‘Please, Justin.’
But Justin knew exactly what he was doing to her, the burning fire he was igniting in her body, and refused to be rushed. With hands and mouth he kissed and caressed while withholding from her the ability to reciprocate, until she was whimpering, crying out her need…
Then and only then did he rise and, nudging her legs further apart, eased his length between them. As he supported his weight on his elbows either side of her head, his mouth sought hers again. The kiss was a passionate statement, his tongue moving in her mouth, echoing his masculine possession…
Her eyes flew open and she saw his rugged face, the skin flushed and taut across his cheekbones, his lips curled back in a feral grimace as he fought to stay in control. Then he moved deeper and deeper inside her, harder, faster, and her eyes closed again as every part of her clenched around him then exploded in a surging tide of shattering pleasure. She felt his great frame shudder and the fierce, pulsing heat of him filled her as he found his own release.
For a long time the only sound in the room was their erratic, rasping breath; neither was capable of speech, until eventually Justin rolled on to his back and curved an arm around her shoulders, tucking her into his side.
‘Justin, my love.’ She sighed, turning her head to press a soft kiss to his sweat-dampened chest.
‘Enough, Zoë. Lie still,’ he ordered raggedly.
They were the first words he had spoken in ages, she realised, but, lying satiated beside him, she didn’t mind. She loved her silent lover…Anyway, she made enough noise for both of them, she thought, slightly shocked at how Justin always managed to get her to beg for his possession. But then why shouldn’t he? He was an experienced, sophisticated lover, and he was only making sure that she was satisfied, she rationalised contentedly. But her contentment plunged five minutes later…
‘I’ll leave you to sleep now, darling,’ Justin murmured. Removing his arm from her shoulder, he swung his feet to the floor.
‘Stay,’ she drawled huskily.
But Justin stood up. Unselfconscious in his nudity, he turned to look down at where she lay in the rumpled bed. She gazed languidly up at him; her blue eyes, slumberous and dark with loving, met his. Then, as she watched, she saw his iron self-control reassert itself. His heavy lids dropped over his half-closed eyes as he moved slightly, avoiding her gaze.
‘Much as I’d like to, it isn’t sensible; I have to be up at six in the morning to be in London for eight. I would only disturb you, Zoë, and you need your rest.’ He was talking to somewhere over her left shoulder—as usual! The thought was frightening…
Zoë sat up in bed and reached out a detaining hand, placing it on his naked thigh. ‘I could come to London with you.’ His hand lifted hers from his thigh and she had the oddest notion that he resented her touch. ‘We
could move to your apartment n-now—’ she swallowed
the lump that formed in her throat “—now Uncle Bertie’s gone.’
Suddenly it seemed imperative to her that they discuss the future, and she didn’t know why. ‘We can put this house on the market—it’s far too big; it’s an anachronism in this day and age. Never mind one child—we would need a dozen even to begin to fill it—’
‘So that’s what this is all about?’ Justin cut in. “I thought we agreed—no babies for a year or two. You would not be trying to blackmail me into changing my mind by threatening to sell the house?’ he demanded hardly. ‘Because, if so, you can forget it.’
‘No, no, nothing like that,’ she quickly denied. But as she searched his face he looked so cool and remote that once more Sara Blacket’s words echoed in her brain, filling her with a dawning fear that she did not want to recognise. Instead she continued, ‘I simply thought that the house could be a conference centre or a nursing home—something like that. It is very expensive to keep up; Judge Master said so himself.’ She knew she was babbling but she wanted to keep Justin with her.
He leant forward, brought her small hand to his lips and brushed her knuckles with a kiss. ‘You’re probably right and if you want to sell it I’ll arrange it, but it’s not something one can do in five minutes.’ And, pressing another kiss on the back of her hand, he added, ‘And let me worry about the expense, little one. You try and get some sleep.’
She should have been reassured, but somehow she wasn’t. Maybe it was the way he avoided her eyes, or perhaps the way he allowed her hand to fall from his, but she had the strangest notion that he was simply pacifying her as he would a troublesome child.
‘I will if you stay with me,’ she said slowly. She was testing him, and hated herself for it, but the events of the day had severely dented her confidence in her husband’s love and she needed some sign from him, freely given, to allay her doubts and fears.
‘I need my sleep even if you don’t. I’m a lot older than you, remember.’
‘Please, Justin, I need you tonight, simply to hold me. What with the funeral…’ She didn’t want to plead, but somehow it had become essential to her peace of mind and her trust in him that just this once he stayed all night. To her relief and delight he agreed.
‘Let me dispose of the protection.’ He grinned. ‘I’ll be back in a second.’
And he was. Zoë yawned widely and snuggled into the hard warmth of her cautious husband’s arms. ‘You’re not old,’ she whispered, a smile twitching her swollen lips. It was ridiculous—a more virile, powerful man than her husband would be hard to find, and yet somehow the fact that he should worry about his age made him seem touchingly vulnerable. It never bothered her.
Justin, true to his word, had the house valued by a prestigious estate agent with a view to selling the place. But to Zoë’s amazement Justin informed her, before they actually put it on the market, that she was to have her twenty-first birthday party at Black Gables. It was all arranged; the guests had already been invited.
Apparently Justin had done it at Bertie’s request. It had been his last wish that the party go ahead whether he was there to see it or not. Zoë was not absolutely convinced that it was the right thing to do only three weeks after her uncle’s death, but, as usual, she gave in to her dynamic husband’s wishes.
The next few weeks she passed in a kind of limbo, torn between grief for her uncle and her inability to get really close to her husband.
Justin was very busy as the new head of chambers, and she saw less and less of him. She tried to tell herself it was natural—he had more work to get through. But sometimes in the evening, after yet another solitary dinner, a devilish, tiny voice from the deeper reaches of her mind would rise up to taunt her with the thought that he had married her to please Bertie and get the firm. He had the firm and Bertie was no longer around to see if he neglected his wife. She found it more and more difficult to dismiss her suspicions, however much she tried.
Justin was no help. He rarely talked
