his gaze allowing her to acknowledge that in bed, at least, what they had shared had been unique. ‘No,’ she admitted quietly. ‘I guess not.’
‘And I certainly have not been responsible for the endless list of conquests which you seem to have attributed to me!’ he finished softly, his blue eyes crinkling at the corners in that heart-stoppingly cute way which Triss had always found utterly irresistible. ‘Do you understand that, Triss?’ he quizzed softly.
At that precise moment, Triss felt that she had been lured so far into his web of enchantment that all she could do was nod dumbly.
‘So...’ He kissed the tip of her nose, but she could see the strain of longing which showed on his face. ‘Are we going to ruin this by dragging up boring and familiar old arguments?’ he queried softly. ‘Or are we going to make love?’
It had always been the same. On the one hand Triss was appalled by the outspoken way he came out with things like that...
And on the other?
On the other she thought he was nothing short of wonderful. Still, she realised despairingly. After all this time, the effect he had on her eclipsed just about every other feeling.
Cormack was a man of action. He saw. He asked. He wanted. He took.
And sometimes she took too.
She opened her eyes very wide; their faces were only inches apart. ‘We’re going to make love,’ she told him.
‘Well, thank God for that,’ he murmured.
Was that triumph she read in the light which flared briefly from the narrowed blue eyes? Suddenly Triss didn’t care. She needed Cormack now as never before, to fill this great emptiness inside her.
And afterwards?
Afterwards didn’t matter. She would accept the pain if she could just taste the pleasure one last time.
‘Cormack—’ she said, but she could hear the tremor in her voice and she recognised how tense she still was.
‘Shh,’ he soothed, and gathered her in his arms—not to begin removing her clothes, as she might have expected, but instead to lay her head against his chest, and to stroke her hair in that rhythmical way of old.
It was both comforting and sensual, and Triss felt all the tension slowly leaving her body. ‘Does it feel strange?’ she ventured.
‘What?’ His voice was deep and reflective. ‘Having you in my arms again?’
Triss bit her lip as she told herself firmly not to start wishing that things were different—they weren’t, and that was a fact of life. ‘You stroking my hair—only there’s hardly any hair to stroke!’
She could hear the gentle amusement which softened his voice. ‘It’s interesting,’ he mused. ‘I can feel the shape of your head—and it’s a very beautifully shaped head, I might add.’
‘Is it?’ she asked, ridiculously pleased.
‘Mmm. Nearly as beautiful as your back.’ He moved his hands down to illustrate the point, and the strong fingers began to caress and massage her back through the linen of her dress.
Triss wriggled into the warmth of him, aware that her body was beginning to react to him again. Cormack was very astute, she acknowledged—not for the first time. He had instinctively sensed her apprehension. And he was a master at slowing the pace right down when he needed to.
At least, she had no other lover to compare him with, but her instinct told her that no one could better Cormack Casey when it came to making love.
She had no idea how long they lay there, but she could pinpoint exactly the moment when she began to want him to do something more than just idly stroke at her back like that—much as she liked it. She began to move restlessly against him, but he did not take up her invitation.
Boldly she raised her head and began to seek the smooth curve of his jaw with her mouth, momentarily stilling as she felt the first rough graze of his chin.
‘You need a shave,’ she murmured automatically.
‘I had a shave first thing. And don’t pretend, Triss. You like to feel my face rasping roughly against you, don’t you? You like it best when it scrapes that silken skin hidden at the tops of your long legs. That exquisite contrast between your soft femininity and my—’
‘Hard masculinity?’ she interrupted, and let her hand brush fleetingly against the rock-like throb of his desire, thrilled to see his eyes close immediately in almost pained rapture.
‘Triss!’ he gasped.
‘Mmm?’ she purred.
He had clearly decided that he had exercised enough restraint, for he simply knelt up on the bed, peeled his grey cashmere sweater over his head and flung it carelessly over his shoulder like a seasoned stripper, treating Triss to the first glimpse of his magnificent bare torso.
Now it was her turn to gasp. He looked harder, somehow, and leaner and... It was difficult to describe, but after fourteen Cormack-starved months he seemed more vital than she could remember, and Triss forced herself to blot out the question of why she had not fought harder to keep him...
He gave an arrogant smile at her wide-eyed reaction and then turned his attention to the linen dress. ‘Take it off,’ he instructed softly.
Triss swallowed. Her co-ordination was shot to pieces, and even while her body was crying out for his possession her intellect despised this mindless yearning which Cormack had always been able to produce in her.
She shook her head, and, even though she had cut her hair off fourteen months ago, at that moment she desperately missed the thick red tresses which would have tumbled over her face at this point. She doubted her ability to breathe right now—let alone take her dress and knickers off! ‘No!’
‘No?’ he questioned, curiosity quietening his deep, lilting voice. ‘Want me to do it?’
Her hazel eyes flashed resentful green fire at him. ‘You know I do—damn you!’
He laughed softly as he began to pull the linen dress down her arms and then dropped it carelessly to the floor.
‘That dress cost me a fortune!’ she felt duty-bound to inform him.
He shrugged. ‘You wasted your money, sweetheart. A body like yours should wear as little as possible. Like now.’ His eyes narrowed and darkened with a fleeting look of perplexity as his gaze raked hungrily over her lace-clad body. ‘Dear God, Triss,’ he breathed, and she had never heard his voice sound quite so unsteady before. ‘Whatever you’ve done to yourself, I like it, sweetheart. I like it a lot.’
What would he say, Triss wondered as she closed her eyes to conceal her secret from him, if she flippantly announced that having his baby had been the prescription for giving her the curves she had always longed for, but which, paradoxically, had probably put paid to her modelling career for ever? ’D-do you?’ she stammered.
‘Mmm...’
But Triss could detect the oddest note in his voice, something she had never heard before, and her lashes flew open to find that the blue eyes were searing into her like sharp, piercing arrows, an unmistakable query in their lapis lazuli depths.
‘What is it, Triss?’ he questioned softly, and the tone of that question was a close approximation of the way he used to speak to her in those early days, when she had been certain that he loved her—before schedules and jealousy and scheming women had left their indelible scars on their relationship.
‘Tell me,’ he prompted softly.
And even while she knew that this was her opportunity to tell him about Simon she also knew that she was not going to take it.
For Triss was a woman as well as a mother. And for the last fourteen months she had quashed every womanly desire in her body with all the ruthlessness of a road-builder