Page 119 of The Seven Sisters

‘Ma chérie, forgive me, the last thing I want to do is to make you cry. And yes, you are right,’ he agreed. ‘You told me to go away and I didn’t take any notice. So any fault lies with me and not you.’

‘But tell me how I can find the strength to say goodbye to you again?’ She wept despairingly as his arms went around her. ‘You don’t know what it took last time. And to do it again . . .’

‘Thendon’tdo it. Just tell me you want me to stay and I will.’

‘I . . .’

Laurent slowly bent his head and began to kiss her neck, so gently that it felt as though a butterfly’s wing was caressing her skin. She groaned. ‘Please, please, don’t make it any harder than it is.’

‘Bel, stop torturing yourself. Let’s just be together while we have the chance. I love you,chérie, so very much,’ he murmured, as his fingertips smoothed the tears from her cheeks.

She reached for his hand and clasped it in her own. ‘You have no idea how much I’ve longed for you,’ she wept.

‘As I have for you.’ He leant towards her and put his lips to hers.

Bel melted against him, her resolve broken, knowing she could fight no longer.

‘Chérie,’ he said as their lips finally broke apart, ‘let me take you to bed. I will accept if you simply want to lie next to me, but I just want to hold you.’

Without waiting for a response, Laurent swept Bel up from the chair and carried her through to the bedroom, placing her gently on the mattress.

Bel braced herself for a frenzied onslaught, as she’d come to expect with Gustavo, but it didn’t happen. Instead, Laurent lay down next to her and enfolded her in his arms. As he kissed her again, his fingertips tenderly traced the contours of her breasts and her waist through her clothes, until she herself could think of nothing else but the promise of his naked body on hers.

‘Shall I set you free, or will you?’ he whispered into her ear.

She rolled over willingly to allow him to undo the buttons at the back of her dress. Slowly he did so, taking his time to kiss the area of bare flesh that each button revealed, then he slid the sleeves of her dress down her arms. Next came her brassiere, and once that was free of her body and discarded on the floor, he gently rolled her towards him and looked at her.

‘You are so, so beautiful,’ he whispered, as she arched herself towards him, her body aching for his touch. As his lips sought out her nipples, a moan escaped her.

His hand moved slowly across her perfect, flat stomach as he raised his head from her breast and looked at her, his eyes seeking permission to go further. She gave it with her own, and he carefully undid her suspenders and rolled down her stockings, each brush of his fingers against her flesh sending electric currents of longing through her. Finally, she lay completely naked in front of him.

Breathing heavily, he paused for a moment, surveying her body.

‘Forgive me, but I want to sculpt you now.’

‘No, I . . .’

He silenced her with a kiss. ‘I’m teasing you, my beautiful Bel. All I wish to do is make love to you.’

Soon, he was also naked and as she chanced a shy glance at him, she saw how beautiful he was too. His body covered hers, and finally, after making sure she was ready, he entered her. As her own body accepted him willingly, ecstatically, she suddenly understood what it was that her mother had been describing.

*

Afterwards, as they lay languidly in each other’s arms, she gave in to the urge to touch him, to caress every centimetre of him, to discover his physical being. And she was eager for him to do the same to her.

Although she tried not to, as Laurent dozed next to her later, Bel could not help thinking of the contrast to the couplings she’d endured with Gustavo. How could the same act elicit such a startlingly different response from her mind and her body?

She understood then with sudden clarity that Laurent had been right when he’d said she shouldn’t marry Gustavo. For nothing could ever change the fact that she didn’t, and wouldn’t ever, love her husband the way he loved her.

The revulsion she felt towards him physically was not his fault – he was not a bad man, a tyrant who didn’t care for her. If anything, he cared too much and wanted to show her in the only way available to him.

‘What is it?’

Laurent had woken, and was gazing intently at her.

‘I was thinking about Gustavo.’

‘Try not to, Bel. No good can come of it.’