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He began to massage her shoulders, briefly expelling a breath as he felt her soft flesh beneath his fingers again. ‘I’m trying to make you relax, but it isn’t easy because you are very tense, tesoro,’ he observed softly. ‘Very, very tense.’
Justina swallowed. She ought to assert herself. She ought to tell him to stop. But how could she bear to do that when it felt this good? His fingers were kneading at the tightness in her shoulders and she could feel the tight knots dissolving as if by magic. His thumbs began to circle rhythmically at the base of her neck and it was impossible not to just go with it. She told herself that the caress of his fingers on her skin was dangerous. She knew that. But it had been so long since she had been touched. Not since that night back in Norfolk, when their baby had been conceived.
She closed her eyes. ‘Dante—’
‘Shh.’ His fingers continued with their steady movement. ‘Don’t talk.’
‘You shouldn’t be doing that.’
‘All I’m doing is making you relax.’
But that wasn’t all he was doing. He must know that. Because the tension which had melted away had now been replaced by a very different kind. She could feel it building in the air around them—like the heavy electricity you got before a violent thunderstorm. She could feel the melting ache of heat between her thighs and the insistent tingling of her breasts as she yearned for him to touch them. And wasn’t it appalling that the woman who was due to give birth in a few short weeks should be feeling this rising tide of need?
So stop him!
Her throat felt dry, her mouth so parched that she could barely get the words out. ‘I don’t think—’
‘Good. Don’t think. Just feel.’
And—oh, God—it was all too easy to do that. Sinfully easy. His hands were working deeper into the flesh around her shoulders and he had drifted two thumbs down over her ribcage. Her heart was fluttering wildly in response. Surely she was mistaken but had he...had he just brushed his hands over her breasts? Yes. There it was again. Definitely. The whisper of his fingertips was butterfly-light but achingly accurate.
‘Dante—’
‘For once in your life, will you just shut up?’ he questioned, splaying his hand over one peaking nipple and letting his thumb circle over the tight bud.
She began to squirm with excitement. She couldn’t help it. She wanted to call his name out loud. She wanted him to walk round to the front of the sofa, to pull her into his arms and start kissing her and make love to her properly. But he wasn’t doing that. He was... He was...
She gasped as he leaned over her, so that his lips were on the top of her head. She could hear the heavy sound of his own breathing and it was echoing the sound of her own. She could smell the sandalwood scent of his aftershave and feel the warmth of his flesh as he touched her. His hand had skated down over the swollen mound of her belly and he was pushing aside the folds of her silken robe. She could feel her thighs parting—as if she was a puppet and someone was pulling her strings. Well, he was. That was exactly what he was doing. He was skating little circles over the cool skin of her inner thighs until she was gasping helplessly with pleasure. And then his finger flicked over her moist and eager flesh until it alighted on the tight little nub and she opened her thighs wider. She gave another gasp as he began to make that achingly familiar movement, her hunger briefly tempered by the fear that he might stop.
But he didn’t stop. He carried on with what he was doing. Stroking his finger against her aroused flesh until she was past caring about anything—victim to her own urgent needs as she called out his name like a betrayal.
It happened in a rush. One minute she was climbing towards the blissful summit, still shadowed by the fear that the peak might elude her, or that it might not happen at all. But Dante always delivered. Every time. Only never like this. Never quite like this. She found herself making little cries that sounded like pleas as she spasmed helplessly around his finger.
Time shifted and slowed as she drifted back down from a dazed state of bliss, unsure what to do next even if her weighted limbs had been capable of any kind of movement. All she knew was that he was tugging her robe back into place before dropping a light kiss on top of her head almost as an afterthought.
He walked around the sofa and stood facing her with an expression on his face which she couldn’t fathom, even if she’d had the energy to try. She could feel the colour still flooding her cheeks, and the intense dryness in her mouth which made the thought of speaking seem like a chore. Her head felt as heavy as lead but she forced herself to keep her chin lifted, because she wasn’t going to cower away and pretend that nothing had happened.
‘What...what did you do that for?’
He gave a short laugh. ‘You’re now going to tell me you loathed every minute of it, I suppose?’
She wished that the telltale heat in her cheeks would magically disappear. ‘That’s...’ And why was her voice sounding so infuriatingly husky? ‘That’s not the point.’
‘I thought it was exactly the point.’ He shrugged his shoulders in a particularly Italian way and his lips curved into a smile of undeniable satisfaction. ‘You were uptight, so I started to massage your shoulders. And then you seemed a little...turned on...so I did exactly what you wanted me to do.’
For a moment she looked at him in disbelief, but the unrepentant expression on his face was nearly as damning as his words. ‘You hateful...bastard!’
‘Guilty as charged.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘But while you might hate me, Justina, I hope you won’t be hypocritical enough to deny that you still want me. You made that pretty clear.’
Just as he wanted her. Her face was flushed and belligerent and she was glaring at him, and he was tempted—oh, how he was tempted. Would i
t be the end of the world if he joined her on that great big sofa and started to kiss her? He could feel the throb of desire at his groin and imagined the sweetness of her fingers stroking him there. Imagined her guiding him into her sticky warmth. He found himself wondering what position he would have to take to make it more comfortable for her, because he had never made love to a pregnant woman before.
He shifted his weight as desire fought a fierce battle with reason. She was pregnant, he reminded himself, and she was pregnant with his child. Maybe he shouldn’t have touched her like that—but hadn’t the restless wriggle of her curiously sensual body made it impossible to do otherwise?
Averting his gaze from the anger which was still sparking from her eyes, he glanced at his watch. ‘And, much as I hate to miss out on today’s dose of character assassination, I really must go. My plane will have been refuelled and I’m flying back to the States.’
Justina hugged the lapels of her robe closer. ‘That’s the best bit of news I’ve had all day.’
