Free Forbidden Desires by Marina Anderson Page A

hair and then moved away to sit in the shade, leaving Edmund free to work on her legs.
    Slowly Harriet parted her thighs and felt Edmund’s hands massaging cream into the tops of her feet, and the place where the skin was stretched tightly over her ankle bones, before moving up over her calf muscles and then, at last, he was rubbing the cool cream into her burning thighs.
    Despite herself, Harriet knew that her legs were trembling, and when he spread his fingers wide and eased some of the lotion into the joins of her thighs she was horrified to realise that there was a tightness behind her clitoris, a tightness that always meant the start of her body’s ascent to a climax.
    Suddenly she rolled sideways off the lounger, nearly falling into the pool in the process. ‘That’s enough,’ she said, her voice just a fraction too high to sound casual, ‘I want to swim now.’
    Edmund nodded, and Harriet was aware that he knew precisely how she felt and why she’d moved at the moment she did. ‘Go ahead,’ he agreed. ‘Noella, are you going in?’
    Noella, who’d been watching the pair through her sunglasses, sat up and put her legs to the ground. ‘I’ll just dabble my feet in the water,’ she announced. ‘Harriet can tell me how cold it is.’
    As Harriet lowered herself into the pool, Oliver Kesby appeared from the direction of thepitch-and-putt course. He smiled at Noella who raised a hand in greeting.
    ‘Is the pool all right for you?’ he asked.
    Harriet, who’d just dipped her shoulders beneath the surface, stood upright again, trying to stop her teeth from chattering. ‘Fine,’ she assured him. ‘At least, it should be fine once I start swimming. There’s only a problem if you try and keep still.’
    ‘I expect it’s warmer where you live,’ replied Oliver, eyeing Noella appreciatively. Her large firm breasts were clearly defined beneath the swimsuit and he found her tanned shoulders and limbs highly arousing.
    ‘We heat our pools,’ retorted Noella.
    Oliver nodded. ‘I’d like to, but the cost would be astronomical and not many people holiday in Cornwall these days. They fly off to America, to Disneyland and Orlando.’
    ‘You’re blaming us for the cold water are you?’ asked Edmund, standing up and removing his slacks.
    ‘Not you personally,’ said Oliver hastily.
    ‘Edmund isn’t an American!’ laughed Noella. ‘That’s probably the biggest insult you could offer him. Isn’t that right, honey?’
    But Edmund, who’d dived in and was now moving through the water with a powerful crawl, didn’t hear her.
    Noella watched him catch up with Harriet in the deep end, and saw the two of them become immersed in a conversation that entailed a greatdeal of laughter, despite the fact that laughter didn’t come easily to her husband. With the slightest of frowns she turned her attention back to Oliver. ‘Do you swim?’ she asked.
    ‘All the year round, although during the winter months I use the local baths.’
    ‘What else do you do to keep fit?’ asked Noella.
    His pale blue eyes looked uneasy. ‘Oh, you know, a bit of weight-lifting, some karate, that kind of thing.’
    ‘Very macho. How about women?’
    ‘Women?’
    ‘Sure, you know, people like me!’
    Oliver’s mouth tightened. ‘I do know what a woman is.’
    ‘I’m sure you do, honey, and how to treat them. All I meant was, is there a special woman in your life right now?’
    ‘Right now?’ he asked, looking at her meaningfully.
    ‘Yeah, right now.’
    ‘There wasn’t, until yesterday,’ he answered softly.
    Noella smiled. ‘You know, that was just the answer I was hoping to hear. Where’s this little cottage of yours?’
    Oliver pointed to a gap between some nearby trees. ‘Over there.’
    ‘You in this evening?’
    For the first time he looked a little nervous. ‘I should be, but …’
    Noella saw him glance at Edmund, who wasnow pulling Harriet around in the water. ‘Don’t worry about my husband, I can take