page40 (1/1)
‘Is it unreasonable of me to want to know?’
She sat up and looked down at his dark body outlined against the tu-ter to say on the subject, because I think it’s distasteful to discuss it, especially at a time like this Is that acceptable?’
‘Completely acceptable would be for there to have been no one before ed with intent rather than humour ‘And since I intend to drive the memory of anyone else from your mind for ever, you’d better coht now’
His hand starfished over her breast and, even though his questioning was unfair and his attitude outrageouslyto him She wondered what he’d say if she told him he’d banished every other man from her mind the first time he’d kissed her Would he be surprised? Probably not Wo all the time
It hadn’t been her plan to have hiain quite so soon, and certainly not to cry his name out like a kind of prayer as he entered her a second ti exposed and naked in all kinds of ways, while he rema as he’d always done
She lay there wrapped in his arainst her shoulder were h to hear
‘I’ether from nohat about you?’ he said ‘Because it would be crazy not to’
It was a strangely e and Ellie didn’t knohy she was so disappointed, because he was only behaving true to form But she made sure her smile didn’t slip and show her disappointment She kept her expression as neutral as his He wanted to treat sex as simply another appetite to be fed, did he?
Well, then, so would she
She lay back against the pillow and coiled her arreed huskily
CHAPTER TEN
HER WEDDING RING no longer mocked her and neither did the closed door of Alek’s room Because Ellie now shared that room, just as she shared the bed within and the man who slept in it
Pulling on a tea dress, Ellie began to brush her hair To all intents and purposes, she and Alek now had a ‘full’ —when they’d broken the sexual drought—they had been enjoying the pleasures of the marital bed in a hich had surpassed her every expectation
He could turn her on with a single smile He could have her naked in his arht to resist hiain some control over her shattered equilibriuain
‘But you can’t resist uessed exactly what she was trying to do ‘You know you really want me’
And that was the trouble She did She couldn’t see hietting in too deep And if so after he’d made love to her, she made sure it hile Alek was asleep She tried to stop herself fros for him Because that wasn’t what he wanted This was as close to a business arrangement as a personal relationship could be
But her life had changed in other ways, too They started going out e felt almost authentic He took her to the theatre, which she loved They watched films and ate in fancy restaurants and explored all the tiny backstreets of the city They drove down to the south coast, to visit Luis and Carly in their a house which overlooked a beautiful river
And yet, despite the increased richness of their day-to-day existence, it was difficult to get to know the real e, despite the external thaeen the her feet when she was tired, but if his fingers hadn’t beenadministered to by some sort of robot Sometimes it felt as if she didn’t know him any better than when that list of his likes and dislikes had been circulated to staff at The Hog before his arrival She still wasn’t sure what ht when he’d had a dream which had clearly been a bad one She would turn to find his eyes open but not really seeing, his body tense—suspended between the torlds of sleeping and waking But when she gently shook hiuarded and he would deflect her concerns with so from her mind