The realisation dawned on him what she was referring to and he felt a strange sensation that was part expectation, part hope and part triumph.
“Are you using birth control?” he queried.
Her body jerked.
“What?” she breathed then her hand ripped out of his and flew to her mouth as her eyes grew wide. “Oh my God.”
Apparently, he realised, she was not referring to that kind of preparation.
He stood which brought him to within an inch of her. He was pleased to note that she didn’t try to move away. He slid his hands around her waist, settling them loosely at the small of her back, enjoying this casual intimacy tremendously. “If you weren’t talking about contraception…”
Her face cleared and she lifted her hand and waved it blithely between their two faces, nearly knocking him on the nose.
“Not to worry,” she proclaimed. “Sean and I tried to have children for years and couldn’t. He went to get checked and they found nothing wrong with him. So, obviously, it was me who was unable to conceive. Sean didn’t want to go through all the rigmarole of the infertility clinic…” she didn’t finish but heaved another sigh, though he didn’t know if it was of relief or resignation.
Douglas continued to stare at her.
“Did they find something wrong with you?” he asked, his voice quiet, finding himself far more interested in her answer than he would have imagined himself to be.
“Sean told me I didn’t need to check, he was okay and –” she started to explain.
Douglas felt his mouth tighten. “You didn’t get checked?”
“No, I –”
“Did it occur to you that he might be lying?”
She blinked up at him. “Of course not, why would he do such a thing?”
That was an excellent question.
However, there were more questions as to Sean Webster’s behaviour.
Such as, why would he torment and disparage a vital and intelligent woman? And why, when he had her love and devotion, would he abuse it? And lastly, why, when he had her legally bound to him, would he let her go?
Douglas knew the way men like Webster worked, he knew it intimately because his father was one. Sean Webster was not the type of man to admit to any failing. He preferred other people feeling they were inferior, even going so far as making them feel that way, rather than admit something was wrong with himself.
“Even Sean wouldn’t be that cruel,” she scoffed.
He watched her silently and gave her time to think it through. He saw the warring of emotions on her face, careening from disbelief to apprehension.
“Dear God,” she breathed and started to tremble. She shut her eyes tight and whispered, “I’m such a fool.”
His hands pressed in and he drew her nearer to him while she began to shake her head from side to side in denial. He felt an astonishingly strong sense of anger on her behalf. He would like to get his hands around Webster’s throat and squeeze.
She lifted her dazed eyes to his.
“What’ll we do?” she asked and Douglas didn’t answer, he just looked at her. Julia carried on. “If… I mean, last night?”
“It’s unlikely we conceived last night, if we did, we’ll worry about it when it happens,” Douglas assured her.
It was all the same to him except that perhaps the existence of a child would make it a certainty that she would never leave. At that thought, he fitted her snugly against his body before bending his head to brush his lips against hers.
When he drew away, he watched Julia lean back against his arm, her eyes wide with something he couldn’t identify, something immensely tender and phenomenally raw. He’d never seen the like of it and the sight made his arms tense protectively around her while a feeling he could not place sliced through his gut.
He also felt a near overwhelming need to possess her, though he always felt that way, but somehow, just then, it was different.
Last night it had been a driving need to brand her as his, to bend her to his will, but now it had gentled. He had no intention of making her squirm under him, of withholding himself until he heard her whisper his name, of making her beg him for release. What he had planned for her this morning was entirely different.
But he knew he couldn’t take her now and the only way to respond to her acceptance of this newly realised cruel deception was again to brush his lips against her parted ones.
“Maybe,” he whispered, “we should try again.” He lifted one hand and exerted pressure between her shoulder blades to press her torso back to his body but she resisted.
She had masked the look in her eyes and he found that, even though he had only encountered it a moment ago, he wanted it back.
Her response was to pull out of his arms, stepping away and walking to the window. She stood there staring out at the fields and wrapped her arms around her body protectively.
Another man might have given her a moment of contemplation but he didn’t want Julia to have a time to think.
Julia, Douglas decided, thought way too much.
He followed her and stood behind her, seeing her reflection in the window. With his left hand, he pulled her hair from the right side of her neck. He bent his head to drag his lips lazily from the soft spot behind ear to where her graceful neck met her shoulder while his left hand stole around her waist and pulled her against his body.
“Douglas,” she whispered, her voice trembling with something he mistakenly thought was desire.
Without lifting his lips, his eyes caught hers in the reflection of the window, his right hand came up to her shoulder and he slowly pulled the dressing gown aside, his lips trailing its progress, his other arm drawing her incredible warmth deeper into his body. He noticed as her glowing, faultless skin became exposed at her chest and he felt the acute response of his body when he saw she was still wearing his emerald. His eyes dropped as the lapel of the dressing gown swept across her breast and caught against her nipple.
“I need you to promise me something,” she interrupted his progress by speaking and his hand stilled at the fervent tone in her voice as his eyes lifted back to the reflection of hers in the window.
With her body against his, the smell of her in his nostrils, the taste of her at his lips and his knowledge of what was going to happen in his bed in a few moments time, he almost told her he’d promise her anything.
Of course, he did not.
“That depends.” His hand slid up from her waist to just under her breast. His lips ascended her shoulder again, up her neck and behind her ear, a delectably sensitive area he discovered last night.