A REASON FOR MARRIAGE

Something in his eyes made her hold back a quick, joky comment. She stood up and reached for the robe, only to have him pull it back from her reach.

“Simon, come on.” She groaned and immediately went to cover her breasts.

She was totally exposed in the low lighting of the intimate bathroom. And it was silly to feel this way when they’d just made love, first in the back of his car and then in the bath. She flushed.

“Let your hands down. Please.” His voice sounded rough. “I want to look at you, Sara,”

Embarrassment gave way to something else. The desire in his eyes emboldened her. She carefully and slowly climbed out of the bath and stood beside it. She dropped her arms and watched as his eyes travelled down, resting and dwelling on parts of her body that she’d certainly never inspected so intensely herself.

After a long, long minute his eyes met hers again. They were dark. He stepped forward and put the robe around her, drying her, before slipping her arms into the sleeves and tying it securely around her waist. He smoothed back her damp hair and ran a finger down her cheek.

“I could quite easily have you again right now, on the floor…And all sorts of other images came into my mind as I looked at you.”

Simon wrestled for a moment inwardly with the very real and disturbing reality that he could take her again right now. The knowledge made him cautious. “But there’s time…”

“Time,” Sara said stupidly, suddenly wanting very much instead that they could make love on the floor right now. She had an erotic flash of an image: kneeling at his feet and taking him into her mouth. The shocking heat that inflamed her made her feel weak. Where had that desire come from? She’d never even done that with Bruce. She’d never even thought that she found it sexy. But the thought of driving Simon to the edge of all endurance was intoxicating in the extreme.

“Yes, time. Let’s eat and have some wine.” He cut through the fevered images in her wanton imagination and pushed her towards the bathroom door, and then out and down the stairs to the sitting room.

_______

A bottle of wine sat open with two glasses. Sara felt stone-cold sober all of a sudden, which wasn’t surprising as she hadn’t drunk all evening, but bizarrely she also felt drunk, heady…something very nebulous and disturbing.

He poured wine into their glasses and busied himself with something in the oven. Although Sara was in a robe, Simon wore faded jeans and a plain shirt that was haphazardly buttoned, showing the light smattering of hair on his chest and a sliver of hard-muscled, olive-skinned belly. Sara took a quick sip of wine. He really did have the honed body of an athlete.

“Look,” she started nervously. “I’m sorry about…running out like that. I feel like I keep ruining every outing for you,”

Simon closed the oven door and slanted her a look before taking a sip of wine from his own glass.

Sara flushed. “We should still be there. Didn’t you have to make some kind of speech?”

Simon shrugged noncommittally. “My assistant did it. It’s no big deal, really; I wouldn’t have even been here necessarily if it hadn’t been an opportunity to drum up publicity and kill two birds with one stone. But, no.” He smiled disarmingly. “I would much prefer to be here with you.”

She flushed again, unused to being flattered. “Well. Thank you. Next time-”

She stopped abruptly, her eyes flying to his with a sickening feeling as she realized what she’d been about to say-she wasn’t even certain there was going to be a next time. She didn’t know when this was going to end.

“That is, I don’t mean-”

Simon hushed her and came round the counter, pulling her into him. “Next time I’m not going to let you out of my sight, so there will be no room for any confusion or misinterpretation, OK?”

Her mouth was dry and she just nodded. He let her go and moved back, smiling easily, charmingly, and her world tilted all over again. “Now, how about you tell me about this lounge-lizard of yours?”

Sara shuddered delicately at the memory, realizing that it had shaken her more than she cared to admit, but talking about it would lessen it. She told Simon and acted out his slimy maneuvers, and by the time she’d finished they were both laughing, and Simon admitted that he knew exactly who she was talking about. Apparently the man was famous for pouncing on vulnerable-looking women. Their easy intimacy and Simon’s ability to make her feel protected, to make her feel like she could trust him, was sucking Sara into a veritable whirlpool that she feared it would be nigh impossible to climb back out of.

_________

The following evening, Simon insisted that they went out again, and he had taken her to a Fountain and then to a restaurant. The food had been sublime, authentic Italian cuisine at its best. The experience had been intimate, the table so small that their legs had been all but entwined underneath, and it had been easier for their hands to stay linked, too, separating only when the food arrived.

It was when they’d got back to his apartment; they’d been standing in the kitchen and she’d been watching Simon percolate some coffee. He’d turned round and said easily, “I had a great time this evening. There’s so many places I want to go with you, Sara. But we can do it again.’

Sara had immediately reacted to his words at a very deep, visceral level, an instant negation of something very fleeting and wishful rising up inside her. “Oh, well, yes. I’m sure I’ll be around again at some stage.”Published by Nôv'elD/rama.Org.

It was the way she’d said ‘I’ that got his attention, and she knew it. Even though he said nothing-at first. And then he did say, “I meant soon… not at some stage… Whatever that means,”

Sara took the coffee he handed her and walked away into the living room, holding the cup between suddenly chilled hands. She schooled her features and turned back round to face him, forcing her voice to sound as casual as she could. “You really don’t have to say that, you know.”