Chapter Nine
The voice in the back of his mind wasn’t subtle. It wasn’t a whisper. It was a shout. Over and over, telling him to stop.
Kissing Rosemary was not the solution here.
It was something he’d sworn they wouldn’t do.
Couldn’t do. It threatened everything he’d predicated this marriage gambit on—that they could approach the raising of their child as two calm, sensible adults, doing what was right for their baby, without letting anything physical get in the way.
It was supposed to be neat. Clean.
Not messy.
But this…it was impossible to fight it. Not right now.
From the second he’d seen her up that ladder, a fuse had been lit.
It had emerged as anger, but it had taken seeing this room to understand that it was so much more complicated.
This room that she’d somehow transformed into a physical embodiment of herself.
It was all lush, soft, feminine and tactile, a space that practically screamed Rosemary Richardson, and all he could think was that he had to make her his.
To make her his in a way he’d never done, because the previous two times they’d slept together had been quick and desperate.
He hadn’t worshipped her body as she deserved.
He hadn’t taken the time to sink into the experience of being with her.
And he shouldn’t now.
He really shouldn’t.
‘Tell me to stop,’ he heard himself ask, tone raspy, pleading with her to be the voice of reason in the midst of this maelstrom.
She pulled back from him, eyes meeting his, cheeks flushed, lips full and dark from the pressure of his kiss. He lifted his thumb and ran it over her lower lip, insides lurching with heat and need.
‘Damn it, Rosemary, we shouldn’t do this.’
She nodded, eyes probing his. ‘I know,’ she said, and he closed his eyes, hating that she was going to do what he’d asked, and put an end to it.
‘It’s not like we haven’t had sex before, you know,’ she said, surprising him by putting her hand on his chest and grabbing his shirt. ‘And it’s not as if pretending each other doesn’t exist is making us want this less…’
The fuse was almost at its end, about to explode. He ground his teeth, willing himself to find some kind of sense in this situation.
‘Maybe what we need is to sleep together properly, and get it out of our systems,’ she said, lifting one shoulder, drawing his attention first there, and then lower, to the way her breasts rose and fell with each breath.
His arousal strained painfully against his trousers. It wasn’t the sense he’d been looking for, but it was a reasonable enough explanation. It was something he could take hold of and cling to.
‘I mean, don’t you think that’s what’s going on here?’ she prompted, her hand making small half-circles over his chest. ‘We just have pent-up sexual energy, because of the whole forbidden fruit thing.’
Yes. Forbidden fruit. That was exactly what Rosemary was—and always had been. He should have known better than to give in to temptation the night of his mother’s wedding. But she’d been so beautiful and, much like now, he’d been completely powerless to resist.
It was not a sensation he enjoyed—powerlessness. He liked control. Predictability. He liked the certainty that the relationships in his life were as expected, because he’d had the rug pulled out from under him once before, and it had changed everything he thought he knew about the world.
‘It’s just sex,’ he heard himself say, desperately trying to find his control in the midst of this mess. ‘It doesn’t change anything between us.’
She rolled her eyes upwards. ‘Obviously.’
Despite the undercurrent of need that was vibrating inside of him, he smiled at her quick, condescending rejoinder.
If possible, he’d found someone who was even more averse to the idea of a happy ending than he was.
Someone who felt every bit as cynical about the safety and security of relationships as him.
Someone for whom sex really could just be sex.
‘Fuck it,’ he groaned, dragging her against him, his body rejoicing in the promise of what was to come. ‘Let’s get it out of our system, Rosemary, and then we can move on with our lives.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed quickly, pushing up onto the tips of her toes and kissing him with the same passion that was threatening to burn him to the ground.
Except even then, as they made that simplistic agreement and promise, from the second he felt her breasts in his hands, he knew it wouldn’t be quite that easy. Rosemary was not someone you simply ‘got out of your system’. She was addictive.
If he’d been thinking, he might have come to the wise conclusion that making love to her would only make him want her more, not less, but he was clutching at the straw she’d offered, clinging to the idea that exposure therapy would cure him of his insatiable need.
She was so soft, so curvaceous. His hands roamed her body like a starving man brought to a banquet.
Though he’d told himself he’d go slowly, and relish the discovery of her properly this time, in reality, his desperation wouldn’t allow it.
He tore at her clothes impatiently, needing to feel her nakedness, to see all of her, and she wrenched his shirt with the same motivation, pushing the buttons apart, and with an impatient growl in his mouth he continued to kiss her like his life depended on it.
The first time they’d had sex, she’d been a virgin.
He hadn’t known it, but if he’d been less senseless with desire, he might have noticed a timidity to her touch, a trembling in her fingers as she’d tentatively traced them across his shoulders and down his back.
The opposite could be said of her tonight.
Now, she touched him as though she couldn’t not, her hands brushing his arms, his back, his chest as though she too was desperate to commit this to memory.
Then she ripped her mouth from his, her breath rushed, as she dropped her lips to his chest and feathered kisses across him, from one nipple to the other, so he groaned and lifted her easily, carrying her across to the sumptuous floral bed and laying her down on it.
He pulled back to stare at her, needing a moment.
It was such a powerfully moving sight. The woman he was to marry, who was carrying his baby, almost naked, against the backdrop of a floral bedspread. She was so incredibly feminine, he almost couldn’t bear it.
But something shifted in her features, a look of uncertainty. Insecurity?
Anger flared to life inside of him, because he knew why.
Her first experience with him might have been satisfying, but for four years afterwards she’d believed that he’d only had sex with her because his stupid friends had put him up to it.
The opposite was true, and now he had a chance to show her how desirable she was.
‘You are perfect,’ he said, shaking his head as he brought his body over hers and kissed her mouth once more, his hands resuming their exploration of her body before sliding into the cotton of her underpants and pushing them down.
He had to break the kiss to complete the job, but he made lemonade out of lemons and dragged his mouth down her body, over her breasts, her gently rounded stomach, and finally, to her sex.
She cried his name into the room and he smiled against her, the craving in her voice something he could get used to. Particularly knowing that it was because of him.
‘Please…’ she whimpered, twisting her beautiful hips on the bed, driven wild by need, so he focused on her most sensitive cluster of nerve-endings until she was coming apart against his mouth, in a flurry of cries and sounds that resembled words but weren’t quite.
And then Aristotle stood, moving to his discarded trousers, removing his wallet and retrieving a condom. Her eyes fell to the small silver square.
‘Don’t you think that’s a little redundant now?’ she asked through spurts of breath, as the pleasure waves still ran through her body.
He considered that. She was right in terms of pregnancy, but there were other reasons to wear one.
‘You are the only person I’ve ever had unprotected sex with,’ he said, knowing that he was clean.
She nodded. ‘Same.’
He dropped the condom to the floor, suddenly hungry beyond bearing to take her and make her his. To feel himself buried inside her, with no barrier between them whatsoever, just as it had been last time. But so much better now, because this wouldn’t be rushed. It wouldn’t be against a damn wall.
He strode towards the bed, then froze at the foot of it, staring down at this woman as a thousand kaleidoscope images filtered through his mind, reminding him forcibly of who she was.
Not just the woman he was going to marry for the sake of their baby.
But a woman he’d known for a long time. Who was beloved by his mother.
Who could see through him and read him like a book.
A woman he had to be careful not to let close—he’d always known that about her.
He’d always felt the danger she posed, with those assessing eyes and thoughtful face.
But she was also a woman he couldn’t ever hurt.
The stakes were too high, the consequences too real.
‘Rosemary—’ he said, but she lifted her hand then, reaching for his, pulling at him to join her, and every presentiment of disaster was instantly dispelled. They were two consenting adults and they knew what they were doing.
Sleeping together to get rid of this electrical storm of desire, once and for all.
The first time he’d made love to her had woken Rosie up to the concept of sexual pleasure. It had rocked her world, in fact. The second time had been so much more, because she had no longer been a virgin. She’d been as much in control as him.
But this was completely different.