Forbidden Desires (24 page)

‘Did you mean what you said?’ asked Harriet, as Lewis slipped her peignoir over her shoulders.

‘About what?’

‘About knowing you couldn’t have gone on with the game tomorrow?’

‘Yes. I was going to tell Edmund as soon as tonight was over.’

Harriet leant her head against his shoulder. ‘Has this spoilt the film?’

‘How could it? This
is
the end, and a very satisfying one as well.’

‘There won’t be any more films will there?’ she asked later, when they’d returned to their own bed.

‘Yes, but not involving us.’

‘I’m glad. I knew you’d realise one day that there are some things that are more important than art.’

‘And have you learnt anything as well?’ he asked gently.

‘Yes, that for me sex and love have to go together. Sheer sensation, however incredible, isn’t enough. I’m glad I did what I did, but it’s over now and I won’t ever need to test myself again.’

‘We need a proper holiday,’ declared Lewis as they both turned on their sides and began to kiss. ‘Where would you like to go?’

‘Italy I think. I love opera and art, and I’ve had enough of Cornwall for the moment!’

Gently Lewis eased himself into her welcoming warmth and they began to move together in a blissfully familiar pattern. ‘Italy it is, as long as you don’t have a weakness for Italian men,’ he laughed, watching her eyes widen as, to her incredulous delight, she felt her body coming alive again.

‘Only half-Portuguese ones!’ she promised him, closing her eyes as the warm glow began to fill her body.

To Lewis’s horror, he suddenly had an image of his wife’s fair-skinned body naked on a bed in the midday heat of Italy, her limbs entwined with the darker limbs of a young Italian male. It would make, he thought, as they both surged towards a climax, a very erotic shot.

In the next bedroom, almost out of her mind
with excitement, Ella was finally allowed to climax beneath Edmund’s hands and tongue. Watching her panting with exhausted satisfaction, Edmund knew that at last he’d found his own, real life Helena.

And in the exercise room of the small cottage, Noella and Oliver toasted their future together.