The future held no meaning for him. He would deal with it as it came. Only now mattered. And now was what he chose it to be for both of them. That was how it was, and she didn’t back away from it. Nor was she passive.
When he took her in his arms, her hands lifted to his chest, not to push him away but to touch him, and even this feather-light touch was like a hammer on his heart. He could feel a tingling heat spurting through his body, and it was imbued with the zestful joy and splendour of life, igniting the lust of the flesh to experience and savour all that bound it to this earth, to this woman who made the world bearable again, who breathed sweet air into his lungs and dazzled his mind with hope, with a promise that it wasn’t over for him.
There was more.
He gathered her closer, craving her softness, her femininity, the heart and mind of her, the soul that called to his from the same pit of loneliness he had known, the pit where the ashes of dreams resided in a greyness devoid of the beautiful colours that dreams could paint.
The need to pick up the palette and splash all the bright primary hues around both of them in wild abandonment was upon him, irresistible. Let colour fall where it would. Some of it must stick to them. No more grey. Grey was emptiness, the void waiting for a new creation, and the fever to create was too compelling to forgo.
Her hands slid to his shoulders, around his neck, and her lovely face was lifted to his, the lush curve of her lower lip tremulously inviting his plunder, and in her eyes the kindled blaze of hope, the wish, the want, the need to know, the temptation of the dream of life, to share the depths and the heights and everything in between with one who could…who would.
It was a chance, and she couldn’t resist it any more than he could.
He wrapped her more tightly to him. Willingly her soft thighs leaned into the rock steadiness of his, muscles taut with the strength of irreversible need. Her belly pressed over his loins, an enticing cushion of promise for the intimacy within. Her breasts, crested with hard beads of excitement, imprinted themselves on his chest. Her mouth opened under the pressure of his, sweet cavern of sensation, of passion released on a whirlwind of need that swirled from one to the other and fused into a tornado of feeling that swept them up in its tempestuous funnel, away from all worldly things, away from yesterday and tomorrow and the pedantic necessities of getting on with day-to-day life.
Passion feeding on passion, bodies straining to appease the long hunger, hands moving to shed the unbearable barrier of clothes, a totally consuming need to bare all to the desire burning through them, to give all, to take all on the chance that it might prove right, the chance that it would add that precious lustre of true togetherness they both sought, the silver lining beaming from behind the dark clouds, the red-orange-yellow sunburst of golden warmth, the deep calm of blue-green peace.
Their physical surroundings were irrelevant. Behind the desk in Ashley’s office they sank to the floor, she pliantly inviting, urgently welcoming, offering the cradle of her womanhood with an utter abandonment of any other care, he needing their mating with an intensity that went beyond all rational thought. Yes was the beat of his mind. Now was the beat of his body. Her was the beat of his heart.
And he plunged himself into the sweet, moist tunnel that would take him to the innermost core of this woman, reaching to the door of her soul, urging it to open with every powerful thrust of himself, wanting to find there the culmination of all he had been blindly searching for since Pen had died.
It came. He felt it begin, the exquisite flowering of ultimate giving to him, the utter yielding of self to the most intimate fusion any two people could achieve, the surrender of every particle of separateness, and it was a wild and exultant intoxicant to him. He moved faster, rushing to meet her climax with his, to share the ecstatic stream of pleasure with her, the essence of life itself mingling, melding, bonding to create the most indescribably beautiful union. He spilled the liquid warmth of his seed into the convulsing heat of her womb, and the blissful perfection of it rippled through them in waves, a wondrous rhythm of togetherness fulfilled and complete.
And they looked at each other, their eyes swimming with the glory of it, their minds dazed that it could be…and was…the possibility, the promise that neither had quite believed in, the chance taken and rewarded, the awareness of its vibrant reality pulsing through them.
She lifted a hand to his cheek, stroking it as though in awe of him or what he’d done with her, and it moved him to kiss her with a surge of tenderness that melted the last of the hard casing that had been around his heart since Pen’s death.
‘Ashley,’ he whispered, and it was a prayer of thanks for being the woman she was, for reaching so far into him that the past had fallen away and he could rejoice in the present because she was here, with him, sharing this moment of revelation, of renewal.
Harry…His name was a throb of sweet exultation in her mind and heart. She couldn’t speak it. She felt too much, and his lips were grazing over hers so softly, gently, beautifully, and he was still inside her, filling her with the wonder of all he had made her feel.
What she had known with Roger was a pale thing in comparison, leaving her totally unprepared for such an explosion of exquisite sensation, the sheer billowing glory of it seizing her body, holding it in thrall to the movement of his until that moment…that moment when she was no longer herself but him, too, an entity that belonged to both of them, yet more than either of the two, like an ecstatic star burst that she imagined must have fired the dawn of creation.
It slid into her dazzled consciousness that she wasn’t protected against the act of creation that might well be taking place right now with Harry’s seed deep inside her, spilled as wildly and wantonly as she had received it. He hadn’t thought of it, and she had abandoned all thought from the moment he had first kissed her, abandoned it to the yearning for all she had missed and craved, beyond bearing the emptiness any longer.
What if a child was born of this coming together?
Strange that she didn’t care. Perhaps she would care later when the afterglow dimmed, but she doubted it. To know this at least once in a lifetime was worth any price. It was what a man and woman were made for, and Harry had made it happen for her, giving her this precious gift, a memory to treasure no matter what else happened in her life.
He rolled onto his back, carrying her with him, his arms encircling her, hands soothing away what she suddenly realised was a rough prickle on her skin from the carpet. Not once in her marriage with Roger had they ever made love on a floor. She searched for some tiny shock at such uninhibited behaviour and found none. Her office was strewn with carelessly discarded clothes, and she was in a naked, intimate embrace with a man she had known for only one day, but none of it mattered. Only the feeling mattered.
How long would it last? She snuggled her head below his chin and listened to the steady drumming of his heart, weaving music around it, a melody of happy satisfaction she didn’t want to end. Let it beat on, she thought, turning now into forever.
Harry lay in contented languor, his fingers weaving through the long, silken strands of her hair, loosed from its pins in the heat of their passion for each other. His senses were drunk with the feel of her, the taste of her, the sight of her, the scent of her. She was beautiful, her skin like satin, her softness more sensual than velvet, her warmth more comforting than any he had known.
He thought of making love to her more slowly, savouring every moment, every nuance of intimacy, but it was better to wait. It was enough to revel in what they had just shared. There was no need to take it further right now.
He should have asked about protection, but he hadn’t known beforehand what he was going to do. If she conceived…Harry couldn’t stop the smile that spread across his face. A child. His child. An heir for George and Springfield Manor. He almost laughed at the irony of it. So unplanned. Yet if it happened, he would leave no stone unturned to change Ashley’s mind about coming to England.
He would enjoy being a father. He enjoyed William, clever little devil that he was. Shock rippled through his mind. They had forgotten William.