I want you to fling a couple
of air tickets at me, and tell me to pack a bikini and a dress and forget my underwear. I
want us to say to hell with deadlines and clients, and just—take off together like we used
to.
But you could never go back, she thought. Only forward.
There was a time when she'd seen their future together like a straight and shining path on
which they walked side by side. Now, it seemed to be turning into parallel lines.
She collected their plates together. 'There's cheese and fruit.'
'Nothing more for me, thanks.' He smiled at her.
'Are you going to work tonight?' She saw his brows lift and hurried on. 'Because I
thought we could put on some music. It's ages since we've done that.'
It's ages since we've done a lot of things.
'Okay,' Ryan agreed. 'But with a few preconditions.' He ticked them off on his fingers.
'We choose turn and turn about, and we don't whine at the other one's selection, or talk
through it, or fall asleep...'
'I did that once,' Kate said indignantly. 'And just for that I'll pick first.’
She made her own selections carefully, choosing pieces that had some special, intimate
meaning for them both. Willing him silently to remember, as she sat beside him on one of
the sofas. She was intensely conscious of his relaxed, graceful body stretched out beside
her. She wanted him to reach out and pull her close, pillowing her head on his shoulder.
But he stayed as he was, his arms crossed behind his head.
Her last choice was, she thought, inspired. It was one of the first compact discs they'd
bought while they were living at the old flat. Rachmaninov's Variations on a Theme by
Paganini, and they'd made sweet, soaring love on the rug in front of the fire while the
glorious, romantic sweep of the Eighteenth variation filled the room.
He couldn't have forgotten, surely, she thought, stealing a sideways glance at him from
under her lashes.
Only to catch him smothering a yawn.
He grinned at her apologetically. 'Sorry, darling, but I'm bushed. That fencing of Dad's
was too much like hard work.'
She hid her disappointment, smiling determinedly back at him. 'Well, you go to bed, and
I'll clear up down here.'
When she went up to bed, he was lying on his side reading.
Not asleep, she noted exultantly. Waiting for her, perhaps?
She undressed in the bathroom. She didn't bother with the ivory nightgown. Instead, she
just touched her pulse spots with Patou's Joy.
When she returned to the bedroom, Ryan had put down his book, and extinguished his
lamp.
So far, so good, Kate thought, as she slid into bed, and snuggled up to him, her bare
breasts pressed against his naked back, one hand sliding coaxingly over his smooth flank.
'Rub my back for me, Katie?'
He hadn't called her that for a while, Kate thought triumphantly, as she reached into the
drawer of her night table for the small bottle of scented oil she always used. She knelt
beside him, pouring a little of the oil into her cupped hands. She applied it lightly to his
back, then began to work, her palms sweeping up the length of his spine to the nape of his
neck, and across his shoulders, her fingers firm on the knotted muscles. Listening to his
murmur of pleasure and contentment as she repeated the movement over and over again,
finding the tension points and loosening them.
Kate herself was far from immune from what she was doing. The sensation of his skin
under her hands carried a deeply erotic charge. She was aware of her nipples hardening.
Of the delicious, sensuous ache in the very core of her womanhood.
She bent her head, and slowly retraced the path her hands had taken, this time with her
lips. She nibbled tiny kisses up his neck, and tugged gently at his ear-lobe with her teeth.
She said softly, 'Why don't you turn over, and let me cure all your aching muscles?'
And waited for him to roll on to his back, and pull her down to him, sheathing himself in
the moist darkness of her body with a groan of
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