Despite the fact that he was her first lover there was n
o pain, just the merest pang of discomfort, but she thought he would not notice.
But despite the intensity of his arousal and desire, he did notice, checking slightly, his mouth leaving her throat as his eyes narrowed on hers, asking the question she could see forming on his lips.
Instinctively Sara placed her fingers against his mouth, letting her body tell him how much it welcomed and wanted him, her eyes widening with shock and excitement as she felt him move inside her.
Her fingertips still rested against his mouth. His lips parted, his tongue touching the soft pink pads, his teeth nipping delicately before he sucked her fingers into the moist heat of his mouth, his movements mirroring the erotic responsiveness of her body to his possession.
Heat bathed her body, her skin breaking out in a moist show of perspiration. His mouth released her fingers, his tongue touching the hollow of her throat, absorbing the tiny bead of sweat gathering there.
The urgency which gripped and drove her now was like nothing she had ever experienced before, the compulsion so great that she could barely comprehend the magnitude of it. Nothing mattered but the need to satisfy the urgent rhythm of his body, to…
As her senses started to explode in concentric spasms of pleasure she cried out unintelligibly, shuddering as she felt Jonas tense, his breathing ragged and hoarse, the sound of her name on his lips almost unfamiliar to her as he reached his own physical release.
Drowsily she decided it must be shock and weakness that made her cuddle up instinctively into the warmth of Jonas’s body as he carefully eased himself away from her, and gently stroked her tired limbs.
She heard him say her name and tried to open her eyes, but they felt as though lead weights were attached to them. She gave an inarticulate murmur, but was too exhausted to stay awake.
As she slid fathoms deep into sleep she was vaguely aware of the dull throb of her ankle—something she had totally forgotten while Jonas was making love to her—and of the delicious warmth of his body, its protective bulk curled around her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SHE woke up slowly, warm with languorous pleasure, half reluctant to leave sleep behind and yet knowing that something better awaited her.
The name that murmured past her lips as she reached out to touch the man beside her belonged to the past, and she knew it, but the intensity of the physical pleasure she had experienced with Jonas had been so overpowering that she was still half in shock. It was easier, and much, much safer, to pretend that it was Rick who had made love to her and not Jonas.
She had thought Jonas was asleep and that there was no one other than herself to hear her self-indulgent lie, but the moment Rick’s name was whispered past her lips she knew she was wrong.
Strong fingers bit into her arms as Jonas turned over, pushing her back against the bed and holding her there, one hand momentarily leaving her arm to snap on the bedside lamp.
‘So that’s it, is it? You were using me as a stand-in,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Damn you, Sara—but I should have guessed, shouldn’t I? You’d never have given your precious virginity to me, would you?’
He was barely speaking above a whisper, but she was frighteningly aware of his anger. His mouth, the mouth that had kissed and caressed her skin to such a pitch that it still tingled slightly, was now curled in a vicious snarl of rage, his eyes as cold and empty as a winter landscape.
She sensed that he was using his anger to mask the blow she had struck to his pride, but instead of pleasing her, all she could feel was a vast aching well of emptiness, because she had not pretended he was Rick when he was making love to her. She had known exactly who was holding her in his arms, touching her…loving her. A terrible tearing pain threatened to wrench her body apart as the truth hit her. Despite everything she had taught herself, despite all the barriers she had built up against him, despite the fact that he was now looking at her as though he would like nothing better than to choke her to death, she had fallen in love with Jonas.
For a second her shock was so intense that she thought she was going to black out, her first panicky thought being that whatever else happened Jonas must not discover how she felt. If he did… Not so very long ago he had told her he was on the verge of falling in love with her and she had rejected him; she wasn’t going to give him the opportunity to reject her in the same way.
And if he didn’t reject her…if he did genuinely love her… It made no difference, she reminded herself. After Rick’s death she had made her decision never to leave herself vulnerable to the agony of loving and losing someone ever again, and she intended to stick to that decision.
Yes, it was better that Jonas continued to think she had pretended he was Rick, she told herself stoically, gritting her teeth as she felt him shake her as though he wanted to shake the damning words out of her.
‘What sort of man was he, anyway?’ he demanded thickly, starting down at her in bitter dislike. ‘Why did he never make love to you, Sara? Wasn’t he capable of…’
The sound of her open palm hitting his face startled them both; Sara felt the reverberation of the blow shudder through her body, her eyes closing against the blazing anger she saw in Jonas.
‘Don’t you dare say a word against Rick!’ she heard herself stammering wildly. ‘He loved me and he respected me. We weren’t lovers because there wasn’t time…’
She knew that the anguish in her voice was as much for what she considered her own betrayal of Rick’s memory in loving Jonas as it was for what Jonas was saying. She knew now with the experience that Jonas had given her, with the knowledge of the intensity of physical love that Jonas had shown her, that Rick must have seen her more as a cherished child than an adult woman. And hadn’t that just been what Sam had been trying so gently to tell her during these past weeks?
With an anguished moan of pain, she tried to wrench free of Jonas’s grip and bury her face in the pillow, but he wouldn’t let her; his voice was thick with anger as his fingers tightened round her arms. ‘Oh, no, you don’t… I’m not your precious Rick, content to behave like some bloodless hero out of a children’s story book. I’m a flesh and blood man, Sara, with all the failings and needs that the words imply. So you thought it was Rick who was making love to you, did you?’ he demanded with a soft venom that was somehow more frightening than his earlier anger. ‘Well, then, this time I’d better make sure you know exactly who it is you’re holding in your arms, hadn’t I? Hadn’t I?’ he reiterated gratingly, giving her a little shake.
Sara couldn’t think past his ominous ‘this time’. Did he mean to make love to her again, then? A tiny shock of fear tensed her spine, a betraying tingle of excitement heating her blood.
He moved—not quickly, but with a slow deliberation that held all the frightening grace and beautiful menace of a panther moving in on its prey.
While her heart and pulses leapt with something that was not entirely fear, her body registered the satin heat of Jonas’s against it, the hard length of his leg pinning her to the bed, the slow, insolent movement of his hand as it slid from her arm to her wrist and from there to her waist and her hip, finally coming to rest on the quivering vulnerability of her stomach.