The Three-Year Itch. Liz Fielding

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      ‘I think I’d rather have a job-share husband,’ she had returned, easily enough, joining in with his laughter, but the warning had not been lost on her.

      Grey Lockwood was the kind of man who turned women’s heads. And, like most men, he only had to look helpless and they flocked to mother him. Except that mothering wasn’t all they had in mind. She worked very hard to ensure that her absences were as painless as possible, but some things couldn’t be foreseen. How long would it be before some sympathetic secretary noticed the vulnerable chink in their marriage and began to lever it apart with personal services that extended beyond the use of her washing machine? Certain as she was that he loved her, she knew Grey was not made of wood. He was a warm, flesh-and-blood man—full of life, full of love. And she loved him as much as life itself.

      She turned eagerly in his arms and began to soap him, spreading her hands across his broad shoulders, slipping the tips of her fingers through the coarse dark hair that spread across his chest and arrowed down across his flat belly until she heard him gasp.

      ‘I don’t know about you, Grey,’ she said, tipping her head back to look at him from beneath the heavy lids of her fine grey eyes, ‘but I think I’m clean enough.’

      He said nothing, simply flipped the shower switch, pulled a towel from the rack to wrap about her shoulders, then, sweeping her up into his arms, he stepped out of the shower stall and carried her to bed.

      The first time after she had been away was always special. A slow rediscovery of one another, a reaffirmation of their love. But now Grey seemed seized by an almost desperate urgency to know her, to reclaim her as his. Even as he followed her down onto the bed she saw something in his face, some savage, primeval need that excited her even as a quiver of apprehension rippled through her.

      ‘Grey?’ Her almost tentative query was brushed aside as he reared above her, his knee parting her legs, the dominant male driven by the desire to plant his seed.

      She cried out as her breath was driven from her, her hands seizing the muscle-packed flesh of his shoulders, her nails digging in as he took her on a roller-coaster ride of meteoric intensity—a ride which she began as a passenger but then, as the pace, almost the fury of his driving passion set alight a hitherto unsuspected chord of wanton sensuality deep within her, she rose to him, matching his ardour thrust for thrust until they came crashing back to earth, satiated, exhausted, drenched with sweat.

      As he rolled away from her and lay staring at the ceiling a long shuddering sigh escaped him. ‘You’ve been away too long, Abbie.’ Then he turned to her. ‘Did I hurt you?’

      She shook her head. ‘Surprised me a little, that’s all.’ She touched the score-marks her nails had riven in his shoulders in the heat of passion. ‘But I like surprises.’ And she reached forward to lay her lips against the slick salty warmth of his skin, sighing contentedly as he gathered her into his arms.

      Tomorrow she would ache a little, but it would be a good feeling and she would carry it with her as a secret knowledge, a constant reminder of the fact that she was desired, loved.

      Abbie was the first to wake, the weight of Grey’s arm across her waist disturbing her as she moved. For a moment she remained perfectly still, soaking in the pleasure of having his face buried against her shoulder, the pleasure of being home. Going away had its miseries, but without separation there would never be these blissful reunions. She lay quietly, her face inches from his, reminding herself of every feature, every tiny line that life had bestowed upon him, very gently touching an old childhood scar above his brow.

      She could tell the exact moment when he woke. He didn’t move, didn’t open his eyes. There was just the faintest change in breathing, the tiniest contraction of the muscles about his eyes. She grinned. It was an old game, this.

      How long could he maintain the pretence? She began slowly to trace the outline of his face with the tip of one finger, moving slowly up the darkening shadow of his chin to his lower lip. Did it quiver slightly under the lightest teasing of her nail? She gave him the benefit of the doubt, this was not a game to be hurried. She dipped her head to trail a tiny tattoo of kisses across his throat, his chest, her tongue flickering across flat male nipples that leapt to attention.

      Still he did not move, and she continued her teasing quest across the hard, flat plane of his stomach until the tell-tale stirring of his manhood could no longer be ignored. But, before she had quite registered the fact that the game was over and won, he had turned, flipping her over onto her back, his hands on her wrists, holding her arms above her head, pinning her to the bed, utterly at his mercy. ‘So, you want to play games, do you, Mrs Lockwood?’

      She lowered her lashes seductively. ‘Why, sir, I don’t know what you mean.’

      ‘Then I’ll have to show—’ The telephone began to ring. For a moment Grey gazed down at her, then he dropped the briefest kiss on her mouth. ‘It appears that you have a reprieve.’ He released her, rolling away and rising to his feet in one smooth movement.

      She didn’t want a reprieve and reached out for him. ‘Whoever it is will leave a message, Grey. Don’t go.’

      ‘It’ll be Robert. I should have phoned him an hour ago.’ He raised her hand absently to his lips. ‘Why don’t you go and see if you can rustle up something for supper?’

      ‘Well, gee, shucks, thanks, mister,’ she murmured as he disappeared in the direction of the study. It was the first time she had ever come third. To a phone call and food.

      ‘Grey?’ He lifted his head from his distant contemplation of the supper Abbie had thrown together from the rather sparse contents of the refrigerator. ‘Can we talk?’

      ‘Mmm?’ He had been distracted ever since he had talked to Robert; now he seemed to come back from a long way off, but as he looked up he caught her eye, became very still. ‘Go ahead, I’m listening.’

      I want to have a baby. Your baby. It sounded so emotional, almost desperate put like that. Not a good start. But that heartfelt ‘You’ve been away too long …’ gave her the courage to press on.

      ‘I wondered what you thought about starting a family,’ she said.

      He looked up, momentarily shaken, his eyes dark with something that might almost have been pain. Then he shook his head. ‘Leave it, Abbie. This is not a good moment.’

      Whatever reaction she had expected, it certainly wasn’t that. ‘Not a good moment’? What on earth did that mean? ‘You did say we were apart too much …’ she began, trying to lift an atmosphere that had suddenly become about as light as a lead-filled balloon.

      ‘And a baby would fix that?’ Grey sat back in his chair, abandoning any further attempt to eat. ‘That’s a somewhat drastic solution, isn’t it?’

      Drastic? The second she had opened her mouth Abbie had realised the moment was all wrong, but it shouldn’t ever be that wrong, surely? Confused, hurt, she said, ‘I … I thought we both wanted children.’

      ‘Eventually,’ he agreed coolly. ‘But we had an agreement, Abbie. No children until you’re ready to give them your full-time care.’

      ‘Yes, but—’

      ‘Do you really think you can have it all?’ he demanded, cutting off her protest, and she saw to her astonishment that he was now genuinely angry with her. ‘Most of your friends manage it, I know, by cobbling their СКАЧАТЬ