SARA WOOD - Amber's Wedding

She gulped at the sexual implication. And her skin crawled with fear as she felt herself respond to his powerful masculinity. ‘Don’t condemn me,’ she husked.

‘I don’t. Nature is nature. You can’t hide your needs. Most of the time you shut them away, but one day they’ll surface. You’re uninhibited—’

‘I’m...what?’

‘Forget it,’ he said shortly. ‘I’m sorry I mentioned it.’

A coldness settled around her heart. He’d heard something. ‘Tell me what you mean!’ she demanded hoarsely.

There was a long pause, then, ‘All right. Perhaps then you’ll understand my reservations about you,’ he said grudgingly. ‘At the camp you had quite a reputation: a demure woman with passionate depths. Enzo boasted about you—’

‘Oh, no!’ she groaned.

‘I always walked away when he started talking about you. But once, when I was travelling in a van beside him, in convoy, with hostile gunmen all around, it was difficult to escape his reminiscences. I’m sorry,’ he said shortly, seeing her distress. ‘You did ask.’

Hidden from view in the shadowed corner of the gallery, she covered her face with her hands as her stomach rebelled and she fought valiantly to keep her dignity and not throw up. She was shaking like a leaf, appalled that everyone in the camp had been fed stories about the quality of her performance in bed.

‘Oh-h-h! I feel awful! Go away! Leave me alone!’ she muttered, feeling weak.

‘I can’t. We have a charade to play first.’

‘A charade?’ she echoed morosely.

‘I hurried up here, leaving in mid-conversation,’ he said grimly. ‘They could all see why. I’d been glaring at you and Leo for several minutes, hoping you’d get the message. As far as anyone else is concerned, we’ve had a talk and you’ve explained that there’s nothing between you and Leo. And you’re going to show you’re sorry to have worried me by flinging yourself into my arms and kissing me.’

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—’