Penny Jordan's Crighton Family Series. PENNY JORDAN

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СКАЧАТЬ their pupils, his habitual, faintly cynical expression banished, his skin slightly flushed and hot, so hot that when he buried his face between her breasts and started to kiss the soft hollow between them, she could feel his heat.

      And all the time he was kissing her, tasting her, he was still talking to her, praising her, his voice thick and slurred with the desire she could feel so potently pulsing from his body.

      It was impossible for her to remain immune to that desire … to him; she could feel her own responsive arousal, see it in the way her nipples hardened and swelled provocatively, inviting the eager caress of his lips, his tongue, his mouth, and eagerly responding to them.

      Saul had fully shrugged off his shirt, and with the hand that wasn’t holding her, he was struggling with his belt. ‘Help me,’ he begged her throatily. ‘Undress me, Olivia …’

      Dizzily Olivia let him take her hand and place it on his belt, her fingers shaking in her response to the sharpness of his indrawn breath and the way his whole body shuddered as her fingertips grazed the bare flesh about his belt buckle.

      She tugged at it ineffectually, her hands trembling too much for her to unfasten it properly, welcoming the hard warmth of Saul’s hand as it covered hers, helped and guided her.

      His belly was firm and flat, the crispness of his body hair activating the sensitive nerve endings beneath her skin as she touched him and felt his arms tighten around her in response. Closing her eyes, she lifted her face towards him. She had been feeling so besieged and beleaguered lately. It felt so good to be held like this, to be wanted, to have hostility and anger replaced with laughter and warmth.

      She let her thoughts and her senses drift as he continued to kiss her, willing herself to ignore everything but the pleasure they were sharing, but deep down inside her a small mournful, grieving voice could not quite be silenced.

      Something was wrong. Oh, her flesh, her body, her physical senses might be responding to Saul, welcoming the loving sensuality of his touch as it stimulated them. A part of her might enjoy seeing the heat and the need in his eyes as he looked down at her partially naked body, just as part of her enjoyed looking at him, but something was not quite right. Something was just not there, and as she tried to force herself to respond passionately to his kiss, Olivia knew what it was.

      ‘Caspar.’

      She didn’t realise she had said his name aloud until she felt Saul gently but so firmly holding her away from him, the look in his eyes no longer aroused and passionate but instead rueful and knowledgeable.

      ‘I … I’m sorry,’ Olivia faltered. ‘I didn’t think … I didn’t mean …’

      ‘It’s all right, Olivia,’ Saul reassured her gently. ‘I do understand.’ He glanced down briefly at her still-naked breasts before releasing her and very tenderly tugging her clothes back in place. When he had finished he looked directly at her and smiled into her eyes. ‘It is all right,’ he repeated emphatically, ‘and I do understand.’

      ‘I didn’t mean … it just …’

      ‘I know, I know,’ he soothed. ‘But that still doesn’t stop me from wishing,’ he added ruefully.

      He touched her face lightly with his fingertips as he started to do up his own clothing.

      ‘I shouldn’t have …’ Olivia began, feeling guiltier by the minute. Saul was being so nice, so caring. If she had any sense she would make up her mind to forget about Caspar right now and …

      It seemed she did not possess that admirable quality because right now the person she wanted more than any other in the world was … Caspar.

      ‘No, I shouldn’t have,’ she heard Saul correcting her firmly. He took hold of her hands. ‘Let’s both agree that this—’ he glanced around the bedroom ‘—was the result of a little too much good wine and a little too much wishful thinking—on my part at least.’

      And then he leaned forward and gave her a determinedly cousinly peck on the cheek before saying briskly, ‘Now, just where did I put those photographs?’

      ‘Oh, Max …’

      Max grimaced in impatience as he heard the emotion in Madeleine’s voice and felt the warmth of her tears on his skin. If there was one thing he particularly loathed, it was women who cried in the aftermath of their orgasm. He might have known that Madeleine would be that type, just as he had known that she would be awkward and inexperienced, fortunately too inexperienced to realise just how manufactured his forced ‘desire’ for her actually was. Unlike her housemate, Claudine … She would have known and she would most definitely not have cried.

      Irritably he suppressed the thought. He had never been attracted to brunettes and certainly not ones like her. She was far too assertive and self-assured, far too—

      ‘Oh, Max! I wish we could always be together….’

      Max tensed; this was his cue, the opening he had been angling for, carefully manoeuvring towards. ‘So do I,’ he lied adroitly, reaching to brush away her tears in a gesture of faked tenderness whilst he smiled his crocodile smile down into her tear-wet eyes. ‘But you know the situation. I’m not … I can barely support myself … never mind anyone else….’

      He could feel her pulse jump betrayingly beneath his fingers and felt his body start to ease into relaxation and triumph. It had all been so simple. Much, much simpler than even he had anticipated. Madeleine had proved boringly easy to charm and deceive, swallowing every one of the lies he had so cynically told her, gazing at him wide-eyed and adoringly as he relentlessly and ruthlessly manoeuvred his way into her life and her heart.

      Prior to meeting her, he had had no clear idea of how best to accomplish his objective, but once he had met her … She was almost too persuadable and malleable, and the contempt he felt for her had now spread to include her parents, especially her father. Did he really believe that she had what it took to make a barrister? Oh, she might have the academic qualifications, but the thought of her ever appearing in a courtroom, even defending a case, never mind prosecuting one … And yet, just because of who she was, or rather who her father was, she still had the power to take that vacancy from him, or rather she thought she could.

      Cleverly Max had given her no indication that he knew that she was his rival for the tenancy whilst at the same time apparently openly and disarmingly admitting to her how important getting it was to him. Predictably she had flushed bright red and become self-conscious and flustered, and she had even asked him if he couldn’t find a vacancy with another set of chambers.

      He had been tempted then to tell her crudely and bluntly what he really thought and felt, but he had restrained himself. He would get his opportunity to tell her once she had—as he was quite determined that she would—relinquished her claim on the vacancy in favour of him.

      ‘Oh, there’ll always be a vacancy for me in Chester,’ he had told her carelessly and untruthfully.

      In reality, the old man’s pride would never allow him to accept any favours from the Chester branch of the family, even for his favourite grandson. Oh no! It could never be good enough for Max to match the achievements of his Chester cousins. He must supersede them. But Maddy, of course, knew nothing about any of that or about a good many other aspects of his life—and indeed she would never know.

      ‘Chester?’ Maddy had demurred anxiously. ‘But that would mean you’d have to move СКАЧАТЬ