‘Don’t—don’t be silly,’ she snapped, but she didn’t trust herself to turn towards him. She was too intensely conscious of the heat of his body behind her, and the faint smell of him, that mingled shaving soap and deodorant, and the musky male scent of his skin.
‘You don’t have to be,’ he continued, and she wondered if he was aware of the effect he was having on her weakened senses. His lips grazed the skin of her knuckles, and she withdrew her hand abruptly, only to regret having done so when his mouth touched the sensitive curve of her nape. ‘Compared to Angie, you’re as ripe and luscious as a peach.’
‘Fat and overblown, is that what you mean?’ retorted Jaime witheringly, desperate to dispel the disturbing intimacy of his words, but Ben was not deterred.
‘You’re not fat, and you know it,’ he said, stepping closer, and Jaime had to press her stomach against the sink to avoid brushing against him. ‘You were never thin. That was one of the things I liked about you. You hadn’t sacrificed shape for style.’
‘Un—unlike—Maura,’ Jaime choked, hoping the mention of his dead wife’s name would bring him to his senses. But it didn’t.
Instead of moving away, his mouth sought the skin at the side of her neck, and although she jerked her head away he bit into the soft flesh. ‘Don’t expect me to make comparisons,’ he said, one hand leaving the unit to curve possessively over her hip. ‘You were the only woman I loved. Let that be enough for you.’
‘You can’t say that—–’
‘I just did.’
‘You never loved me—–’
‘What would you know about it?’
He used both hands then to turn her resisting body to face him, and, although she strained away from him, his hands on her hips made her increasingly aware of his arousal.
‘Ben,’ she began, hoping to reason with him, but something—some frustrated need, perhaps—was fighting her resistance. She wanted to push him away from her. She wanted to escape from the sensual strength of his hands, and rekindle the hatred she knew she should be feeling towards him, but she couldn’t. She didn’t know why. Maybe it was their unfamiliar isolation—the realisation that for the first time since Ben had come back into her life they were really alone. There were no people around them here. No fellow diners at the pub by the river, no Tom in the next room, straining to hear every word they said. Oh, Tom wasn’t far away. Jaime thought she could hear his and Angie’s voices mingling in the garden outside. But, for the moment, they were absorbed with their own affairs. Not with hers.
Ben was looking at her. She could see the darkening heat of passion in his green eyes, and her knees trembled. His lips were slightly parted and the warmth of his breath was fanning her temple. She could feel his awareness, sense his hunger. The throbbing power in his loins was melting every bone in her body, and when he bent his head towards her she didn’t have the will to fight him.
His lips were hot and sensuous, yet, for all that, she sensed the restraint he was putting on himself. She guessed he was aware that if Tom should come and find them in such a compromising position he might ask questions Ben was not prepared to answer. But he couldn’t disguise his need. Between ragged gulps of air he savaged any protest she might have tried to make, and as her opposition waned his tongue plunged urgently into her mouth.
Reality slipped—for both of them. When Ben’s hands moved over her hips and drew her even closer to his taut body, Jaime could only clutch at his shoulders. Her head was swimming, and the consuming desire Ben was communicating narrowed her world to one of needs and sensations. Sanity deserted her entirely when he caressed her buttocks, and when his fingers probed the sensitive cleft between, and used it to part her legs, his thigh riding between them became a vital support.
The blood was pounding in her ears now, deafening her to anything but what was going on in this room. Her fingers encountered the open neck of his shirt, and the warm column of his throat was an irresistible temptation. Almost instinctively, her nails disposed of the buttons at the top of his shirt, and when he released her mouth to take a shuddering breath she pressed her lips to his chest.
His groan was barely audible, but she felt its vibration against her tongue. She guessed he was on the brink of losing all control, and the knowledge of the power she now had over him was a tantalising discovery. The intimacy of their embrace, the speed with which it had developed, and the desperate way he sought her mouth again revealed his weakness. Nevertheless, when he drew her tongue between his lips and suckled on its tip, she was left in no doubt as to her own weaknesses. She wanted this, just as much as he did, and any thought of capitalising on her advantage was lost…
JAIME wondered later what might have happened if Tom hadn’t interrupted them. Although the idea of Ben taking her against the kitchen unit might sound incredible—unbelievable—in retrospect, the fact was they had both been beyond the point of caring what was proper and what was not. The fine veneer of civilisation had been swept away, and its place had been taken by raw, primitive passion.
But some sixth sense seemed to warn Ben of the moment when Tom decided to come and find out what was going on. In less charitable moments, Jaime would wonder if it weren’t a sixth sense honed by years of living on his wits, but at the time she was just grateful for his quick thinking. Without the speed of his reactions, Tom would have surprised them in what could at the very least be described as embarrassing circumstances, and the thought of having to face her son in such circumstances, after what she had said about Ben, was unthinkable.
As it was, she was still struggling to regain her composure when Tom appeared in the kitchen doorway. The fact that Ben had put the width of the room between them before her son could suspect their behaviour was really not enough. Jaime was still reeling from the effects of Ben’s lovemaking, and, although she strove to suppress it, part of her ached from the suddenness of his withdrawal. She noticed that, although Ben appeared to have regained control of his senses, he had dragged his shirt out of his trousers, and thrust his hands into his pockets. The realisation of why he had done so hit Jaime with some force, and a guilty wave of colour stained cheeks that were already burning.
‘Hey…’ Tom’s gaze flicked between them with some concern and, for a second, Jaime thought he had guessed what had occurred. But, happily, her son was still too young to jump to what Jaime believed was a fairly obvious conclusion. Because he had never been exposed to a normal family relationship, Tom still regarded sex as something his generation had discovered, and the idea that his mother might succumb to uncontrollable impulses simply didn’t occur to him. ‘Have you two been fighting over me?’
Jaime heard the breath Ben expelled, and then he straightened his spine with a definite effort. ‘We’ve been—exploring—possibilities,’ he said, and only Jaime understood the real significance of that remark. ‘Nothing for you to worry about.’
‘Is that right?’ Tom turned to his mother. ‘Is it?’
Jaime ran her damp palms over her cheeks. She had to get control of herself, she told herself severely. But her brain felt scrambled, and it was difficult to even formulate a coherent response.
‘I—yes,’ she got out at last. It was letting Tom off the hook, she knew, but just at present she wasn’t in a fit state to take him on.
‘You mean, you’ve sorted things out? About my going to see Uncle Ben?’ Tom could hardly believe his luck. ‘Hey, magic!’
Jaime checked the hair at her nape, and then allowed her hands to slide down the sides of her breasts. It was only when she saw Ben watching her that she realised her actions could be regarded as provocative, and as she