A Passionate Affair

‘You were touching me.’ She made a grab for the duvet, horrified that he had been making love to her without her knowledge. Bringing the cover up to her chin, she eyed him hotly. ‘That’s despicable.’

He was sitting on the side of the bed and made no effort to deny the charge, merely smiling slowly as he said, ‘You taste the same, like warm honey.’

Her heart was racing, less with anger than the pleasure his hands and mouth had called forth so effortlessly, which was still sending needles of desire into every pulse. ‘You’re the lowest of the low.’

‘Why? Because I like to touch and look at my wife?’

‘You knew I was asleep.’ She glared at him, refusing to acknowledge how the smell and feel of him affected her. ‘That’s as bad as a peeping Tom.’

‘Maybe.’ If he agreed with her it didn’t bother him an iota. ‘But you looked so tempting lying there, and I’ve never pretended to be a saint. Mortal man can only take so much when confronted with Aphrodite at—’ he consulted the gold Rolex on his tanned wrist ‘—eleven o’clock in the morning.’

‘What?’ The mention of the time deflected her wrath, as he had known it would. ‘It can’t be eleven o’clock.’ She made a move to spring out of bed and then remembered she was naked. ‘Why didn’t someone wake me, for goodness’ sake? I have a meeting first thing this morning, and a report which has to be on Jeff’s desk by noon. I can’t believe—’

‘Calm down.’

It was the last straw. He could sit there as calm as a cucumber—or was it as cool as a cucumber? She couldn’t remember now, but it was all the same—and act as though she should be pleased to discover she was hours late for the office. ‘Where are my clothes?’ she asked stonily, forcing herself not to give way and yell at him.

‘In Hannah’s tender care. She thought your suit needed pressing. Of course you have a wardrobe full, still in our room,’ he reminded her innocently, before adding, ‘How’s the head this morning?’

‘Fine. I told you last night, it was just a headache. If you had let me walk home—’

‘You wouldn’t have made it. Not with all the stuff you’d pumped into yourself.’

He made her sound like a drug addict, and she resented it bitterly—that and the fact that he was right. She looked into his face now and saw he was watching her intently, his eyes like polished amber, with a disturbing gleam at the back of them. She swallowed, feeling hot and flustered. ‘Thank you,’ she said grudgingly, ‘for taking care of things.’

‘My pleasure.’ The carved lips twitched a little.

‘But I need to phone the office and explain why I’m late.’

‘You aren’t late. You’re having the day off because you are ill, probably because they are working you too hard. I phoned and spoke to Jeff first thing.’

She stared at him, her expression altering as she absorbed his words. ‘You had no right to do that.’ Her voice rose with her indignation. ‘Not without asking me first.’

‘You were asleep,’ he pointed out mildly, ‘and I thought you’d just thanked me for taking care of things?’

‘This is different.’ She wished he would stand up and move away. It was more disconcerting than she could express having him sitting inches away from her, fully dressed, when she was stark naked under the questionable protection of the bedcover.

‘You would rather have let them think you just hadn’t bothered to call in?’ he asked with a puzzled frown.

She counted silently to ten. ‘What exactly did you say?’

‘Exactly?’ He shut his eyes for an infinitesimal moment, as though he was trying to recall the conversation, but Marsha was not fooled. That computer brain forgot nothing—ever. ‘Merely that you were taken ill last night and would not be fit to work today. I said I would phone before five this evening with an update,’ he added helpfully.

Great. Just great. Now Jeff would be thinking all sorts of things—mainly about whose bed she had spent the night in—and she really couldn’t blame him. Would he be discreet? She was not sure.

‘Stop frowning.’ His deep husky voice had laughter somewhere at the back of it, although the chiselled face was perfectly serious. ‘You’ll have wrinkles before you’re thirty at this rate.’

‘I have some already,’ she snapped back curtly. And the odd grey hair, although she was not about to point that out.

‘Not that I can see.’ He bent forward on the pretence of looking more closely, invading her air space with the warmth and scent of his body.

The muscled strength that padded his chest and shoulders was very apparent under the thin silk of the shirt he was wearing, and Marsha had to force herself not to wriggle back against the pillows.

She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing how much he bothered her, she told herself furiously. But she wished she had had time to at least brush her teeth and wash her face before he had decided to come in. She tried to stop looking at his mouth. It was a very sexy, cynical mouth, and had always had the power to make her bones melt.

‘If you would like to tell Hannah I’m ready for my clothes, I can at least make an appearance before lunch and work on the report for this afternoon,’ she said stiffly.

‘I wouldn’t—like to tell Hannah, that is,’ he said without moving an inch.

‘Taylor, I’m going into the office today.’

‘Marsha, you are not.’

His use of her Christian name warned her that, however calm and laid-back he appeared, he meant business, as did the glint in his eyes.

‘This is quite ridiculous. You can’t keep me here against my will and—’

Anything else she might have said was swallowed up as his mouth came down quickly on hers, a deft turn of his body bringing his hands either side of her slim shape as he pinned her beneath him. She wriggled and tried to fight him, only to realise that any movement brought the duvet dangerously close to slipping right down her body. She stopped squirming and immediately the kiss became subtly deeper, his mouth and tongue doing incredible things to her.

Heat was racing through her bloodstream and she felt the length and power of his arousal, her nerve-endings becoming sensitised as he moved his hips over her shape in a way which forced her to recognise his dominance. But his mouth was all persuasion. He probed, he sipped, he nipped, moving down from her lips when he felt her trembling submission and heard the little moans she couldn’t hide, to rain burning kisses on her throat, her neck and the smooth silky skin beneath.

Her breath caught in her throat as he peeled the cover back enough to expose the twin peaks of her breasts, his hands cupping and shaping the engorged flesh and his thumbs teasing her nipples into hard life even as his mouth took her gasps.

‘I want to eat you alive.’ His voice was a husky growl. ‘Do you know that? Devour you…’

She had missed him so much. Even as the thought took shape a polite knock sounded on the bedroom door. ‘Hannah.’ With a sound deep in his throat, which could have been a groan or a sigh, Taylor straightened up, moving the cover up to her neck as she just stared at him dazedly. ‘You were supposed to be drinking that—’ he indicated a now cold cup of tea on the table at the side of the bed ‘—while she prepared your breakfast.’

As the knock came again, he said, ‘Okay if she comes in?’ brushing back a lock of her hair which had tumbled across her face as he spoke.

‘Of course.’ She jerked her head away from him, humiliation and self-contempt making her voice sharp. He clicked his fingers and she came to heel like an obedient puppy—was that what he was thinking? Why on earth had she allowed him to kiss her like that, caress and touch her? Why hadn’t she resisted more forcefully?

His eyes narrowed slightly at the tone of her voice, but other than that he gave no sign that he was aware of her discomfiture, merely rising from the bed before he called for Hannah to enter.

Hannah fussed and babied her as she plumped the pillows for her patient and settled the tray on the invalid’s lap, but Marsha didn’t mind the other woman’s attention. Hannah had been widowed in her native Jamaica after only fifteen months of marriage, the shock of her husband’s death through drowning, when his fishing boat had been sunk in a storm, bringing on the birth of their first child over two months early. The baby, a little girl, had lived for an hour, and had been buried in her father’s arms.

Hannah had told her the story one afternoon, shortly after Marsha had got engaged to Taylor, adding that for a long time afterwards she had—in her own words—gone a little crazy. Then, due to her youngest sister marrying a rich American, Hannah had been given the chance to move to the United States and take up residence in her brother-in-law’s home when his housekeeper had walked out after a row with the new wife.

It had been a way of escape from the downward spiral of depression and increasingly strong medication, and Hannah had taken it, only to find she could fully sympathise with the previous housekeeper when she had worked for her sister for a little while. But she had stuck with the only chance she’d had of making a new life, and in due course, when the husband had entertained Taylor for a few days—the two men having met through a business deal years earlier and consequently become friends—had got to know the young Englishman.

When Taylor had offered her employment in England—with the blessing of her brother-in-law, who was getting increasingly irritated by the two sisters’ altercations—Hannah had accepted on the spot, and the rest, as Hannah had said, was history. And whilst Taylor strongly objected to any attempts of Hannah to mother him, Marsha had instantly recognised the need the other woman hid beneath her bustling exterior. The housekeeper was the sort of woman who should have had a houseful of children to keep her busy, and as the affection between the older and younger woman had grown Hannah had made no bones about the fact that she was longing for the day when the patter of tiny feet would occur.

Once they were alone again, Taylor raised wry eyebrows at Marsha. ‘She’s as pleased as punch you’re here.’

Marsha said nothing. She was half sitting up in bed, with the tray balanced on her lap and the duvet wrapped round her. She needed the loo, and she wanted to put something on before she ate, neither of which could be sorted until Taylor left.

If nothing else, Taylor was intuitive. ‘You would prefer me to leave you in peace?’ he said easily, apparently not in the least put out.

‘Yes, please.’ She was not about to mince words.

‘Pity.’ The tawny eyes touched her lips for a second, causing her flesh to tingle. ‘You used to enjoy breakfast in bed with me.’

Memories of those times, when the coffee had invariably got cold along with the food whilst they’d indulged in a different sort of nourishment, brought the heat to her cheeks, but she managed a brittle smile. ‘You’ve already eaten,’ she pointed out evenly, ‘and those times are in the past.’

‘True.’ He let his gaze sweep over her again. ‘But only for the moment.’

‘I don’t think so, Taylor.’

‘I know so.’ His smile was confident and infuriating. ‘We are man and wife, and I’m damned if I’ll let some sick bozo smash everything. I was hoping you’d come to see the truth for yourself, but that was asking too much. No matter.’ He moved closer to the bed, leaning over her with one hand on the headboard. ‘You’ve proved you are more than capable of surviving without me, Fuzz. Okay? Now you can choose to be with me because you want to be. And you do want me, like I want you.’

He bent down, and she gave herself over to his kiss even as she berated herself for flirting with the danger of becoming vulnerable.

It only lasted for a few moments before he straightened, his voice cool as he said, ‘Now, eat your breakfast, like a good wife, and put any thought of going into work out of your head. We are spending the day together, all right? I’ve put a very lucrative business deal on ice because of you, not to mention a couple of meetings and a discussion with my accountant.’

‘Am I supposed to be grateful?’ She eyed him hotly.

He smiled again and reached for her left hand, raising it to his lips as he kissed her ringless third finger. ‘You might have discarded the visible evidence of our union, but you can’t discard what is in here—’ he touched the area over his heart ‘—so easily, my love. I know you. You’re in every nerve and sinew, every breath.’

She snatched her hand back, her cheeks fiery. ‘Then you should know I’m not the type of woman to accept adultery as part of the marriage contract,’ she bit out furiously.

‘I would never have married you if you were.’

Marsha stared at him. There was no mockery and no hesitation in his voice, and the questions which had risen to the surface after Nicki had expressed her doubts over the validity of what Susan had told her flooded in again.

Her fingers tightened briefly on the tray before she told herself not to be so silly. Susan had no reason to lie, not one. And Tanya was beautiful. Beautiful and clever and— And married? But that didn’t mean anything. Taylor’s secretary had not been married at the time she had been told of their affair; that was the point she had to concentrate on here.

‘I’ll make you eat every word of accusation, Fuzz. I promise you that.’ There was darkness in his face now, and for a moment she felt a dart of fear. ‘But that’s nothing to what I’ll do to the person who fed you such garbage. The mind games stop today, do you hear me?’

‘Mind games?’ She didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

He held her gaze for ever, until finally his square jaw released its tight clench. ‘Eat your breakfast,’ he said silkily. ‘We’ll talk later.’

And he turned and left the room.

Once Marsha had visited the en suite bathroom, pulling on one of the guest robes hanging on the back of the door before she left the gleaming marble surrounds, she found to her absolute amazement she was ravenous.

She demolished the plateful of eggs, bacon and sausages, the two slices of toast and blackcurrant preserve and the pot of coffee the breakfast tray held in indecent haste, before sinking back against the bedhead and staring straight ahead.

A bath. She nodded at the thought, refusing to think of Taylor until she was clean and groomed again. The tiny shower room in her bedsit was all very well, but a long warm scented bath would be sheer heaven, and if ever she had needed a touch of heavenly comfort it was now.

It was five minutes later, when she was engulfed in a sea of perfumed bubbles and trying to empty her mind of everything but the pleasure her body was experiencing, that she suddenly sat up with enough force to send water slopping over the side of the bath. Why hadn’t Taylor placed her in their bed last night? She had been out of it, she admitted, and hardly in a position to resist any overtures on his part, so why hadn’t he taken advantage of the situation? Not that he would have forced himself on her when she was unwell, she didn’t think that for a moment, but if she had been in their bed then this morning would have been a different kettle of fish entirely. To wake up beside him…

She sank down again, a frown crinkling her brow as she pondered the thought. When she had left him she had left practically every article of clothing and every personal item she possessed, and from what he had intimated this morning her clothes, at least, were still all in place. He could have used that as an excuse to have her in his bed. Not that Taylor had ever needed an excuse for something he wanted to do, she reflected acidly.

She raised one foot from beneath the foam, studying her scarlet-painted toenails thoughtfully. If they had woken up together the inevitable would have happened; he must know that. She had never been able to resist him, and he was fully aware of his sexual power.

Another half an hour of rumination brought her no nearer to an answer other than the obvious one—he hadn’t wanted her to share their room again. As she rose from the now cool water she refused to let the idea hurt. They would no longer be married in a few weeks’ time, and once she left this house today she would make sure she never set foot in it again. She didn’t understand Taylor Kane, she had never understood him, and she wasn’t about to waste any more time trying.

She flexed shoulders which should have been relaxed after the amount of time she had been lying in the water but were taut and tense, and then proceeded to dry herself with a big fluffy towel. It was as she was smoothing scented body lotion on every inch of skin that she stopped suddenly, gazing into the mirror in front of her. She needed to talk to Susan. Her heart began to thud as she accepted the notion which had been hammering away at the door of her mind ever since Nicki had expressed her doubts about the other woman’s motives.

A sound from the room outside, and then a knock on the en suite door jerked her out of her musing. She whipped the bath towel round her, folding a smaller one turban-style round her wet hair, before padding across and opening the door.

‘Hi.’ Taylor smiled at her. ‘I was beginning to think you’d drowned in there.’

‘It was nice to have a bath for a change.’ And at his raised eyebrows she explained, ‘I only have a shower at home.’

There was a quick, almost imperceptible change in his expression. ‘This is your home.’

Marsha brushed past him, ignoring the swift reaction of her body to his nearness. She paused in the middle of the bedroom, turning to face him as she said, ‘Are my clothes ready now?’

‘No.’ He offered no more explanation before he said, ‘But, like I said earlier, you have a wardrobe full of things in our room. Come and select what you want to wear.’

She stiffened. It was bad enough being in her old home in one of the guest rooms; she didn’t know how she would handle entering the room where they had enjoyed so many hours of love and tenderness and passion. But she couldn’t let him see that. He would regard it as weakness and play on it accordingly. ‘Fine.’ She raised her chin and aimed a level stare.

Taylor’s mouth twitched. ‘Personally, I think you look great in what you’re wearing now,’ he said easily, his eyes going to her head. ‘Sort of… eastern, harem-like.’

Marsha ground her teeth at the implication. No doubt he would just love to have his own little bevy of beauties dancing at his beck and call, but she was blowed if she’d be one of them. ‘I hardly think a handtowel wrapped round one’s head deserves such a comment,’ she said coolly.

‘Perhaps not.’ He tilted his head, and now the amusement crept into his eyes. ‘But a man can dream, can’t he?’

She had no intention of continuing down this path, and she wished she had taken the time to put the towelling robe back on when he had knocked. It was infinitely more reassuring than a towel. Battling a number of emotions, none of which were clear, she said, ‘My clothes?’

‘Of course.’ He turned, opening the bedroom door and then bowing slightly. ‘When you’re ready, ma’am.’

Even though she had prepared herself for the moment when Taylor opened the door to their bedroom, Marsha felt something akin to an electric shock travel down each nerve-end as she entered the big spacious room. The windows had been flung wide open, and the scent of lavender from the grounds below was sweet. Her eyes were drawn to the huge bed which dominated the cream and coffee-coloured room, but she forced herself to remain blank-faced as she marched across to her walk-in wardrobe.

Everything was just as she had left it, she noticed, down to the last pair of shoes on the racks below her clothes—and the perfume she had worn during her marriage—a madly expensive extravagance first bought on honeymoon—still lingered in the air.

She swallowed hard, keeping her back to the room as she selected a light pair of trousers and a short-sleeved top, along with a bra and pair of panties. There were several pairs of sandals at one end of the wardrobe, and she chose a low-heeled style suitable for a working day. She still intended to go into work that afternoon, but she wasn’t about to announce it again until she was ready to leave.

‘Thank you.’ After closing the wardrobe door she nodded at Taylor, who was leaning against the far wall, strong muscled arms crossed over his chest and a faintly brooding expression on his face. ‘I’ll see you downstairs, shall I?’

‘What do you feel? Coming in here again, I mean.’

‘What?’ He had taken her completely by surprise. Her eyes flickered with momentary panic, quickly controlled. She shrugged carefully. ‘It’s a beautiful room,’ she said steadily.

‘That’s not what I asked,’ he countered coolly.

‘How do you think I feel?’ She found herself glaring at him now and warned herself to tread warily. No show of emotion, no challenges. ‘A little sad, I guess,’ she added quickly.

‘A little sad?’ Something flashed in his eyes at her words. ‘A little sad as in having your guts torn out by their roots, or the sort of feeling you would have when watching a weepy movie?’

‘Taylor, I don’t want to do this.’

‘Tough.’ He took a step nearer and instinctively she brought the clothes up to her chest. ‘We’ve done it your way all through this and where have we got?’ His eyes locked on hers, anchoring her to the spot. ‘I want to know what you are thinking for once, damn it. All through our marriage—right from when we met, in fact—I’ve had to pull what you’re thinking out of you like a dentist extracting a tooth. I’m sick of it.’

She stared at him, her eyes hot as her temper rose. ‘I didn’t ask you to bring me here,’ she shot at him furiously, ‘and if you’re so sick of me, wouldn’t it be best for both of us if I left right now?’

‘As always, you don’t hear what I’m saying.’ He reached her in one fluid movement, gripping her shoulders as he said, ‘I’m sick of the lack of communication, not you. There’s a difference there, if you’d open your eyes to see it. I never wanted a clinging vine who couldn’t say boo to a goose and lived in my shadow, but you’re something else. It’s like there’s an invisible wall round you, and however high I climb I never get to the top. You’ve never really let me in, have you? Not in all the months we were together did I ever feel I’d breached the guard you keep round the real you.’

‘And that’s why you slept with Tanya?’ she flung at him bitterly. ‘Because I didn’t fall at your feet and worship you like all the others?’

‘Give me strength! Listen, woman, will you? This is about me and you, not Tanya or anyone else. From the day I met you I’ve never looked at another woman. You’re enough—more than enough,’ he added scathingly, ‘for any man to handle.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘No, and do you know why you accepted those lies about me and our marriage so easily? Because you are frightened of the truth.’

‘You’re crazy,’ she said harshly, aware she would have bruises where his hands were gripping her.

‘About you? I must be, to put up with all this stuff and nonsense. You are petrified of letting go and giving me everything. That’s the crux of all this. If you trust me absolutely I’ll let you down—that’s what you’ve told yourself from day one. And then, surprise, surprise, you were told exactly what you were waiting to hear—I’d fallen from grace. I was having an affair. It must have been music to your ears.’

‘That’s a hateful thing to say.’

‘But this is Taylor talking, remember? The low-life, the scum who was fooling around just eighteen months after he had promised to forsake all others for the rest of his life.’

‘You’re hurting me.’ She was rigid and as white as a sheet under his hands.

‘Damn it, Marsha.’ His muttered oath had all the power of a shout, and she almost winced before she controlled herself. But he had released her.

He stepped backwards a pace or two, as though he didn’t trust himself not to take hold of her again, and then, slowly and deliberately, he slipped his hands into his pockets. ‘You still believe, without a shadow of a doubt, that I’m guilty as charged?’ he asked in a flat grim tone which frightened her far more than his rage.