Legally His Omnibus (11 page)

Why should she need to feel self-defensive, after all? she asked herself in silent bitterness. There might be a very small rebellious and unheeding part of her that was still physically responsive to Sean, but that was all. How could she, a loving and responsible mother, ever forget Sean’s refusal to accept that Oliver was his son?

It was just the realisation that he had brought her here to this house—the house she had fallen in love with, had believed she would bring their family up in—that was making her feel so vulnerable, making her long to pillow her head against his shoulder and let her body relax into the comfort and security of his.

‘Here we are.’

Sean used his foot to nudge open the heavy door and Kate swivelled her head to look into the room beyond it.

Sunlight warmed the soft cream walls, and wonderfully heavy curtains made of terracotta and cream toile de Jouy fabric hung from the windows, draped the antique half-tester bed. A cream carpet covered the floor, and the whole colour scheme set off the pretty late-Georgian mahogany furniture.

When Sean placed her on the bed Kate had to struggle not to give way to her emotions. The room was exactly as she had excitedly planned to decorate it, right down to the elegant cream blind at the window.

‘I’ve had a bed put in the nursery for Oliver,’ Sean was telling her practically, clearly oblivious to the emotional impact the room had on her. Had Sean converted the room next to the nursery into a bathroom, as she had wanted?

She didn’t feel she could trust herself to ask, and was glad that she hadn’t when Oliver came rushing in, his face alight with excitement.

‘Annie says that I can go and see her dog if you say yes, Mummy,’ he announced importantly.

‘Annie?’ Kate checked him swiftly. Sean might refer to his housekeeper and her husband by their Christian names, but Kate wasn’t going to have Oliver copy his father unless he had been given permission to do so.

‘Annie prefers to be addressed by her first name.’ Sean stepped in immediately, reading her mind so easily and so quickly that for a moment Kate couldn’t reply. ‘And Oliver will be perfectly safe with her dog,’ Sean continued. ‘I’ll take him down to meet her myself.’

Ignoring Kate, Oliver threw his arms around Sean’s legs and hugged him tightly, looking up at him with an expression of beatific adoration.

Looking on, Kate could feel her heart turning over slowly and painfully inside her chest, its cavity tight with pain and love and fear.

‘Can we go now?’ Oliver was pleading, but Sean shook his head.

‘No, not now. We’ll go tomorrow morning.’

Kate held her breath warily, half anticipating that Oliver might refuse to accept what Sean had told him. Certainly he scowled, and looked as though he was about to object, but, as if he had prepared himself for Oliver’s reaction, Sean simply ignored his behaviour.

‘Come and have a look at your bedroom, Ollie,’ Sean said instead. ‘It’s right here, next to Mummy’s.’

Sean’s use of that familiar sweet ‘Ollie’ made Kate clench her hands into small fists—as did the automatic way in which Sean put his hand down so that Oliver could put his much smaller one into it. Hand in hand, father and son went to inspect the room, leaving her to stare anxiously after their departing backs.

From inside the room she heard Oliver saying, ‘There’s plenty of room on the floor in here for your sleeping bag, Sean. You’ll be able to sleep in my room, and not Mummy’s.’

‘Well, I’d like to do that, Oliver,’ Kate could hear Sean responding seriously. ‘But, you see, I have my own bedroom here—like you do at your house.’

‘But I want you to sleep here with me and my mummy,’ Oliver was insisting, and somehow, without knowing how she knew, Kate sensed that Sean had bent down and picked Oliver up.

‘Well, when we were at your house your mummy wasn’t very well, was she? And I had to be there in case she needed me. But she’s much better now.’

‘Well, you could sleep in the same bed, like George’s mummy and daddy do,’ Oliver offered, with almost-five-year-old logic that made Kate’s eyes burn with dry pain.

In the room where a small child’s bed had been set up for Oliver, Sean turned towards the window, the boy still in his arms. He could still feel the gut-wrenching kick of longing that Oliver’s innocent suggestion had prompted.

Kate—the Kate who was no longer his gentle, loving Kathy—would never willingly welcome him into her bed. Sean knew that. Yes, on one fever-racked night when she had not known the difference between their past and their present she might have been his Kathy once again, but not in reality.

It was growing dusk and Oliver was leaning heavily against him. Reluctantly Sean remembered the emotions that had struck him when he had seen Tom go to Oliver’s rescue, when he had felt irrationally that the other man was usurping his rightful role. His arms tightened around Oliver. Was the emotional bond he was beginning to develop with Oliver caused by the fact that Oliver was Kate’s child? Or was it because somehow he had begun to love Oliver for himself, to feel a fatherly love towards him?

‘Why don’t I put a video on for you, Ollie?’ he suggested gently now. ‘And then you can sit and watch it for a while before bed.’

‘And then will we read Mummy a story?’

Sean ruffled the thick hair ruefully. Determined not to be accused by Kate of using the television as a baby-minder for her son, Sean had instituted a bedtime ritual, aided by Oliver, of them reading a story together. Quite why he had decided that this should be done in Kate’s bedroom he had no real idea, other than that he’d known how important it would be to her that she shared in her son’s life in every way she could.

A small sound by the door made him turn round, and the tightening of his mouth concealed his anguished concern as he saw Kate standing there, holding onto the door itself for support.

‘You’re supposed to be resting,’ he said curtly.

‘Only when I need to, and right now I don’t need to,’ Kate answered evenly, refusing to look at him and holding out her arms to Oliver instead.

‘Why don’t I read you a story tonight, Ollie?’ she suggested. ‘I’m sure that Sean has lots to do.’

To Kate’s shock, instead of wriggling to be set free by Sean, Oliver leaned even further into him as Sean set him on his feet.

* * *

Kate looked out through the French windows of the pretty sitting room to where Oliver was playing excitedly on the lawn with the Hargreaveses’ good-natured collie dog. Child and dog were indulging in what was obviously a mutually blissful game of chase, and when Oliver stumbled and fell on the lawn the dog was immediately all canine concern, standing anxiously over him as the little boy got to his feet undamaged.

They had been living in Sean’s house for just over two weeks, and Kate was convinced that she was now fully recovered. Which meant...which meant that it was time for her and Oliver to return to their own home and their own lives.

Kate couldn’t deceive herself that Oliver would want to leave. He adored Sean. Kate tensed as she saw Sean strolling across the lawn towards their son. He had left the house shortly after breakfast to attend a business meeting. The moment Oliver saw him he ran towards him, laughing happily when Sean picked him up and swung him round.

As she watched them, inside her head Kate could see another picture. In this one she was standing at Sean’s side as Oliver ran towards them both, and Sean’s arm was holding her close to his side whilst her head rested on his shoulder.

Her legs felt weak and her whole body was trembling—but not because she had been ill. No, she had to face up to the truth that was responsible for her physical malaise.

It seemed that nothing, not even his rejection of his son, could totally destroy her love for Sean. It was too deeply embedded within her.

Panic, anger and fear fought frantically inside her. She had to tell Sean that she wanted to leave and she had to tell him now!

Taking a deep breath, Kate went out to join them.

As he saw her approaching Sean put Oliver down.

‘I’m going to take Nell home for her tea now,’ Oliver announced importantly to Kate, manfully taking a firm hold of the obliging dog’s collar.

At any other time Kate knew she would have been tenderly amused, ruefully suspecting that it was the dog who was in charge of her son rather than the other away around as the two of them headed to where the housekeeper was waiting for them. But as she watched them Kate was acutely conscious of Sean coming to stand by her side. Immediately she moved slightly away from him. Letting him get too close to her was dangerous!

Bending his head, he told her quietly, ‘I’ve been thinking there’s no real reason why Oliver shouldn’t have a dog of his own. In fact I called in to see a litter of Labrador pups on my way back this afternoon. They aren’t quite old enough to leave their mother yet, but if you feel up to it we could drive over there tomorrow and Ollie could choose his own—’

‘No! Oliver is not having a dog!’ Kate stopped him sharply and Sean started to frown.

‘Kate, he’s desperate for one.’

‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Kate challenged. ‘You might have been “thinking”, Sean, but you obviously haven’t thought enough,’ she told him passionately. ‘Surely you must realise how impossible it would be for him to have a dog at home? You know that I have to work.’ Angrily she turned away from him.

‘Kate—’ Sean protested, putting his hand on her arm.

Immediately Kate tried to snatch her arm away, demanding furiously, ‘Let go of me. I hate you touching me.’

‘What?’

When she saw the expression darkening Sean’s eyes Kate knew that she had gone too far. But it was too late to retract her reckless words, because he was pulling her into his hold, his arms pinioning her to his body as he looked down into her face.

‘No!’ Kate protested, but her denial was already being crushed beneath the pressure of Sean’s angry kiss. His lips ground down on hers and his fingers tightened into the soft flesh of her arms.

Anger boiled through her veins, making her return the savage intensity of Sean’s kiss. But it was an anger bred from longing and need, Kate recognised helplessly, as her own body turned traitor against her and she heard herself moaning softly with liquid pleasure beneath the demanding pressure of Sean’s mouth.

Somehow the past and his betrayal of her slipped away. Without her realising it, her hands had lifted to hold Sean’s face, and her heart leapt with shatteringly intense emotion. Just the slightly rough feel of his morning-shaved skin was enough to take her arousal levels dangerously higher.

Whilst her hands held Sean’s face, his were moulding her body with familiar caresses, kneading her shoulders, then stroking down her spine, spanning the back of her waist and then moving lower. Kate could feel herself starting to tremble as his hands slid past her hips. His thumbs grazed her hipbones themselves, and were then withdrawn as he pulled her fiercely against his own body.

It should have been impossible for her to feel the same shockingly intense thrill of sensual arousal now, as she felt the hard fullness of Sean’s erection, as she had done that very first time he had held her like this—but she did. If anything her awareness and the reaction of her body now, as a woman and not as a girl, was far more immediate and fiercely erotic than it had been then.

Perhaps it was because then she’d had no experience by which to measure the pleasure his arousal could lead to, whereas now she most certainly did. Already her imagination had broken free of her control and was filling her head with wanton images, bombarding her senses with messages and promises that totally destroyed her defences.

Within the space of a few seconds her own body was as eager for his as it had been when she was eighteen.

The movement of his hand from her bottom to her breast evoked a low sound of delirious pleasure from her throat and she angled her body so that her breast filled his hand.

‘No, Sean. No... Mmm, like that...’ Kate could hear herself whispering incoherent urgent words of praise and pleasure between the frantic hungry kisses with which she was caressing his mouth. She no longer cared about what she might be revealing, only what she was feeling! ‘Sean.’ As she moaned his name she covered the hand he had placed over her breast with her own and whispered achingly, ‘Touch me properly, Sean.’

‘Properly?’

She could hear the thick male arousal roughening his voice and her skin prickled in female response to it.

‘You know what I mean,’ she urged him hotly. ‘You know what I like.’

‘You mean this?’

He was caressing the tender flesh surrounding the tormented nub of her nipple and Kate trembled violently in reaction.

‘Mmm, yes. That,’ Kate agreed huskily. ‘And more, Sean—but without my clothes. No clothes. Just you,’ she continued. ‘Just you and me.’

‘No clothes? Not even like this?’ Pushing down her bra, Sean used his thumb and finger to delicately rub the silk fabric of her top against the stiff thrust of her nipple.

Immediately Kate cried out in agonised pleasure.

‘Good...? That was good?’ Sean’s voice was so thick and low Kate could barely hear it, but she didn’t care. He had pushed her clothes completely aside now, and she could see the creamy swell of her breast filling the darkness of his hand as he slowly caressed her eager nipple.

Standing silently in his hold, she gave in to the violent shudders of pleasure ripping through her.

‘And with your mouth...’ she begged him. The words were jerked from her lips as her body suddenly convulsed against him.

‘Kate! Kate!’

Just the way he was saying her name touched every one of her senses. He took hold of her hand and dragged it against his own body. Her fingers curled eagerly around the erection straining against his clothes, making a feverish exploration of their remembered territory. But she wanted to feel him without anything in the way.

She was stretching her hand towards his zip when his mobile rang shrilly, the sound jerking Kate back into reality.

What was she doing? Pulling away from Sean, she started to run towards the house, wanting to escape not just from him but also from her own self-imposed humiliation.