Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series

‘Oh God. Milk and honey,’ she thought she heard him mutter as he cupped them both and then rubbed the pads of his thumbs over and over her nipples until she lost control completely and could only hear herself crying out pleadingly to him that she wanted, needed, had to feel the heat, the touch of his mouth against them. ‘Like this?’ he demanded rawly.

But she couldn’t make any response. All she could do was to hold the back of his head in her hands and look down at his dark hair as he lay against her breast and the hot, urgent tug of his mouth on her nipple sent a jolt of sensation hot-wiring all the way from the centre of her breast to the heart of her womb. Instinctively her thighs parted, her body arching, a shocked cry leaving her lips as she realised what was going to happen.

Luke knew it, too. She could tell by the way he was looking at her as he reluctantly released her breast to look into her face whilst he still nuzzled its swollen temptation.

‘This shouldn’t be happening.’ Bobbie hadn’t realised she had spoken the words out loud until she felt Luke’s hands travelling lower down her body. ‘No,’ she protested, but they both knew her denial wasn’t of him or his touch but of her own response to it.

‘Take me now...take me now, Bobbie,’ she heard him whispering hoarsely to her. ‘You know you want to. You know you’re ready to.’

She didn’t make any verbal response. She couldn’t. Both of them were shaking as he removed the rest of their clothes, and when she saw him looking at her, Bobbie wanted desperately to be able to hold on to the moment, to lie proudly beneath his gaze, all female. She wanted to have the time to do her own share of gazing, to subject his naked body to as uninhibited and erotic a scrutiny as he did to hers, but she couldn’t. Quite simply, they didn’t have the time. She didn’t have the time and the feeling that engulfed her as she saw that he was ready for her turned the whole of her insides to liquid heat.

His first thrust made her clench her teeth to try to stop herself from grinding them together in frustration, it was so slow and careful.

She wanted to urge him to move faster, deeper, to ride the wave of her desire for him as it crested but then she forgot what it was she had been about to say...to demand... as he started to thrust once more, swiftly, deeply, once, twice and then again, and just as she was beginning to pick up his rhythm, returning to his earlier slower movement.

It was torment, torture, an unbearable white hell of sensation so acutely pleasurable that she wanted to scream with the exquisite ecstasy of it. But quite simply, there wasn’t time. Even as she opened her mouth the wave broke, sending them both crashing through the foam-speckled, churningly fierce, white-water rapids of their mutual desire.

She heard Luke cry out, the sound of a man in mortal agony or immortal ecstasy, and then, shockingly, shudderingly, it was over.

When Bobbie opened her eyes, the bedroom was in darkness. It took her several seconds to remember where she was and why. She had fallen so quickly and so deeply asleep after...after...afterwards, that her body was still curved with feminine vulnerability next to Luke’s. Not that she could have moved away from him even if she had wanted to, at least not without waking him up, because one very powerful male thigh—one very powerful, naked male thigh—was thrown across her body, anchoring her to the bed and to him.

Even though she hadn’t moved, something must have alerted Luke to the fact that she was awake because suddenly she felt the change in the tempo of his warm breath against the nape of her neck. His hand stroked slowly down her naked arm and then up again, coming to rest against her bare breast. Tiny quivers of sensation flooded her body, tiny pinpoint darts of pleasure emanating from the vulnerable place below her ear that he was caressing so slowly and deliciously with his mouth.

‘Turn round,’ she heard him instructing her softly. ‘I want to kiss you properly.’

This time the build-up was more leisurely, the caresses he bestowed on her body and she on his, with both their hands and their lips, more intimate and prolonged, but the final outcome was the same—an explosion of white-hot passion that engulfed the two of them, causing them to cry out and cling to one another as the full flood of their shared need ripped through them both.

CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_0c638e95-63fb-5552-9147-9394a799d6ad)

THE next time Bobbie opened her eyes, it was daylight and she was on her own. As the memories of the physical intimacy and oneness they had shared and the emotional intimacy and commitment they had not came back to her, she closed her eyes and wept silent tears of pain and grief. Pain for the hurt she knew lay ahead of her, and grief for the loss, the stillbirth, of the love she knew she could simply never allow to exist and that certainly did not exist for Luke.

The neatly embroidered, entwined initials on the pillowcase caught her eye. Carefully she traced them with the tip of her finger, the same gently stroking touch of exploration she had used on Luke’s body last night.

This bedlinen had been embroidered by a long ago Crighton bride. A Crighton bride! That was something, someone, she would never be. Hot tears burned the back of her eyelids. Where was Luke? She must not let him see her like this and suspect what she was feeling.

What she was feeling... What was she feeling? Did she really need to ask herself? Hadn’t her reaction to him, to last night, already told her, forced her to confront the truth she had been avoiding and trying to suppress virtually from the moment they met? She was in love with him; she loved him.

She closed her eyes and swallowed hard, a small sound of anguish bubbling in her throat. No, not that, she couldn’t, she must not... Where was her pride? Her self-respect, her sense of self-worth and self-preservation?

And where, too, was Luke?

The flat felt oddly empty. But surely he wouldn’t have left her here alone to make her escape.... Not after what he had said to her yesterday. Not after the threats he had made, the fury he had exhibited.

Cautiously she swung her legs out of the bed, and wrapping the duvet around her to cover her nudity, she padded over to the bedroom door and opened it.

‘Luke...?’

No answer.

She froze as someone suddenly began knocking urgently on the outer door. Whilst she hesitated, wondering whether or not to answer it, she heard Olivia’s voice calling through the door.

‘Bobbie. Quick, let me in.’

When she unlocked the door, Olivia practically fell through it. She looked flushed and slightly on edge, Bobbie noticed, as though she was excited, and she hardly seemed to register Bobbie’s state of undress or the fact that she was on her own.

‘Look, you’ve got to get dressed,’ she commanded quickly, ‘and please hurry. I can’t explain now.’

‘What...?’ Bobbie started to protest, but Olivia was already urging her back towards the bedroom.

‘No, don’t ask me,’ she said. ‘I can’t explain now. But you must hurry. Please...’

Still hesitating, Bobbie asked her uncertainly, ‘Is this...is it Luke?’

‘This has nothing to do with Luke,’ Olivia answered her, adding in some surprise as she finally realised he wasn’t there, ‘Where is he, by the way?’

‘I don’t know,’ Bobbie replied honestly.

‘Oh well, I’m afraid we haven’t time to wait for him,’ Olivia told her determinedly, ‘even though I know you probably want to.’