Long-Distance Marriage. Sharon Kendrick

      ‘Then why did you?’ she asked in a small voice.

      ‘Because...’ He shook his head as he put his free hand on her other shoulder and moved her closer to him. ‘Because you do something to me, Alessandra. Don’t you know that? You make me respond in a certain way; or, rather, I can never predict or control how I’m going to respond to you. You perplex me. You excite me. You make me crazy. When I heard Andrew’s message on the answering machine—’

      She decided that the time had come to get rid of all this nonsense once and for all. ‘But he’s always called me “honey”—since I first met him.’

      ‘And I don’t like it. Strictly as a chauvinistic, jealous and possessive husband.’

      ‘Is that what you are?’ she teased softly, and he smiled.

      ‘Sometimes, yes. With you, yes.’ She saw a brief but distinct tightening of his mouth. ‘I just don’t like Andrew’s familiarity. Okay?’

      ‘I don’t happen to like it very much myself,’ admitted Alessandra. ‘I guess I just put up with it.’

      ‘Then don’t put up with it! Tell him you don’t like it!’ His face darkened. ‘Try asserting yourself with him as you seem to do so successfully with me!’

      She felt weary. They seemed to be going round and round in circles. She nodded. ‘Okay, I’ll tell him.’ She put a tentative hand up to smooth a lock of dark hair off his forehead. ‘But you must know by now that Andrew means nothing to me, Cameron.’

      ‘No?’ He let his hands fall from her shoulders and drew his dark brows together as his eyes briefly flew to the discarded black garment which lay in a silky heap on the carpet. ‘He just buys you sexy dresses and speaks to you like a girlfriend instead of a colleague ^?’

      ‘You’re surely not jealous of Andrew?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Not you?’

      ‘Why not? When you walked in here tonight—with your hair all wild and your cheeks all rosy—’

      ‘It’s a cold night,’ she pointed out.

      ‘Wearing that sexy bit of nonsense which he’d bought for you—’

      ‘I was the one who chose it, remember?’

      ‘To wear for him? On an evening out with him? How would you define that, then, Alessandra? Subliminal attraction?’

      ‘Oh, don’t be so absurd!’ In the past she had sometimes despaired of Cameron’s coolness, his unflappability, but now that he actually was displaying the kind of passionate temper she’d always secretly longed for she found she didn’t like it one bit!

      ‘I’m telling you how I felt,’ he said, ‘You wanted to know.’

      ‘Go on,’ she said in a small voice, thinking that maybe it had been a good thing that they’d never delved too deeply into their feelings before. She felt as though they’d opened up Pandora’s box and were regretting it by the second!

      ‘Yes, it was irrational,’ he continued. ‘But I told you—something about you makes me act without reason, without thought. I started to imagine Andrew making love to you—’

      ‘That’s absolutely ridiculous!’ she scoffed.

      ‘Is it? Are you telling me that he wouldn’t like to?’

      ‘I wouldn’t like to, Cameron—that’s the difference!’

      ‘And I found myself,’ he went on, as though she hadn’t spoken, ‘wanting to tear the clothes from your body—’

      ‘Which you did—’

      ‘And to take you right there and then.’

      ‘Which you also did!’

      ‘And for which I’ve apologised—for the sentiment, at least, if not for the act itself. And isn’t it about time that you stopped being hypocritical and admitted that it was exciting and that it turned you on? Or are you denying that, Alessandra?’

      She shook her head. ‘No, I’m not denying it. It’s just that... that...’ Her voice tailed off.

      ‘That what?’ he prompted softly.

      ‘It just wasn’t very—loving, that’s all,’ she sighed, looking up into the intense eyes which were now a soft, smoky grey.

      ‘Sometimes sex isn’t loving,’ he told her gently. ‘And sometimes it isn’t meant to be. If you like, I can show you just how loving it can be.’ And he began to massage the small of her back rhythmically.

      She wanted to wriggle with pleasure, to relax into it, to make the slow walk down whichever sensual path he planned to take her. But two capitulations in one evening would be too big a dent in her pride.

      ‘I have work in the morning,’ she said stubbornly.

      “So do I.’

      ‘And I need a shower,’ she reminded him pointedly.

      ‘So do I,’ he murmured with a smile as he drew her to her feet. He slowly untied her robe, slipped his hands inside and cupped her naked, peaking breasts.

      ‘Cameron...’ she objected on a shuddering gasp as he bent his dark head to take one aching tip into his mouth.

      ‘What?’ he murmured softly, his breath warm against her skin. ‘What is it, my darling?’

      She couldn’t remember. ‘Oh, Cameron...

       CHAPTER THREE

      CAMERON spent most of the night making up for the week he had been away. He made love to Alessandra over and over again. Almost as though...as though he was asserting his sexual mastery over her. As though he was trying to imprint himself on her mind, to prove to her that he was the only man for her.

      He doesn’t have to prove anything, was Alessandra’s last, drowsy thought before she fell into a dreamless sleep.

      She stretched like a cat as she awoke to the most pleasurable feeling imaginable. She was half-asleep and warm, and delectable sensations began to fizzle over her skin. Cameron’s hands were on her breasts, circling each one in turn, inciting the tips into pointy little peaks which ached like crazy.

      ‘Oh,’ she sighed disappointedly as he moved his hand away, then almost purred with pleasure as he trickled it slowly and enticingly down over her flat stomach until he’d found where she ached for him most.

      ‘Mmm,’ he said with pleasure, and slowly began to kiss her.

      ‘Mmm,’ she echoed as her fingers trailed down to capture his rock-hard arousal, only then to move her hand away reluctantly as she remembered the time.

      ‘Don’t stop,’ he urged huskily.

      He was speaking to the converted. ‘But it’s late,’ she murmured on a half-hearted protest

      ‘Do you want to get up?’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Well, we won’t, then,’ he whispered, and she gave a gasp of pleasure as he entered her.

      The alarm rang and rang.