She grappled with his waistband, slid her hand beneath it and felt the tightening flesh of a firm buttock. But then he reached down and helped her, pulling the garment free, then tugged her tunic over her head so that they were lying naked together.
The air in the room was like ice on her sensitised body, but that didn’t matter any more. Heat seared her as he came back down to her, causing her to gasp from the electrifying sensation of his warm nakedness.
This was where she belonged! This was where she had always belonged, she told herself feverishly, with no thought for tomorrow. In this man’s arms. In his bed. Giving as much as he demanded of her. And taking too. Taking in turn.
With his lower body pressed against hers, tantalising her with the promise of unbearable pleasure, he lay propped up on his elbows, hesitating, as though gripped by a moment’s doubt, like an undeserving soul unsure whether to take or turn away from the unexpected gift of heaven.
In the darkness, desperately Taylor’s eyes sought his.
Was he harbouring second thoughts? He couldn’t be. She was his and there was nothing she could do about it except take him into her, she reasoned blindly, thrusting her pelvis towards his.
As if that one action had snapped his self-control, he was pushing hard into her, the sudden and rapturous reality of his filling her drawing guttural sobs from her throat.
She was moving with him, joining him in a rhythm that was theirs and had only ever been theirs alone. She felt him sink deeper into her and she moved to accommodate him, winding her legs around him and gripping him hard, locking him to her in a dizzying, primeval rhapsody of the senses.
He groaned, robbed of his powers to do anything but lose himself to the generously offered gift of her femininity. But she had already begun to climax from the powerful thrusts of his body, and she felt the moist warmth of his flowing into her, first as an aphrodisiac, increasing her pleasure, then as a soothing balm after the fierce and throbbing contractions of her own body.
The next thing she knew it was morning. Sunlight was streaming in through a chink in the curtains and Jared’s side of the bed was empty.
The cold struck home as she slipped an arm out of the bed, and she quickly retracted it, reminded all too shockingly that she was naked.
Shame stung her more than the icy temperature in the room. Why had she let him? Let herself? she wondered despairingly. Why, whenever he was around, could she never constrain herself? Retain any self-control? She gritted her teeth, angry with herself. How could she have behaved so recklessly, when nothing had been resolved between them, and the only reason for his coming here had been to seduce her back into his bed—into his life—regardless of what she wanted? Of what was best for her?
Even now, lying here with regret and shame as her bed partners, her swollen breasts were tingling from the memory of his kneading hands, the sensual throb at the core of her femininity from just thinking about him assuring her that if he came in now her body would open to him again as a flower opens to the sun, welcoming him into her; that she could only ever be whole and fully alive with this man as her lover.
She got up quickly, slung on her dressing gown and darted into the bathroom, ignoring the biting chill while she forced herself to wash in the bitterly cold water.
Downstairs, dressed in a black polo-necked sweater, thick shirt and jeans, she had started washing the dishes from the previous night with water from the kettle she had found already singing on the fire when the back door opened with a blast of cold air and Jared stood there, kicking snow off his boots.
‘Morning,’ he greeted her somewhat cautiously, coming in.
‘Morning,’ Taylor returned quietly, with half a glance over her shoulder, unable to look at him, not only because she felt too ashamed, but also because, if she had, she knew exactly what she would have seen. A dark, unshaven Jared sporting that brutish man-of-the-fells image in his thick country clothes and padded body warmer, and she was having enough difficulty keeping her anxiety over the previous night reined in, without letting him see how potently she was affected by him as well.
‘The power’s still off, as you’ve probably gathered.’ He was opening a cupboard, putting something away. ‘And there’s no sign of a thaw.’
Taylor swirled hot suds around a plate with the washing-up brush. ‘No.’ The residue of last night’s feast had set hard on the china, refusing to be erased. Like their lovemaking, she thought, keeping her head down and scrubbing hard.
‘At least we haven’t had any fresh snowfall.’
‘Haven’t we?’ She sounded disenchanted but she couldn’t help it.
After a marked hesitation, he said, ‘Did you put the kettle back on to boil?’
‘Yes,’ she answered, wondering why he appeared so coldly matter-of-fact. Was he recriminating himself for what had happened last night? Was he regretting it too?
Behind her the cupboard door banged. ‘Did you sleep well?’
Taylor scrubbed at the caked potato more violently. ‘Yes.’
‘No more problems with being cold?’
Was he kidding?
‘No,’ she said tautly, her actions mirroring her agitation. Well, how else was she expected to feel? Last night they had both behaved recklessly and he wasn’t even mentioning it, which made the whole thing even more disconcerting.
‘For heaven’s sake, save your energy,’ he said, suddenly sounding impatient, ‘and leave that blasted plate to soak.’
She dropped it abruptly. It made a dull clunk as it hit the bottom of the sink.
‘What’s wrong?’ He was opening the cutlery drawer, making its contents rattle as he rammed it closed again. His voice wasn’t too gentle. ‘Worried you might be pregnant?’
She winced, because of course the thought had crossed her mind but it wasn’t just that. She hadn’t agreed to go back with him because, as far as she was concerned, nothing had changed. He would still love Alicia, no matter how much he convinced himself he couldn’t have her—that it was over. It was another man’s wife he really wanted to be the woman at his side. But last night, just as in the past, when he made love to her, she couldn’t think straight; tried to make herself believe that she meant more to him than just a substitute for someone else. Last night had been no exception because he had made love to her as though his heart and mind were free for him to do so—unreservedly and uninhibitedly—and she had let him, practically instigating it, while knowing that sooner rather than later they would become just another statistic in the eternal line of broken marriages, because she could never go back to him to be what she had been to him before, just a convenient little stand-in for somebody else.
And now, of course, because of her foolish and utterly thoughtless behaviour, there was the worry, as he’d said, that she could be pregnant…
‘It shouldn’t have happened,’ she demurred, staring at the cup she was washing without even seeing it.
‘That’s obvious,’ he said brusquely, behind her.
‘I don’t want to be pregnant,’ she protested, fighting the idea, her deep buried fears surfacing above everything else.
‘No,’ he breathed heavily in acceptance. ‘You made your opinions and objections clear enough while we were living together. I should have known better. I could easily have used something. But then neither of us was in the mood for rational thinking, were we? Well, what’s done is done, Taylor. We can’t put the clock back. And if you are carrying my child, I’m sure you’ll work something out where it doesn’t inconvenience you too much.’
‘Like I did the last time?’ She spun round to face him with the washing-up brush in her hand, soapsuds flying everywhere. Her teeth were clenched from the pain of remembering, her green eyes over-bright with bitter