What was he doing? Kissing a woman who wasn’t Marcia?
He was doing what was right, he decided. He was doing what needed to be done.
He was doing what he’d ached to do from the moment he’d first seen Susie.
Oh, the feel of him. The strength, and yet the tenderness. The certainty and yet the hesitation. His mouth plundered hers, yet she knew that if she pulled back-at the slightest hint of pressure-he’d release her.
For this was no man claiming his rights. He was as unsure as she was, as stunned by the strength of feeling between them, and the feeling was unbelievably erotic.
Hamish.
The wild beating of her heart settled and things slipped into place, things that had been out of kilter with her world for so long. She’d thought when Rory had died that she could never love again-but the heart expanded to fit all needs.
She still loved Rory. She’d love him till the day she died but Hamish was a different man, a different love. Her new, wonderful love.
His lips were on hers and he kissed her as she’d ached to be kissed-but she hadn’t known there was this ache within her. His lips were tentative, tasting her, feeling her response, feeling by the faint parting of her lips that he was, oh, so welcome.
Hamish.
Maybe she said his name. She didn’t know. But his kiss moved, to her nose, gently teasing. To her eyelids, maybe tasting the salt still left by her tears. Her fake tears, produced to mock, but how could she ever mock this man?
His fingers were raking her hair and the sensation was magic. She moaned a little and kissed him back, finding his mouth and claiming it. Tugging his body hard against hers. Curving into him.
She lifted his hand and led it to her breast. Her body was arching against his. It had been almost two long years since she’d been held by a man. She’d loved one man and she’d thought her body could never fit with another but she was wrong, oh, she was gloriously, wonderfully wrong. Her Hamish.
Marcia was nowhere. Marcia simply didn’t exist. But this was no betrayal. Susie was no traitorous vixen searching for another woman’s man. This had gone way past that. Hamish belonged to no other woman.
Hamish was simply a part of her.
She locked his arms behind him, then lifted her head to allow him to kiss her as deeply as he wanted. He was tasting her neck, caressing her shoulders with his tongue, and the sensation was so exquisite she thought she must sob with aching pleasure. He slipped his fingers under the soft fabric of her T-shirt, cupping the smooth contours of her breasts, making her moan softly with love and desire. Her hands were locked about his head now, deepening the kiss, deepening, deepening…
There was such want. She hadn’t known how alone she was until tonight, when suddenly she was no longer alone.
This man was her man. She knew it at some primeval level she couldn’t begin to understand and didn’t want to try. The only place in the world that she should ever be at peace was right here, in this man’s arms.
Within the arms of the man she truly loved.
She melted into his kiss with abandon, surrendering to the promise of his body. To the feeling that here in his arms anything was possible. She’d never be lonely. She’d never be alone. With Hamish beside her, she could take on the world.
‘Susie,’ he whispered, and his voice was as unsteady as she felt. ‘Dear God, Susie, we can’t.’
‘We can’t…?’
‘Make love.’
She froze at that. She froze and thought about it. And reality came flooding back. Awareness of her surroundings.
Awareness of Marcia?
‘You mean we can’t make love right here in the marmalade.’
‘Well…it’d be a bit sticky.’
‘I guess.’ She pulled away a little, searching to see his face. He looked dazed. Confused. And a little afraid?
‘Hey, there’s no need to look scared,’ she said, and he shook his head, searching for some sort of reality.
‘I’m not scared.’
Reality was slamming back fast. Marcia was just upstairs. Hamish was engaged to be married to Marcia. Susie was on her own. The day after tomorrow she was leaving here. Hamish had never said he wanted her. He never said he needed her, yet here she was, wearing her heart on her sleeve, making herself wantonly available.
It couldn’t be wanton to kiss the man she loved.
But he didn’t love her. She could see. If his eyes reflected hers they’d be full of love and desire and he’d be moving to hug her, moving to claim her.
Instead of which he was staring at her as if she were some sort of witch, capable of casting a spell.
‘I didn’t mean…’
It needed only that.
‘You didn’t mean to kiss me?’
‘No. Susie, I’m-’
‘Engaged to Marcia.’ Somehow she made her voice work. ‘Of course. I… Look, it’s late and we’re overtired and-and it was only a good-night kiss after all.’
Liar, she screamed at herself, but he was nodding, though his eyes said he knew as well as she did that it had been no such thing.
‘We can’t… Susie, Marcia and I are getting married.’
‘Of course. And you and I, we’d be impossible. I’m so emotional.’
‘Yes,’ he said, and there was almost relief in his voice. ‘You cry.’
‘I do,’ she agreed cordially, feeling like crying now, but there was no way she’d cry. Something was being destroyed that had hardly started to be created.
He was still looking at her as if he was afraid. She wanted to scream. She wanted to…
She didn’t know what she wanted.
‘Of course I cry,’ she whispered. ‘And you hate crying. I cry all the time, happy and sad, and you can’t stand it.’ An errant tear rolled down her cheek right then and she wiped it away with anger. He was right-she couldn’t even stop crying to save herself.
‘I’m not in control,’ she admitted. ‘Well, that’s OK, that’s the state of my existence, but for a moment there you weren’t in control either. That’s what’s scaring you, isn’t it? You hate it. Well.’ She took a long, searing breath, searching frantically for the words to say to finish it. As it had to be finished.
She finally found them, right or not, but the words that had to be said.
‘Marcia’s upstairs, Hamish. She’s your fiancee. She’s your future. And I need to check on Taffy. I need to check on Rose. My baby and my puppy. They’re my future. And by kissing you I’m just interfering with the way of the world. With the way things have to be from this day forth.’
And before he could say another word she’d turned and fled, out of the kitchen door, back out into the night.
To the vegetable garden? To the conservatory? To the beach?
He couldn’t know. There were tears welling in her eyes as she turned away. He couldn’t follow.
Should he go to Marcia?
No. He was going to bed. Alone.
CHAPTER NINE
HAMISH went upstairs. He paused by Marcia’s door, feeling bad. He knocked lightly and opened the door a
