Lovers in the Afternoon Read online

  She wanted to ask him what he found so romantic about a woman making a fool of herself, but the magic of his kiss put all other thoughts from her mind, drawing her into him with the sensuous movement of his mouth, his arms beneath the jacket of her suit, his hands warm through the thin material of her blouse and camisole, his thighs hardening against her as his hands moved down to cup her buttocks and pull her into him.

  The effects of the brandy and wine miraculously disappeared to be replaced by something equally as heady, sexual pleasure. She had heard all the old clichés about women who were no longer married, had scorned the idea of falling into that sexual trap herself knowing how little pleasure she had found in her marriage bed, and yet she knew that she wanted Adam. And he wanted her, there could be no doubting that.

  Her lips parted beneath the assault of his tongue, knowing it was merely a facsimile of the lovemaking they really wanted, Leonie feeling filled and possessed by that moist warmth, drawing him deeper into her as she returned the attack.

  Adam’s breathing was ragged as he pulled away to kiss her throat, peeling the jacket expertly from her shoulders, throwing it to one side, beginning to release the buttons to her blouse, his hands sure in their movements, although they trembled slightly with anticipation.

  It was this slight crack in his supreme self-confidence that encouraged Leonie to do some undressing of her own, his own jacket joining hers on the floor, his waistcoat quickly following, her fingers hesitating at the buttons of his shirt.

  ‘Please,’ he encouraged achingly.

  Her own hands shook as she revealed the muscled smoothness of his chest, the dark hair there silvered with grey. He was beautiful without the trappings of the successful businessman, wearing only tailored trousers now, his arousal barely contained.

  ‘Leonie!’ His mouth captured hers again as she caressed his bared chest, moving fiercely against her, pulling her into him as the tip of her tongue tentatively caressed his lips.

  They left a trail of clothes to the bedroom, both naked by the time they lay down together on the bed still kissing, Adam’s hands at her breasts making her gasp with pleasure, the nipples hardening and aching, asking for the tug of his mouth. They didn’t have to wait long.

  Leonie didn’t stop to question her complete lack of inhibitions, inhibitions that had made her marriage such an agony, only knowing that this man, with his gentle caresses, held the key to her sensuality in his hands.

  Adam kissed every inch of her body, found pleasure in the secret places no other man had ever known, making her tremble uncontrollably as his tongue rasped the length of her spine to her nape, quivers of excitement making her arch back into him as he homed in on the sensitive flesh there.

  She lost all lucidity as Adam’s caresses brought her again and again to the edge of a fulfilment she had never known, as he always pulled her back from the edge before she could reach the pinnacle she craved, her movements beneath him becoming more and more desperate as he refused to let her escape him even for a second.

  ‘Please, Adam. Please!’ Her eyes were wild as she looked up at him.

  ‘You take me,’ he encouraged raggedly, his eyes black with desire.

  ‘What—?’ But she understood what he meant even as he pulled her above him, going to him eagerly, gasping as he lowered her on to him, filling her in every way possible before bringing her mouth down to his.

  It was so right that it should be this way, that he should allow her the freedom to be the one to choose their pleasure, a pleasure she had never known during her marriage.

  She was heady with delight, kissing the dampness of his salt-tasting shoulders and throat, quivering her own satisfaction as he groaned at the invasion of her tongue, feeling his movements quicken beneath her as he could hold back no longer, the hardness of him stroking her own desire until she felt the explosion begin in the depths of her being, beginning to shake as the warm aching pleasure ripped through her whole body in a climactic holocaust.

  ‘My beautiful Leonie,’ Adam gasped as he reached the summit of his own pleasure, exploding in a warmth of warm moistness. ‘I knew it could be this way between us!’

  And it hadn’t stopped there, their strength and desire returning within minutes, their second lovemaking even more intense than the first, the pleasure seeming never-ending.

  Leonie looked again at the face of the man who slept beside her, wondering what on earth she had done. Oh God, what had she done!

  He stirred slightly as she moved from beneath the curve of his arm, her movements stilling until she realised he was still sleeping. She blushed as she found her clothes scattered in a disorganised path from the bedroom to the lounge; she had never been so carried away by passion before. She hastily began to dress.

  ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  She balked only slightly in the movement of pulling the camisole over her head. ‘What does it look like I’m doing?’ she said sourly; at least he had had the decency to put on a brown towelling robe before following her from the bedroom!

  ‘Isn’t it usual to spend the whole night in circumstances like these?’ he drawled, his dark hair still tousled, his jaw in need of a shave now. ‘I didn’t expect you to go sneaking off while I was asleep!’

  ‘I wasn’t sneaking off,’ she told him resentfully. ‘And there’s nothing usual about these circumstances!’ She tucked her blouse into the waistband of her skirt.

  ‘I want you to stay the night.’

  She shot him an angry glare, resentful that he could look so at ease, his hands thrust casually into the pockets of his robe, his stance relaxed. ‘Why?’

  His mouth twisted. ‘I’m sure I’ve just shown you two very good reasons why.’

  ‘Sex!’

  ‘And what’s wrong with that?’ He arched dark brows.

  ‘Nothing, you know I enjoyed it,’ she snapped, knowing it would be useless to deny it, brushing her hair with angry movements, whether at Adam or herself she wasn’t sure.

  ‘So stay,’ he encouraged softly.

  ‘I can’t, Adam,’ she sighed impatiently. ‘I don’t know what game you’ve been playing with me this evening—’

  ‘A game you were quite happy to go along with,’ he reminded gently.

  She shook her head in self-condemnation. ‘It seemed the easy way out at the time, so much easier for me to be Leonie Grant and you to be Adam Faulkner,’ she said shakily.

  He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Why not, that’s who we are.’

  ‘Because until our divorce becomes final I’m still officially Leonie Faulkner, your wife, and you’re my husband!’

  ‘And now I’m your lover,’ he gave a slow smile of satisfaction. ‘It was your idea, Leonie, you’re the one that said we shouldn’t have married each other but just have been lovers. And after tonight that’s exactly what we’re going to be!’

  CHAPTER TWO

  SHE vividly remembered shouting those words at Adam before she had walked out on him and their marriage eight months ago, remembered everything about her disaster of a marriage to this man. And she didn’t intend becoming involved with him again in any way.

  She was fully dressed now, straightening the collar of her jacket. ‘Tonight was a mistake—’

  ‘I have another name for it,’ Adam drawled.

  Her eyes flashed her resentment. ‘I’m well aware of the fact that you planned what happened—’

  ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t want it, too,’ he warned her softly.

  She blushed at the truth of that; from the moment she had seen him seated across the desk from her at the Thompson building her senses had become alive with wanting him. And the fact that he had acted as if it were the first time they had ever met had added to the excitement. But she had a feeling, knowing Adam as she did, a much less charming and relaxed Adam, that he had realised exactly what effect his behaviour was having on her, that it had been effected to get the response from her she had refused to give him during their marriage.

&
nbsp; ‘It was certainly better than anything we ever shared during our marriage,’ she snapped waspishly, waiting for the angry explosion she had come to expect from him when they discussed the failure of the physical side of their marriage.

  ‘I agree.’ Once again he disconcerted her; he had been doing it all evening, from the time she had discovered that her estranged husband was the new President of Thompson Electronics, during dinner when he had had such patience with her ‘accidents’, to the infinite care and gentleness he had shown her during their lovemaking. ‘You were right,’ he continued lightly. ‘We’re much better as lovers than as husband and wife.’

  ‘We are not lovers!’ She looked around desperately for her handbag so that she might get out of here. ‘I’ve left my handbag in the restaurant,’ she finally groaned in realisation. ‘And that damned man—’

  ‘Henri,’ Adam put in softly, his mouth quirked with amusement.

  ‘He already thinks I’m some sort of escapee from a lunatic asylum.’ She hadn’t missed his covert glances in her direction during the evening. ‘I just can’t go back there,’ she shuddered.

  ‘You don’t have to—’

  ‘And I don’t need any of your high-handed interference either,’ she cut in rudely. ‘Why should one more visit to that place bother me!’ she told herself defiantly.

  ‘Because it does,’ Adam soothed. ‘And there’s no need to torture yourself with the thought of having to do it; your handbag is in my car.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Very,’ he replied with satisfaction. ‘You were so eager to get up here that you left it next to your seat.’

  ‘I was not eager to get up here,’ she defended indignantly.

  ‘Maybe I should rephrase that,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I was so eager to get you up here that I didn’t give you chance to think of such mundane things as a handbag. Better?’ he quirked dark brows in amusement.

  It was that amusement that confused her; there had been little to laugh about during their marriage, Adam always so grim. But no one knew the deviousness of his mind as well as she did, and she wasn’t fooled by this charm for a moment.

  ‘What are you up to, Adam?’ she demanded impatiently. ‘Why are you doing this?’

  He strolled across the room to her side, his movements gracefully masculine, as they always were. ‘I want a lover, Leonie,’ he told her softly, only inches away from her as he stood with his hands thrust into the pockets of his robe. ‘I want you.’

  She shook her head. ‘You had me for a year, and it was a disaster,’ she recalled bitterly.

  Adam nodded in acknowledgment of that fact. ‘Nevertheless, I want you.’

  ‘You’ve only just got rid of me!’ she reminded desperately.

  ‘Of the marriage, not you, Leonie.’

  ‘It’s the same thing!’

  ‘No,’ he smiled gently. ‘We both found the marriage stifling, the sort of relationship I’m suggesting—’

  ‘With me as your mistress!’ she scorned.

  ‘Lover,’ he insisted. ‘We would be lovers.’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Why not?’ his eyes had narrowed, although he remained outwardly relaxed.

  ‘I don’t want a lover!’

  His mouth quirked. ‘You just proved, very effectively, that you do.’

  Colour heightened her cheeks. ‘That was sex—’

  ‘The best sex we ever had, admit it,’ he encouraged.

  She drew in a ragged breath. ‘Yes.’ ‘And as I said before, what’s wrong with that?’

  She sighed her exasperation. ‘You just don’t understand—’

  ‘I understand perfectly,’ he cut in soothingly. ‘This has all come as a bit of a shock to you—’

  ‘That has to be the understatement of the decade!’

  Adam chuckled, at once looking younger. ‘Poor Leonie,’ he smiled. ‘What’s shocking you the most, the fact that we found such pleasure in bed together for the first time, or the fact that I want it to continue?’

  She couldn’t deny that she was surprised at the amount of pleasure she had known with Adam tonight, a pleasure she had known beyond all doubt that he felt too, his responses open and complete. Their sex-life during their marriage, as with everything else during that year, had been a disaster. Adam had been so experienced that in her innocence she had felt inadequate, and she had resented the way he had tried to control her body, her responses automatic and emotionless, refusing to be dominated by him. But the lovemaking they had shared tonight hadn’t been restricted by any of that resentment, had been uninhibited. But that Adam should want such a relationship to continue she couldn’t accept, not when the breakdown of the marriage and subsequent separation had been such a traumatic experience for her. They simply couldn’t pretend they were two people they weren’t.

  ‘The first shocks me,’ she replied coolly. ‘The second surprises me. Do you honestly not remember what it was like between us, the bitterness, the pain of knowing we were all wrong for each other from the start?’

  ‘As a married couple, not as lovers,’ he insisted forcefully.

  ‘Have you forgotten what that was like between us?’

  ‘Didn’t this evening prove that it doesn’t have to be that way?’ he reasoned.

  ‘I’m still the same person, Adam,’ she told him with a sigh. ‘I’m still sixteen years younger than you are, with the same inexperience—no matter what happened here tonight,’ she added pointedly. ‘I’m still the same klutzy person I was when we were married—’

  ‘That’s a new name for it,’ he laughed softly.

  ‘I read it in a book somewhere,’ she dismissed impatiently. ‘It seemed to suit me perfectly.’

  ‘It does,’ he nodded, still smiling, his eyes a warm grey, crinkled at the corners.

  ‘Don’t you remember how angry all those “incidents” used to make you!’

  ‘You’re right, I was intolerant—’

  ‘You’re missing my point, Adam,’ she said frustratedly. ‘It would take a saint to put up with all the things that happen to me in one day—and that’s one thing I know you aren’t!’

  ‘Have I been angry tonight at all?’

  ‘That was only one night,’ she sighed her impatience. ‘It would drive you insane—it did drive you insane, on a regular basis.’

  ‘Haven’t you heard, lovers are more tolerant?’

  ‘Adam!’

  ‘Leonie?’

  She glowered at him. ‘You aren’t listening to a word I’ve been saying.’

  ‘Of course I am,’ he placated. ‘You’re young and klutzy.’ He smiled. ‘I really like that word, it describes you exactly.’ He sobered. ‘As a husband I was rigid and intolerant, lousy at making love to you. As a lover I will be generous and understanding—and very good in bed.’

  ‘In your experience,’ she snapped waspishly.

  He raised dark brows. ‘You sound jealous, Leonie.’

  She felt the heat in her cheeks. ‘I most certainly am not!’

  ‘It’s all right if you are.’ His arms came about her as he moulded her body to his. ‘From a wife it would sound shrewish, from a lover it sounds possessive. I like that,’ he stated with satisfaction.

  That wasn’t all he liked from the feel of his body pressed so intimately against hers, aroused for the third time tonight. Leonie couldn’t pretend not to be shocked by this evidence of his renewed desire; their sex life had deteriorated so badly at the end of their marriage that it was an effort for them to make love once a week; Adam had never wanted her three times in one night before!

  ‘Adam, please stop this.’ She pulled agitatedly away from him as her own body quivered in reaction to his. ‘You’ve had your fun—’

  ‘It was mutual,’ he drawled confidently.

  ‘Not that sort of fun!’ she snapped. ‘God, I can’t believe this is really you proposing this preposterous arrangement! Have you thought of the consequences of your actions?’

  �
��I already know you’re on the pill to regulate your periods.’ He dismissed the idea of pregnancy.

  ‘Not those consequences!’ It was embarrassing how intimately this man knew the workings, and malfunctions, of her body! ‘We both have families, Adam, have you thought of their reactions to the relationship you’re suggesting?’

  ‘My father and your sister.’ The amused glow to his eyes left for the first time that evening. ‘I’m thirty-nine and you’re twenty-three, do you really think either of us needs their permission?’ he ground out.

  ‘Your father hates me.’ She deliberately didn’t mention her sister’s feelings towards Adam, although she was sure they were both aware of those feelings; it had been one of the reasons their marriage had proved such a failure.

  ‘My father doesn’t understand you,’ Adam corrected gravely.

  ‘There’s nothing to understand,’ she dismissed scornfully. ‘I am what you see. A little more accident-prone around you and your father, but otherwise I’m an open book.’

  ‘Then a few of the pages must have got stuck together, because I never felt that I knew you completely either!’ He gave a deep sigh. ‘I don’t intend to argue about the past with you now, Leonie.’

  ‘Lovers don’t argue?’ she mocked.

  His mouth quirked. ‘Only when they know it will take them back to bed to make up.’ He took her back in his arms, his mouth claiming hers.

  Her lips parted of their own volition, allowing access to the thrust of his tongue, trembling as desire claimed her, clinging to the broad width of his shoulders as she swayed weakly against him.

  ‘Stay tonight, Leonie,’ he urged against the creamy warmth of her throat.

  She was tempted, God how she was tempted. But she couldn’t do it. It had taken her eight months to put herself back together after the devastation of loving this man; she couldn’t leave herself open to that sort of pain again.

  ‘No, Adam.’ She pushed away from him, breathing hard, knowing by his own ragged breathing that he was as aroused as she was. ‘There’s something else lovers can do,’ she told him tautly. ‘They can end the relationship at any time; I’m ending it.’ She turned on her heel.