The Three-Year Itch. Liz Fielding

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СКАЧАТЬ to be home.’ Two fraught weeks touring the sprawling streets of Karachi with a distraught mother in search of her snatched daughter in a tug-of-love case had not been a barrel of laughs.

      ‘That’s just what Mr Lockwood said not five minutes ago, when he got back.’

      ‘He’s home?’ In the middle of the afternoon? Something must be seriously wrong.

      ‘Yes, Mrs Lockwood, and very glad to see you back safe and sound, I’m sure. Leave your bag; I’ll bring …’

      But Abbie, too impatient to wait for the ornate wrought-iron lift to crank her up two floors, was already flying up the stairs, her bag banging against her back, her long legs taking the steps two at a time, all tiredness forgotten in her need for reassurance. Then as she reached the door she felt suddenly quite foolish. If Grey had been ill, or hurt, Peter would certainly have said something.

      It was far more likely that, realising that he wouldn’t make the airport in time, Grey had come home to surprise her. Well, she thought, her full mouth lifting into a mischievous little smile, she would surprise him instead. She opened the door quietly, put her bag on the hall floor and for a moment just enjoyed the wonderful sensation of being in her own home, surrounded by the accumulated clutter of their lives, instead of confined to the anonymous comfort of a hotel room.

      She could hear sounds of activity coming from the small study that they shared and, easing off her shoes, she padded silently across the hall. Grey was propped on the edge of his desk, listening to the messages on the answering machine, pen poised above his notepad to jot down anything that needed a response.

      For a moment she stood in the doorway, simply enjoying the secret pleasure of watching him. She never tired of looking at the way his thick, dark hair curled onto his strong neck, at the sculptured shape of his ear, the long, determined set of his jaw. She could see his beloved face reflected in the glass-fronted bookcase, the furrow of concentration as he noted a telephone number. She was reflected beside him but, head bent over the notepad, he had not yet noticed her.

      Then, as he reached her message, telling him the arrival time and flight number of her plane, he swore softly, glanced swiftly at his watch and reached for the phone. As he did so he finally caught sight of her reflection and their eyes met through the glass.

      ‘Abbie!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m so sorry! I’ve only just got your message …’

      ‘So I heard,’ she said, her soft voice full of mock reproach. ‘And since I rang twenty-four hours ago I shall want a detailed itinerary of your movements to cover every last second of that time.’ She had been teasing, expecting him to respond in kind, with lurid details of an impossible night of debauchery and an offer to demonstrate … Instead he raked his long fingers distractedly through his hair.

      ‘I had to go away for a couple of days. I’ve only just got back.’

      ‘Oh?’ It was odd, she thought, flinging herself into his arms in the frenetic excitement of the arrivals hall at the airport had always seemed the most natural thing in the world, but here, in their own home, the atmosphere was more constrained, with the answering machine droning on the background and Grey poised on the edge of the desk, pen still in his hand. ‘And what exotic paradise have you been gadding off to the minute I turn my back?’ she asked.

      For the space of a moment, no more, his eyes blanked. ‘Manchester,’ he said. ‘A case conference.’ If it hadn’t been so ridiculous, Abbie would have sworn he’d said the first thing that came into his head, but she had no time to think about it before he dropped the pen and closed the space between them, gathering her into his arms. ‘Lord, but I’ve missed you,’ he said.

      She couldn’t answer, couldn’t tell him how much she had missed him, because her mouth was entirely occupied with a long and hungry kiss that scorched her in a way that the Karachi sun had quite failed to do. When finally he lifted his head, his warm brown eyes were creased into a smile. ‘Welcome home, Mrs Lockwood.’

      ‘Now that,’ she said huskily, ‘is what I call a welcome.’ Abbie lifted her hands to his face, smoothed out the lines that fanned about his eyes with the tips of her fingers. ‘You look tired. I suppose you’ve been working all the hours in the day, and half the night as well, while I’ve been away?’

      ‘It helps to pass the time,’ he agreed. ‘But you’re absolutely right. I am tired. So tired, in fact, that I think I shall have to go to bed. Immediately.’ Abbie squealed as he swiftly bent and caught her behind the knees, swinging her up into his arms. ‘And I’m going to have to insist you come with me. You know how very badly I sleep when I’m on my own.’

      ‘Idiot!’ she exclaimed, laughing. ‘Put me down this minute. I’ve been travelling all day, and if I don’t have a shower …’

      ‘A shower?’ Grey came to a sudden halt. Then his mouth curved into a slow smile that was so much more dangerous than his swift grin. ‘Now that is a good idea.’

      ‘No, Grey!’ she warned him.

      He took no notice of her protest, or her ineffectual struggles to free herself from his arms, but headed straight into the bathroom and, stopping only to kick off his shoes, stepped with her into the shower stall.

      ‘No!’ Her voice rose to a shriek as the jet of water hit them both. Then he was kissing her hungrily as the water ran over their faces, pulling her close as the water drenched her T-shirt, pouring in warm rivulets between her breasts and across the aching desire of her abdomen. Then she gave a whispered, ‘Oh, yes,’ as he eased her T-shirt over her head, unfastened her bra and tossed them into a dripping pile upon the bathroom floor.

      His lips tormented hers as he hooked his finger under the waistband of her jeans, flicking open the button as with shaking fingers she reached up and began to unfasten his shirt. Then he slipped his hands inside her jeans and over her buttocks, easing them down her legs.

      She was almost melting with desire by the time he turned her round and began slowly to stroke shower gel across her shoulders and down her back. A long, delicious quiver of pleasure escaped her lips and he laughed softly. ‘I thought you said no,’ he murmured, his tongue tracing a delicate little line along the curve of her ear as his hands slid round to cradle her breasts and draw her back against him.

      ‘I’ll give you twenty-four hours to stop,’ she sighed, lying back against him, relishing the intense pleasure of his wet skin against hers, the touch of his hands stroking the soap over her body. She had dreamed of this in the sterile emptiness of her hotel room five thousand miles away and had determined that, no matter what the temptation, how good the story, she had accepted her last foreign assignment.

      It would be a wrench. She loved her job. She was a good photo-journalist and knew the feature on tug-of-love children that she was putting together needed the on-the-spot reality of her Karachi trip. The desperate hunt, the endless knocking on the doors, an officialdom that seemed not to care about a woman deprived of her child, the photographs that would show the anguish when she had finally found her daughter, only to have her snatched from her grasp and bundled away once more, would make a heartbreakingly compelling story.

      But no more. Every time she went away it seemed that her marriage suffered just a little. Nothing that she could put her finger on. Tiny irritations. But things happened to them while they were apart that they seemed unable to share. She came back impatient at complaints about a leaky washing machine or some other domestic drama when she had spent a week with refugees or the victims of some terrible natural catastrophe. But Grey was the senior partner in a prestigious law firm. He didn’t СКАЧАТЬ