The Accidental Bride (Black Lace) Read online

  ‘I don’t know why.’

  ‘Just humour me.’ He tidied her fringe, where he’d ruffled it.

  ‘I will. But you’re going to have to accept that living the deluxe life, to which you’re so accustomed, is going to make me uneasy sometimes too. I’m just an ordinary girl, and sometimes it all gets a bit too rarefied for me and I feel panicky. Travelling first class … private villas … buying honking great mansion houses just so we can live together. It’s all very rich for my blood, you know?’

  John’s brow crumpled. Ah, storm clouds. And not about Dalethwaite Manor either, she guessed.

  ‘And let’s not start that again either!’ His voice was fierce, not threatening, but not far from it. ‘You fucking well aren’t an ordinary girl, Lizzie! Didn’t I just tell you a moment ago that you’re rare and precious to me? And I’m lucky to be with you. Do you hear me?’

  ‘Yes … OK … Truce. I’m a fabulous goddess. I’ll try to remember that.’

  ‘Remember it because it’s the truth,’ said John, smiling again. He looped his hands at the small of her back, carefully avoiding the sore areas in her buttocks. ‘Now, can we please find a way to make love without hurting that gorgeous bottom of yours?’

  Oh yes! Oh yes!

  ‘Don’t worry too much. You are a clever man, Mr Smith, and it really doesn’t hurt that much.’ She gave him a slow, sultry look from beneath her lashes. ‘And even if it did, I can stand a twinge or two if you can cope with the moaning.’

  ‘I love the moaning,’ said John roundly, tightening his grip and drawing her inexorably against his erection. ‘Especially if it’s mine!’

  Lizzie kissed the side of his neck as she moved in close. ‘I love it when you moan. What can I do to make it happen?’ She reached down and cupped his hard flesh. ‘Suck you? Squeeze you? Ride you? Your wish is my command, boss man.’

  John embraced her, hands roving, fingers not so careful of her soreness now. Not that she cared.

  ‘You’re a she-devil, woman. Temptation incarnate. You know how greedy I am. You’ve made me want all of those … and more!’ He kissed her passionately, violently, gripping her bottom, and making her moan and wriggle.

  Massaging her pelvis against his cock, Lizzie kissed back. The spanked places on her bottom were fizzing, intoxicating her blood like pink Champagne. She wanted him. Wanted him now.

  Laughing, John hauled her across to the bed, and then sat down on the edge, tugging at the cord of his pyjamas and freeing his cock. It bounced up, eager and hard, ready for her.

  Lizzie made as if to kneel and give him head, but he drew her towards his pelvis. ‘Kneel and straddle me, darling. I need to be in you again. I want to make you come, and see your lovely face as you do.’

  Sizing up the situation, Lizzie climbed onto the bed, John shuffling back a little and helping her into position. Her thighs at either side of him, she poised herself as he held his cock, allowing her to view the beautiful length of it as he reached for the ever handy condom.

  For a moment, she stood apart from the intimacy of their tableau, wondering if a time would ever come when they no longer used condoms. The wonder of being skin to skin with him was something she’d been thinking about and fantasising about, but there never seemed to be the right moment to raise the issue. And whenever she’d hinted, she’d got the distinct impression that John made a conscious point of not taking that hint. For some reason … Could it be that it was simply a closeness too far for him?

  And yet, the way John’s eyes flared as his cock nudged her pussy almost made her wonder if the notion was crossing his mind at this very moment. He held her by the waist, supporting her in a sure hold, their intimate flesh touching yet not touching, his and hers, yin and yang, but still separated. She almost spoke, but then held back. Why spoil everything by getting into complications right now?

  ‘You’re so beautiful … so beautiful …’ he whispered, hips lifting, not pushing right in yet, but breaching her entrance, stretching her. His hands were strong; he was supporting her weight, making it easy for her, even though she wouldn’t have minded at all if it wasn’t easy and her thighs were screaming from the tension of holding herself aloft. ‘I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve you, you wonderful woman, you.’

  She wanted to say she was the lucky one. The ‘ordinary girl’ who’d won the heart of an extraordinary man. He was everything she’d ever dreamed of. Kind, intelligent, sophisticated, funny. As handsome as sin, and a lover nonpareil. All that would have been an embarrassment of wonderfulness; but the whipped Chantilly cream on the top of the dessert of it all was that he was also fabulously wealthy, a man of enormous means who could put resources at her disposal and help her achieve goals and dreams.

  ‘Don’t tease me, you beast,’ she said, laughing. ‘That big beautiful cock of yours … Don’t be mean. Let me have it all!’

  ‘Then have it, my sex goddess, have it.’ His smile was like the sun, glorious, teasing, loving, wonderful.

  And his cock, as he pulled her down onto him, was unequivocal.

  He filled her body, her heart, her soul, her life, and when she was settled, he sought her clit and stroked it. Lovingly.

  Coming, she praised his name and howled, ‘I love you!’

  Later, she changed her nightgown for an old one of hers, one of the few she possessed, and John gently massaged a bit of his super-secret muscle balm – formulated by a posh London apothecary – into her bottom to soothe it. He’d told her it was for his tricky knee, although she’d yet to see any evidence of said trickiness. His knees were as magnificent as the rest of him, in her opinion. But the balm was good stuff, nevertheless, and actually did reduce the soreness. She’d probably be able to lie on her back now, but she decided not to chance it, and snuggled onto her front, turning her head on the pillow to watch John.

  He was sitting up, leaning against a mound of pillows of his own, flicking through something or other on his iPad. Probably financial reports; he was a terrible workaholic. And working, reading emails, checking weather reports or just about goddamn anything all staved off facing the issue of whether he was going to attempt to sleep beside her tonight.

  I wish you’d tell me what it is. I know most things now … even about that bitch Clara … but the sleep thing, well, you’re keeping me waiting on that one.

  Only once or twice in their relatively brief relationship had John ever managed to sleep in the same room as her, never mind the same bed. He claimed he couldn’t fall asleep in another person’s presence, but, as yet, hadn’t fully explained why that was.

  Was it something to do with the car crash he’d been in, all those years ago? He’d fallen asleep as the passenger in the car, believing that Clara, his lover of the time, was fit to drive home from a party. She’d told him she hadn’t been drinking, and he’d accepted that as the truth, but hadn’t thought to ask her whether she’d taken any drugs.

  I bet you think if you’d stayed awake, you could’ve snatched the wheel at the last moment, don’t you?

  Perhaps that was the root of it? His psyche kept him awake and on his guard, lest some disaster should occur, like the one that had led Clara to pile their car into another, killing a woman and seriously injuring her daughter. The fact that the injured daughter, Rose, had long since forgiven John for his involvement, and had even become a good friend of his, made no difference. He couldn’t forgive himself.

  Lizzie studied John from beneath her eyelashes, adoring the elegance of his profile, and the way he adorably nibbled at his lower lip when he was concentrating. There was probably nothing he could have done if he’d been awake that night, and he couldn’t be blamed for believing the word of the woman he’d loved. Lizzie wondered if, now, he would believe her in the same situation. Or had Clara bolloxed up his complete trust in her sex for ever? Perhaps that was why he was still holding back and, in this one thing, would not confide in her?

  ‘Go to sleep, Lizzie. It’s late, and you’ve had a busy night.’ Turning
to her, he winked and flicked a glance at her rump beneath the pale flower-sprigged cotton that had replaced the peach satin too beautiful to spoil with sticky balm.

  She gave him a ‘what about you’ look.

  ‘Don’t worry about me. I’ve a few more things I want to keep tabs on, but I will try soon. Promise. If you’re already sleeping, it might be easier for me to nod off, you know.’ He reached out and flicked a few strands of her hair that had fallen across her chin out of the way. Then he kissed her, softly, gently. ‘If I know you’re lying there waiting for me to fall asleep, it’ll only make it more difficult.’

  ‘Sorry, boss.’ She was feeling tired, actually. There was nothing like being spanked, then shagged, twice, to make you drowsy.

  ‘You’ve nothing to be sorry for, love. It’s me that’s the freak.’

  ‘You’re not a freak,’ she protested, loving he way he smoothed her hair, as if she were their little cat Alice, who was at home at Dalethwaite Manor, being cared for by the efficient and irreplaceable Thursgoods. Alice purred like a high-powered motorboat when she was stroked, and Lizzie felt like doing the same.

  ‘Go to sleep, sweetheart,’ he urged again, and almost as if her subconscious was more obedient than her conscious mind, she felt herself slipping.

  Even if he didn’t sleep himself, his beloved presence at her side helped her to let go and bid adieu to the waking world.

  ‘John …’ she breathed, and then she was gone.

  2

  Dark Knight of the Soul

  Lizzie shot up in bed, awake in a flash, and gasped. Somehow she’d ended on her back, and shooting straight up into a sitting position induced a twinge in her bum, a little echo of the spanking that had eluded the apothecary balm and even John’s best efforts to pull his strokes.

  What had woken her so abruptly? She looked around the room. No John. Despite her resolve to be sensible, her heart ached that he wasn’t there, fast asleep beside her. A bit of breeze had come up, and the long voile curtains at the window leading to the balcony were flapping slightly. Maybe that was what had reached into her sleep?

  But no, that wasn’t it. As if on a time delay, a dream came back to her, strange and unsettling. John had been falling down and away from her into a void, a bit like lost and frozen Jack in the film Titanic. And it was all the more troubling because there seemed to be some kind of monster or perhaps luring siren down there in the deep, pulling him, dragging him down.

  Bloody fucking Clara! I don’t need to be Sigmund Freud to work that one out.

  Now Lizzie was the one who couldn’t sleep. She didn’t need to go down that road, lying awake in the dark, speculating, and yes, despite her better instincts, hating this unknown woman who’d been the love of John’s life before she was. And maybe still was, subconsciously, regardless of his conscious protestations that she, Lizzie, was The One.

  She rubbed her arms, chilled by the air.

  These Provençal nights could sometimes be a bit on the cool side, especially in the early hours. It’d been mild and pleasant when they’d been playing down in the grove, around midnight, but now in the deep, dark night of the soul, it was very cold. Lizzie pushed her feet into her Indian silk slippers as she stood, and dragged the cosy embroidered comforter off the bed, to wrap it around her shoulders.

  Where was John? Asleep in his own room? Down in the sitting room, working on his laptop? Or somewhere else?

  On instinct she padded to the open doors to the balcony, stepped out soundlessly, and peered out.

  A lone figure was sitting at the table on the patio, on the long bench that flanked it. The table reminded her of the one down in the grove. The two had probably been bought as a pair.

  John’s skin gleamed in the moonlight. Not with the golden, exotic glow it’d reflected from the oil lantern before, but a cooler, more silvery light now. A more troubled light. It seemed that he too was enduring his own dark night of the soul.

  Quietly, but still knowing he’d know she was coming, Lizzie crept down the wrought-iron steps that led from their bedroom balcony to the patio below, and joined him. He didn’t turn until she was right beside him, and sliding onto the bench. His face had a stark, uneasy quality to it that cut her to the quick on his behalf.

  She didn’t speak, but draped the voluminous comforter around his shoulders. It was plenty big enough for two.

  ‘Thanks, sweetheart. It’s a bit chilly, isn’t it?’ His smile lightened the mood a little, yet it seemed world weary. The warmth of his shoulder against hers was welcoming, though.

  ‘It certainly is. Which begs the question why you’re sitting out here in just your pyjama bottoms, freezing your nuts off?’

  John laughed. ‘Don’t worry, my nuts are fine. How’s your bottom? This bench isn’t exactly upholstered.’ He pressed a kiss to the side of her cheek.

  Goodness, she hadn’t noticed. She’d plonked down on the hard wood and barely felt anything. Which just showed what the magic of John’s beauty in the moonlight could do.

  ‘It’s much better now. Barely a twinge.’ She shuffled closer, feeling his skin warm in contact with hers. ‘What’s in there?’ She nodded at the cup he was cradling.

  Wordlessly, John offered it to her, and she brought it to her lips. Ooh, coffee. When she took a sip she almost reeled back. Good grief it was strong. Delicious, but ferociously potent.

  ‘Jesus, John, swigging this stuff isn’t going to help you sleep. With or without me in the room.’ Even so, she took another mouthful herself, needing to be braced up, if she was going to ask the thorny questions she’d so far avoided.

  When she passed the cup back to him, he stared into it, then put it aside, reaching for her hand.

  ‘I suppose I’m punishing myself. If I can’t sleep with you, I don’t deserve to sleep at all. Hence the caffeine.’

  ‘That’s just stupid.’

  He raised his hand to his lips, and kissed it in a vague, almost abstract way. ‘It is, isn’t it? I’m an idiot.’

  ‘Not an idiot,’ she said fiercely, gripping the hand that held hers, twisting it a little, and kissing it in return. ‘Just someone with … stuff on his mind, that’s all.’ She rubbed her cheek against the back of his hand, loving the silk of his skin.

  ‘Yes.’

  The single word hung in the air, heavy with all the other words, the ones he didn’t, perhaps couldn’t, say. Should she force the issue? Ask the questions she normally resisted? She hated being a nag, hated pushing him. It seemed so ungrateful when he was so kind and wonderful, giving her gifts, both material, and of himself, with his mind and heart and body.

  ‘I told you that you should ask things, didn’t I?’

  He had done, back at Dalethwaite, before she’d moved in. He’d said she could ask him anything, and he’d try to answer. Should she go for it now, in these wee small hours that weren’t really like real life, in the light of day?

  ‘Why can’t you sleep with anyone else, John?’

  There, she’d asked, but not the other great sleep-related question that bugged her.

  Did you used to sleep like a baby with Clara, before all the bad stuff happened and changed you for ever? Before you took the fall for her, and went to prison when she should have been the one to go?

  ‘Is it the accident? Or prison? Or something else?’

  Despite his words to the contrary, he didn’t seem to be able to answer, and while she waited, the night and the garden held its breath.

  He was a coward, and he knew it. He should just tell her. It would be such a relief, to at least get this one thing clear. The trouble was, he didn’t fully understand it himself, despite years and thousands of pounds of therapy. He’d spent so many years not thinking about the reasons he could only sleep alone. It was only loving Lizzie that had compelled him to re-examine this issue.

  But she was waiting, waiting. She deserved some kind of explanation. After all, what man in his right mind would avoid sleeping next to this beautiful, compassionate young woma
n? Even with no sex on the agenda, just being at her side was a thing of wonder. He could want her again in a second, but sharing her blanket and her warmth was enough for the moment. It made him strong.

  ‘It’s a bit of both. A muddle really,’ he began, impatient with his own prevarication. How long could a man who was supposed to be astute and grown up go on being a craven and adolescent idiot? ‘Not clear cut.’ He sighed, and tweaked the blanket tighter around them. ‘People always think that X leads to Y, in a simple cause and effect, but I’ve never found anything in life to be like that. If you’ve got X, Y and Z, you might get nothing, or the answer to the Universe.’

  ‘That’s forty-two,’ she said, rubbing her face against his shoulder.

  ‘Quite possibly.’ He smiled, recognising the reference to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. ‘But in my case, it’s been a mix of the car accident, prison, maybe even a bit of natural insomnia. All jumbled together. All meaning I can’t relax and let my guard right down properly. Something inside me’s afraid to sleep … even with you.’

  ‘So, what happened, then?’ she asked in a low, steady voice. Not a bossy voice, but one he couldn’t deny, or resist. ‘I sort of get the car smash element, I think.’ She turned to him, her eyes gleaming in the low light. ‘You feel that if you had stayed awake as Clara drove, you could have averted what happened. I get that. It makes sense. Your subconscious keeps on telling you that you have to stay awake and “protect” the other person, somehow? Is that it?’

  He’d been through all this with various therapists. She’d pinpointed it easily, though. ‘Yes, that’s part of it.’ In some ways, the easiest part; in some ways, not.

  ‘But the rest? Can you talk about it? It’s OK if you can’t, but maybe it’ll help if you share?’

  Why not? Why not share? It didn’t make him a bad person, what’d happened. He supposed it was the old atavistic male desire to be heroic in the eyes of his mate. But the story of him being someone’s prison bitch didn’t have much, if anything, in the way of heroic qualities.