That admission so exactly matched Jai’s thought about her effect on him that it spooked him, and he buried it fast, too full of need to concentrate on anything else…
WILLOW QUIVERED AND shook as Jai worked his sensual path down over her squirming body.
She was back in that sensual world where her heart hammered and her body burned with hunger. Her nipples were stiff little points begging for his attention and he dallied there a long time, driving her insane with frustration as her hips rocked on the mattress because she wanted more, needed more. ‘Jai, please…’ she gasped, the burning ache throbbing between her thighs more than she could bear.
‘This time, we’re going to do this right,’ he ground out, his bright gaze glittering with resolve.
‘But there is no right or wrong here…only what we want,’ Willow protested, running an exploring hand down over a long, lean expanse of his torso and delving lower, finding him, stroking him, revelling in the satin-smooth hardness of his thrusting manhood, which every cell in her body craved.
Above her, Jai groaned, pushed her hand away, determined not to be deflected by his hunger. But her fingers slid up into his hair to drag him down to her so that she could have his mouth, the deep delve of his tongue, the awesome nip of his teeth along her sensitive lower lip until she was panting for breath and straining up to him, slender thighs wrapping round his narrow hips to hold him there.
Anticipation was licking through Willow in a raging storm of electrifying impulses as she tangled with his tongue, arched her back so that the hard wall of his chest abraded the straining tips of her breasts and ran her hands down his long, lean flanks. Her hunger was racing out of control, the way it always seemed to be with Jai, and she knew she would be mortified later, but just then she couldn’t prevent herself from urging him on by every means within her power.
And with a raw expletive, Jai suddenly surrendered without warning. He reached for a condom, dealing with it fast before pushing her back and plunging into her so hard and deep that her neck extended, and her head fell back. Her hair tumbled like rumpled silk across the pillows as she cried out at the raw sweet force of that invasion. He rode her like a runaway horse and she angled up to him in feverish yearning, the wild excitement he fired in her shock-waving through her in a storm of response. It was everything she remembered from that first night, the naked, burning, demanding heat of the violent passion that had brought her alive. There was nothing cool about it, nothing scheduled or controlled. It took over, wiped everything else from her brain and it was, she dimly registered, incredibly addictive.
All the lean power that was Jai drove her to an explosive orgasm that went splintering through her and lit up every nerve ending in her trembling body. In the aftermath of what had felt like a hurricane striking and devastating every sense, she was weak.
‘Epic,’ Jai breathed with driven honesty, yet still furious with himself for having failed to meet his own standards yet again and for having fallen on her like an animal. Once again he questioned what it was about her that made everything go wrong when it should have been going right this time around, and that only put him in mind of something else he was keen to discuss. No time like the present, he decided, tugging her into the shelter of his arms and dropping a kiss on her smooth brow.
‘I wish I’d been around when you were carrying Hari,’ he admitted.
Surprise winged through Willow and she was so taken aback she sat up to look down at him while simultaneously thinking how very beautiful he was in the sunlight filtering in through the screen. A five o’clock shadow accentuating his superb bone structure, his extraordinarily light black-fringed eyes intent on her. She swallowed hard. ‘Yes, well, it’s not something we can do much about now.’
‘No?’ Jai pressed. ‘But surely you regret the decisions you made back then.’
Willow stiffened. ‘I’m not sure that I do. I did the best I could at the time, and I believed I was doing what was best for both of us.’
Jai sat up with a jerk, his lean, powerful bronzed body tense. ‘But you were wrong and I missed out on you being pregnant and on Hari’s arrival, not to mention every little change in him during the first seven months of his life!’ he shot back at her with unexpected ire.
Willow breathed in deep. ‘Well, I’m sorry about that,’ she muttered uncomfortably, wondering why on earth he was in such a dark mood.
Jai sprang out of bed. ‘I don’t think you’re one bit sorry for having denied me knowledge of my own child!’ he fired back at her accusingly.
‘Obviously I’m sorry that it upset you but be fair,’ Willow urged, disconcerted by that sudden anger of his. ‘I honestly didn’t realise how much Hari would mean to you or that you would feel so committed to our child once you found out about him.’
‘Had it been left to you I would never have found out about him!’ Jai intoned grimly. ‘And I still don’t understand what I did or said to deserve that treatment.’
Hugging the sheet round her, Willow had turned very pale, registering that she was finally catching a glimpse of the kind of feelings that Jai had, for whatever reason, concealed from her. He was still furious that she had not told him that she was pregnant. ‘It was the way you treated me the morning after that night we spent together,’ she told him honestly, for that was the truth of how she had felt at the time.
‘Nothing I said justifies your silence when you were carrying my child and in need of my support!’ Jai launched back at her without hesitation.
‘I managed perfectly well without your support,’ Willow snapped back defensively. ‘But that morning you condemned me for not telling you that I was a virgin, insisting that you would never have touched me had you known.’
‘That was the truth!’ Jai sliced in ruthlessly.
‘You also said that what we had done was wrong,’ she reminded him stubbornly. ‘And you accused me of still having a teenaged crush on you. I don’t know many women who would’ve wanted to contact a bloke who said stuff like that afterwards.’
‘It was your duty to contact me!’ Jai interposed icily.
But Willow was only warming up, a keen memory of her feelings back then awakened by his censure. In a sudden movement she bodily yanked the sheet from the bed and left it, but only after wrapping it securely round her, and her colour was high. ‘Oh, forget your stupid duty, Jai…it was how you made me feel that ruled how I behaved!’ she slammed back at him. ‘You made it sound like sleeping with me was the biggest mistake you had ever made.’
Jai flung his proud dark head back, his sensual mouth flattening into a thin hard line. ‘It was…’
‘Well then, don’t be surprised that I didn’t get in touch because if that night was such a mistake for you, I was in no mood to tell you that, to add to that mistake, I had also conceived a child that you obviously would not want.’
‘Those are two separate issues,’ Jai objected. ‘My night with you was ill-advised but my child could never be a mistake.’
‘You see how you’re simply changing your wording to make yourself sound better?’ Willow condemned angrily and, although she was always slow to anger, she was very, very angry just at that moment because, once again, Jai was making her feel bad. ‘Why is it so hard for you to accept that you are not the only one of us to have pride? And you humiliated me that morning and made me feel awful. You spent more time talking about my father’s