"Because he wanted?"

Nicola shook her head, stopping him, a shaky laugh trembling through her.

"No, it was nothing like that. The last thing Gordon wanted from me was s.e.x. No..."

"But you still love him...?"

"Love him?" She gave Matt a shaky look.

"I never loved him. We were just friends--barely that, really. It was convenient for us to date one another." Her voice became slightly bitter.

"It was safe..."

"Because Gordon wouldn't ask for s.e.x. Oh, Nicki, what have I done to you?" he asked her remorsefully.

"I had no idea.. never dreamed.. " She shook her head.

"It wasn't your fault, it was mine. I should never have behaved like that in the first place, then Jonathon would never..."

She heard Matt groan and stopped speaking.

"You were a baby, that was all, just a baby." He gave her a fierce look and added forcefully, "And I'll tell you this, if I had made love to you, drunk or not you would have been able to remember it..."

Something quivered deep inside her, a soft, fluttering sensation that made her tense her body automatically, even as she drew in a tiny, shocked gasp of breath.

"I wanted to, you know," she heard Matt saying to her.

"I think that's what made me so angry with you--the fact that even knowing you hadn't the least interest in me, despite all that determined flirting, I still wanted you. In fact, I still do..."

She stared at him, trembling inwardly.

"But you can't," she protested.

"Not after everything that's happened.

Not after tonight and Jonathon. and the conference. "

"To h.e.l.l with Hendry and the conference. What's far more important right now is you and the way I feel about you. I want to make love to you, Nicki," he told her shockingly.

"Because you feel sorry for me?" she questioned sharply, her expression defensive.

"Because you feel--' " Because I feel such a need for you that I can't resist it . or you," Matt corrected her, and she thought she heard him saying as he lowered his mouth to hers--but she couldn't be sure-" Because I love you. "

It was useless trying to tell herself to stop him; her senses drank in the intimacy of him so greedily that their need obliterated everything else.

She trembled as his hands slid into her hair, tenderly holding her captive as he kissed her, slowly, lingeringly as though he wanted to savour each individual millisecond of pleasure, his lips brushing hers, sensitising them, until they clung eagerly to his, urgently seeking a deeper pressure, a greater intimacy.

"If you don't want me, you'll tell me, won't you?" Matt whispered between kisses.

If she didn't want him! It must be shamefully obvious to him how much she did want him, she reflected dizzily as she clung to him, her nails digging into the firm flesh of his back in a sharp, involuntary reaction to the pa.s.sionate intensity of his kiss. The top half of his body was covering hers, pressing her back into the settee. She could feel the unsteady race of his heartbeat, the heat coming off his flesh. As she closed her eyes, she could visualise his body, hard and male, his skin satin-sleek over his muscles, strong and powerful. A deep shudder ran through her, but when Matt mistook the reason and started to lift himself away from her she clung to him.

Immediately he responded to her unspoken plea, wrapping her in his arms and holding her against him while he kissed her throat and caressed the narrow line of her shoulder. Her skin burned where he touched it, her clothes an unbearable barrier between them. She ached for him to touch her skin with an intensity she couldn't contain. When he stroked her lips with his tongue-tip, she made a small, taut sound deep in her throat that caused him to deepen the kiss to a level of intimacy that sent pleasure jolting through her body at the same time as it made her ache and move frantically against him.

Nicola wanted to touch him everywhere, to stroke him, to caress him, to taste him and show him. She made a soft, whimpering sound as he broke the kiss and buried his mouth in the hollow of her throat.

When his hands touched her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, gently holding them, shaping them, the need to be free of her clothes was so intense that she had to stop herself from crying it out loud to him. But he seemed to know what she was feeling because he reached behind her and gently lowered the zip so that he could ease the fabric away from her, telling her thickly as he did so, "If I had made love to you then, that first time, I would have done so like this, slowly and gently, trying not to frighten you. trying to control what you were doing to me."

He was touching her skin was he spoke, cup 5 ping her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, finding the hard, betraying points of her nipples and caressing them, telling her in between kisses, "You would have felt just the way you do now--soft, feminine, your body willing to be responsive to mine. I'd have known then that you'd never known the kind of intimacy I wanted to share with you, the kind of desire that drives a man to caress a woman's body, not just with his hands but with his lips, his tongue."

He was sliding her b.r.e.a.s.t.s free of the silk covering of her bra as he spoke. In the shadows of the room her flesh gleamed palely, the aureolae of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s darker, her nipples tautly hard peaks that seemed to beg for the intimacy he was promising.

"Then you'd have looked at me just the way you are doing now, and your body would have looked just like this, your b.r.e.a.s.t.s all feminine temptation, so much temptation that I wouldn't have been able to stop myself from touching them ... tasting them."

Nicola watched tensely, tiny shudders running through her as Matt slowly bent his head to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, cupping them in his hands as he gently kissed them.

An aching need burst into life inside her, a sharp desire to arch her back, to catch hold of his head, to hold him there against her breast while he--Heat seemed to burst out of all her pores, a strangled sob stifled in her throat as she fought not to do what her instincts were urging her to do, but Matt seemed to sense her need because his mouth sought the aching peak of one breast, his lips caressing it gently, and then less gently when he felt her shuddering response.

The shock of the sensation engulfing her made her cry out, a high, sharp sound of shocked pleasure and need, her body arching as she offered herself to that need like a sacrifice to some pagan religion.

"Beautiful, you're so beautiful," she heard Matt muttering against her skin, the words a litany of praise and worship as his mouth continued to feed on her aching b.r.e.a.s.t.s, creating a mindless sea of sensuality to surround them with warm, lapping waves of increasing arousal.

Only when her own need to reciprocate, to touch him with the same intimacy with which he was touching her, became too much for her, did Nicola push him away, struggling to explain to him when he held her and kissed her, apologising for shocking or hurting her, that what she wanted was to be able to touch him without the barrier of their clothes, to be able to see if his body reacted to her the way hers did to him.

The words were fragmented, unstructured, and uncertain, but Matt still seemed to be able to make sense of them, guiding her fingers to his shirt, helping her unfasten the b.u.t.tons, groaning softly when she tried to tug his shirt off and became side-tracked into exploring the hard leanness of his chest with her lips, fascinated by the flat hardness of his nipples, wanting to know if he would react to her the way she had to him, awed to find out that he could and did, half thrilled, half shocked by the things he said to her, by the things he promised her.

At eighteen this intensity of pa.s.sion would have terrified her, she suspected, but she wasn't eighteen now, and far from being terrified-"Much more of this and there'll be no going back, you know that, don't you?" Matt warned her hoa.r.s.ely as she reached for his belt.

Her eyes followed his movements, her body shuddering with excitement as she watched him remove his clothes. He studied her gravely for a moment before holding out his arms to her, and she recognised that in doing so he was asking her to make her own decision, to choose freely of her own accord to go to him or to withdraw.

He was standing in front of the fire. Only half a dozen paces or so away but, as she got up from the settee and walked unsteadily towards him, Nicola knew they were the most difficult half a dozen steps she would ever have to take.

When she reached him and his arms folded around her, she discovered that she was trembling not just with arousal, but also with relief.

Relief that she had found the courage to come to him, relief that she was here held safely in his arms. A relief that combined with the knowledge that, no matter what else the future might hold, no matter whether Matt only wanted her fleetingly--so fleetingly that this one night might be all she had of him--she would never, ever regret what they were sharing.

He might only feel desire for her, but it was a clean, honest desire. a pure desire in its way. a desire that by its very intensity would burn itself clean of any taint.

And for her there would be no regrets, no guilt. nothing but the knowledge that he had wanted her, and that that wanting had been strong enough to make their coming together special. sacred to her, if not to him.

As Matt held her, gently removing her clothes so that they stood body to body, warmed by each other's skin, each other's pa.s.sion, she felt such a deep, flooding sense of joy that she actually trembled with the force of it, instinctively lifting her face, inviting his kiss, opening her mouth to the deep penetration of his tongue, welcoming the urgent stroke of his hands against her body, his arousal, his maleness.

When he touched her his hands were gentle, knowing, leading her tenderly towards the intoxicating discovery of her own sensuality, until her response to him overwhelmed them both and he told her huskily how much he wanted her, how much he needed her.

When he lowered her to the floor, protecting her from its hardness with the cushions he had dragged off the settee, she shuddered tensely, wanting him, aching for him so much that the sensation of him moving gently against her so sensitised her already aroused flesh that she cried out to him in frantic need, causing him to forget caution and surge into her. And each powerful thrust of his body was so intensely erotic that she quickly became lost in the sensations he was arousing, clinging to him, begging him never to let the pleasure stop, crying out loud to him in awed disbelief when her body finally became caught up in the fierce spiral of completion.

The sense of fulfilment that followed the frantic, driving race of desire, when Matt held her in his arms, tenderly stroking the damp hair back off her face, kissing her eyelids and the tip of her nose, and then finally and lingeringly her mouth, made her eyes burn with unexpected tears. Tears which Matt did not seem to find strange at all as he wiped away their dampness and then kissed her moist skin. An exhaustion that was as much mental as physical suddenly washed over her. Despite her efforts not to do so, she discovered that she was closing her eyes, giving up the fight to stay awake.

Watching her. Matt touched her mouth tenderly, his heart so full of emotion that he felt his own eyes p.r.i.c.k with tears.

All these years and she had thought. had never known. He would never be able to forgive himself for that, even while selfishly, malely, he recognised with wry acceptance, he had also felt a certain raw pleasure in knowing that he was her first lover, in knowing that the pleasure they had shared was so new to her, so natural and instinctive, so responsive to his own desire that there had been times when he had feared he might lose his self-control, and spoil things for her.

He stood up, and then slowly picked her up, carrying her upstairs and settling her in the old fashioned double bed that dominated his bedroom, before going back downstairs to retrieve their clothes and replace the cushions on the settee.

Then broodingly he went back upstairs. She had given herself to him with every evidence of pa.s.sion and pleasure, but she had not said she loved him . had not--He himself had been surprised at the speed with which he had fallen in love with her, but knowing what he did now. Who knew? Perhaps subconsciously some part of him had recognised her, had known, and that was why he had felt so drawn to her, so quickly.

Now they were lovers, but he wanted far more from her than mere physical desire--much, much more.

As he climbed into bed and lay down beside tier, she turned towards him hi her sleep, nestling close to him, her lips curving into a soft smile as she reached out for him. He bent his head to kiss her and realised she was not as deeply asleep as he had supposed when she sighed rapturously beneath her breath and moved her body enticingly against him.

This time the pace of their lovemaking was different, more knowing, more shared, Nicola's confidence in herself as a woman allowing her to indulge her desire for an intimacy with him that she had never previously dared imagine.

She discovered how intoxicating it was to touch his body with her hands and with her mouth, and to discover how intensely each caress aroused him, and not just him. There was, as she quickly discovered, a distinct and erotic pleasure to be found in the knowledge that she was arousing him--that she could make him as vulnerable as he had made her simply by letting her fingertips drift along his thigh, simply by circling her tongue-tip around his nipple and then by teasing it with delicate, cat-like laps, which drove him into a frenzy of hoa.r.s.e protests and male pleas that she cease tormenting him.

Later, though, when her own desire incited her into more intimate caresses, she was the one who trembled when she felt and saw his body's response to the delicate exploration of her fingertips and lips; but when she would have drawn away from him, half afraid of the intensity of his arousal and her own aching reaction to it, he stopped her gently, whispering to her how much pleasure she was giving him. how much he loved the way she was touching him, the intimacy of her caresses, even while the pleasure she was giving him was almost more than he could bear.

"Let me show you what it feels like," he whispered to her.

"Let me show you how it feels to be loved so pleasurably."

She trembled convulsively at the thought of so intimate a loving, holding her breath in a mixture of tension and delight when he touched her, half afraid of the intensity of the sensations his touch gave her, struggling to hold back the tide of arousal starting to swamp her, unsure if she wanted to commit herself to so much intimacy, so much pleasure, and yet at the same time unable to deny what was happening to her.

When she cried out at the peak of that pleasure, almost unable to endure it. Matt responded to her need, holding her, soothing her, caressing her tenderly until the spasms of sensation had faded to a blurring after-glow, before taking her and showing her that, intense though that sensation had been there was a very special kind of pleasure and sharing that came from the intimacy of their bodies moving easily together towards a shared >-. max.

Afterwards, when she was on the verge of sleep, Nicola wondered what would have happened if he had loved her like that all those years ago. Her body trembled as she acknowledged how hard she would have found it to have left him in the morning--indeed, how difficult she would find it to leave him in the morning.

She still wasn't entirely sure why he had made love to her--if it had been out of compa.s.sion, pity, or guilt as well as the desire he had told her over and over again that he felt.

What she did know with an even sharper clarity than before was how much she loved him. Not just emotionally, not just s.e.xually, but with a spiritual blending of all that was strongest and most powerful within her. Yes, she loved him, but was she strong enough to walk away from him. to be glad for what they'd had without seeking to look for something more?

When she fell asleep her eyes were wet with the tears she knew to be only the precursor of many, many more tears that were going to fall.

"Nicki, wake up."

The voice, the hand on her arm--both of them were so instantly familiar that she was saying Matt's name even before she was properly awake, opening her eyes to discover that he was standing beside the bed, half dressed, his torso still bare and slightly damp like his hair. just as he had been eight years ago.

There was even a mug of coffee on the table beside the bed, and from the grim expression in Matt's eyes Nicola suspected that he was prob ably already regretting what had happened. already As she turned her head away, dreading what she might read in his eyes, his hand came out sliding against her jaw, cupping her face, holding her still so that she was forced to look at him.

"Don't turn away from me," he whispered huskily.

The emotion in his voice startled her, her glance searching his face uncertainly.

"I don't want to rush you, to force you into a commitment you aren't ready to give... But after last night you must have realised how much how much I love you."

Nicola stared at him, her shock showing in her eyes.

"You love me? But you can't. You never said... You didn't " I didn't what? " he asked her softly.

"I didn't show you how much you mean to me, how much I love you? Do you honestly believe that do you honestly think that if I didn't love you I would have...?"

He stopped speaking, shaking his head as he said bitingly, "I promised myself I wouldn't do this, that I wouldn't pressurise you.. that I wouldn't beg.. that I'd let you--Oh; G.o.d, I'm behaving like the worst kind of fool ... and worse. Nicki, I'm sorry. I never intended--I suppose it's just the strain of loving you. wanting you.. of being terrified that if I let you walk out of here you'll be walking out of my life and that you'll never, ever walk back into it. I let you go once... lost you once. Maybe then I didn't know quite what I was losing, but I know now. Nicki, if you don't care.. if you feel you're never going to be able to care, then for G.o.d's sake say so. Don't let me make an even bigger fool of myself than I already have. If you don't love me..."

She made a tiny anguished sound that checked his words and made him look at her, anxiously searching her face, hungrily absorbing the information he could see in her eyes, and then more slowly studying her again, both his hands cupping her face as he watched her, saw the love in her eyes, registered and recognised it.

"You love me?"

Nicola nodded her head, unable to speak, unable to believe this was actually happening.

"You love me.. you really love me!"

He was covering her face with tiny exultant kisses as he spoke, his body trembling a little as he lowered himself on to the bed, reaching for her beneath the bedclothes, holding her against him as his mouth caressed hers, slowly, possessively, and then far more fiercely, compelling her to respond to him, to cling to him, while he told her over and over again how much he loved her.

Later, a long time later, when they had both finally come down to earth, they talked in soft- voiced murmurs, exchanging confidences, making plans, promises.

"I never meant to cause you so much pain," Matt told her as he held Nicola in his arms.

"I feel so guilty about that.. about not taking the time to rea.s.sure you before I left for New York that nothing had happened between us. I had no idea it would traumatise you so much. I only meant to give you a fright, to make you stop and think about what you were doing, about the risks you were running."

"It wasn't your fault," Nicola rea.s.sured him lovingly.

"If Jonathon hadn't--' Matt put his fingers across her lips.

"Shush. He's the last person I want to talk about right now."

"But if it hadn't been for him, this might never have happened," Nicola

pointed out teasingly.

Matt shook his head.

"Sooner or later this would have happened," he told her firmly.

"Maybe not as quickly nor as intensely, but I'd started loving you long

before last night. I wanted to get closer to you, but every time I tried you seemed to reject me. I thought it was because of Gordon.."

"I was afraid," Nicola admitted.

"Afraid of responding to you because of what had happened, because I felt so guilty.. so ashamed."

Matt turned her round in his arms, cupping her face as he told her seriously, "Even if we had made love that night, even if that night or any night had happened with someone else, it wouldn't make any difference to the way I feel about you. You were a child, Nicola, that was all barely aware of what you were doing, what you were inviting.. I knew that all you wanted to do was to make Jonathon jealous."

"Not entirely," Nicola told him, flushing slightly.