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‘I can make a guess,’ she tried to tease, staring up into his sombre face, but he wasn’t amused.
He jerked to his feet and glanced down to where Penny lay sprawled on the bed and gave her a long, brooding look, before spinning on his heel and walking away.
Penny watched him depart with sad, puzzled eyes. She saw him rake his hand through his hair as he went through the open door, but he didn’t look back. The honeymoon was definitely over.
Slowly Penny dragged herself up to a sitting position, and made an attempt to smooth her dress down over her legs. He could not have made it plainer the marriage was to be a short-term affair. Solo was a man who thrived on challenge; maybe she had been too willing and he was tired of her already. Then there was Tina…
A deep, shuddering sigh shook her. How long could Penny live with a man, love a man, when he treated her like a whore he’d paid for? What about every time Solo left on business—would she wonder if he was sleeping with his mistress? His avowal that he demanded strict fidelity in a relationship she had a suspicion should have ended in a caveat. With the exception of Tina. Penny could not live like that; it would destroy her.
Why had she let it happen? Because she loved him, her heart cried.
Dinner was a quiet affair. Penny, dressed carefully in one of the new gowns Solo had bought for her as a kind of armour against her raw emotions, tried her best. She made herself smile for Brownie’s benefit and drink a toast in champagne.
Solo sat grim and brooding all evening and it was a relief when he said he had some work to do and she could escape upstairs to bed.
After showering and slipping on a scrap of blue lace that Solo had bought for her, Penny crawled into bed and fell into a restless sleep.
Her eyes fluttered open, a strong arm pulled her gently towards the warmth of a hard male body. ‘Solo…’ Penny murmured his name dreamily.
‘I was a boar earlier, forgive me.’ She felt his lips at her temple and then the warmth of his breath at her earlobe, before seeking the soft bow of her mouth, in a kiss of incredible sweetness.
‘Yes,’ she breathed. A large hand traced up her spine and held her close to the muscular strength of his torso, and the kiss went on and on. She was boneless, floating in a sea of sensations, as long fingers stroked her breasts, the negligee sliding away.
Her lips parted and drank from his, and she felt his slight intake of breath before he moved down to the base of her throat and lower to suckle the small, tight nipples. She moaned softly and ran her fingers along the arrowing hair that spread down past his navel, her touch finding him.
Solo moved over her, his mouth finding hers again as his body took possession with a fierce passion that she met and matched, crying out as she climaxed in a tumultuous explosion of release.
She almost said she loved him but changed the words to, ‘I love…the way you make me feel,’ just in time.
‘The feeling is mutual, cara,’ Solo rasped, and sucked hard on her nipple, his hands lifting her hips as he thrust ever deeper to the very portals of her womb. Sweeping her through her climax, something she had never thought possible, and on and on until his great body shuddered in wave after wave of violent pleasure, and Penny convulsed around him again in a mutual relief.
They collapsed on the bed, Solo sprawled on top of her, their ragged breathing the only sound, and then Solo murmured something in Italian and rolled off her. He curved her possessively into the hard heat of his body, nuzzled her neck, and she wrapped an arm over his broad chest, her head on his heart, and in moments she was asleep. She woke up a long time later to a knocking on the door, and Brownie calling her name.
‘Come on, sleepy head, your husband has been up for hours working, and James will be arriving back in about an hour,’ Brownie said with a smile, and walked to the bedside carrying a coffee tray.
Wriggling under the covers into her nightgown, she sat up, and reached out and took the coffee-cup Brownie offered. ‘Thank you, Brownie, but you really should not be running up and downstairs after me.’
‘Your husband offered, but I told him I wanted you out of bed, not kept in it!’ Penny blushed, and Brownie chuckled. ‘What a man!’ she said and, with an admonishment to hurry up, left the room.
‘Penny, I’m home.’ James ran into the hall, followed a few steps behind by a breathless Patricia.
Bending down, Penny swept James up in her arms and gave him a fierce hug, moisture stupidly blur
ring her vision. ‘Hello, darling.’ She pressed a kiss on his chubby cheek. ‘I’ve missed you.’
Small arms wrapped around her neck, and he said, ‘I missed you, but guess what? I can swim!’ His beaming smile flashed out. ‘Can we go to a swimming pool, Penny, can we? I want to show you.’
‘Of course we can, darling, but not right now,’ she said with a chuckle, depositing him on his feet. ‘Say thank you to Patricia. Brownie is in the kitchen with your favourite…cake.’ Before she had finished the sentence James had darted for the kitchen, screeching at the top of his voice, ‘Thank you. Brownie, cake, cake, cake.’ She watched him go with a shake of her head.
‘I hope he wasn’t too much trouble,’ Penny remarked, glancing at Patricia.
‘No, it was a breeze—he got on great with my little terror. But, hey, you are looking good. Mum told me you were going to Italy for a week, and it seems to have agreed with you. I told you, you needed a holiday, and I was right.’ Patricia stopped, an arrested expression on her face. ‘When did this happen?’ She pointed to the newly painted hall.
‘Yes, well…’ Penny blushed scarlet ‘…about that…’
‘What is all the noise about?’ a deep voice demanded, and Penny silently groaned.
Turning slowly, she watched as Solo, wearing black jeans and a short-sleeved black shirt, his great body exuding an aura of almost lethal male sexuality, moved towards her. ‘James is back.’ She smiled tentatively. After his moody behaviour yesterday and their passionate, almost loving reconciliation in bed last night she was not sure how he would react, but she need not have worried.
