Make-Over Marriage. Sharon Kendrick

hotly in his chest as he forced himself to resist the appeal in her big blue eyes. ‘What if the girls come back early?’

      ‘Then—’

      ‘Shh,’ he urged as he stood up and bent to lift her off the sofa. Unhampered by her weight, he began to carry her towards the bedroom, half-resenting the fierce need she had aroused in him which had made all thoughts of moving fly straight out of the window.

      But reason was only temporarily obscured by desire, and Todd resolved to continue the discussion with his wife once he had slaked that desire.

      While Anna, who was almost feverish at the prospect of making love with her husband in the middle of the afternoon, clung to him tightly as he set her down on the bed and began to peel off her leggings, mistakenly and rather complacently believing that the subject of moving was now closed...

CHAPTER TWO

      IN THE soft light of the late-afternoon sun Anna’s heartbeat began to lessen, and she smiled to herself as she ran one lazy finger over Todd’s sweat-slicked hip.

      ‘Mmm,’ he murmured in response, catching her hand and guiding it to an infinitely more intimate part of his anatomy, and Anna sucked in a breath of shocked and delighted pleasure as she felt her husband harden beneath her fingers.

      ‘Todd!’ she gasped, but boldly left her hand where it was to make tiny stroking movements.

      ‘Anna!’ he mocked on a groan of pleasure, and levered himself up to lean on his elbow, looking down at her rose-flushed face and the silky blonde hair which lay in tousled strands all over the pillow. He picked up one buttery gold lock and twisted it between his fingers, his expression distracted, knowing that if she continued doing what she was doing...

      Gritting his teeth with effort, Todd pushed Anna’s hand away.

      ‘Oh!’ she pouted.

      ‘Not now, sweetheart,’ he said brusquely, even though his body was screaming out for more of the magic she was weaving with her feather-light touch. ‘How long do we have undisturbed?’

      Anna’s eyes flicked to the clock which stood on her bedside table. ‘Just over half an hour,’ she yawned. Her eyes were rueful as she thought back to their frenzied lovemaking. ‘It all happened terribly quickly, didn’t it?’

      ‘Mmm.’ He smiled with memory. ‘But you still enjoyed it?’

      Anna blushed, a habit she had never quite lost, much to her chagrin and her husband’s immense pleasure. ‘You know I did,’ she responded in a low voice, but her thoughts were a mass of confusion. It had been wonderful, yes, but it had been lovemaking on a different scale to the one she was used to. It had been frantic even before they’d got into the bedroom, with Todd pulling the clothes away from her body in an almost out-of-control way which was nothing like his usual teasing finesse.

      Anna sat up in the rumpled bed and blonde hair streamed down over her naked breasts. ‘I’d better get up—’

      He laid a hand on her arm. ‘Not yet, you’re not.’

      She turned to him wearing a smile of delight which was mixed with slight exasperation. ‘But darling, you just said there wasn’t time...’

      But he shook his head. ‘Not to make love again, Anna,’ he said seriously. ‘That wasn’t what I meant. I want to talk.’

      ‘Talk?’ The acrid taste of fear formed itself into a cold lump in Anna’s throat and, in order to distract herself from the determined expression glinting in the depths of her husband’s grey eyes, she jumped out of bed and hunted around for her knickers. ‘Talk about what, Todd?’ she questioned brightly.

      ‘What we were talking about before you started pouting and flaunting that luscious body at me. About moving,’ came his stern response as he watched her slide her sensible navy blue panties over her pale thighs and briefly wondered why she never wore the outrageous scraps of nonsense he brought back for her whenever he went abroad.

      ‘But I thought we’d said everything there was to say on the subject,’ she objected, hooking the clasp of her bra behind her back,

      Todd shook his head. ‘Oh, no, sweetheart,’ came his emphatic reply. ‘I think that you said everything you had to say on the subject—namely, that you didn’t want to move.’

      ‘Oh!’ Her mouth trembled as she listened to Todd riding roughshod over her objections. ‘So my opinion counts for nothing, does it?’

      Todd sighed. ‘Of course it does! In fact, if it hadn’t been for the fact that you so patently wanted to stay put, I would have brought up the subject of moving out to the country years ago!’

      ‘And I would have had the same objections then as I do now!’ she retorted.

      Trying a different tack, he put his hands behind his head, and, leaning back against the pillows, gave her a slow smile. ‘What exactly do you do in the city that you won’t be able to do in the country?’

      Anna looked at him assessingly. So he was treating her to the logical approach, was he? She wondered if he realised just how patronising he sounded. ‘Go to the theatre,’ she said immediately. ‘And to concerts. Then there are the art galleries and the parks—oh, and all the specialist shops.’

      ‘And if we lived close enough to another city? How would that be? So that you could still do all those things.’

      ‘But why would we want to? We’re settled here, Todd,’ she prevaricated. ‘You know we are.’

      ‘Yes,’ he conceded. ‘But we can just as easily settle somewhere else.’ He saw her mutinous expression, and decided that it might be prudent to backtrack. ‘Oh, I’m not being naive, sweetheart. I know it won’t be easy to just pack up our things and—’

      ‘Then why do it?’ Anna demanded, angry that Todd seemed contented to turn their world upside down on what sounded like little more than a whim.

      ‘For all the reasons we discussed earlier—more space around the place, and a better quality of life for the triplets—’

      ‘But not for me?’

      ‘For all of us,’ he corrected her gently. ‘You know that in your heart, sweetheart.’

      Any minute now and she would burst into tears.

      Anna pulled her crumpled tee-shirt violently down over her head, emerging with her blonde hair flattened like golden skin against her scalp. She shook it free. ‘And what’s brought this on all of a sudden?’ she asked him. ‘Is it just Tally complaining that she can’t have a horse?’

      He shook his head. ‘Not at all. That was coincidental.’

      ‘What, then?’

      He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Because I needed to take a long-term view of my affairs, and I realised that there was absolutely no need for me to be based in London any more. Communication systems today mean that I can work from almost anywhere. Plus you know how long it takes me to get to work.’

      Anna nodded. He did have a point. The traffic was so heavy in the mornings that Todd had taken to leaving for the office at the crack of dawn, and often he didn’t arrive home until she was putting the triplets to bed. Sometimes even later. No wonder he was always so tired.

      And it was no earthly good telling him to cut back on his hours, either, even though he had earned enough to keep them all for several lifetimes. Because the work ethic was deeply ingrained in Todd’s nature, the habit of a lifetime hard to break. Todd worked hard because he was a driven man, and like so many driven men he needed to work hard. Circumstances in his youth had seen to that.

      ‘Surely we could come to some sort of compromise?’ she suggested, before adding rather irritably, ‘And for goodness’ sake can’t you get up and put some clothes