Suddenly You(57)
Several minutes later Amanda let him pull her atop his body so that she rested on a long plane of muscle and sinew. “You must have had many affairs, to be so skilled,” she murmured, feeling a sharp twinge of jealousy at the thought.
His brows quirked as he clearly wondered whether she was being critical or complimentary. “I haven’t, actually,” he said, playing with her long hair, spreading it over his chest. “I happen to be fairly discerning when it comes to this sort of thing. Besides, I’ve always been so damned involved in my work that I’ve never had a great deal of time for affairs.”
“What about love?” Amanda levered herself up on his chest, staring into his dark face. “Haven’t you ever fallen madly in love with someone?”
“Not to the extent that I let it interfere with my business.”
Amanda laughed suddenly, reaching to smooth a lock of black hair back from his forehead. He had beautiful hair, thick and shiny, slightly coarse beneath her fingers. “It wasn’t love, then. Not if you could dismiss it so easily when it became inconvenient.”
“And you?” Jack countered, running his warm hands along her arms until gooseflesh raised on the backs of them. “Obviously you’ve never fallen in love.”
“Why are you so certain?”
“Because you wouldn’t have remained a virgin if you had.”
“Cynic,” she accused with a smile. “Can’t one love genuinely but chastely?”
“No,” he returned flatly. “If it’s real love, it has to include physical passion. A man and a woman can never really know each other otherwise.”
“I disagree. I believe that emotional passion is far more intense than the physical kind.”
“For a woman, perhaps.”
Reaching for a pillow, she swatted it over his grinning face. “You primitive lout.”
Jack chuckled, easily divested her of the pillow, and grasped her wrists in his large hands. “All men are primitive louts,” he informed her. “Some just happen to conceal it better than others.”
“Which explains why I have never married.” Amanda wrestled with him briefly, enjoying the sensation of rubbing along his brawny na**d body until his erection rose hot and hard between them. “Very primitive,” she said throatily, continuing to squirm until he gave a groaning laugh.
“Mhuirnin,” he muttered, “I feel compelled to remind you that I’ve done my best to satisfy you so far this evening…and you haven’t yet returned the favor.”
Amanda lowered her mouth to his, kissing him ardently and winning his eager response. She felt oddly unlike herself, wicked and remarkably free of inhibition. “I had better remedy that,” she remarked, her voice humming low in her throat. “I should hate not to be fair.”
Their gazes met, hers adventurous, his bright and passion-filled. Then Jack’s eyes closed as Amanda slid lower on his body, her mouth trailing a slow path along his taut skin.
For a woman who had always believed in the credo “Moderation in all things,” an affair with Jack Devlin was disastrous to her equilibrium. Her emotions careened from one extreme to another, from the all-consuming pleasure of being with him to the obsession and despondency that filled her when they were apart. There were private moments when melancholy rolled over her like a blanketing fog. It had something to do with a bittersweet understanding that this was all temporary, that soon their season of passion would be over. Jack was not really hers, nor would he ever be. The more Amanda came to understand him, the more she recognized his elemental unwillingness to give himself completely to a woman. She found it ironic that a man who was willing to take risks in every other area of his life should find it impossible to take the one chance that mattered most.
Amanda often felt deeply frustrated, wanting for the first time in her life to have all of a man, his heart as well as his body. It was her particular misfortune to desire this of Jack Devlin. But, she reminded herself, that did not mean that she had to remain alone for the rest of her years. Jack had taught her that she was a desirable woman, one with qualities that many men might appreciate. If she wanted, she could find a partner for herself after the affair was over. But in the meantime…in the meantime…
Mindful of the scrutiny of others, Amanda took care to arrive separately at parties, and to treat Jack with the same polite friendliness that she accorded the other men present. She did not betray their relationship with a single look or word. Jack was similarly careful to observe the proprieties, treating her with an exaggerated respect that both annoyed and amused her. As the weeks passed, however, Jack no longer seemed to regard their affair, and the need for secrecy, as lightly as he once had. It appeared to bother him that he could not claim her publicly. The fact that he had to share her company with others was a source of increasing frustration, one that he finally admitted to Amanda when they both attended a musical evening. He had managed to pull her away from the general assemblage during intermission, and steered her to a small parlor that was clearly not intended for the guests’ use.
“Have you gone mad?” Amanda gasped as he closed them both inside the unlit room. “Someone may have seen you pull me out of the main rooms. There will be gossip if it is noticed that we have both disappeared at the same time—”
“I don’t care.” His arms closed around her, jerking her against the solid weight of his body. “For the past hour and a half, I’ve had to sit apart from you and pretend not to notice other men leering at you. I want to go home with you now, dammit.”
Lisa Kleypas's Books
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- Hello Stranger (The Ravenels #4)
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- Devil in Spring (The Ravenels #3)
- Lisa Kleypas
- Where Dreams Begin
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