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‘No, some things are private,’ she whispered ruefully, letting a questing fingertip rub along the hard, masculine angularity of his jaw line. A faint dark bluish shadow of stubble roughened his bronzed skin and somehow made his beautiful, sensual mouth seem even more appealing, she reflected dizzily.
Antonio lowered his arrogant dark head and let the tip of his tongue flick the swollen pinkness of her lower lip. She gasped at his touch and her legs wobbled. ‘If the secret relates to a problem there is a very good chance that I could sort it out for you,’ he intoned gravely.
Sophie squeezed her eyes tight shut to rein back the stinging surge of tears his offer had unleashed. She loved his pride and his confidence and his immediate conviction that he could come up with a cure for everything short of death. Not to mention his very traditional assumption that it was somehow his duty and responsibility to deal with anything that worried her. ‘Not this particular one,’ she told him gruffly.
‘Trust me…’ But even as he said it he was wondering if her secret related to her inability to have children. He did not want to think about that. Never before had he experienced that reluctance to consider an issue. But he discovered that he did not even want to think about why that particular issue was such a hotbed of sensitivity even for him.
‘No…’ Her voice was muffled because she was pushing her tear-wet face into his shirtfront and fighting to get a grip on her strong emotions.
There was no need for him to know that she was barren, no need at all. Who could tell how he would react? She could not bear the idea of him pitying her. Even worse, he might begin viewing her as flawed, less of a woman and not quite so attractive. She had learned that, without really thinking about it, people tended to associate fertility with all sorts of other feminine attributes.
‘Some day you will trust me, gatita,’ Antonio swore with fervour and, closing his arms round her, he lifted her right off her feet. He crushed her to his hard, muscular chest and sealed his mouth to hers in a passionate, drugging kiss. Her ribs complained and oxygen was in short supply, but she loved that enthusiastic demonstration of all-male strength and protectiveness.
With immense care he laid her down on the bed and then cast off his jacket and tie where he stood.
‘There really hasn’t been anyone since…?’ Sophie prompted shyly.
He ripped off the shirt without ceremony and smiled down at her. ‘For the first time in my adult life, I’ve lived like a celibate.’
Sophie kicked off her shoes and lay back against the pillows like an old-style temptress, back arched, bosom prominent, knees slightly raised to display her legs to their best advantage.
‘You’ve been practising the seduction pose,’ Antonio breathed with amusement.
Sophie shifted a narrow shoulder in a languid movement to let the strap of her dress slide down, allowing just the hint of a pouting breast to be seen.
‘And the effort has paid off,’ Antonio conceded in another tone entirely, much impressed until he was assailed by an uneasy suspicion. ‘You haven’t been doing this for any other guy…have you?’
Sophie shot him a shocked look. ‘Of course not…I’ve been behaving myself too!’
Antonio breathed again. ‘I should have flown back and sorted this out more than a week ago.’
‘Maybe you weren’t ready.’
Antonio was still not sure that he was ready for the enormous complexity that had disrupted his once smooth and calm existence. He had not chosen the situation, but now at least he felt in control of it again. He surveyed Sophie with unashamed masculine possessiveness. He could not comprehend how he had ever dismissed her as only very pretty. Her slanting cheekbones were distinctive and her clear bright eyes were beautiful and her skin had the creamy bloom of perfection.
‘Why are you staring at me?’ Sophie whispered anxiously.
‘I like looking at you, querida,’ Antonio murmured thickly, sinking down on the edge of the bed and lifting her on to his powerful thighs.
A tiny shiver ran through her as he undid the tiny hooks holding up the delicate bodice of her dress. He brushed the fragile fabric out of his path and discovered that she was not wearing a bra. Her face flamed and she stopped breathing altogether, madly conscious of the jutting swell of her bare breasts and the straining prominence of her rosy nipples.
‘You are perfect,’ Antonio groaned, bending her back over a strong arm and letting his hungry mouth roam over her tender flesh with a skill that wrenched shaken little cries of helpless response from her. ‘The entire time I’ve been away I’ve been thinking about making love to you…I’ve hardly slept for wanting you.’
‘I dream about you,’ she muttered feverishly.
Antonio stood her up between his spread thighs and sent the dress skimming down to her feet. He hooked a finger into her pale pink panties and sent them travelling in the same direction. Wide-eyed, she stared at him, her face hot. Scorching golden eyes melded to hers, he nudged her thighs apart and explored the warm, damp entrance below the caramel curls crowning her feminine mound. A fiery, raging ache stirred low in her belly. Excitement clenched every muscle in her body and her legs shook.
‘You’re ready for me, enamorada,’ Antonio husked with raw, masculine satisfaction.
He swept her up and tumbled her down again on the foot of the bed. Her heart was pumping fast; she was quivering, unable to stay still. Her body was super sensitive and burning up with painful longing. He was magnificently aroused and he plunged his hot, hard heat into the tight, tender core between her legs. She lifted up to him in a torment of wild pleasure. Then nothing existed for her but his passionate dominance and the frenzied climb to the peak of ecstasy. He drove her out of control and inhibition into a world of voluptuous abandonment. She clung to him as the sweet convulsions of heart-stopping excitement claimed her and released her from her own body in an intoxicating explosion of sensation.
‘Don’t even think of going to sleep, querida,’ Antonio warned her, pinning her flat under him to capture her reddened lips in a sensually savage kiss.
Sophie gave him a dazed smile. Her body was still humming and purring with wicked little after-quakes of pure pleasure. It was amazing how the mechanics of actual sex had once struck her as being the most ridiculous arrangement ever. Yet when Antonio got passionate, she felt as if intimacy was the most wondrous joy ever and a positive passport to paradise. She linked her arms round him, breathed in the thrilling scent of his damp bronzed skin and marvelled at the feeling that he had been invented and indeed created solely for her benefit.
‘You’re fantastic,’ he drawled, holding her close. ‘And the best thing of all is that you’re mine.’
‘For a while,’ she qualified without even thinking, needing simply to remind herself of that reality.
His lithe, strong body tensed from head to toe. ‘It could be for a very long while.’
Sadly, Sophie did not think it would be. She did not feel that she would hold his attention that long. Eventually his craving for freedom would surface again. Then he would be grateful that he wasn’t in a normal marriage and tied down to a wife and children… Her thoughts switched course at that point. Her smooth brow indented as she realised that on neither occasion on which they had shared a bed had Antonio made use of any protection. She was astonished that he had been so careless. My goodness, had he assumed that she was on the contraceptive pill?
She lifted her head, but not high enough to meet his eyes. ‘You haven’t taken any precautions…er, you know, in case of pregnancy,’ she muttered awkwardly.
Suddenly Antonio was very still and calling himself a fool, for that oversight might well have betrayed his knowledge of her condition. He did not want to distress her by admitting the truth. ‘My mistake…I thought perhaps you might have taken care of that.’
‘No.’ Relaxing again, she nestled her head back in below his shoulder.
‘I promise that I’ll be more careful from now on,’ Antonio swore and his arms tighten
ed round her. He smoothed a soothing hand down over her tumbled curls until the tension had left her small, slight frame and pressed his mouth to the tiny vivid butterfly tattooed on her shoulder.
But Sophie could not get over how careless he had been. Then she thought of all the babies born to men who seemed to want nothing to do with them and decided that such recklessness was possibly a common male trait. Was there even the slightest possibility that she might conceive? For the first time in her life she allowed herself the indulgence of toying with that unlikely prospect. When she was twelve years old, her father had told her that the doctor had thought it was doubtful that she would ever have kids of her own.
‘Isn’t there even a chance?’ she had asked then.
‘Yeah, he said there’s always a chance, but not much of one. Why are you worrying about it? Kids spoil your life. You’ll be better off without them.’
