Chapter 64 What They Had

• WHAT THEY HAD started had to be put on hold until later. They were not alone yet, not in any practical sense, but Christabel felt oddly disconnected to being a mother or a guest in the aftermath of losing her long-held guard against the desires Jared King stirred in her.
It seemed strange, sitting at the table again as though nothing momentous had happened, secretly harbouring the excitement that continued to buzz through her body while Vikki Chan wheeled out the traymobile, reloaded with the next course for dinner. Alicia followed her, holding a cone of chocolate chip ice-cream, and she skipped over to Jared to thank him for the special treat.
Christabel couldn’t stop looking at Jared, imagining what they might do when they were absolutely alone together. Was he still aroused? Impossible to know with him sitting on the opposite side of the table. He had felt…big. She wondered what he would look like with no clothes on, how he would feel to her then. Magnificently male and completely self-assured about his sexuality, she decided, not having to prove anything, just being himself. And letting her be herself.
“That looks superb, Vikki, as usual,” he complimented as the old Chinese woman served them portions of steamed fish and braised vegetables and spooned sauce over them.
“Vikki has a Chinese dish with bamboo sticks in it for cooking the fish, Mummy,” Alicia informed her importantly. “She showed me lots of special things. This house has got a really big kitchen. Bigger than our whole caravan.”
“That’s nice,” Christabel answered vaguely, watching Alicia’s tongue wrapping itself around the generous scoop of ice-cream, catching the melting drops before they dribbled down the cone.
She thought of Jared’s tongue, electrifying her lips, invading her mouth, the exciting intimacy it had generated. Would he kiss her breasts like that, licking in a swirl around her nipples…
“And Vikki’s got a shell collection, too,” Alicia rattled on. “She said she’d show me when she finished cooking.”
“That’s nice,” Christabel heard herself say again before forcing her mind to really register what her daughter was telling her. She turned to Vikki Chan, who was still spooning sauce. “Thank you for giving Alicia your time.”
“No problem. It is a joy to see her delight in things. So it should be with a child.”
“Yes,” Christabel agreed, happy there was no problem with Alicia. She needed to be free of problems tonight, free to revel in the joy of her own body meeting Jared King’s…making love…delighting in every pleasure he promised.
“Your mother will be staying longer than your bedtime, Alicia,” Jared smoothly announced, smiling at her daughter. “When you’ve finished looking at the shell collection, I’m sure Vikki can find a bedroom for you to sleep in.”
“A whole bedroom for me?” Alicia’s eyes rounded at the intriguing idea before a more troublesome thought struck. “Where will you be, Mummy?”
“Here,” she answered. “Here with Jared,” she added, her heart filling with the bliss of that reality. Not fantasy tonight. No restless dreaming, either. She’d have the warm, strong, flesh-and-blood man she wanted, touching her in every sense there was.
“There is a bed in the same room as my shells,” Vikki Chan said encouragingly to Alicia. “Perhaps you would like that one. Shall we see?”
“Yes,” she cried eagerly, only too happy to explore more of the house with the old woman.
They went off together, leaving Christabel and Jared to eat their dinner by themselves.
Jared refilled their glasses with wine. Christabel stared at the tight little black curls on his chest. She remembered her hands ploughing through the thick springy hair on his head as he kissed her. That was different, not the kind of hair she could twirl around her finger. She wondered if the curls would feel soft or wiry.
Jared lifted his glass as he sat down again. “To being free,” he said, uncannily reading her feelings as he did so often.
“This one night,” she answered, more intoxicated by all she envisaged having with him than any wine could make her, but as she sipped the fine, oaky Chardonnay, its taste brought her palate alive and its bouquet was sharply fragrant, as though all her senses were heightened.
The fish was superb, moist, tender, flavoursome. She’d never eaten better. The vegetables and the sauce complemented it perfectly. Unskilled with chopsticks, she automatically used the conventional fork supplied, but she watched Jared using the Chinese implements, the deft control of his fingers, the smooth conveying of food to his mouth, so gracefully sure, never dropping anything.
Everything about him gave her pleasure. And it was such exquisite relief not having to put up defences, to say yes instead of no, to simply let nature take its course without any outside interference. She loved all she knew of Jared King. Tonight she would know more. As much as she could. She’d store it all up in a treasure box of memories and keep it forever.
Jared put down his chopsticks and nodded to her almost empty plate. “Good?”
“Great!” she replied with spontaneous exuberance, not having to guard her words, not having to repress anything for the rest of this night.
He smiled contentedly, sitting back with his glass of wine, watching her finish the last few morsels. It made Christabel very conscious of what he might be thinking as she ate. Was he remembering how little she wore under her dress? He had to know now, having felt the unrestricted contours when he’d held her. Was he envisaging her naked?
Her pulse quickened as she set her fork down and picked up her glass, looking at him over the rim of it as she sipped the wine, seeing the dark simmer in his eyes and feeling her stomach curl in anticipation.
“Shall we leave the table and enjoy the freshness of the rain?” he said, surging to his feet without waiting for a reply.
The suggestion startled her. “Do you mean…go out in it?” The thunder and lightning had given way to a torrential onslaught that was still pouring down. They’d be soaked in seconds.
“No. Just to the edge of the veranda.” His mouth curved into a sensual tease as he stepped away from his chair, heading for hers. “I can’t bear having the table between us any longer.”
“Oh!”
Her excitement soared as Jared moved to the back of her chair. He dropped a kiss on the top of her hair, his warm lips grazing over the waves springing from its centre parting. “Bring your glass of wine with you,” he murmured persuasively.
It was still in her hand and she stood with it, responding unthinkingly, drawn by the compelling, seductive energy of the man behind her. He whipped away her chair, curled an arm around her waist and moved her out of the pool of lantern light, down the veranda to a more shadowed area and over to the broad balustrade between the posts.
The air did smell fresh with the rain, the oppressive heat dispelled and the dust settled. The black sky was still unbroken, no moon, no stars. She could hear the storm-driven waves in the bay below