'You don't know how I feel,' she said desperately. 'Every time I try to tell you you walk away, and I don't blame you, not after what I thought. But you have to listen.'
'I didn't understand before—about you loving me, I mean. I thought you were talking about Maisie, not me. You never made it plain. You never said,' she added breathlessly as she tried to fight the sobs that were constricting her throat. 'You'd said at the beginning that you wanted me because I was suitable, that you wanted children, but you never said you cared about me, I know you wanted me physically but then I started to care about you and it wasn't enough. I could see how you were with Maisie—so gentle and protective…'
'Joe was ripping her apart,' he said gruffly without turning his head. 'She was an emotional mess.'
'I now that now.' She was frantic. 'But at the time, when you admitted there was someone you loved, it seemed only logical that it was her.'
'Katie, I don't believe you.' He took a deep breath and tried to raise himself but she was a limpet round his neck. 'I've seen the way you look at me, for crying out loud. If all this is through some misguided sense of pity—'
'I won't let you go,' she said brokenly. 'I won't. I love you; I'll always love you even if you hate me. I loved you when we made our marriage vows and they meant exactly what they said to me.' Her arms tightened around him as she covered his neck in desperate, frantic kisses and when he stood he raised her with him, her arms clinging round his neck.
'Let go, Katie,' he said softly. 'This is doing neither of us any good.'
'No, you have to stay with me.' She began to sob even as she fought to stay in control. 'If you leave me, if you make me go there will never be anyone else for me, Carlton. I'll grow old all by myself and I've been by myself so long…' Her voice ended in a wail that wasn't in the least attractive but there was nothing she could do about it.
As he loosened her hands from about his neck, forcing her arms apart as he turned to face her, she couldn't see his face for the tears blinding her eyes. But he was going to go. That thought was uppermost and with it went the last of her fragile control. 'Don't you dare leave me!' she stormed through her sobs. 'Don't you dare. I can't live without you—'
'Shush, my formidable little wife, shush…' And suddenly, miraculously, she was held close to his hard, strong body as he joined her on the bed, pulling her to him as he kissed the hot, salty tears before taking her mouth in a deep, long kiss,
parting her lips and exploring its full sweetness with his tongue. 'No more. No more tears.' His hands cupped her face as he raised himself slightly to look down into her drowning eyes, his voice husky and not quite even.
His hands moved over her body slowly and sweetly and he kissed where they lingered, his lips warm and sensual as they made her nerves quiver and melt with a flood of tiny, intimate caresses that were delicate and skilfully erotic.
There wasn't an inch of her body that he left unexplored, his hands and mouth taking their time as they slowly brought her to fever pitch, and then the need was raging, overpowering, taking control of her thoughts and senses and burning away the agony of the previous twenty-four hours with its fire. And for the first time endearments and sweet, intimate phrases of love were spoken as they touched and tasted and enjoyed.
As molten fire burnt in the moist, warm centre of her being her body began to tremble and shudder for the release only he could give, and he moved over her, entering her fiercely and possessively, murmuring her name against her lips, and the universe shattered into a million blinding fragments for them both.
When it was over he held her close for a long, long time without speaking, stroking her hair as she lay entwined with him, her eyes shut and her mouth content. 'Don't leave me!' Her voice was urgent and intense when at last he stirred, her eyes opening wide and shooting to his to read his expression, displaying her vulnerability for him to read.
'I wouldn't dare.' His lazy smile held both tender amusement and rueful wistfulness as he kissed her mouth gently. 'I can't remember the last time I was shouted at like that. You have no respect for your husband, Mrs Reef.'
'Carlton?' She nestled into his shoulder, wrapping her legs round his as though to anchor him to her side forever. 'You believe me? You aren't going to send me away?'
'I don't think I would have been able to let you go in the final analysis, Katie.' The dark face was very serious. 'It does me no credit but the thought of another man touching you makes me want to commit murder.' She moved to look into his face and saw that he wasn't joking.
'I don't want any man to touch me but you,' she said lovingly, her fingers tracing an idle path across the strong, muscled chest. 'I do love you, Carlton. I never want to face another twenty-four hours like the last—'
His mouth descended on hers with a passionate ferocity that stopped further talk, and her desire rose to meet his, her response without inhibition now that she knew she had his heart as well as his body. They soared into a timeless, enchanted world of their own where there was no yesterday or tomorrow, only the present in all its richness. And this time their union had a sweetness, a depth that was like nothing she had ever imagined.
'I wonder if we just made a baby?' She was still enfolded in his arms and now the night sky was dark and strewn with a million tiny, sparkling pinpoints of light, the bedside lamp at the side of Carlton bathing the room in a rosy, subdued glow that gave their naked bodies the texture of silk.
'I hope not.' His words startled her and in spite of the reassurance of the last few hours she raised her head sharply to look into his eyes, relaxing when she saw that they were lit with a soft, tender warmth that melted her bones. 'I'm selfish enough to want you all to myself for a while,' he admitted softly. 'You've married a very possessive man, my love.'
'I know.' She sighed happily. 'Tell me again when you first fell in love with me.'
'Little toad…' He turned her over and slapped her rounded behind before drawing her to him again. 'You put me through hell on earth and then you expect compliments? Just like a woman.'
'Have there been many—women, I mean?' she asked carefully, although his eyes noticed the flash of pain on her quiet face.
'None that has touched my heart.' His dark face was suddenly very still. 'I thought I loved Penny for a time but it only took a little while for me to realise that what I had felt was a blind infatuation, a youthful dream of something that never really was. And then I was searching, without realising it, without ever admitting it to myself—searching for the one woman I could love and want for the rest of my life.'
'Me,' she said with great satisfaction, the last lingering doubts from the past laid finally to rest.
'You.' He raised himself on one elbow and searched her face with his eyes. 'Even your face in that photograph pierced my heart in a way that was both uncomfortable and disturbing and when I met you, breathing hell-fire and damnation, I still told myself that what I felt was a strong sexual attraction—until the minute I took you in my arms, that was. From that moment on I knew I loved you, but it would have been more than my life was worth to try and make you understand how I felt at that time.'
'I wouldn't have believed you,' she admitted ruefully. 'I thought you were like my father, hard and callous, and by the time he explained why he'd been so cold over the years there was Penny and Maisie.'
'And now there is just us.' He kissed her hard. 'And from this moment on we talk about every little thing, every worry, so there can be no misunderstandings between us again.'