first four years of his son’s life. He wouldn’t have been obliged to spend weeks playing catch up in the father stakes.
But regret was not an emotion with which Raoul was accustomed to dealing, and there was no value in looking at things with the benefit of hindsight.
He blocked out the fanciful notion of a different path and instead trailed his mouth over the flat planes of her stomach, maybe not quite so firm as it had once been, but remarkably free of stretch marks.
The taste of her, as he dipped his tongue to tease her most sensitive spot, was the most erotic thing he had ever experienced.
He smoothed his hands over the satin smoothness of her inner thighs and she groaned as he gave his full attention to the task.
Several times he took her so close to the edge that she had to use every ounce of will-power to rein herself back. She wanted him inside her. She found that she was desperate to feel that wonderful moment when he took one deep, final thrust and lost all his control as he came.
‘Are you protected?’
Those three words penetrated her bubble, and it took a few seconds for them to register.
‘Huh?’
‘I haven’t got any protection with me.’ Raoul’s voice was thick with frustration. ‘And you’re not on the pill. I can tell from the expression on your face.’
‘No. I’m not.’ It was slowly sinking in that, however wrapped up he was in the throes of passion, there was no way he would permit another mistake to occur. Look at what his last slip-up had cost him!
‘Still, there are other ways of pleasing each other …’
‘No, I can’t … I’m sorry … I don’t know what happened …’
She rolled onto her side, feeling exposed, and then sat up and looked around to where their clothes lay in random piles on the ground. Reaching out, she picked up her top and hastily shoved it on. This was followed by her underwear, while Raoul watched in silence, before heaving himself up on one elbow to stare at her with brooding force.
‘Don’t tell me that you’ve suddenly decided to have an attack of scruples now!’
‘This was a mistake!’ She backed away from him to take refuge on the sofa, drawing her knees up and hugging herself to stave off a bad bout of the shakes.
She dragged her eyes away from the powerful image of his nudity. She wished that she could honestly tell herself that she had just given in to a temporary urge that had been too strong. But the questions raining down on her were of an altogether more uncomfortable nature.
How far had she really come these past few years? Had she forgotten just how easily he had found it to dump her? To write her off as surplus to requirements when it came to the big plan of how he wanted to live his life?
A few weeks ago Raoul Sinclair had been the biggest mistake she had ever made. Seeing him again had been a shock, but she had risen above that and tried hard to view his reappearance in her life as something good for the sake of Oliver.
Yes, he had still been able to get to her, but her defences had been up and she had been prepared to fight to protect herself.
But he had attacked her in a way she had never planned for. He had won her over with the ease with which he had accepted what must have been a devastating blow to all his long-term plans. He had controlled his ego and his pride to listen to what she had to say, and he had thrown himself into the business of getting to know his son with enthusiasm and heart wrenching humility. Against her will, and against all logic and reason and good judgement, she had succumbed over the weeks to his sense of humour, his patience with Oliver, his determination to go the extra mile.
How many men who had never contemplated having a family, indeed had steadfastly maintained their determination never to go down that road, would have reacted to similar news with the grace that he had?
Sarah suspected that a lot would either have walked away or else would have contributed financially but done the absolute minimum beyond that.
He had reminded her of all the reasons she had fallen in love with him in the first place and more.
Was it any wonder that she had been a sitting target when he had reached out and touched her?
Sarah could have wept, because she knew that fundamentally Raoul hadn’t changed. He might want her body, but he didn’t want her dreams, her hopes or her romantic notions—which, it now seemed, had never abandoned her after all, because they were part and parcel of who she was.
‘Of course this wasn’t a mistake!’ He raked impatient fingers through his hair and looked at her as he got dressed. Huddled on the sofa in front of him she looked very young—but then, of course, she was very young. Had he presumed too much? No. Of course he hadn’t. Her signals had been loud and clear. She had given him the green light, and for the life of him he couldn’t understand why she was backing away from him now. The past few weeks had been inexorably leading to this place. At least that was how he saw it.
It wasn’t just that she still had the same dramatic effect on his libido that she’d always had. It wasn’t just that she could look at him from under those feathery lashes and make him break out in a sweat. No, they had connected in a much more fundamental area, and he knew that she felt the same way. Hell, he was nothing if not brilliant when it came to reading the signs.
And just then? Before she had decided to start backtracking? She had been as turned on as him!
‘In fact,’ he said huskily, ‘it was the most natural thing in the world.’
‘How do you figure that?’
‘You’re the mother of my child. I happen to think that it’s pretty damned good that we’re still seriously attracted to one another.’ He sat on the sofa, elbows on thighs, and looked sideways at her.
‘Well, I don’t think it’s good. I think it just … complicates everything.’
‘How does it complicate everything?’
‘I don’t want to get into a relationship with you. Oh, God—I forgot you don’t like the word relationship. I forgot you find it too threatening.’
Raoul could feel her trying to impose a barrier between them and he didn’t like it. It annoyed him that she was prepared to waste time dwelling on something as insignificant as a simple word.
‘I want you to admit what’s obvious,’ he told her, turning so that he was facing her directly, not giving her the slightest opportunity to deflect her eyes from his. ‘You can’t deny the sexual chemistry between us. If anything, it’s stronger than it was when we were together five years ago.’
It terrified Sarah that he felt that too—that it hadn’t been just a trick of her imagination that she was drawn to him on all sorts of unwelcome and unexpected levels. In Africa they had come together as two young people about to take their first steps into the big, bad world. They had lived in a bubble, far removed from day-to-day life. There was no bubble here, and that made the savage attraction she felt for him all the more terrifying.
‘No …’ she protested weakly.
‘Are you telling me that if I hadn’t interrupted our lovemaking you would have suddenly decided to push me away?’
Sarah went bright red and didn’t say anything.
‘I thought so,’ Raoul confirmed softly. ‘You want to push me away but you can’t.’
‘Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.’
‘Okay. Well, let me tell you this. The past few weeks have been … a revelation. Who would have thought that I could enjoy spending so much time in a kitchen? Especially a kitchen with no mod-cons? Or sitting in front of a television watching a children’s programme? I never expected to see you again, but the second I did I realised that what I felt for you hadn’t