IN BED WITH THE BOSS

He sucked in a low breath of appreciation as she stood before him wearing nothing but flimsy underwear of soft green lace, her skin gleaming like silk. Her breasts spilled over the low-cut bra and the matching knickers made her legs seem to go on and on forever.

He must have seen her like this before and yet it seemed as though he had never really looked at her. Never appreciated the satin fall of the dark hair which tumbled all over her shoulders.

“Dear God,” he murmured. “You are unbelievable. Unbelievable.”

“No, I’m real.” She began to unbutton his shirt.

“You’re wearing all this, while I’m not wearing nearly enough,” she complained.

He gave a low laugh, sucking in his breath as her palms skated light, sensuous circles over his nipples. “You’re wearing too much, oh, Vivian-”

This as she unzipped his trousers and teased her fingertips over his straining hardness. He slid his hand between her thighs and her eyes widened in helpless pleasure as he began to move his fingertips against her. “Like that?” he whispered.

“You obviously haven’t lost all your memory,” she groaned. “You know I do.”

“Maybe it’s just instinct,” he husked.

Instinct made it sound too functional, she thought briefly. Her head tipped back and she moaned again with an unbearable feeling of expectation and excitement and yet it was tinged with a sensation of apprehension.

Sex had always been so wonderful between them, but she couldn’t ever remember feeling quite this defenceless-as if it would be impossible to hide the way she really felt about him, deep down. What if she cried out her love for him at the height of it all?

“Come here and stop looking so worried,” he murmured as he drew her down onto the bed beside him. “I’m the one who should be worried. What if the accident has left me unable to make love?”

At the same time, their eyes were drawn to his naked body, where the very visible proof of how much he wanted to make love was clear to see.

“I don’t think so.” She smiled, and nibbled at his ear lobe.

But it was different. He knew that. This was a test, but not just a test of his physical ability-there was something else going on and it perplexed him. He sensed Vivian’s reservations and he was damned sure that it had nothing to do with his skill as a lover. No, there was something else.

He stroked her breasts, which was infinitely easier than analyzing something which seemed determined to evade him. Vivian sighed, wrapping her arms tightly around his back, smoothing the flesh which covered the powerful shoulders.

He moved his hands all over her body, as if reacquainting himself with familiar yet undiscovered landscapes, and she responded instantly, her heat moist and warm against his fingers.

“Take me,” she whispered, when the longing became unbearable. “Take me.”

The unexpected and old fashioned entreaty was like fire ripping through his veins. He moved on top of her, his hardness threatening to obliterate him if he didn’t do something about it soon.

“Oh, Scott!” she cried as he pushed into her and filled her. He began to move and a kind of sob was wrenched from Vivian’s throat. “Scott!” she whispered shudderingly.

For a moment he stilled, reluctant to stop when something was this amazing, but he sensed that this was not the way it usually was. He smoothed the hair back from her face and looked down into her eyes.

“Tell me,” he invited softly.

Never tell a man you love him, not unless he says it first, she thought. She bit the words back and shook her head. “It feels so good.”

Now why on earth should her testimony disappoint him-make him feel strangely hollow? But then she had begun to move beneath him, her hips writhing in expert rhythm which took him up and beyond…

“Vivian!” He choked her name out just as she began to moan and the feeling just went on and on and on until both were spent.

And afterwards they lay there, their arms wrapped tightly around each other, neither saying a word- though both for different reasons.

He lay there, watching the moon as it rose in the night sky to flood the bed with a kind of silver radiance. Could he live the rest of his life like this? he wondered. In touch with his present, but not his past. He sighed.

Vivian turned onto her side. A sigh was a wistful, yearning thing-she had never heard him sigh before, she realized. “Scott?”

He turned his face. Her hair was tumbling down over her breasts and in the moonlight she looked like some creature from another world. And maybe she was, for she inhabited his past more surely than he did. “Mmm?”

“How do you feel?” He pulled her against him, reveling in the collision of warm, soft skin and thinking that nothing could beat this. “How do you think I feel? Pretty amazing.”

“I wasn’t talking about the sex.”

Well, neither was he, but he registered her sudden defensiveness. Was she insecure, he wondered-and had he contributed to making her that way?

“You want an update on my state of recovery at this precise moment, do you, honey?” he drawled.

She shook her head. “Not really. I mean, I presume that what we just did-”

“Make love, you mean?” he enquired helpfully.

Why was she blushing? Why did she feel about sixteen-with all those stupid, foolish dreams that sixteen-year-old girls had? Why, if she had a schoolbook right now, she would be writing his name on it and drawing a heart round it!Contentt bel0ngs to N0ve/lDrâ/ma.O(r)g!

“Scott, you mustn’t be flippant!”

“How am I being flippant?”

“You’ve been very ill. We’ve just made love and it was probably too soon.” she said.

He captured her hand, guiding it slowly down the front of his hair-smattered chest, and beyond and heard her tiny little gasp. “I don’t think so, honey. The body recovers from trauma very quickly, it seems.”

“But what about the mind?” He stared at the ceiling. The mind was a different matter.

“It’s still blocked…somehow” he admitted. “Sometimes I feel some… kind of… familiarity… but then it goes away.”

“Don’t you care?”

“You mean, don’t I mind?” He laughed, but opened his eyes again and saw the anxious look which had pleated her brow into a little frown. “Vivian, what can I do? I can’t force it-it has to come when it comes, when it’s ready to come.”

But they both became silent once more. Right now he felt at peace, and something was nagging at him, telling him that it was an unusual state for him. What if he unlocked the door to his past and found it full of demons? Would he know this kind of easy peace again? And yet, a man could not live without a past, no matter how much it might haunt him.

With an effort, he forced himself to concentrate on their conversation during a supper they had not eaten.

The memory of Vivian in a kitchen smiling at him as she stirred something on the stove came gritting back like sand being rubbed into his eyes.

“Vivian,” he said slowly. “I’d like us to go to your apartment.”

She stilled. “To my place? But why?”

“You said we were close. We spend a lot of time together. At my house… and yours too. Maybe if we go to those places we spent so much time together, this fog in my brain will clear up…. I want to remember everything… Vivian.”

__________

Vivian waited another couple of days before she took Scott to her home. She told herself that was because he was still weak, that the shock might prove too much for him, and all this was true.

But she did not deny to herself that there was a self-seeking reason behind the delay. What if she took him back and memory came with it, snapping into clarity, like a blurred picture suddenly coming into clear and bright focus?

She had grown used to this new Scott and she couldn’t help wondering if she would be able to tolerate the insecurity and the emotional repression which had been necessary to maintain a relationship with the old one.

The morning she chose was as perfect a spring morning as she could imagine. The sky was an egg-shell blue, unclouded and peerless and pure. Birds sang with heartbreaking fervor in the hedgerows and the banks were studded with pale lemon primroses.

Spring, thought Vivian-a time of rebirth. But birth was painful, nobody could deny that-just as they could not deny that it changed everything. Everyone.

Nothing was ever the same again.

She shot a glance at Scott . He had recovered well, the indomitable strength and vitality of the man had served him well. Outwardly, at least, he looked the same as the man she had fallen in love with.

She narrowed her eyes. Though, on closer examination, maybe that wasn’t quite accurate.