forget just why she had married him when desire tightened like a mesh over her skin.
By the time they reached the hotel Copper was vibrating with awareness, and her throat was so tight that she could hardly speak. It was Mal who checked in, Mal who. replied to the hotel manager's discreet congratulations and Mal who closed the door to their room at last, leaving Copper standing nervelessly in the middle of the carpet.
'Thank God that's over,' he sighed, dropping into one of the armchairs and wrenching at his bow tie until it dangled around his neck.
'Yes,' was all she could manage. She watched as Mal undid the top button of his shirt and closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the chair and pushing his hands through his dark hair. Her breath shortened.
'It went all right, though, didn't it?'
'Yes,' she said on a gasp.
He looked tired. She wanted to go over to him, to stand behind him and massage his shoulders, to lean down and drop tiny kisses over his face until he smiled and forgot his exhaustion. The longing was so acute that Copper's bones dissolved. Her legs gave way abruptly and she collapsed onto the edge of the chair opposite his.
There was something hard and tight inside her, strangling the air in her lungs and making her heart boom and thud in her ears. Copper forced herself to concentrate on breathing. Inflate the lungs, hold it a moment, breathe out. It was easy when you tried.
Then Mal opened his eyes without warning and all her effort was wasted as the air evaporated around her, leaving her stranded, suspended in mid-breath, unable to speak or move or even think. The deep brown gaze held her transfixed for what seemed like an eternity before Copper was able to stumble to her feet with a cross between a gasp and a gulp. 'I-I think I'll have a shower,' she stammered, and fled to the bathroom.
Her body pounded as she stood under the shower and images from the past slid over her, as physical as the streaming water but infinitely more disturbing. She wanted to coil herself around him, just as she had done before. She wanted to kiss his throat and taste his skin and listen to his heart beating. She wanted to spread her hands over his back and glory in the hardness of his body.
Copper's hands were shaking as she wrapped a towelling robe around her, and when she looked in the mirror her eyes were a bright, almost feverish green. Her skin felt as if it were pulsating with a life of its own, twitching and rippling and aching for Mal and the way things had once been between them.
'All you have to do is ask…' Mal's words reverberated down her spine and Copper welcomed the suddenly invigorating surge of anger that accompanied the memory. It wasn't fair of him to make her beg him to make love to her. What did he expect her to say? Oh, by the way, Mal, I would like to sleep with you after all?
Copper stared at her reflection. She couldn't do it…could she?
Mal had been quite straightforward, after all. He hadn't seen any reason why they shouldn't have a satisfying physical relationship. The only thing he didn't want was to get emotionally involved, but she didn't have to tell him that she was in love with him. Surely anything would be better than spending three years racked by this terrible yearning?
'Have you fallen asleep in there?'
Copper started as Mal's shout broke through her fevered speculation. 'No, no…I'm just coming.' Drawing a deep breath, she tied her robe more securely. It was now or never.
When she opened the door, Mal was sitting bare-chested on the side of the bed, taking off his shoes and socks. 'I was beginning to wonder if you were planning to spend the night in there,' he said, without looking up.
'Sorry.' Copper's voice came out as a pathetic squeak. This was the moment. All she had to do was cross the room and sit down next to him. All she had to do was lay her hand on the warm, bare skin of his back. Make love to me, Mal-that was all she had to say. It wouldn't be so hard, she told herself. But her feet wouldn't move and the words stuck in her throat, and then Mal was standing up and heading for the bathroom in his turn and the moment had passed.
Sick with disappointment and despising herself for her lack of courage, Copper pushed open the door onto the balcony and let the night air cool her burning cheeks. Far below her she could see the lights of Adelaide, strung in spangled lines across the plain between the hills and the sea. Somewhere down there amongst them all her family and friends were still celebrating her marriage, perhaps imagining her up here with Mal, blissfully happy, in love, confidently facing a lifetime together instead of three years of tension and frustration.
'What are you doing out there?' Mal stopped as he came out of the bathroom and saw Copper still standing on the balcony, barefoot and half hidden in the shadows. After a moment's hesitation he stepped out onto the balcony as well, and leant on the rail a couple of feet away from her. He had taken off his trousers and was wearing only his boxer shorts, and his body was lean and powerful and tantalisingly close.
'I was thinking,' Copper answered him at last. A light breeze rustled through the trees and lifted her hair. She clutched the robe at her throat with both hands, as if she were cold.
'What about?'
'Oh…just that this isn't what I imagined my wedding night would be like,' she said, keeping her eyes firmly on the city lights below.
'What did you imagine?' asked Mal quietly from the shadows, and Copper swallowed.
'A room like this, perhaps,' she said painfully. 'A view like this. A night like this. I thought it might be all these things but I never thought that everything else would be so different.'
'I saw the way you looked when you were talking to Glyn this evening.' Mal's voice was flat, rather harsh. 'I suppose you imagined you would be with him.'
Copper clutched her robe tighter. 'I just imagined that I would be with someone I loved, with someone who loved me,' she said with difficulty. 'That's all.'
There was a long, airless silence. Copper was excruciatingly aware of the beat of her own heart, of the soft towelling next to her skin, of Mal's powerful frame and the unbearable gap between them.
'Mal?' she said, suddenly urgent.
'Yes?'
'I-I know it's not like that for us, but…' Copper's voice petered out in despair as her nerve began to fail. 'But I've been thinking about what you said…' she struggled on desperately, before she lost it altogether.
She felt rather than saw Mal straighten, suddenly alert. 'What did I say?' he asked softly.
'You-you said that you wouldn't touch me unless I asked you to,' said Copper in a rush. She was still staring down at the distant lights that winked and glimmered as if mocking her stammered attempts to explain. 'And…and I wondered if…well, if we could pretend- just for tonight-that…that it was all how I'd imagined it after all, and that we'd just got married because… because we loved each other and not because of some deal we've made?'
She trailed off, unable to look at Mal but miserably aware of his silence. 'I mean…you don't have to. It's probably not a good idea, anyway,' she said desperately. 'It's been a long day and we're both tired and-'
The rest of the sentence died in her throat as Mal closed the gap between them and very gently turned her towards him. 'I'm not tired,' he said softly, sliding his hand around her throat to tilt her face with his thumb so that she had to meet his eyes. 'Are you?'
Copper's heart stopped at the expression in his eyes. 'N-no,' she whispered.
'Shall we pretend, then?' Mal's thumb was drifting along her jaw, feathering down her throat, the merest graze of his fingers enough to send sparks fizzling through her veins.
'J-just for tonight,' stammered Copper. It was suddenly terribly important that Mal didn't think that she was changing the rules already. Let him believe that she was just regretting what might have been instead of feeling weak with need for him. Let him think anything as long as he kissed her soon.
'Just for tonight,' Mal confirmed gravely, but there was a smile gleaming at the back of his eyes and his hand was sliding around to stroke the nape of her neck. 'How shall we begin?'
The caress of his fingers sent tiny shudders of desire down Copper's spine, and all at once it was easy. 'We- ell…' She pretended to consider. 'If I were in love with you, I wouldn't be at all shy. I might step a bit closer-like this,' she said, lifting her hands to his chest and spreading them over his bare skin with a wonderful sense of release. 'And then I might kiss you-just here.' She touched her lips tantalisingly to the pulse in his throat before kissing her way slowly, deliciously, up to the angle of his jaw and then the lobe of his ear. 'Or maybe here,' she whispered as she went. 'Or here…or here…'
Mal had stilled at her first touch, but as her kisses grew more provocative he tangled his fingers in the softness of her hair and tipped her head back almost fiercely. 'If I were in love with you,' he said, looking down into her face,
