A No Risk Affair (Presents Plus) Read online

  ‘No!’ he stopped her, the blaze in his eyes almost out of control.

  ‘Please.’ Her eyes were like liquid gold as she pleaded up at him.

  Desire warred with necessity, until finally necessity won. ‘I want this to last, Robyn,’ he told her gruffly as he put her away from him. ‘And if I let you touch me any more now it will all be over before it’s begun.’ He chuckled at the blush in her cheeks. ‘It isn’t easy to admit that you make me feel like an adolescent!’

  Her confidence restored she gave a throaty laugh as she sat back on the bed. ‘In that case I’ll just watch the floor-show!’ she teased him.

  ‘Wanton!’ he growled as he quickly divested himself of the last of his clothing.

  Robyn felt her pulse rate leap as she gazed at the golden nakedness of his body, the broad shoulders and chest tapering down to a narrow waist, his thighs taut with desire, long legs firmly muscled. The hair that covered most of his body was slightly darker than that on his head, although it still gleamed golden.

  The bed dipped slightly as he joined her there, their mouths fusing in heated passion as they caressed each other with searching hands, Robyn gasping as Sin’s palm warmly cupped her womanhood through the lace briefs she still wore, feeling the instant flood of emotion there.

  ‘Did you like what you saw?’ Sin encouraged her verbal lovemaking before taking the dark peak of one breast into his mouth, his tongue flicking sensuously over its hardness before giving its twin the same consideration.

  Her answer was to tentatively touch what she had seen, her caressing fingers telling of the pleasure she found in his male beauty, feeling him instantly harden and strengthen against her caress.

  ‘Tell me what else you like,’ he urged raggedly. ‘Show me, Robyn!’

  During the next few minutes they discovered each other’s pleasure spots with unerring accuracy, Robyn at last pleading for his possession of her, as naked as he now, the moist heat between her thighs telling her she was ready for him.

  She gasped out loud as they merged together, Sin filling her completely, utterly, spasms of ecstasy claiming her body as he slowly began to move inside her, his face taut with desire as she looked up at him, clinging to his shoulders as the world seemed to sway beneath her.

  The final ecstasy, when it came, shook her to the very depths of her being, her nails digging into the flesh of his buttocks as she felt him tauten and go over the edge with her, the hoarse groan he gave one of immense and satisfying triumph.

  Robyn breathed in the intoxicating smell of him as they lay still, a part of him as they rested, Sin’s chest heaving above her before he gave a shuddering sigh and buried his face in her throat.

  ‘I hope a night without sleep won’t be too much of a strain for you?’ he teased later, a satisfied curve to his mouth.

  They didn’t go completely without sleep, the short naps they had between increasingly passionate lovemaking more than enough to sustain them, the magic times in Sin’s arms more than enough to convince her she was no longer averse to physical love.

  * * *

  The sun was shining brightly when she at last emerged from beneath the bedclothes, blinking tiredly to focus on reserved blue eyes, Sin lying at her side, the dark blond growth of beard on his chin evidence that he hadn’t been up yet either, despite the obvious lateness of the hour.

  It was the reserve in his eyes that held her back from throwing her arms about his neck and telling him how wonderful she thought he was.

  He continued to look at her silently for several more tense minutes. ‘Now is your cue to tell me that last night was a mistake, that you acted impulsively, that it was because you were so upset about the twins that you allowed yourself to be seduced into my bed,’ his voice was flat, emotionless.

  ‘You forgot “I had too much wine and didn’t know what I was doing”,’ she said lightly, now understanding the reason for his reserve; he thought she would wake up this morning and regret the night they had spent together.

  He sighed. ‘Yes. God, I knew I shouldn’t have let it happen.’ He fell back against his pillow, his arms above his head as he stared up at the ceiling. ‘But I was greedy,’ he muttered. ‘I couldn’t say no when the opportunity was given to me. Fool,’ he groaned. ‘Fool, fool, fool!’

  ‘Sin—’

  ‘Did I forget something else?’ he bit out grimly, angry at his own stupidity.

  Robyn moved to lean on her elbow looking down at him. ‘You forgot the fact that I haven’t said any of those things, you have,’ she teased gently, feeling an overwhelming tenderness towards the man whose body lay so warmly against her own.

  He turned slowly to look at her, uncertainty in his eyes. ‘Say something,’ he invited gruffly.

  ‘Thank you,’ she breathed softly.

  ‘Hm?’ he was stunned into surprise.

  Robyn smiled serenely, smoothing the frown from his brow. ‘Last night was the most incredible night of my entire life,’ she told him honestly.

  ‘It was?’

  She laughed at his incredulity. ‘Can you doubt it?’ she taunted her own uninhibited responses to him during the night.

  Sin grimaced. ‘When I’m with you like this I forget my own name!’

  ‘Well last night you lived up to it! Now I have personal experience of the saying “wicked as sin”. You are you know, very wicked,’ but she didn’t sound as if she minded that in the least.

  ‘Am I?’ he ran his thumbtip over her nipple as her breasts rested against his chest.

  She trembled in reaction. ‘You know you are. Don’t do that!’ she quivered, beginning to tremble as the now familiar warmth invaded her body, a fact he was well aware of as he moved to pin her beneath him.

  It was over an hour later when they finally managed to leave Sin’s bed and go down and prepare a late breakfast together. Robyn had to laugh when Sin proceeded to produce four or five assorted cartons of pre-cooked breakfast food.

  ‘Do you always live like this?’ she mocked as they helped themselves to the food straight from the foil trays once it had been heated.

  ‘It saves on washing-up,’ he nodded, having taken the time to shower and shave, the squareness of his jaw bare of stubble now, his hair still damp, his only clothing a short black towelling robe.

  Robyn had opted for one of his shirts instead of the robe, feeling slightly ridiculous when she tried on the latter and the sleeves reached down to her knees. The black silk shirt Sin had worn the evening before lay against her skin like a caress, although that too reached down to her knees, the sleeves turned back to her elbows.

  She grinned at him. ‘I think I like living decadently for a change.’

  Some of the laughter left his face, although it was quickly masked as he stood up. ‘In that case, let’s go back to bed!’

  ‘Sin!’ she squealed as he swung her up into his arms. ‘Shouldn’t a man of your mature years be taking things a little slower?’ she mocked.

  ‘Oh I’ll be slow, Robyn.’ There was a dangerous glitter in his eyes, a promise of things to come. ‘I’ll be very, very slow,’ he told her with satisfaction.

  And he was, exquisitely so, Robyn sobbing for his possession, a possession he relentlessly denied her as he took her again and again to peaks of ecstasy.

  ‘Torturer!’ she groaned, her head moving from side to side on the pillow as the mindless pleasure continued to torment her.

  He raised his head to look at her with glowing blue eyes. ‘I intend to imprint myself on your body so well you’ll never be able to forget me,’ he told her roughly, renewing his pleasure-giving caresses.

  ‘I never could,’ she gasped.

  ‘I’m not taking any chances,’ he said grimly, at last joining his body to hers, thrusting into her deeply, Robyn more than ready for him.

  And if she had thought the night incredibly sensual the day was even more so, Sin finding new plateaus of desire for them to scale together, so that by the time she heard the ringing of her telephone at four o’cloc
k that afternoon she felt as if she were merely an extension of the man himself, that they now shared something really special.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Sin asked dazedly as she dashed to the cottage door.

  ‘Telephone,’ she told him breathlessly, holding his shirt more securely about her.

  ‘They’ll call back—’

  ‘It might be Brad,’ she said agitatedly, hurrying into the adjoining cottage without a second glance.

  It was Brad, ringing to tell her he would be bringing the children back now, that she could expect them in an hour or so. She didn’t get to talk to Kim and Andy, but just the thought that they were coming home was enough to put a glow in her eyes and a happy curve to her mouth.

  Sin had dressed and was in the kitchen drinking coffee at the kitchen table when she let herself in, and Robyn instantly sensed something different about him, although she didn’t quite know what it was.

  ‘It was Brad,’ she told him quietly.

  ‘Yes?’ He continued to drink his coffee.

  She frowned at his lack of warmth after the hours they had just spent together. ‘He’s going to drive the twins back now,’ she explained.

  ‘Good,’ he nodded.

  ‘Sin?’ Her confusion deepened, hardly recognising him as the man who had made love to her continuously through the night and day. ‘What’s wrong?’ she prompted.

  ‘Wrong?’ His eyes were hard as he looked at her, a cool icy blue. ‘What could possibly be wrong?’ he rasped.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she shook her head, swallowing hard. Was the weekend over, was that it? Had he reversed the roles on her and made her the one night stand he had accused her of trying to make him? Hadn’t the hours she had spent in his arms meant the same to him?

  The mug he had been drinking from landed on the table with a loud clatter, making Robyn jump nervously. ‘You run out of here wearing only my shirt just so that you can talk to your ex-husband on the telephone, you come back to me after speaking to him with the sort of smile on your lips I’d walk through hot coals for and you don’t know what’s wrong!’ he shouted fiercely.

  Her heart had leapt at the admission about hot coals, having received no verbal declaration of love from him during their long night together, although she had been sure he couldn’t have made love to her the way he had if he didn’t feel something more for her than desire.

  ‘What’s wrong is that you aren’t married to him any longer,’ Sin bit out roughly.

  ‘I know that, but I knew he would be calling me about bringing the twins—’

  ‘I don’t believe that’s the reason you ran to talk to him,’ he told her viciously, his eyes blazing.

  ‘Sin, please listen to me—’

  ‘No, you listen to me!’ he ordered angrily. ‘I’m not going to accept being made into someone you come to for a little physical comfort. I was wrong when I said you made the mistake last night, I’m the one that did that, thinking I could seriously mean anything to you—’

  ‘But you do,’ she protested.

  ‘Do you love me?’ he asked scornfully.

  Colour deepened her cheeks. Love? Not once during their night and day together had she allowed herself to think of her feelings for this man, knowing that whatever it was she did feel for him it was still too young and vulnerable to be analysed into a category.

  ‘No, of course you don’t,’ he dismissed disgustedly. ‘And I don’t suppose you want anything more to do with me now either!’

  ‘It will be a little difficult when the twins get back—’

  ‘Why?’ he cut in ruthlessly.

  ‘Well—Because—’

  ‘Why should my spending all my evenings with you now be any different to the past week?’

  The colour in her cheeks wouldn’t seem to recede. ‘I wasn’t thinking of the evenings—’

  ‘And I certainly wasn’t talking about the nights,’ he rasped harshly. ‘Do you really imagine I would run the risk of the children seeing us together—like that?’

  She looked at him appealingly. ‘I don’t understand what you want from me. Didn’t you enjoy last night?’ She was sure it had been as pleasurable for him as it had for her.

  ‘You know I did,’ he snapped. ‘But I’ve never been subjected to the role of sexual plaything before, and I’m not about to start now.’

  ‘Sexual plaything!’ she spluttered disbelievingly. ‘Sin, you have to be joking!’

  ‘Do I?’ he scorned bitterly. ‘What else was last night about if it wasn’t sex?’

  ‘Don’t make it seem as if last night was all my fault,’ she was becoming angry herself now. ‘You were there too, you know!’

  ‘I know exactly where I was,’ he met her gaze challengingly. ‘But like I said, it was a mistake.’

  ’Well that’s just fine!’ she snapped, turning to go up the stairs. ‘I’ll get dressed and then leave.’

  ‘Robyn—’

  ‘Don’t say any more, Sin,’ she told him through tight lips, her control dangerously close to slipping. ‘Not if you want to allow me to leave with any dignity at all.’

  He seemed to be about to say something and then changed his mind, turning away to stare out of the kitchen window, his shoulders hunched over, his hands thrust into his pockets. She turned with a choked cry and ran up the stairs, made to feel even worse as she donned what was obviously a dress meant to be worn in the evening rather than late afternoon. The fact that she had nothing else here to wear, having discarded Sin’s shirt on the rumpled unmade bed, made her feel cheap and nasty, making the time she had spent with Sin seem the same way.

  What was the matter with him that he should be acting this way? He was reacting how she should have reacted, accusing her of using him, of having no deeper feelings for him than the sexual ones. If the whole situation weren’t so depressingly painful it would be laughable!

  He hadn’t moved when she returned down the stairs, and the rigidity of his stiffly held back didn’t encourage her to talk to him again, to try and make him understand. She closed the cottage door behind her, straightening her shoulders so he wouldn’t see just how upset she was.

  That pride lasted her until she closed her own cottage door behind her, and then a desolation more intense than the previous day washed over her, leaving her emotionally broken.

  But none of that distress showed when Brad arrived back with the children shortly after five, and after their initial greetings she faced Brad while the twins went to wash for tea.

  His gaze was speculative on her pale face. ‘You were a long time answering the telephone this afternoon.’

  She shrugged. ‘I was busy.’

  ‘You sounded breathless.’

  ‘Did I?’ she dismissed. ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘I see Thornton is back,’ Brad raised dark brows in mocking query.

  ‘Yes.’ She turned back to the work-top, arranging cakes on a plate, her hands shaking slightly.

  ‘Still not friends?’ Brad taunted, watching in amusement as one of the cakes fell out of her hand to the floor.

  ‘Well, don’t just stand there,’ she snapped from her bending position as she picked up the biggest pieces of the broken cake. ‘Get me a cloth.’

  He didn’t hurry himself as he did so, dropping the cloth into her impatiently waiting hand. ‘Hit a raw nerve, did I?’ he mocked as she accidentally threw the cloth into the bin along with the discarded cake, impatiently retrieving it to wash it under the running tap. ‘Or did I hit several?’ he mused.

  ‘Mind your own business, Brad.’

  ‘You’re doing it again,’ he mocked smilingly. ‘Acting defensively is a sure sign that something’s wrong.’

  The cloth landed in the sink with a squelchy splash as she threw it down to turn on him angrily. ‘I’m sick and tired of amateur psychiatrists analysing my actions this weekend,’ she told him heatedly. ‘Telling you to mind your own business isn’t acting defensively, it’s doing exactly what it sounds like.’

  �
�Who else has been analysing you? Sin?’ Brad wasn’t at all put off by her anger. ‘Have the two of you made up and argued again all in the space of one day?’

  ‘Why don’t you—’

  ‘My God, you have,’ he laughed. ‘You never used to be this fiery, Robyn.’

  ‘I’m well aware of the fact that I used to be your doormat—’

  ‘You’re getting nasty now.’ The amusement had gone from his face and voice.

  She had also done nothing but argue with him lately when usually she couldn’t be bothered with such things.

  ‘I’m sorry, Brad.’ She put a hand up to her temple. ‘This weekend hasn’t been a good time for me. I’ve missed the twins dreadfully.’

  ‘They’ve missed you too,’ he told her dryly.

  ‘They have?’ she frowned.

  ‘Did you think they wouldn’t?’ he scoffed her stupidity.

  ‘They seemed to be having such a good time when I telephoned yesterday …’ She shook her head. ‘I thought they would be too busy to even think of me.’

  ‘Maybe they were, until it came to bed time.’ He grimaced. ‘I didn’t catch on to the glass of water routine at all. I was just damned angry when they kept calling out like that. I think I went down a couple of notches in their estimation.’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t,’ she could afford to be generous now that she knew the twins had missed her.

  ’Maybe not,’ he shrugged dismissively. ‘Anyway, I leave for South Africa in the week, I’ll give you a call when I get back.’

  It was his usual casual parting, and she knew it could be months before they saw him again. She was even secretly—and selfishly—a little pleased that she would have Kim and Andy exclusively to herself for several weeks.

  But the two children who sat down to tea with her were nothing like the two that had left so excitedly for London the previous evening, and she felt guilty for her own elation in Brad’s absence; the children were sure to feel the parting more after being with him for the weekend.