Beyond Desire. Gwynne Forster

And I don’t know whether or not he was a genius.” Her interest in their fun game waned, and she had begun to favor her left shoulder. He remade her bed quickly, carried her to it, lay her there carefully and gently tucked the covers around her.

      “I’m going to the drugstore for your medicine.”

      “Could you help me into my gown before you go, please?” It worried him that she favored both her left shoulder and her lower back and that she seemed reluctant to move. And the silent plea in her eyes…Was she praying for her baby’s safety? He couldn’t think of anything but that the woman whom he had loved and who had taken his name in a solemn vow had not wanted either one of the children he gave her.

      Marcus looked down at Amanda, rooted in his tracks, as the picture of her completely nude in his arms floated back to him. In his mind’s eye, he could see her beautiful and generous breasts with the glistening beige tips, the soft brown flesh of her body, her slightly rounded belly and, below it, the thick, curly black patch that guarded the seat of her passion. He turned quickly, hoping that she hadn’t seen the sudden and unmistakable evidence of his desire for her, and tried to deal with the wild sensation that had him suddenly shackled.

      “I’ll be right back” was all he could manage, as he moved away from her bed. He found the peach gown, choosing that one because it was so feminine, and managed to help her into it without looking at her. Perspiration beaded his forehead. He patted her in a self-conscious gesture of comfort, but he wasn’t looking at her and was unprepared for the feel of her erected nipple under his palm. Shocked, he looked over at her to apologize and swallowed it when he saw that she was as disconcerted as he. Best to pretend that nothing had happened.

      The medicine she took in the emergency room had begun to make Amanda sleepy, but that light touch of Marcus’ big hand on her breast brought her fully awake. It was accidental, she knew, but that made it all the more erotic. She didn’t like being vulnerable to a man who didn’t want her close to him or to his motherless child. And she certainly didn’t want to feel the raw attraction for him that had begun to suffuse her with increasing frequency. Thank God, he didn’t seem to know it.

      There was much about her that Marcus didn’t know and that she didn’t want him to learn. Her almost total lack of experience with men wouldn’t gain her any kudos with him, she reasoned, and might even place her at a disadvantage. And it wouldn’t help if he knew how low her self-esteem had sunk when she learned of her pregnancy. Only that would explain her willingness to bargain marriage with a stranger. She rubbed her tingling breast, wanting his hand back there. “Slow down, Amanda,” she admonished herself. “Only the man responsible finds a pregnant woman attractive, and even for some of them, it’s a turnoff.”

      She looked up at the ceiling. Lord, was it too much to ask that a man care deeply for her just once in her life? Forever was too much to hope for. But couldn’t she know what it was like, how it felt, just once? She almost wished that Marcus—when he was tender and caring—hadn’t taught her what was missing in her life.

      Marcus returned from the drugstore and found her asleep, her body curled into a fetal position. He stood over her for all of ten minutes, wanting her. Then, in a fit of disgust with himself, he put the medicine on her night table and went to the kitchen, where he dumped the chocolates he’d bought for her safely into the garbage pail. Then he wandered around the kitchen trying to find something to cook for dinner. He hadn’t prepared dinner since coming to live with Amanda, and he had gotten used to her mouthwatering meals. He got busy preparing the food, but his mind was on Amanda. An unusually interesting woman; he hadn’t counted on that.

      He let his mind wander over the day’s events. His dangerous attraction to Amanda gave him reason for concern, though he could handle that, but what he’d felt for her when he’d carried her in his arms, dressed and undressed her, was more than lust. He had to watch his step with her. And she was more vulnerable than she knew, he suspected. When he had stopped by the school to report Amanda’s illness, the female colleague who had taken the message had been vicious.

      He suspected the woman of jealousy. But why? Unless the two had competed for the principal’s post—and from the look of her he doubted that—what reason could she have for such blatant animosity toward a person with Amanda’s gentle manners? He’d been astonished both at the woman’s words and at her willingness to reveal her dislike to her boss’s husband. He hated seeing black women with their hair dyed red, and this one looked as though her head was on fire. He shook his head as though to rid his vision of her image.

      “You don’t mean that Amanda Ross married a number twelve like you. What did you do, make her pregnant?” the woman had asked him. His acerbic reply had definitely not gained Amanda a friend. Sensing that he’d seen her somewhere before, he’d asked her where that might have been. After assuring him that, if she’d ever seen him, she’d never have forgotten it, she replied, “If you’re in on Portsmouth’s social life, you might have noticed me at the Lamont estate. They’re friends of mine.” It was clearly something of which she was proud. He had been careful not to react visibly, because he had learned not to show his hand to an adversary. The woman was a potential source of trouble for Amanda, an unsuccessful competitor and a friend of her unborn child’s ruthless grandfather. He’d have to find out what she knew. She had wanted to prolong their conversation, but he’d finished it, probably more curtly than was wise given the woman’s antagonism toward Amanda.

      Odor and smoke from the frying chicken legs warned him that his dinner was in jeopardy, and he brought his mind to the present. He arranged trays of the chicken, baked potatoes, string beans and sliced tomatoes, got iced tea from the refrigerator and hesitated. What the heck? It never hurt to be nice. He’d eat his dinner upstairs with Amanda, he decided, adding glasses of water to their trays. But the minute he saw the glow on her face as he set out their food, he wondered if he was sending her the wrong signal.

      Marcus had stayed away from his factory while Amanda was recovering, and he had a backlog of work. “I intend to spend all of Saturday and Sunday in Portsmouth at the factory,” he told her as they cleared away the remains of Friday night’s supper, “but I’ll be here as usual Saturday night.”

      “Want me to drive you to the station tomorrow morning?” His answer was going to disappoint her, but he couldn’t help it. She wanted him to accept their relationship and was looking for a sign of his willingness to do that. But he didn’t see how he could accept it, when he couldn’t feel like a man so long as she footed the bills.

      “That won’t be necessary. I need the exercise.” It was a pitiable excuse, and he knew it, but he didn’t want to encourage her by letting her do things for him. Afraid that he’d hurt her, he looked up from the pan he was scrubbing, ready to gloss it over, and was surprised that her slacks had gotten so tight, showing her pregnancy, and that her breasts were getting larger. But what shook him was the open plea in her eyes. A wordless appeal to his decency and, God help him, to his masculinity. He dropped the brush and didn’t bother to dry his wet hands; getting to her was an all-powerful urge, and he gave in to it. He’d barely touched her shoulder, and she was in his arms. She looked up at him, her eyes ablaze with passion, and his defences disintegrated. He lowered his head and brushed her voluptuous lips with his own, then raised up slightly to look into her eyes. To check her submission. Females had craved him ever since his voice had changed. But not like this. He squeezed her to him, one hand at the back of her head and the other spread across her buttocks, and kissed her with all of the yearning and hunger that he’d stored in five weeks of want and deprivation. He ran his tongue around her lips and, when she didn’t respond to suit him, he nipped her bottom lip with his teeth. Her lips parted, and he found a place for his foraging tongue within her sweet mouth and let it roam until, as if aching for more, she caught it between her lips and sucked it as if it were the essence of life. He felt her fingers weaving through his thick curly hair, caressing his shoulders and neck, testing his biceps, learning him.

      Her response almost brought him to his knees, a position with which he was unfamiliar, and his heart was a pounding drum, beating furiously in his chest, as he gloried in the warmth, the feel, the taste of her. He told himself to pull back, to stop before it got out of hand.