To Love Again

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Christi relaxed slightly at his teasing. ‘No,’ she answered without hesitation.

‘Oh!’ Lucas looked surprised. ‘He seemed a nice enough chap to me.’

‘He was,’ she nodded. ‘But he wasn’t for me.’ You’re the man for me, she cried inside, wishing—oh, God, wishing he could see her as more than a young sister, or, even worse, someone he treated as being on the same age level as his two children! Much as she liked Robin and Daisy, her feelings towards them weren’t sibling, but more maternal. She longed to be their stepmother, to perhaps give Lucas other children. ‘Crying for the moon,’ her mother would probably have told her gently, her face softened with love.

Lucas sipped his whisky again. ‘How could you tell after just one date? Love doesn’t always hit you between the eyes like a fist, you know. Sometimes it takes time to develop and grow.’ He relaxed back against the sofa, watching her beneath heavy lids.

But sometimes it did hit you like that fist, and when it did it was the hardest thing in the world to live without! ‘Love doesn’t,’ she acknowledged with a nod.

He frowned. ‘Meaning something else does?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she smiled.

‘What—ah!’ He gave a knowing sigh, his mouth twisted into a smile. ‘That little monster lust rearing its head again,’ he derided.

The bleakness was starting to fade from his eyes, and he had put down the half-finished glass of whisky on the coffee-table beside him. ‘I don’t think of it as lust,’ she chided reprovingly. ‘Merely a case of physical attraction,’ she corrected with mock indignation, rewarded with a gleam of laughter in dark grey eyes.

‘Lust,’ he repeated drily. ‘But there was none of this—physical attraction,’ he teased her mockingly, ‘between you and Dick Crosby?’

Another few moments of this nonsense and she would have the old Lucas back again, and not the man whose barely leashed savagery distressed her so much.

‘Hm—maybe a little,’ she conceded with exaggerated thought.

‘On his part, at least,’ Lucas taunted knowingly. ‘Weren’t you attracted to him, too?’ he asked interestedly.

‘He was very handsome, fun to be with,’ she conceded with a shrug.

‘And?’

‘And nothing,’ she dismissed lightly.

‘You liked him, he was fun to be with, you found him handsome, and yet—nothing?’ Lucas said disbelievingly.

‘Hm,’ she nodded, mischief gleaming in her eyes. ‘I had my doubts throughout the evening, but it was the kiss that finally convinced me,’ she said sadly, laughter lighting up her eyes beneath demurely lowered lashes.

Lucas sat forward, his elbows resting on his knees, a frown between his eyes. ‘The man has got to the age of—thirty-one, thirty-two——’

‘Thirty-one,’ she confirmed.

‘To the age of thirty-one, and is still a lousy kisser?’ he said incredulously.

‘On the contrary,’ she drawled, ‘he was a very experienced and accomplished kisser.’

‘But——’

‘There are kisses. And then there are kisses, Lucas,’ she explained meaningfully, knowing they wouldn’t be having this conversation at all if Lucas hadn’t drunk the unaccustomed whisky. In the past, he had always shown a cursory interest in her dates, but they had certainly never discussed these sort of intimacies!

‘There are?’ he mocked.

‘Platonic kisses, polite kisses, meaningless kisses——’

‘I thought there was only one way for a man to kiss a woman he found attractive,’ Lucas drawled. ‘So that he leaves her in no doubt that he wants her.’

Christi felt her heart leap in her chest, knowing she could lose what she already had with Lucas, but also knowing she would perhaps never have another opportunity like this one. ‘Then maybe Dick did do something wrong,’ she accepted thoughtfully. ‘Maybe you could show me how it should be done? Oh, I realise you would have to pretend to find me attractive, but at least this way I know what to look for in a man,’ she concluded innocently, her hands clasped tightly together so that Lucas shouldn’t see their trembling, her heart beating so loudly, she felt sure he must be able to hear it. She could lose everything with him, but oh, how she longed to know the touch of his lips on hers just once!

His expression darkened. ‘I don’t think——’

She quickly got up from her chair and joined him on the sofa, her legs folded beneath her as she faced him. ‘How else am I to know what to want from a man if someone doesn’t show me?’ She looked at him imploringly.

He swallowed hard, a nerve pulsing at his jaw. ‘The men you dated last year——’

‘Did nothing for me, either,’ she dismissed, telling him clearly that she had never found any man attractive enough to let him do more than kiss her.

How could she let any other man but Lucas touch her? She had loved him long before she had taken any other man seriously, and loving Lucas as she did meant she couldn’t bear the thought of any other man making love to her.

Her heart pounded more loudly than ever as she waited for his answer, knowing she was perhaps taking advantage of the fogging the whisky had caused to his brain, but wanting—so much—to be taken in his arms. Regrets could come later. And she didn’t doubt that there would be many.

Lucas sighed, shaking his head, obviously not as affected by the whisky as she had thought—hoped!—he was. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea.’

She sat back with a shaky sigh, his rejection a bitter blow. ‘Maybe Barry will be more cooperative,’ she challenged angrily, blinking back her tears of disappointment. ‘After mixing with all those Hollywood starlets, he’s sure to be very experienced!’

Lucas clasped her arms, turning her to face him, his expression fierce. ‘Don’t go playing games with a man like Barry Robbins,’ he warned grimly.

‘Why not?’ she said defiantly, so hurt she just had to hit out at him. She had taken the chance, and lost, but in a way that humiliated as much as it hurt. ‘He’s attracted to me, I can tell, and—oomph!’ She was abruptly silenced as Lucas’s mouth descended on hers, stealing her breath away.

He was kissing her out of anger, not passion, but to Christi it didn’t matter; she melted into his arms as he bent her back against the sofa, her arms moving up about his neck as she clung to him, gladly returning his kiss.

And then his mouth gentled on hers, controlling the fiery passion that had instantly blazed between them, nibbling on her lips with slow enjoyment, tracing the outline of lips with the tip of his tongue, moving it temptingly against them, but making no attempt to probe within, promising but not giving.

Christi’s body ached, her nipples hard pebbles against his chest as the kiss once again became fierce, no longer promising but giving fully, plunging again and again until her whole body shook and quivered with need, a need which was slightly assuaged when his hands began to move restlessly over her aching flesh.

She was floating, she was soaring, she was held totally captive, she was aching, she was hurting, she was more complete than she had ever felt before. She was Lucas’s …

Suddenly he thrust her away from him, staring down at her as if he couldn’t believe his eyes, moving forcefully up off the sofa to move as far away from her as possible, his back rigidly unyielding as he kept himself firmly turned away from her.

Christi knew how she must look to him, her eyes drugged with wantonness, her mouth a swollen pout, her hair wild about her shoulders, her breasts still thrusting against the soft material of her dress, that same dress having ridden up to show off the long expanse of her thighs.

And the wanton Lucas had produced obviously disgusted him.

She got up from the sofa with a choked sob, running from the room, from the apartment. She didn’t stop running until she was safely hidden away in her bedroom.

CHAPTER THREE (#uae810e65-cdcb-5b86-9b16-14829febe80c)

IF CHRISTI had expected Lucas to follow her, to try to make things right between them again, she had been disappointed. He didn’t come to her that night, and she saw nothing of him the next day, either, whether by his design or by coincidence she didn’t know. She did know that he wasn’t at his apartment all day and that he didn’t even return to change before going out for the evening, although she had heard his return at three o’clock this morning.

She had ruined things between them, had pushed their friendship through a barrier Lucas had no wish for it to cross.

She curled up into an even tighter ball of misery as she lay in her bed at nine o’clock in the morning, trying to force herself to get out and get herself moving.

She had wanted Lucas as a lover, yes, but she didn’t have that, and she certainly didn’t have his friendship any more, either. At the time, she had wanted him so badly it hadn’t seemed to matter, but after just one day of knowing she disgusted him she was finding it hard to live with herself.

What if she never saw him again? What if he decided to move out of his apartment because of the uncomfortable situation she had forced upon them? Until these last two days, it had never occurred to her that Lucas would ever move away from living next door to her. But she had to admit that now it was more than a possibility. She tried to tell herself that she was too good a friend to Lucas for this upset to cause him to do that, but at the same time she knew she had made it impossible for him to feel comfortable in his own home.

Then she would have to be the one to move out! Why should Lucas be forced out for something that had all been her fault, because her curiosity and good sense had got the better of her?

She didn’t want to move, hated the thought of moving away from here, from possibly never seeing Lucas again. But if one of them had to go it would have to be her; she had no choice.

That decision made, she got wearily out of bed, the day stretching in front of her. She had no auditions to go to, no one to see until Barry Robbins tonight. ‘Resting’ was all well and good, but it gave you too much time to think and brood. About what might have been. How different things might have been if Lucas had known the same passion and desire she had the other night, she mused dreamily. They would have made love together all night, spent the day together, probably been together again last night, too. Instead of that, they weren’t even talking to each other.

Whoever would have thought she and Lucas would come to this? What had possessed her to force that situation of the other night?

Tears that had fallen all too readily over the last two days began to roll down her cheeks again. Oh, Lucas! she cried inside as she dropped down on one of the bar stools in her kitchen, the homely sound of the coffee percolating not piercing her misery. How often she and Lucas had sat down and had coffee together before he left to go to work, and how she had daydreamed, during those times, that they were a happily married couple sharing breakfast together. Reality had intruded when Lucas had stood up to kiss her paternally on the forehead, or, worse than that, had ruffled her hair affectionately before picking up his briefcase and leaving.

Christi gave a startled jump as her doorbell rang, hastily brushing away her tears as she went to greet the doorman with her mail.

But it was Lucas who stood on the doorstep, and she gazed up at him apprehensively. Not that she was in the least self-conscious about having him see her in her short pink silk nightshirt; she had break-fasted with him hundreds of times in the past wearing similar night attire. It was having him treat her as a stranger that was going to be so unbearable.

‘Good morning, lazybones,’ he greeted with an indulgent grin, ruffling her hair affectionately as he strode inside her apartment.

Christi followed him dazedly after closing the door behind him; this was no stranger, this was the Lucas she had always known!

‘I was in my apartment working when I heard you moving about—at last!’ he rebuked teasingly, grey eyes dark with affection. ‘I knew you would be putting coffee on, so I thought I’d come over and share a cup with you.’ He strode into the kitchen with the ease of familiarity, getting down the cups for their coffee. ‘I must say, you look a little hung-over this morning, Christi.’ He handed her a cup of steaming coffee.

She looked hung-over? He was the one who had come home at three o’clock this morning! Not that he looked any the worse for it; he was exuding good health and vitality, while she—— Obviously what had happened between them the other evening certainly hadn’t kept him awake at nights!

Instead of feeling guilty about what had happened, Christi began to feel anger at Lucas’s indifference. Didn’t the passion they had shared mean anything to him? Obviously not, she decided indignantly.

Unless he just didn’t remember it? He had been drinking that evening, something he rarely did, and maybe, just maybe—— But wasn’t that the classic excuse people used when something had happened they would rather just forget, and didn’t know how else to achieve it?

She looked at Lucas suspiciously. Was that why he was behaving like his usual cheerful self this morning, because he wanted her to think he didn’t even remember what had happened between them the other night, because he wanted to forget the whole embarrassing incident had happened? Or—and this seemed more like the Lucas she loved—was he trying to save face for both of them, hoping that, if he behaved as if nothing had happened between them, they would eventually both feel that nothing had happened?

Christi would give anything not to live through the mortification of the last two days again, and readily accepted that Lucas thought the whole thing was best forgotten, grasping at the friendship he offered with both hands.

At least, she took the coffee he held out to her with both hands, giving him a relieved smile!

He settled himself on one of her bar stools, facing out towards the kitchen, breathtakingly attractive in the dark navy suit and snowy white shirt, his striped tie meticulously knotted at his throat, his dark hair falling endearingly across his forehead.

‘So,’ he said lightly. ‘Did you go out last night?’ he asked interestedly.

‘No.’ She would have liked to ask him where he had been until three o’clock this morning but, considering Michelle’s obvious beauty, and his continuing relationship with the other woman, the answer to that was all too obvious. And painful. ‘I had a few chores to do,’ she dismissed shruggingly. ‘Did you have a pleasant evening?’ She looked at him enquiringly.

‘Fine,’ he nodded. ‘How are the auditions going?’

She gave a rueful smile. ‘They aren’t.’ She sighed. ‘There are too many actresses and not enough parts.’

‘Hm, it’s a pity the play had to close,’ he nodded thoughtfully.

They were talking as they usually did, and yet to Christi there was something missing. At first, it was difficult to pinpoint, and then she knew it was the ease with which they were usually together. Unless it was just her, because Lucas seemed just as relaxed as ever. Maybe he really didn’t