The Pregnancy Bond Read online

  ‘Then explain it to me,’ he said through gritted teeth.

  ‘What I did, I did because I loved you. We were a team. Remember how we told ourselves that?’

  ‘Of course I remember. But it didn’t work out much of a deal for you, did it?’

  ‘I wasn’t making deals,’ she said quietly. ‘I was doing something for the man I loved. What I forgot-or was too young to know-was that two people who think they’re doing the same thing never really are. Not quite.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ he said flatly. ‘I never could follow when you talked like that. I’m a plain man and I see things plainly. I don’t think that was ever enough for you.’

  ‘I only meant that you saw our marriage differently from me.’

  ‘I did you an injustice,’ he said, clinging to the one thing that was clear to him. ‘And I’m trying to put it right.’

  ‘But you can’t put the past right. You can’t make it something it wasn’t. It’s dead and gone.’

  His combative streak would have made him fight that view, but there was something melancholy about ‘dead and gone’ that silenced him. He’d never been able to cope with her subtler wits. Handling facts was easier for him, and somehow it had always been tempting to use them to evade an argument. After a while Kelly had given up trying to make him talk things through, and he’d been relieved.

  Kelly gave a little sigh. ‘Oh, well,’ she said. ‘No point in arguing now.’

  ‘Perhaps I want to argue,’ he said illogically.

  Her lips twitched. ‘Nonsense, Jake, you never wanted to argue. You just wanted me to keep quiet and agree with you. Failing agreement, keep quiet anyway.’

  ‘You make me sound like a monster,’ he said, appalled. ‘A bully.’

  ‘No,’ she said with a touch of wistfulness. ‘You weren’t either. Just a man who always thought he was right. Much like all the others, really. No worse, anyway.’

  This faint praise did nothing to appease him.

  ‘Have you been thinking like this all the time?’ he demanded.

  ‘Not all of it, no. But it wasn’t much of a marriage at the end, was it?’ She began gathering cups and headed for the kitchen. ‘No, stay there.’ She stopped him rising. ‘There isn’t much.’

  She wanted to get away from him. The conversation had taken a turn that she was finding hard to cope with. She should never have started talking about love with Jake. It aroused memories best forgotten.

  But do I really want to forget? she asked herself wistfully. Would I wipe out the last eight years? I know they took a great deal away from me, but they gave me so much.

  She remembered herself at seventeen, a schoolgirl, slightly overweight, shy, lonely, earnest, not laughing enough. She’d worked hard at school, driven by dreams of escape from the dreary little provincial town and the single mother who’d resented her. Mildred Harmon had still been in her thirties, ‘with my own life to live’, a phrase she’d used often and with meaning.

  The last year at school had been punctuated by various lectures about career options. Kelly’s sights were set on a brilliant college career, but she’d attended the meeting about journalism, expecting to see Harry Buckworth, editor of the local rag, whom she knew slightly. But Harry had gone down with flu. Instead he’d sent Jake, who’d been on the paper a year.

  And that was it. All over in a moment. The twenty-four-year-old Jake had been like a young god to the ultra-serious schoolgirl. Tall, lean, jeans-clad, spinning words like the devil. And such words: a fine yet powerful web of bright colours that turned the schoolroom into a magic cave. And he’d laughed. How he’d laughed! And how wonderfully rich and free it had sounded. She could have loved him for that alone.

  Afterwards she’d strolled home in a dream, scheming how to meet him again, so oblivious to her surroundings that she’d collided with someone, and been halfway through her apology before she’d realised it was him.

  He’d taken her for a milk shake and listened while she talked. She didn’t know what she’d said, but when they’d left the evening light had been fading and she’d returned home nervously, wondering how she would explain her absence. But the house had been empty and cold. On the kitchen table there had been a note from her mother, out with her latest boyfriend, telling her to microwave something for herself.

  After that they’d seemed to bump into each other a lot, just by chance. The meetings had followed a pattern. Milk shake, talk, stroll home. Sometimes he’d helped with her school projects, looking up facts, guiding her to useful web sites, letting her bounce her ideas off him. Or he would discuss his assignments in a way that had made her feel very grown up.

  Once they’d reached her home to find Mildred peering through the curtains and beckoning them in. She’d looked Jake up and down thoughtfully, and when he’d left, said to her daughter,

  ‘Watch out for him. You’re becoming a pretty girl.’

  She didn’t know how to say that Jake had never so much as kissed her, but two weeks later, on her eighteenth birthday he finally did so, taking her into seventh heaven.

  ‘I was waiting for you to be old enough,’ he said.

  Life was brilliant then. Mildred, evidently feeling she’d done her motherly duty, was out more than she was in, and Kelly was free to indulge her happiness.

  Then Jake had lost his job.

  ‘I had to fire him,’ Harry explained when Kelly buttonholed him. ‘He’s a hard worker, I admit, but by golly he’s an opinionated young devil.’

  ‘A good journalist needs opinions,’ Kelly protested, parroting Jake. ‘And he shouldn’t be afraid to stand by them.’

  ‘Standing by them is one thing. Riding roughshod over everyone is another. There was this assignment, an important one-I told him how it should be handled, and he just went his own way, wouldn’t take advice. I had to be away for a day and when I came back the paper was nearly to bed. If it had gone in like that it would have offended our biggest advertiser-’

  ‘Advertisers!’ Kelly said scornfully.

  ‘That’s him talking,’ Harry said. ‘He’s brash, thoughtless, and he’s got more mouth than sense.’

  And it was true, Kelly thought now, standing in her kitchen eight years later. Brash, opinionated, cocky, insufferable. When he got in front of a camera it all turned to gold, but we couldn’t have known that then. And I knew him when he wasn’t like that…

  She forced herself back to reality. She’d promised herself not to hark back to the past, and it was time to be firm and drive Jake out. She returned to the living room, ready to deliver the speech that would send him away. But it died on her lips.

  Jake was where she’d left him on the sofa. The jetlag had caught up with him again and he looked as if he’d passed out the moment she left him. That was how he’d always been, she reflected. He spun his web of words, he slept, he passed on. And she should have remembered that.

  It was good that he’d slipped away from her yet again. It got things in perspective.

  CHAPTER THREE

  S HE fetched a blanket from the cupboard and gently draped it over him. Then she turned out the lights and made her way to her bedroom, but no sooner had she closed the door when a loud thump made her open it again. In the half-light from her bedroom she could see Jake on the floor.

  ‘Hell!’ he said, shaking his head. ‘What was that?’

  ‘You turned over too far and fell off the sofa,’ she said.

  ‘Uh-huh!’ He yawned and rubbed his eyes.

  She rearranged the cushions and when he’d hoisted himself back up she began to take off his shoes. ‘Let’s get you comfortable,’ she said, swinging his legs back into position and drawing the blanket up.

  ‘Are you going to tuck me up?’ he asked with a grin.

  In the near darkness she could discern little about his face except the mischievous gleam in his eyes. The likeness to a cheeky kid was so clear that she assumed a motherly, teasing tone. ‘Yes, I am, so you be good.’

  ‘I’m al
ways good.’

  ‘Yeah. Sure. ’Night.’

  She wasn’t sure how he did it, but one moment his arms were safely tucked under the blanket and the next they were around her waist.

  ‘Don’t I get a goodnight kiss?’

  ‘No,’ she said, although he was already pulling her near. ‘Jake, this isn’t just goodnight. It’s goodbye.’

  ‘A goodbye kiss, then.’

  One last time couldn’t do any harm, she promised herself as he drew her closer. She was armoured against him now, and this was a good way to prove it.

  The shape of his mouth was a shock. She knew it well, yet somehow it felt unfamiliar. It seemed such a long time since she’d last felt it against her own. There had been no kissing in the last weeks of their marriage. She’d seen his mouth tight with exasperation, and finally hard with anger. Now it was firmly purposeful, yet gentle, as she’d first loved it. She’d longed for that gentleness and had thought she would never know it again. Suddenly it was returned to her, like a present, and she couldn’t give it up just yet. She would enjoy it for a moment, and be strong later.

  They kissed like strangers exploring new territory, intrigued, ready to be surprised, even more ready to follow the dancing light of desire. His mouth was eager against hers, even a little predatory in a way that thrilled her. Lips that were purposefully seductive, arms like steel bands, hands that were tender even as they imprisoned her: this was Jake at his most overwhelming.

  Into her mind crept the unwanted memory of Craig-Craig somebody-who’d had the temerity to whisk a scoop from under Jake’s nose. He’d smiled pleasantly, stood Craig a drink, acted the good loser. But the following week he’d trumped him with a much bigger scoop that turned Craig’s story into small potatoes.

  ‘I’m not a good loser,’ he’d explained.

  Kelly had divorced him, rejected him in the eyes of the world, made him look like a loser. No way was he going to leave without reclaiming her. Even if nobody else suspected, the two of them would know, and that would be enough for him.

  So the moment to be strong was now. Not later, now. And she would manage it-in just a moment. Something in the movements of his lips was making her resolution slip away. His tongue teased her, flickering against her mouth, urging her not to be a spoilsport. It began to seem ridiculous not to do something she really wanted so much, and suddenly her mouth was open to him, inviting him to explore, for his own delight and hers.

  The tip of his tongue, wickedly caressing her inner cheek, sent delicious tremors through her. Too late for caution now, she thought, challenging him back. Wherever this led, she had no choice but to follow. She moved in slowly, taking control of the kiss, surprising him. She could feel his astonishment in her flesh, in her bones.

  After a few minutes of intense mutual enjoyment he drew away, regarding her. His eyebrows were raised, giving him a quizzical look.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said, considering. ‘Yvonne? Helena?’

  She drew a swift breath. ‘Carlotta,’ she said, greatly daring.

  ‘Well, that’s what I thought-hoped-because she sounds such an interesting lady.’

  ‘You don’t know just how interesting,’ she murmured with a little chuckle. ‘Not that she lets everyone in on the secret.’

  ‘Always ready for a new experience,’ he repeated her words from earlier in the evening.

  ‘Ready for anything,’ she confirmed.

  Jake took her at her word, letting his hands drift very slowly over her body, thinly covered in tight black satin. A few brief touches were enough to confirm his suspicions that she wore nothing underneath, but there was no way he was stopping at brief touches. A woman dressed like this for only one reason: to tempt a man to undress her. That was fine, as long as he was the man.

  Kelly was holding her breath as he explored her shape. They had made love so often before but, by the way he was causing her to feel, this could have been the first time. She knew he was relishing her as almost a different woman, which made him different in his turn.

  When he touched her top, seeking for a way to open it, she helped him by finding the little silver button that connected with the zip. Slowly he drew it down, revealing the soft swell of her breasts, then tossed the top away, releasing them completely to his entranced gaze.

  For a moment he laid his face between her breasts, while she clasped her hands behind his head. The first flicker of his tongue against her skin was so subtle that she barely felt it. But it came again and again, growing more intent with each movement so that she arched her back, inviting him, offering herself to him with movements that he couldn’t possibly mistake.

  When she felt the tip of his tongue curl about one peaked nipple she let out a long, long sigh of bliss and threw her arms high over her head.

  ‘What do you want?’ he murmured against her skin.

  ‘You know what I want.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘I want-everything.’ She could hardly speak the words for the excitement streaming through her.

  He rose upright, his hands on her waist, so that she was lifted high above him. He lowered her a little so that her breasts touched his face again, and carried her like that to her bed, kneeling on it and cradling her as she slipped down onto the sheet. Urgent fingers moved against her skin and she felt the trouser suit sliding down past her waist, her hips, down until he could toss it away and reveal her nakedness.

  His own clothes followed fast, leaving her in no doubt of one thing. His control was vanishing fast. He wanted her beyond thought or reason, and it was no surprise when he slipped quickly between her thighs and claimed her vigorously. It had been so long since they’d lain together that it was only when Kelly felt him inside her that she knew how badly she wanted him. For a few blinding minutes she blissfully gave as good as she got, satisfying a body that had been starved of passion and letting out a long sigh of fulfilment when her moment came.

  The sensation was so intense that she closed her eyes for several minutes while her head swam. Her heart was beating violently and she lay still for several minutes as her whole body calmed down. It was like sleeping and yet not sleeping. She was somewhere else, watching herself as if from a distance, wondering if this could be dull little Kelly who’d lost her husband because she bored him.

  When she opened her eyes she found Jake had left her and was standing, naked, by the window. For a brief moment she felt abandoned, then something about the tension of his body made her realise that this was different. His head rested against the window frame, and she had just enough of a sideways view to see that his eyes were focused on a far distance deep inside himself.

  That in itself was curious. Jake had never been a man for introspection. He’d always said that the outside world kept him fully occupied. Analysing, wondering about himself-these weren’t his style. It had been an article of faith with the young Kelly that her adored Jake wasn’t afraid of anything. Otherwise she might have thought he was afraid to know who he was.

  But she couldn’t think of that. Now she was the one who pushed thoughts aside to enjoy the purely physical. She was still suffused with delight from the best sex she’d ever enjoyed, and its glow transformed the world. She leaned back against the pillows, revelling in the sight of Jake’s long, straight back, narrow hips and taut buttocks. There was so much power in those hips, she thought with a little remembering smile: power to drive into her again and again, sending the pleasure mounting to unimaginable heights.

  She let her eyes drift over him, lingering on his thighs, lean but muscular, tense with whipcord strength. The brash, eager boy she’d loved had grown into somebody else, just as the Kelly of old had gone for ever. In her place was a woman capable of regarding a man from one simple, basic angle, and sizing him up critically.

  And he passed the most critical test, she had to admit, smiling even more broadly.

  So far.

  For she had more tests in store for him. This was no longer lovemaking, if it had ever been. This was s
omething she’d thought never to experience with Jake-sex for the sake of it. Simple erotic enjoyment with no purpose except sensual delight, and the enjoyment of new experience.

  She slipped quietly out of bed and padded across the room until she was just behind him. When she rested her fingers lightly on his back he raised his head, but didn’t turn it. Kelly’s touch drifted softly down the length of his back until it reached the base of his spine, paused for a moment, then continued purposefully. She let her fingers wander where they would, advancing and retreating, feeling his mounting desire, playing with it.

  He half turned but she prevented him. ‘No,’ she whispered against the warm skin of his back. ‘I’ll let you know when.’

  Her fingers had reached the front and were engaged on skilful work. She could feel that he was ready for her again. Vigorous as his exertions had been, she could bring him back to life, and the knowledge thrilled her.

  ‘I thought you were still asleep,’ he murmured.

  ‘Do you still think so?’ she said, pressing herself against him so that he could feel the hard peaks of her nipples against his back.

  ‘I don’t know what to think. Perhaps you’re a phantom.’

  ‘Could a phantom do this?’ she asked, making frisky movements across his chest with her fingers. ‘And this?’ she added, enjoying his groan and the way he pressed back against her so that her hands slid down again, found their target, homed in. ‘Or this?’

  ‘What the devil are you doing?’ he demanded huskily.

  ‘Proving that I’m no phantom. On the contrary, I’m very, very physical.’

  ‘You sure as hell are,’ he gasped, relishing the devastating skill that had taken him by surprise. ‘No woman-that I know-could do that!’

  ‘That’s right-no woman that you know,’ she agreed. Here was the best part of this delightful game. The selves they were tonight had no past and no future. They had come out of nowhere and tomorrow would dissolve into nothing. But tonight they existed, and felt, and burned with desire. It was heady magic.