‘But you’re still afraid of me, aren’t you?’
Jaime caught her breath. ‘Not—not really—–’
‘Oh, Jaime!’ His hand slid over her shoulder to mould the nape of her neck. ‘Jaime, you have no idea how much I want you!’
And then his mouth was on hers, and all her anxious fancies disappeared beneath the searching pressure of his lips. With infinite tenderness he brought his other hand to her waist, drawing her fully against him. Then, with his thumb brushing the underside of her breast, he coaxed her lips to part.
Jaime’s head was swimming, and his touch made all her limbs tingle. It wasn’t like when Philip kissed her, even though, in the beginning, he had pretended to be gentle. With Philip, she had always been aware of his impatience and, afterwards, she had been amazed he had been able to fool her for so long. No wonder he had never attempted to get her to go to bed with him before they were married. She had thought he had too much respect for her. How dreadfully wrong she had been.
Ben’s passion was different. She didn’t know how she knew, but she did. The kisses he bestowed upon her lips were warmly possessive, but she welcomed them; his tongue, sliding between her teeth, was like hot velvet in her mouth. There was no pain, no subjugation; he wasn’t trying to punish her—he was simply showing her how it should be.
And his tenderness destroyed any lingering doubts she might have had. Instead of pushing him away, she found herself winding her arms around his neck, and pressing herself eagerly against him. She was a normal human being after all, she thought, revelling in the realisation that Philip had not destroyed her ability to respond to her emotions. For so long she had believed she would never be able to let a man touch her without feeling the intense revulsion Philip had inspired. But suddenly she was free, and the feeling was intoxicating.
Of course, looking back, she supposed she had been at least half to blame for what happened. She had known Ben was married just as well as he did, and if she had had some crazy notion that he might leave his wife for her he had never said as much.
But maybe they had both been too caught up in the events of the moment to consider the rights and wrongs of what was happening. Ben had made his protest earlier on, but she hadn’t listened to him. And if she still maintained that he was the stronger, that he should have been in control, perhaps she was being a little naïve. How could she have known how it would be between them? Who could have foretold the fire they would ignite?
They stood there, swaying in the doorway, while Ben covered her face with kisses. He kissed the high arch of her cheekbones, and the gentle curve of her chin. He teased her nose, and explored the silky contours of her ear, and closed her eyes with the feather-light brush of his tongue. But Jaime liked it best when his mouth returned to hers. Their lips fused together, and the plunging motion of his tongue aroused a trembling need inside her.
Her limbs were weak, and between her legs she could feel a dampness that was as disturbing as it was unfamiliar. She was filled with an aching longing to be even closer to him, and for the first time she realised the power of her own body.
‘God, Jaime…’
Ben’s voice was hoarse, and she remembered feeling enchanted that she could do this to him. She had never felt this way before, and when he moved her back against the door, and pressed his body against hers, she had no fear of the heavy thrust of his erection.
Even when he took her hand, and pushed it down between them, she felt no sense of panic. Ben’s body didn’t frighten her. She wasn’t afraid of anything he might do to her. On the contrary, she wanted to please him, and her touch was firm and caressing.
And Ben was not proof against such blatant encouragement. His own hands slid up beneath the hem of her blouse, finding the fullness of her breasts confined by her cotton bra. He took the firm mounds into his hands, bending his head to caress their hard peaks through the layers of clothes that covered them. His tongue wet the material, so that when Jaime looked down she could see her nipple clearly outlined beneath. It caused a queer sensation in the pit of her stomach that was at once a pleasure and a pain. But it wasn’t like any pain she had experienced before, and she realised she was shaking.
‘You’re beautiful!’ Ben’s husky words sounded more erotic than anything she had ever heard before. Holding her eyes with his, his fingers disposed of the buttons of her blouse, and exposed the bra beneath. ‘I want to look at you,’ he said. ‘I want to look at all of you.’ He released the strap of the bra. ‘Will you let me?’
Jaime couldn’t have refused, even if she’d wanted to. Her mind had ceased to function, beyond obeying the wild dictates of her body. She felt dazed, light-headed, totally absorbed with what Ben was doing to her. The world, and everything outside this room, had ceased to exist. Time wasn’t important. All that she wanted was here, before her. All she needed was within her grasp.
Her blouse fell to the floor, followed swiftly by her bra, but she was hardly aware of it. Ben was touching her breasts, sucking her nipples, grinding his hips against hers. She knew what he wanted, because it was what she wanted, too. The miracle had happened: she was alive, she was responsive, and she was in love.
She hardly remembered how they got to the bed. She did recall the coolness of the coverlet against her back, and the feeling of wantonness she had experienced when Ben peeled the velvet trousers from her legs. She also remembered how he had pressed his face against the damp triangle of curls that protected her womanhood, and how she had opened her legs in shuddering abandon…
Jaime shivered as the memories swept over her. She might hate Ben for leaving her alone when she needed him most, but she couldn’t deny that he had made her feel like a woman again. Those months with Philip had taken their toll in more ways than one. Because Philip had shown so little respect for her—and she had let him—she had also lost respect for herself. She had begun to believe his estimate of her, and she had never known what it was like to share the pleasures of making love. Ben had given her that, if nothing else.
Not that such thoughts had occupied her, as Ben tore off his own clothes. His jacket and tie were flung carelessly on to the floor, and several buttons from his shirt went skittering across the room. He undressed quickly, economically, as if he was afraid she might change her mind.
And the thought did occur to her, when he shoved off his trousers, and exposed the aggressive bulge of his arousal beneath the silk boxer shorts he still wore. He looked so big, so powerful, so dominant, as he loomed over her, that Jaime quivered. But then he bent his head to trace the line of her lips with his tongue, and her resistance simply faded away.
‘Touch me,’ he said, against her mouth, drawing her cold hands to his body. He insinuated her fingers into the waistband of his boxer shorts, and pushed himself against her, and Jaime’s anxieties fled in a wave of shocked excitement.
He was hot and velvety to her touch, and he growled low in his throat when the pad of her thumb removed the pearl of moisture that glistened on his skin. His manhood throbbed with the needs she was arousing in him, and when he nudged her legs apart she guided him to her waiting source.
And it was like the first time for her. Philip had never entered her body so smoothly, so gently, pushing into her so fully that she was half afraid she would never be able to accommodate him. But she gave herself to Ben, allowing him to dictate what she could or could not do, and the sensuous thrust of his body became a mindless race for oblivion.
Jaime had never experienced anything like it. When she married Philip, she had been a virgin, and his treatment of her had left her convinced
