Wanting His Child. Penny Jordan

is good for you,’ he told her solemnly, adding with a wicked smile, ‘It’s the food of love, did you know that…?’

      ‘Want me to prove it?’ he tempted when Verity shook her head.

      He enjoyed teasing her, he admitted later, but what he enjoyed even more, he added, was the discovery that beneath her shyness she possessed not just intelligence but, even more importantly, a good sense of humour.

      They certainly laughed a lot together that first summer; laughed a lot and loved a lot too.

      She could still remember the first time he kissed her. It wasn’t sunny that day. There was thunder in the air, the sky brassy and overcast, and then late in the afternoon it suddenly came on to rain, huge, pelting drops, causing them to take refuge in the small summer house several yards away at the bottom of the garden.

      They ran there, Silas holding her hand, both of them bursting into the small, stuffy room, out of breath and laughing.

      As the door swung closed behind them, enclosing them in the half-light of the small, airless room, Silas turned towards her, brushing her hair off her face. His hands were cool and wet and, without thinking what she was doing, she turned her head to lick a raindrop off him, an instinctive, almost childish gesture, but one which marked the end of her childhood, turning her within the space of an afternoon from a child to a woman.

      Even without closing her eyes she could still visualise the expression in Silas’ eyes, feel the tension that suddenly gripped his body. Outwardly, nothing had changed. He was still cupping her face, they were still standing with their bodies apart, but inwardly everything had changed, Verity acknowledged.

      Looking into Silas’ eyes, she felt herself starting to tremble—not with cold and certainly not with fear.

      ‘Verity.’

      Her name, which Silas started saying inches from her face, he finished mouthing with his lips against her own, his body against her own. And there was nothing remotely childish about the way she reached out to him—for him—Verity remembered; nothing remotely childish at all in the way she opened her mouth beneath his and deliberately invited him to explore its intimacy. They kissed frantically, feverishly, whispering incomprehensible words of love and praise to one another, she making small keening sounds of pleasure against Silas’ skin, he muttering rawly to her that he loved her, adored her, wanted her. Over and over again they kissed and touched and Verity felt incandescent with the joy of what she was experiencing; of being loved; of knowing that Silas loved her as much as she knew she loved him.

      They weren’t lovers that day. She wanted to but Silas shook his head, telling her huskily, ‘We can’t…I can’t…I don’t have…I could make you pregnant,’ he explained to her, adding gruffly, ‘The truth is I would want to make you pregnant, Verity. That’s how much I love you and I know that once I had you in my arms, once my body was inside yours, there’s no way I could…I want to come inside you,’ he told her openly when she looked uncertainly at him, explaining in a low, emotional voice, ‘I want to have that kind of intimacy with you. It’s man’s most basic instinct to regenerate himself, to seed the fertility of his woman, especially when he loves her as much as I love you.’

      ‘I…I could go on the pill…’ Verity offered, but Silas shook his head.

      ‘No,’ he told her gently, ‘taking care of that side of things is my responsibility. And besides,’ he continued softly, looking around the cramped, stuffy summer house, ‘this isn’t really the right place. When you and I make love I want it to be…I want it to be special for you…perfect.’

      Verity moistened her lips.

      ‘My uncle is still away,’ she offered awkwardly. ‘We could…’

      ‘No. Not here in another man’s house. Yes, I know that it’s your home, but no, not here,’ Silas said quietly.

      ‘Where, then?’ Verity breathed eagerly.

      ‘Leave it to me,’ Silas told her. ‘Leave everything to me…’

      And like the dutiful person she had been raised to be she dipped her head and agreed.