Amber's Wedding

She froze. Took one look at his sensual mouth and backed away to the shadowy rear of the gallery till her spine hit one of its supporting posts.

‘We—we don’t have to kiss.’ She swallowed as an irrational fear clutched at her vocal cords. ‘Why don’t we just go down into the hall, walk about arm in arm and smile into each other’s eyes?’ she suggested hopefully.

His lifted eyebrow mocked her cowardice. ‘It wouldn’t be enough. It needs to be something passionate and definitive.’

‘P-passionate?’ She stumbled over the word.

‘Come here where you can be seen. And make it look good,’ he insisted sternly. ‘It’s important.’

Fighting the nausea, she tried to fix a smile on her face. ‘Won’t something like that do?’

His eyes flickered with annoyance. ‘If you’re not going to take this matter seriously...’

Her mouth drooped. ‘Oh, it’s serious. That’s why I’m finding it so hard to look carefree. And besides, I hate deception!’ she muttered rebelliously.

‘So do I. But sometimes it’s necessary,’ Jake told her curtly. ‘My body will shield you from view. They’ll see what we’re doing from the angle of my back.’

She hesitated.

‘Do it!’ he ordered.

Too weary, too sick to protest any longer, she stepped forward a pace or two.

‘Wind your arms around my neck, Amber.’

She obeyed and laid her hands on the smooth nape of his neck. Springy black curls did their best to snake around her fingers and she concentrated on them as she stood on tiptoe and he wrapped his arms around her. Her eyes closed tightly.

His cool mouth met hers for what seemed like an eternity. And all she could feel was the nausea, pushing up from her stomach to her throat, threatening her dignity and her pride. So she moaned and tried to draw away, but Jake ruthlessly cupped the back of her head with his palm and drove her mouth deeper into his.

‘Stay with it,’ he muttered harshly against her lips. ‘In my book, passion is supposed to last longer than twenty seconds.’

The kiss went on and on. She held herself tense and unresponsive, willing the nightmare to end. Dimly she became aware of Jake’s hard mouth softening, coaxing her lips more sweetly. And for a dreadful, heart-stopping moment she felt herself responding. Terrified, she pushed at his hard chest and met a wall of steel, which budged not an inch.

It wasn’t a pretend kiss-and-make-up kiss any longer. It had become something else. It was obvious that Jake’s natural sexuality had begun to assert itself. She could feel the melting together of their bodies, the increase of his heartbeat against her crushed breast and the answering clamour of her own pulse.

His hands moved soothingly over her half-naked back and she gave an involuntary shudder of pleasure. Almost instantly, a new and predatory hunger overtook him and his mouth and body drove more confidently into hers.

A spasm of dark despair shot through her. She’d married Jake because he’d said that he’d never touch her. Because of her child, because of the black melancholy she’d felt after her affair and the deep, deep humiliation, she had wanted to stay in limbo, celibate for the rest of her life.

But the unthinkable had happened. Jake wasn’t as indifferent as he had pretended.

Oh, God! she thought helplessly, petrified with horror. Jake had lied to her! He did intend passion to play a part in their relationship—and she was in danger of becoming aroused by him. That was the very last thing on earth that she wanted!

CHAPTER TWO

A BURST of applause sounded in Amber’s ears—laughter too, and murmurs of approval. To her vast relief, Jake broke free, his expression unreadable.

‘Success at last,’ he said huskily. ‘It took long enough to get a response, didn’t it?’ His eyes flickered to hers as if asking a question but she felt too confused to understand what that might be. He gave a wry smile. ‘I thought no one would notice us for a while. I had visions of us locked mouth to mouth for another ten minutes at least.’

Then he turned and laughingly acknowledged their amused guests below as if nothing special had happened between them at all.

Her agitated breathing slowed, though she felt weak, as if he’d stolen all her energy. She licked her softened lips and gave a sigh of thanks. Aware of the tingling of her body, she knew that she had to escape to her room to recover her composure. Now that they’d ‘made up’ publicly, he couldn’t object if she disappeared for a while.

‘Jake,’ she said, her voice still infuriatingly soft with arousal. She looked at him in alarm when he whirled around, smiling.

‘It wasn’t so bad, kissing me, was it?’ His hand lightly touched her hair and she shrank back again into the dark recesses of the gallery, pressing against the rose garlands which hung in swags on the wall. ‘Amber...I think you’re in need of more comfort and affection than you realise,’ he mused, his eyes drowsy and warm.

‘No!’ she managed to say. ‘No, I’m not.’

‘If you say so,’ he murmured, a faint twinkle in his eyes.

How dared he twinkle, when panic was beginning to claw at her stomach? And she had no fight left in her to argue...

‘Don’t patronise me!’ she complained feebly. ‘I didn’t want to be kissed. I didn’t like it. I feel sick. I’m very tired too. That’s why I didn’t stop you when I wanted to.’

‘I see,’ he drawled lazily.

Amber passed a weary hand over her forehead. There had been too many emotional dramas, too many tears, too much for her to cope with. She’d never whined or whimpered before, but right now she felt like doing just that.

‘I’ve had enough,’ she said plaintively, her voice near to breaking. ‘I’m at the end of my tether with everything that’s happened to me recently. I’m falling apart—’

She stopped her muttered litany because Jake strode towards her and caught both of her shoulders in a firm grip. ‘Shape up, Amber!’ he advised sternly. ‘If you’re going to feel sorry for yourself then you’ll never get through the next few hours.’

‘Don’t bully me! Go away!’ she complained, dreading it all.

‘I can’t. We’re married, remember?’

‘But not welded together!’

‘As good as, for the next hour,’ he pointed out.

‘No. I’m quitting now—’

‘You can’t,’ he said patiently. ‘Not yet. First I have to get something clear. And then you must give a convincing performance to all and sundry. I want there to be no doubt about your feelings for me.’

She gulped. No more kissing, though, no more touching, she thought. She didn’t think she could bear it. ‘That—that kiss was enough to convince people, surely? Jake, you can’t ask me to do that again—’

‘It depends on how well you act the loving bride,’ he told her flatly. Amber gave him a puzzled look. He sounded...bitter. ‘In a moment, you’ll come down to the hall with me and you will sparkle like the diamonds on your finger. And dance with me as if you would die for me,’ he added with mocking softness.

Feeling hot and giddy again, she tried to move to the chair but the back of her dress seemed to be caught somewhere at the waist. ‘Oh, Jake—I’m trapped!’ she cried in dismay, twisting to see where and how. And she wanted to cry tears of angry frustration. She could feel them filling her eyes, blurring her gaze as she stared miserably up at him.

He slipped his hand around her to investigate. ‘So you are. Impaled on a rose thorn. Life’s full of them, isn’t it?’

There was a heady perfume in her nostrils, a waft of velvety scent as Jake’s arm brushed against the thickly clustered briars. And something else that she was beginning to identify—sharper, warmer...the scent of Jake himself, the scent of man.

His cheek had moved unnervingly close to hers. Amber’s big eyes slanted sideways. Jake’s skin was like warm brown satin. At least, she presumed it was warm. Heat was coming off his body, filling the space between them.

Her heart seemed to be leaping all over the place but she had no idea why, only knew that he disturbed her and that she didn’t feel safe any more.