Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series

‘Jenny, what’s the matter? Are you all right?’ he asked her anxiously as he unlocked the car door for her.

‘I’m fine, really,’ she replied, then added shakily, ‘It’s … it’s … just that this isn’t right … not for me. I’m sorry, Guy,’ she apologised. ‘I know you’re trying to be kind, to help, but …’

How could she explain to him how alien all this was to her, how barren and empty it made her feel to be out with him instead of with Jon and how she just knew that, no matter how lonely the years ahead might be for her on her own, solitude was infinitely preferable to trying to fill the space she had left in her with another man … even a man as kind and caring as Guy?

‘I … I guess I’m just a one-man woman,’ she told him, trying to force a smile, but she could see from Guy’s expression that he wasn’t deceived. ‘I’m sorry,’ she repeated, then turned away from him to look out of the car window.

Guy grimaced to himself … and longed to be able to retort, Not half as sorry as I am, but forced himself to hold back his bitterness and frustration. This wasn’t how he had envisaged the evening ending at all.

In Chester, Olivia and Saul had finished eating. The restaurant was nearly empty with only themselves and another couple lingering over their liqueurs, reluctant to let the evening end.

‘No, I don’t believe you.’ Olivia laughed, shaking her head as Saul finished telling her an amusing story about one of his company’s overseas clients.

‘It’s true,’ he protested, sharing her laughter. ‘Oh, I almost forgot. I’ve some photographs in my room I promised I’d let Ruth have. Some are of the kids and the others are of her flower arrangements for the party. Perhaps you could deliver them to her for me?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Olivia agreed willingly, adding warningly, ‘I think the waiters are waiting for us to leave, Saul. There’s no one else in the dining room now.’

‘What …?’ Saul looked round and then shook his head in disbelief. ‘I hadn’t realised it was so late,’ he admitted as they both stood up.

Once outside the restaurant he directed her towards the bank of lifts.

‘I’ve never been entirely happy in these things,’ Olivia confessed as the doors closed and the lift started to rise.

‘Mmm. I know what you mean,’ Saul returned, adding teasingly, ‘Not that I would object to being trapped in one with you, Livvy.’

They both laughed as the lift rocked gently to a standstill on Saul’s floor.

‘It’s this way,’ he told her as they stepped out, removing his key card from his pocket as they reached his room. After he unlocked and opened the door he stood back, allowing Olivia to precede him inside. The room was a good size and pleasantly furnished, but then she wouldn’t have expected anything less from the Grosvenor.

The colours and patterns had been carefully chosen to give the room a warm, welcoming look; the queen-size bed, Olivia noticed, had already been enticingly turned down. As she looked at it, Olivia automatically had to stifle a yawn.

‘Tired?’ Saul asked her sympathetically. ‘These past few weeks can’t have been easy for you.’

His warmth and sympathy were in such direct contrast to Caspar’s attitude. Why on earth couldn’t Caspar have been like Saul … sympathetic … understanding …?

‘Livvy …?’ she heard Saul asking.

She shook her head and told him quickly, ‘It’s getting late. I’d better go. If you’ll give me the photographs …?’

‘The photographs? Yes, yes, of course. Now just where did I put them?’ Saul muttered under his breath as he went over to a chest of drawers and started to open the top one.

He had shrugged off his jacket as they entered the room, dropping it casually on one of the chairs, and now as she watched him, Olivia was suddenly and very dangerously conscious of just how very masculine a man he was … of just how well muscled his back was beneath its fine covering of soft white cotton.

‘Now where the hell did I put them?’ Saul was muttering again to himself as he closed the drawer. ‘I know,’ he announced triumphantly, snapping his fingers and turning round abruptly.

Forgetting that the bed was behind her, Olivia stepped back to avoid him, caught her heel in the fringe of the rug she had been standing on and started to fall.

‘Hey, steady,’ Saul warned her as he reached out to help her, but as his fingers tightened protectively around her upper arm his expression suddenly changed, the good-humoured amusement dying out of his eyes to be replaced by an expression, a look, that made Olivia start to tremble slightly, unable to draw her gaze away from his and from the desire it held.

‘Saul …’ she warned shakily.

Olivia could feel her heart beginning to pound. Her knees were on the verge of giving way as she became aware of how Saul was looking at her mouth.

‘Saul, don’t,’ she protested huskily.

‘Don’t fight it, Livvy,’ he told her softly. ‘It’s what we both want, what we both need.’

‘No,’ Olivia objected hoarsely. ‘You just think that because … because of what’s happened, because … because I’m here.’

Saul was still holding on to her, drawing her closer, and weakly she let him.

Very gently he turned her to face him. ‘Livvy, you know …’ and then he stopped, his eyes suddenly blazing with a fierce hunger as he pulled her even closer and then cupped her face in his hands. ‘I should have done this years ago,’ he murmured as he fanned his fingers through her hair, the warmth of his breath whispering against her skin, her mouth. ‘That night when I saw you in the river, then you wouldn’t have said no, would you, Livvy?’

‘Please don’t,’ she protested again, but it was too late. His mouth was already moving urgently against hers and she was responding to it, to him.

She ached so much for this kind of closeness, this kind of physical intimacy, missed it so much…. It felt so good to be held, touched, kissed, wanted.

She closed her eyes and wrapped her arms tightly around him, savouring his warmth, his desire. Her impatient hands began tugging at his shirt. His body felt hard and hot, so very hot beneath her questing fingertips. She heard him groan, felt the groan, his chest vibrating to the growled masculine sound of his arousal as she touched him. His body hair felt silky soft and somehow …

She frowned, some random thought trying to surface past the first thrust of the sensual pleasure that speared through her. She could feel his hands on her body, touching her firmly and yet at the same time almost hesitantly, so that her senses easily recognised that it was not his expertise or his desire that was holding him back but rather his need to have her physical confirmation that his touch was welcome.

Olivia gave it. The exhalation of her soft breath, the tiny half turn so that the palm of his hand rested against her breast, the deliberate opening of her mouth to his kiss were, she knew, all that was needed, all that he was asking of her, all that it took for him to slowly start kissing her throat and then her collarbone as he exposed it to his seeking mouth and then went on to expose her breasts to his seeking, tender hands. He was making no demands on her, imposing no rules, giving rather than expecting to be given.

‘Mmm, Livvy,’ she heard him mouth against her breast, ‘you don’t know how much I’ve wanted this … how much I’ve wanted you.’

She was trembling violently, as much with shocked excitement as with real desire, floating on a protective cloud, buoyed up by the ego-stroking pleasure of knowing she was wanted—desired. Saul’s thumb stroked her nipple and she shuddered frantically in response.

‘Olivia …’

As she focused on him she saw how desire had turned his eyes almost black, enlarging their pupils, his habitual, faintly cynical expression banished, his skin slightly flushed and hot, so hot that when he buried his face between her breasts and started to kiss the soft hollow between them, she could feel his heat.

And all the time he was kissing her, tasting her, he was still talking to her, praising her, his voice thick and slurred with the desire she could feel so potently pulsing from his body.

It was impossible for her to remain immune to that desire … to him; she could feel her own responsive arousal, see it in the way her nipples hardened and swelled provocatively, inviting the eager caress of his lips, his tongue, his mouth, and eagerly responding to them.

Saul had fully shrugged off his shirt, and with the hand that wasn’t holding her, he was struggling with his belt. ‘Help me,’ he begged her throatily. ‘Undress me, Olivia …’

Dizzily Olivia let him take her hand and place it on his belt, her fingers shaking in her response to the sharpness of his indrawn breath and the way his whole body shuddered as her fingertips grazed the bare flesh about his belt buckle.

She tugged at it ineffectually, her hands trembling too much for her to unfasten it properly, welcoming the hard warmth of Saul’s hand as it covered hers, helped and guided her.

His belly was firm and flat, the crispness of his body hair activating the sensitive nerve endings beneath her skin as she touched him and felt his arms tighten around her in response. Closing her eyes, she lifted her face towards him. She had been feeling so besieged and beleaguered lately. It felt so good to be held like this, to be wanted, to have hostility and anger replaced with laughter and warmth.

She let her thoughts and her senses drift as he continued to kiss her, willing herself to ignore everything but the pleasure they were sharing, but deep down inside her a small mournful, grieving voice could not quite be silenced.

Something was wrong. Oh, her flesh, her body, her physical senses might be responding to Saul, welcoming the loving sensuality of his touch as it stimulated them. A part of her might enjoy seeing the heat and the need in his eyes as he looked down at her partially naked body, just as part of her enjoyed looking at him, but something was not quite right. Something was just not there, and as she tried to force herself to respond passionately to his kiss, Olivia knew what it was.

‘Caspar.’