The Society Wife Read Online Free PDF

Tristan said dryly.
    â€˜Tell me about it.’
    There was a wistful ache in her voice that made him lift his head and look into her face. For a fleeting moment he glimpsed the bleakness there, but then she was tilting her head up to his, her lips parting as they rose to meet his, and the questions that were forming in his head dissolved like snow in summer.
    He didn’t want to know anyway. He didn’t want to talk to her, for pity’s sake. This was purely physical.
    Not emotional.
    Never emotional.
    Her hands came up to cup his head, her fingers sliding into his hair, pulling him down, harder, deeper. He sensed a hunger in her that matched his own. The silk dress hung loosely from her shoulders and he knew that simply slipping the narrow, gathered straps downwards would make it fall to the floor, but he forced himself to wait, to take it slowly, to suppress the naked savagery of his need. Above all, this was why he had come. Tom and the press were just convenient excuses.
    This was his salvation, his purifying baptismal fire. This was where he lost himself, purged himself of all the images from the last week that haunted him whenever he closed his eyes. It didn’t matter whose body he lost himself in, whose lips he was kissing. It meant nothing. It was simply a means to an end.
    A way of remembering the joy of being alive, the pleasures of the flesh.
    A way of forgetting.
    Lily pulled away, taking a deep, gasping breath of air, trying to steady herself against the swelling tide of pure desire that threatened to sweep her away. The light was fading quickly now; the sky beyond the arched windows was the soft, lush purple of clematis petals and the walls of the tower room had melted into it, making it feel as if they’d been cut adrift fromreality and were floating far out at sea. Tristan’s hands rested on her shoulders, his thumbs beneath her jaw, stopping her from dropping her head, ducking away from meeting his gaze. In a world of smudged inky shades of blue and mauve his eyes were as deep and dark as a tropical ocean.
    â€˜I have to warn you,’ he said roughly, ‘this is just tonight. One night. No strings, no commitment, no happy ever after. Is that what you want?’
    His honesty made her breath catch. No promises, no lies. Somewhere, distantly, she was aware of pain, of disappointment, but it was numbed by the dizzying lust that circulated through her body like a drug. In the morning she was leaving for Africa—a different world, a new direction in her life. Tonight stood alone; a bridge between the old and the new. There were no rules, only the imperatives of the moment. Of forgetting about tomorrow, and giving herself something to remember when it came.
    â€˜Yes,’ she whispered, lifting her hands to the neck of his shirt, sliding them beneath the open collar. ‘Just tonight.’
    Outside another explosion ripped the sky apart with a shower of pink stars and she felt him flinch slightly. Carefully she began to undo the buttons of his shirt. There was nothing hurried about her movements, though her hands shook a little with the effort of keeping them steady, of reining back the powerful need that was building within her. He stood completely still as caressingly she trailed the backs of her fingers down the strip of lean, well-muscled flesh that was revealed by his unbuttoned shirt, and the only evidence of his desire was the quickening thud of his heart.
    Her hand moved downwards, skimming over the buckle of his belt.
    Not the only evidence … She felt his whole body tense as her palm brushed the hardness of his arousal beneath his clothes. For a second his head tipped back, as if he was in pain, but then he seemed to gather himself, and as his hands gripped hershoulders Lily couldn’t tell whether he was taking control or abandoning it.
    The bed was as pale and cool as a lunar landscape in the mystical blue twilight. Tristan’s hands slipped down her