Miranda Lee - A Woman To Remember

At last it was over, and he sank down upon her, feeling sated with pleasure. Yet even in the aftermath there was more pleasure, a sweet intimacy rising between them as her arms stole around him then squeezed, holding him tightly to her flattened breasts. His lips nuzzled her left ear and she sighed her satisfaction with him. He felt deliciously loved and loving, every limb and muscle flooded with a warm and wondrous peace.

He never wanted to leave her, but he had to in the end, though he returned from the en suite bathroom as quickly as possible. He began to see what the Bible meant about man and woman cleaving together to make one flesh. He felt only half a man away from her, already addicted to the feelings she evoked in him.

She was lying on her side watching him as he came back into the room, her position showing the delicious female curve of waist, hip and leg. Her breasts looked swollen, he noted, her nipples still hard, and her eyes were heavy-lidded and incredibly sensuous as they travelled slowly down his body.

His heart kicked over when her gaze drifted down past his navel, having an immediate effect on his till then flaccid flesh. The thought hit him immediately then he should dress and go in search of that chemist before another moment passed, but then she smiled that siren’s smile at him and stretched out a beckoning hand. She drew him down onto the bed beside her and began to caress him with that hand, bringing him to full erection within an amazingly short time.

Transfixed by this sudden reversal of roles, Luke simply lay there, stunned and speechless as she continued to kiss and caress every inch of his body. There was nothing even remotely virginal about her now; everything she did was designed to tantalise and torment him to the point of no return, yet without granting him release.

He knew the enveloping heat of her mouth, the flickering torture of her tongue, the teasing touch of fingers which knew exactly what to do to drive him mad then stop him in midstream.

He tried closing his eyes against the sensations growing within him, and it proved to be a disastrous mistake. For during those seconds of desperate darkness she moved to straddle his hips, taking the full length of his pained hardness deep within her. His eyes flung open on a raw cry of panic, but already she was riding him, green eyes glittering wildly.

‘No,’ he groaned. But weakly. Pathetically.

‘Yes,’ she hissed back. ‘Yes...’

His hands found her hips, and he should have heaved her from his body. Instead he gripped her flesh and urged her on to a stronger, faster rhythm. His own hips began to rise and fall, and it felt incredible.

God, but she was so hot in there. So hot. He could feel his own blood heating even further, racing along his veins like molten lava. The volcano of his desire would not be contained this time. Or controlled. It surged higher and higher with each drumbeat of his madly pounding heart, and then it was erupting, flooding into the already spasming heart of her womanhood, dredging raw groans from his parched and panting lungs.

When the climax had passed, he reached up to bring her down so that he could kiss her, wanting to feel the heat of her mouth as well.

He was startled to encounter the wetness of tears running into the corners. He didn’t know what to say; could think of nothing but to cradle her close, to stroke her back and say whatever came to mind.

‘Don’t cry, darling. Please don’t cry. God, but I can’t bear it. Hush, sweetness. There’s nothing to worry about. Nothing. As I said before, I’m a good guy. And I can see you’re a good girl. We’re good people. Hush, my loveliness. Hush. Go to sleep, there’s a good girl. Yes, that’s it. Go to sleep.’

They both went to sleep... eventually... though Luke took quite a while to come to terms with what had just happened. He hoped he was right. Hoped that she was a good girl. If not, he’d just done the stupidest damned thing he’d ever done in his whole life. Slept with a perfect stranger. Without protection. Then, to top it all off, he’d fallen in love with her...

‘All finished, Mr St Clair.’ The chair snapped upright and the nurse moved to unclip the paper bib around his neck.

Luke’s black eyes blinked open to stare blankly into her smiling face. His gaze went to the clock on the wall. Eleven-fifteen. He’d been at the dentist over half an hour and he hadn’t felt a thing! Unless one counted what had been going on within his head. And his heart.

An impotent rage simmered beneath the cool façade he presented to the dentist and his nurse as he thanked them and said goodbye, and then to the receptionist as he paid his bill. In cash.

‘I hope you enjoy your stay here in Australia, Mr St Clair,’ she said, reminding him that he still sounded like an American.

‘I’m sure I will,’ he returned, trying to keep the grim satisfaction out of his voice. ‘Enjoy’ was probably not the right word, but he had no doubt that this visit was going to be memorable. At last he had a name to put to his obsession. A name and a past. He would leave no stone unturned till he came face to face with the woman who’d haunted him all these months.

And when he did?

God only knew what he was going to do. Be cause he didn’t.

‘Would you mind if I took one of those old magazines with me?’ he asked the receptionist. ‘It has a picture in it of an old friend of mine.’

‘Take it, by all means.’ And me too if you like, her eyes seemed to be telling him.

Unfaithful bitch, he thought as he strode over to the corner table. They were probably all unfaithful bitches, all the beautiful women in this world.

He snatched up the magazine in question, not giving the girl a second glance as he stuffed it under his arm and strode angrily from the room.

CHAPTER THREE

HIS mother was waiting for him in the coffee-lounge, a cup of capuccino in front of her, a jam and cream doughnut to her left, a newspaper to her right and a plastic shopping bag at her feet. She shut the newspaper on Luke’s approach and folded it, frowning up at him as he scraped out the chair and sat down.

‘What’s wrong with you now?’ she said. ‘Couldn’t you get your tooth fixed?’

He resisted the urge to scowl. Five minutes he’d give her, then he’d be off in a taxi to the nearby airport, where he would rent a decent car. He needed his own wheels. And the privacy that went with them.

‘There’s nothing wrong with me,’ he said. ‘I’m fine. My tooth’s fine. The weather’s fine. Life’s fine.’

‘Then why are you still in such a foul mood?’

‘Lord, what is it with you? Do you have some special mother’s antenna that can pick up my mood at twenty paces? I’ve just walked in and sat down. How could you possibly gauge my mood? I hadn’t even spoken when you made your instant judgement.’

‘You were walking cranky,’ came her simplistic but accurate observation.

He couldn’t help it. He had to laugh. There was no hiding anything from his mother. Which reminded him. He slipped the magazine from under his arm onto a spare chair and thought of something to say to distract her.

‘Tell me, Mum. Were you ever unfaithful to Dad?’

‘Heavens to Betsy! What a question!’

‘That’s no answer. That’s an evasion.’

‘I needed a moment to catch my breath. Might I ask what’s brought such a question on?’

‘Well, you’re a good-looking woman. From photographs I’ve seen when Dad married you forty-five years ago you were pretty stunning. Stunning women have temptation put in their way, whether they’re married or not.’

Grace wondered which stunning married woman her son had been getting mixed up with, but tactfully refrained from asking. This time.