‘That isn’t fair, and you know it. She doesn’t watch much television, and she’s entitled to watch some, surely? If she can’t have any bona fide relaxation time because of school and study and filming, then that isn’t much of a life for a ten-year-old, now, is it?
‘Meanwhile, Tally is prevented from riding a horse because of the injuries she might sustain,’ he continued inexorably. ‘And, what is more, she has saved up enough money for a horse of her own so it’s doubly disappointing for her never to be able to ride.’
‘But we live in Knightsbridge!’ retorted Anna spikily. ‘How on earth could she possibly have a horse of her own when we haven’t any room for one? Where are you proposing we stable it? Outside Harrods?’
‘Exactly!’ breathed Todd, and Anna got the distinct feeling that she had fallen straight into a trap of his making. ‘Knightsbridge is not the kind of place where people keep pets! We don’t have room for a horse, or a dog,’ he went on, his words coming so automatically that it sounded as though he had been thinking about the subject for ages.
Had he? wondered Anna fleetingly. And, if so, then why the hell hadn’t he talked it over with her before? Why was he just springing it on her now, like this?
‘We also don’t have apple trees which are covered in fragrant blossom in springtime and heavy with succulent fruit in the autumn,’ he said, his voice growing more impassioned than she had heard it for a long time.
‘There are no streams for the girls to paddle in before they grow too old and disdainful to do so,’ he continued, his grey eyes dark and smoky. ‘No wild flowers for them to gather to make garlands for their hair. They won’t see rabbits scampering playfully across fields or hear owls hooting at night.’
‘You’ve been reading too many books about the country!’ joked Anna with the nervous smile of the born city-dweller, but there was no answering smile on the chiselled lips of her husband. ‘You forgot to mention the mud and the midges and being cut off whenever the weather turns bad!’
‘You forget that I grew up in the country, Anna,’ he contradicted her softly. ‘And, while my memories may be vaguely rose-tinted, I can assure you that I am only too aware of all the drawbacks of living out in the sticks.’
Anna remembered how this whole conversation had started—with moving. She had thought that was bad enough, but now it sounded as though Todd wanted a whole radical lifestyle change. Well, they were a partnership. He couldn’t force her and the girls to go and live in the country if they didn’t want to, and she definitely didn’t want to!
But how to convince Todd of that?
She stretched her arms above her head as she played for time and, noticing a tiny muscle flicker in Todd’s cheek, a daring idea came to her as she thought of a way which might shelve this whole awkward discussion.
Anna was panicking. She had spent most of her life in this very flat. Her father had sold the freehold to Todd very cheaply as a wedding present because Todd, being Todd, had refused to accept the place as a gift. She couldn’t imagine living anywhere else. Didn’t want to imagine living anywhere else!
She thought about how frantic their lives were these days. Perhaps she hadn’t been paying her husband enough attention recently? That was what all the women’s magazines always warned you about, wasn’t it? Wives who took their husbands for granted. Was that why he looked so moody and out-of-sorts this evening?
And yet she had one very effective weapon in her armoury which might bring Todd round to her way of thinking—if only she had the courage to use it...
‘Phew!’ She sighed huskily and wiped the back of her hand across her bone-dry forehead. And suddenly her plan no longer seemed so bizarre because something in the alert and watchful poise of his body had started her aching for him... Anna cleared her throat and her voice came out in a sultry little whisper of its own accord. ‘It’s become terribly h-hot in here, hasn’t it?’
Todd knew from the sudden tremble in her voice what his wife wanted and he felt his own body stir in response, partly because he desired her very much, and partly because it was not what they would normally have done.
They hardly ever went to bed in the middle of the afternoon; he was usually working and when he wasn’t, well—there simply weren’t the opportunities with three lively and curious children around. And Anna was usually so sweetly shy about sex. She must want to stay in London very much indeed, if she was prepared to seduce him in broad daylight!
He ignored the question in his mind about whether making love right now was going to be enough to paper over all the cracks which had been revealed in their relationship today. Because right now he didn’t particularly care. Anna had deliberately lit the touch-paper; let Anna take the consequences.
‘You’re hot, are you?’ he enquired deliberately.
‘Mmm. Boiling.’ In an unhurried manner which belied her trembling fingers, Anna peeled off her baggy sweater to reveal a tee-shirt underneath. It wasn’t a particularly new or a particularly clinging tee-shirt, yet it moulded the heavy lushness of her breasts to perfection and Anna grew aware that Todd was watching her movements obsessively. ‘There,’ she told him huskily, in a voice which sounded awfully decadent to her own ears.
The muscle in his cheek flickered convulsively now, and Todd knew that he was caught in the silken bonds of sexual desire. ‘Then why don’t you take something else off?’ he suggested in a murmur, wondering why a corny request which would have made him flinch if he had heard himself making it in, say, the office should sound so good and so right and so appropriate right now.
‘Wh-why don’t you?’ she countered shakily, her nerve deserting her.
He needed no second bidding. He leaned forward, his eyes smoky, his mouth a curve of hungry anticipation as he let it drift over her open lips in a lingering kiss. Then he let his hand stray beneath her tee-shirt to cup her breast possessively in his palm.
Anna closed her eyes and gave a greedy moan of pleasure, because the unexpectedness of her urge to seduce him, and Todd’s gratifyingly eager response to it, was turning her on very much.
‘Where are the triplets?’ he wanted to know.
‘E-extra-curricular activities,’ gasped Anna as she struggled to string her words together coherently. ‘Saskia is bringing them home.’
‘And what time are they back?’ he demanded, his thumb now tantalising her nipple beneath the crisp lace of her brassière so that he felt it harden and thrust against his flesh.
‘We’ve g-got just under an hour,’ shuddered Anna breathily, trying to remember the last time they had made love like this. Years, she realised, with a sinking feeling. It had been years and years.
She pulled uselessly at his fine silk shirt, and frantically tried to unbuckle his belt, but as he shook her hands off he noticed that his own were trembling like a schoolboy’s. He wanted her so much he could hardly think straight and he couldn’t remember feeling quite this hot in a long, long time...
Had their bitter words added fuel to his desire? he wondered. Was that what happened after ten years of marriage—that you needed harsh words to turn you on so much you couldn’t think straight?
‘Oh, Todd!’ gasped Anna, every pore on fire with wanting as her fingers slid sinuously over the hard muscle of his torso. ‘Please!’
But old habits died hard and Todd shook his head, even though it took every bit of self-control he possessed.
They had spent almost all of their ten years together with children around the place, and they had never made love with an audience, not even when the girls were tiny babies. Neither of them had thought that it seemed quite right to lose themselves in sensual pleasure when there were one or more infants snuffling away in the same room. As Todd had often remarked—children didn’t exactly enhance the mood for making love!