Emma Darcy - The Ultimate Choice

'No!' Kelly pushed herself to her feet and caught his arm to make him stand and face her. 'I want you, Justin. More than anything else I want you. Even that afternoon when we first met, I felt it. You felt it too.' Conflicting emotions warred across his face. The grey eyes were shifting seas of terrible turbulence. His hand lifted and curled around her chin, clutching hard. 'Kelly, don't tempt me,' he commanded grimly. 'It's too easy for me to take what you offer. Believe me, we'd both pay far too much for it in the end.'

'You want me,' she argued, fighting for the future they could have together. 'You wanted me to marry you this afternoon,' she reminded him in desperate entreaty.

'I was mad to propose it,' he said vehemently. 'That first day…when I realised who you were… that you were the child I saved… I was drawn to you. There was an affinity. A sense of reparation being made for what had happened before. A woman to share my bed… give me the children I didn't have.' His mouth twisted with self-contempt. 'What a mockery of love! You saved me much embarrassment by refusing my proposal point-blank this afternoon. I don't want to go into it any further, Kelly. It's finished. I no longer care for you.'

'I don't believe that. You do care about me,' she said with passionate conviction. 'Why else would you have come to watch me ride? Why else give me everything I want? You indulge me all the time.'

He shook his head, his eyes bleak and tired now. 'It's all mixed up with the past. Let go, Kelly. Cut free. Be happy in your own way. On your own.'

'And what if my happiness lies with you, Justin?'

Something flickered in his eyes- hope?… desire?-but he ruthlessly closed it off. He forced a smile of dry irony. 'A passing fancy. You'll get over it. The young always do.'

'I'm the same age now as you were when you lost Noni. Look how long it's taken you to find someone else whom you want.'

'Enough!' he snapped at her, his control visibly slipping. 'Go home! Be grateful you've made a lucky escape.'

He wheeled away from her and strode towards the music-room.

'You're running away again!' Kelly threw after him, too pumped up to accept defeat.

He paused and sliced her a venomous look. 'Anyone who doesn't run from disaster is a fool! I won't take any more from you, Kelly Hanrahan. You've given me enough grief to last me a lifetime. Go and jump your horses. Kill yourself. Do whatever you like. I don't care. I won't care!'

He slammed the door behind him as he stalked out of the room.

But he did care. Kelly was in no doubt about that. And the freedom he flung at her was a false thing. She would never be free of him. Nor he of her.

Kelly shook herself out of any acceptance of his rejection and ran after him. She couldn't let him go. Not when he needed her so badly.

He wasn't in the music-room. But Kelly knew this house like the back of her hand. And she belonged here. This house, this place, Justin… they all needed her. She was certain of it.

She swept on through the banquet-room, past the office, and turned into the corridor which serviced the guest wing. He was there… almost at the door of the room where she had given him physiotherapy that first day.

'Justin…'

He turned a ravaged face as she flew towards him. 'No!' he cried, anguished by her persistence. He caught her and almost threw her against the wall, pinning her there away from him. 'Why must you torture me? Haven't I said it all?'

Tears welled up in Kelly's eyes, filling them with luminous appeal. 'I love you. I love you, Justin.'

He bent his head, shaking it as if trying to shake himself free of the burden those powerful words inflicted on him. 'Kelly…' Her name was an agonised rasp.

'Please…' she begged, too distraught to find any more words.

He dragged his head up, his face working with uncontrollable emotion. His eyes burned with the torment of hell. With a rapid violence of movement, he scooped her away from the wall, crushing her against him with one arm as he opened the bedroom door with the other. He whirled her inside, shut the door, and leaned back against it, breathing hard.

'This is madness!' he groaned.

'No,' Kelly breathed, careless of the consequences, knowing only that she had to take the crest of his temptation and ride it through all his defences to the heart of the man. She reached up ant wound her arms around his neck. 'It's what you want… what I want,' she whispered.

'It's wrong…it's wrong. I've got to let you go…' The words panted from him in sharp bursts, but his hands were running over the curves of her hips, her waist, up to the underswell of her breasts ant back again in a restless yearning to touch an‹ possess.

Kelly kissed the frantic pulse at the base of his throat.

An inarticulate cry burst from his lips. His hands clawed through her hair, pulled her head back, and he gave in, his mouth taking hers with a feverish passion that could no longer be denied.

And with the exultation of this triumph Kelly responded with a wild fervour, wanting Justin to forget everything but her and here and now. She wanted to wipe out the memory of Noni, the pain of the past, the differences between them. She wanted this to be the best, the most satisfying, most fulfilling experience in Justin's life…her life…their life together.

She kissed him with all the hunger of her mind and heart and soul, and Justin was irrevocably lost in his need for her, drawn beyond all vestige of control to taste all she offered, to savour it, plunder it, take, know, feel, immerse himself in the wonder of her.

So many times when Kelly had given him physiotherapy, she had wanted to touch him, not in the limited way she had, but to run her hands over the fine muscular tone of his body with sensual pleasure, to explore the firm texture of his flesh, to feel its warmth, its power, its raw masculinity.

She wouldn't let him stop her now. Wouldn't let him stop anything. She slid her hand down to pluck open the buttons of his shirt, felt his chest heave under her touch, thrilled to the rise of his excitement.

He tore his mouth from hers, pulled off his shirt, then slowly, gently peeled her camisole top upwards, his hands capturing her breasts, cupping their tender fullness, softly fondling for several breathtaking moments before he finished removing the flimsy garment.

He pulled her back against him, cried something unintelligible at the first brush of her flesh against his, then crushed her to him in a fierce embrace, showering hot kisses across her hair, rubbing his cheek over their path.

Kelly raked her fingers down his back, tasted the warm skin of his shoulder, rubbed her breasts sensuously against his chest, gloried in their semi- nakedness… man and woman.

Justin lifted her off her feet, carried her to the bed, dragged away her slacks and briefs, tossed her sandals aside. He looked down at her, touched her, his hand quivering across her flesh in hungry desire before he snatched it away to remove the rest of his clothes.

He came to her with all the tense urgency of his need, yet delayed the moment of ultimate intimacy, plunging both of them into a wild exploration of sensation, the heightening of every sensitivity of skin against skin, texture, taste, touch, smell, sliding from one exquisite pleasure into another until stimulation and response peaked at the screaming demand for the total merging of one with the other.

Kelly's whole body convulsed in spasms of melting ecstasy as Justin finally pushed inside her. In that moment she wondered why it was always referred to as a man's act of possession. She knew she possessed him. He was hers. And every full, warm thrust of him was a glorious confirmation that he belonged with her, in her, and the union, could never be sundered now.