Lovers In The Afternoon. Carole Mortimer

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СКАЧАТЬ her head in self-condemnation. ‘It seemed the easy way out at the time, so much easier for me to be Leonie Grant and you to be Adam Faulkner,’ she said shakily.

      He shrugged broad shoulders. ‘Why not, that’s who we are.’

      ‘Because until our divorce becomes final I’m still officially Leonie Faulkner, your wife, and you’re my husband!’

      ‘And now I’m your lover,’ he gave a slow smile of satisfaction. ‘It was your idea, Leonie, you’re the one that said we shouldn’t have married each other but just have been lovers. And after tonight that’s exactly what we’re going to be!’

       CHAPTER TWO

      SHE vividly remembered shouting those words at Adam before she had walked out on him and their marriage eight months ago, remembered everything about her disaster of a marriage to this man. And she didn’t intend becoming involved with him again in any way.

      She was fully dressed now, straightening the collar of her jacket. ‘Tonight was a mistake——’

      ‘I have another name for it,’ Adam drawled.

      Her eyes flashed her resentment. ‘I’m well aware of the fact that you planned what happened——’

      ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t want it, too,’ he warned her softly.

      She blushed at the truth of that; from the moment she had seen him seated across the desk from her at the Thompson building her senses had become alive with wanting him. And the fact that he had acted as if it were the first time they had ever met had added to the excitement. But she had a feeling, knowing Adam as she did, a much less charming and relaxed Adam, that he had realised exactly what effect his behaviour was having on her, that it had been effected to get the response from her she had refused to give him during their marriage.

      ‘It was certainly better than anything we ever shared during our marriage,’ she snapped waspishly, waiting for the angry explosion she had come to expect from him when they discussed the failure of the physical side of their marriage.

      ‘I agree.’ Once again he disconcerted her; he had been doing it all evening, from the time she had discovered that her estranged husband was the new President of Thompson Electronics, during dinner when he had had such patience with her ‘accidents’, to the infinite care and gentleness he had shown her during their lovemaking. ‘You were right,’ he continued lightly. ‘We’re much better as lovers than as husband and wife.’

      ‘We are not lovers!’ She looked around desperately for her handbag so that she might get out of here. ‘I’ve left my handbag in the restaurant,’ she finally groaned in realisation. ‘And that damned man——’

      ‘Henri,’ Adam put in softly, his mouth quirked with amusement.

      ‘He already thinks I’m some sort of escapee from a lunatic asylum.’ She hadn’t missed his covert glances in her direction during the evening. ‘I just can’t go back there,’ she shuddered.

      ‘You don’t have to——’

      ‘And I don’t need any of your high-handed interference either,’ she cut in rudely. ‘Why should one more visit to that place bother me!’ she told herself defiantly.

      ‘Because it does,’ Adam soothed. ‘And there’s no need to torture yourself with the thought of having to do it; your handbag is in my car.’

      Her eyes widened. ‘Are you sure?’

      ‘Very,’ he replied with satisfaction. ‘You were so eager to get up here that you left it next to your seat.’

      ‘I was not eager to get up here,’ she defended indignantly.

      ‘Maybe I should rephrase that,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘I was so eager to get you up here that I didn’t give you chance to think of such mundane things as a handbag. Better?’ he quirked dark brows in amusement.

      It was that amusement that confused her; there had been little to laugh about during their marriage, Adam always so grim. But no one knew the deviousness of his mind as well as she did, and she wasn’t fooled by this charm for a moment.

      ‘What are you up to, Adam?’ she demanded impatiently. ‘Why are you doing this?’

      He strolled across the room to her side, his movements gracefully masculine, as they always were. ‘I want a lover, Leonie,’ he told her softly, only inches away from her as he stood with his hands thrust into the pockets of his robe. ‘I want you.’

      She shook her head. ‘You had me for a year, and it was a disaster,’ she recalled bitterly.

      Adam nodded in acknowledgment of that fact. ‘Nevertheless, I want you.’

      ‘You’ve only just got rid of me!’ she reminded desperately.

      ‘Of the marriage, not you, Leonie.’

      ‘It’s the same thing!’

      ‘No,’ he smiled gently. ‘We both found the marriage stifling, the sort of relationship I’m suggesting——’

      ‘With me as your mistress!’ she scorned.

      ‘Lover,’ he insisted. ‘We would be lovers.’

      ‘No!’

      ‘Why not?’ his eyes had narrowed, although he remained outwardly relaxed.

      ‘I don’t want a lover!’

      His mouth quirked. ‘You just proved, very effectively, that you do.’

      Colour heightened her cheeks. ‘That was sex——’

      ‘The best sex we ever had, admit it,’ he encouraged.

      She drew in a ragged breath. ‘Yes.’ ‘And as I said before, what’s wrong with that?’

      She sighed her exasperation. ‘You just don’t understand——’

      ‘I understand perfectly,’ he cut in soothingly. ‘This has all come as a bit of a shock to you——’

      ‘That has to be the understatement of the decade!’

      Adam chuckled, at once looking younger. ‘Poor Leonie,’ he smiled. ‘What’s shocking you the most, the fact that we found such pleasure in bed together for the first time, or the fact that I want it to continue?’

      She couldn’t deny that she was surprised at the amount of pleasure she had known with Adam tonight, a pleasure she had known beyond all doubt that he felt too, his responses open and complete. Their sex-life during their marriage, as with everything else during that year, had been a disaster. Adam had been so experienced that in her innocence she had felt inadequate, and she had resented the way he had tried to control her body, her responses automatic and emotionless, refusing to be dominated by him. But the lovemaking they had shared tonight hadn’t been restricted by any of that resentment, had been uninhibited. СКАЧАТЬ