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escaped from her lips in recognisable form.

      ‘I don’t want it,’ he said, still painting her mouth with heat and pressure. A moment later he apparently thought better of the shameless response. ‘That is…’

      He stopped and schooled his voice and his expression. Again, she almost laughed. It was the worst performance of upright social manners she’d ever seen!

      ‘Yes,’ he said, his voice burred with effort. ‘Coffee. Of course. That’s why you invited me in, isn’t it?’

      ‘It needn’t be. It wasn’t really. Actually, it was the furthest thing from my mind,’ she said in a low voice, hearing her own words with a stab of shock.

      It was impossible to pretend. Her meaning was obvious to both of them, and she hadn’t stopped for a moment to think about what she was offering, and why.

      Her body. Her bed. Why not? She was a grown, experienced woman, confident in her judgement of character and of her own feelings, and he was her male counterpart. There was no one to disapprove, no one to hurt, few physical risks.

      She knew enough of him and his history to be certain that if he’d had a lover since his wife’s death thirteen years ago—and somehow, she doubted he had—then it would have been a woman much like herself, careful in such matters, not someone who slept around.

      ‘What are you saying, Aimee?’ Marshall demanded softly.

      He knew. Of course he did. But she understood that he wanted to make sure that she meant it, and she loved that chivalrous quality in him. He was old-fashioned enough to want to protect a woman from any regret she might feel after the event at having let her body dictate the pace.

      But she was old-fashioned enough to blush at the idea of putting it into words. ‘Don’t make me say it,’ she murmured, her eyes wide and honest. ‘Just…just take it, Marshall.’

      ‘I’d love to,’ he said. ‘Did you plan this?’

      ‘No. No, not at all.’

      Marshall saw the sudden doubt and questioning in her eyes at once, and understood the new feeling.

      ‘Does that make it…less appealing to you?’ she said to him hesitantly. ‘Would you have preferred me to—I mean, it’s not as if we have to think about—’

      ‘No.’ He shook his head vigorously, his mind leaping ahead once again to understand her meaning. ‘No, Aimee! Nothing could make you…this…less appealing. And the fact that it was an impulse on your part, and so strong…’

      ‘Then isn’t that enough?’ she said. ‘There’s no reason in the world why this shouldn’t happen, and every reason why it should. That’s more than enough for me.’

      ‘And for me,’ he whispered, and kept on kissing her with an intensity that made both of them tremble, all the way along the corridor to her bedroom.

      When they reached her bed, their need reined itself in a little, overtaken by ‘first-night nerves’ that he wasn’t afraid to admit to.

      ‘If you hear a squeaking sound in a moment, don’t worry,’ he said to her in a low voice, still holding her close. ‘It’ll only be the rust.’

      She understood at once, and answered, ‘I can hear it already, only it’s coming from me. Marsh, I’m not—I’ve never—’

      ‘Let’s make some rules,’ he suggested, lacing his fingers in the small of her back as he held her more loosely.

      ‘Rules?’

      ‘Let’s not talk about the past, what we have and haven’t done or felt, and how long since we’ve felt it.’ He made a trail of tiny kisses from her forehead to her ear. ‘Let’s not put any pressure on ourselves or each other to succeed in some Hollywood version of this. We’ve succeeded already.’ His lips brushed her mouth. ‘Everything that happens from this minute on is just a bonus. That means we can take it at whatever pace we want to and that, whatever happens, it’s safe.’

      ‘Safe…’ she echoed.

      ‘I know what you’re entrusting to me, Aimee. You know I’m going to look after it with all the care and tenderness it deserves. And what I’m entrusting with you is just as fragile.’

      ‘Oh…yes. Thank you, Marsh. Thank you for saying it.’

      She buried her face in the warmth of his neck for a moment, and heard a rumble of laughter from him, a mixture of relief and happiness and triumph, and she was so astonished and almost disbelieving that she’d managed to find a man like this that she had to pull away and simply look at him, laughing, too, at first until the magic between them made both their faces still.

      In the silvery light that seeped into the room through the half-open curtains, his expression was serious and searching, and the lines of experience on his skin were softened so that the strong bone structure beneath was more apparent. The attraction between them was like a measurable force. It ought to have some sort of a scientific scale, she thought vaguely, like earthquakes did, and electricity. Volts or hector-pascals.

      It seemed incredible that an attraction like this should be accompanied by such a sense of certainty and peace. On one level, she was a wild cauldron of feeling, but on another, at the centre of her being, there was calm, and those first-night nerves were ebbing by the minute.

      Marshall had started to undress her now, with a tender reverence that had her breathing in little flutters as she held herself completely still so that she didn’t miss so much as a moment of sensation. Wanting to touch and explore his skin, she slid his jacket from his shoulders and began to unfasten his steel-grey shirt, then loosened his tie and started on the shirt buttons.

      When they stood naked together, he whispered, ‘You’re beautiful.’

      She didn’t try to deny it because she was too busy thinking the same about him. The texture of hair on skin, the taste of him, the smell of him…

      They sat on the bed and he kissed her again, touched her in places that made her shudder, took his hands away when it became a little too intense and simply held her until she was ready to go further. Even when they were lying together, entwined beneath the sheets, and neither of them could breathe without making a jagged pattern of sound in the air, he was still able to pause, wait, let her become accustomed to the intimacy of it before they took another step.

      Aimee hadn’t known it could be like this, that each step could be so thoroughly savoured, like an endless banquet of tiny, exquisitely served courses. She hadn’t known a man could possess such patience, pitted against such sensual need. She hadn’t known that she could lie in his arms afterwards, sated and replete yet still wanting more.

      It was the longest, slowest, sweetest and, in the end, most passionate night of love-making she’d ever had.

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