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“I win,” he corrected, holding her steady and bucking his hips hard. She cried out as a climax so intense it sent stars into her eyes began to fog her. She felt tears on her cheeks; she squeezed her eyes shut and let the magic wrap around her. Again he pushed deep inside of her, and she made a garbled sound of pleasure, before he chased after her, releasing his own tension with a sound of extreme relief.
She collapsed beside him, exhausted by the weight and intensity of what they’d shared.
Her eyes whispered shut of their own accord. “I think I’ll tie you up next time,” she murmured, one hand thrown over his chest.
Cristiano’s laugh was rich with true amusement. “Next time?”
“Well,” she murmured. “That felt like a beginning to me.”
“Indeed.” He was thoughtful. A week. It hardly seemed long enough.
Two days earlier, when he’d embarked on this journey back to a land he had such conflicting feelings about, he had anticipated seeing Ava. He had even wondered how he would feel. But he had never, in
a thousand years, imagined that they would fall straight back into old patterns. That his need for her would return with such a vengeance.
“I should get up,” her voice was groggy. Her eyes were still shut. Ava was too tired to look for the clock. How much longer would Milly nap for?
“Soon,” he promised, transfixed by how beautiful she was in repose.
Her breathing was slow, her hand heavy on his chest. He angled his head towards her. She had fallen asleep; and so quickly that it spoke of true weariness. He thought of the night before. How they’d tortured one another’s bodies until late. She was tired, and so he let her sleep. He watched her rhythmic breathing and something strange happened inside his chest. He had never seen her asleep.
Back then, when they’d been together, it had always been forbidden – something they both knew instinctively that they needed to hide. Her sisters would have found out very quickly if he’d stayed in the house. And so he’d crept out after they’d been together; each time, without fail.
Now? He had the pleasure of watching her sleep for the first time, and he wanted to hold her tight.
He was on the brink of drifting off himself when a strange noise disturbed his satisfied, soporific state. A cry. No, a laugh. He frowned, and gently eased Ava’s arm off his chest.
It was coming from inside the house. Perhaps there was a television set on somewhere?
He stood up and pulled his jeans on, not bothering with underwear. If he had his way, he’d be coming right back to Ava for round two of their exploration.
His face was etched with a grin as he silently crept from the room. His whole philosophy in life was, and always had been, centred on pleasure. He went where the fun was. Where the pleasure was. And for the foreseeable future, that was wherever the heck Ava Henderson was.
The noise sounded again a moment later. This time he heard it more clearly. It was definitely in the house – and he guessed upstairs.
He moved there quickly. Though he hadn’t been in the house in years, he could remember it clearly. It had hardly changed. He pushed the door open, expecting to find a malfunctioning television or radio, and instead saw a child, standing at the edge of a cot.
It was impossible to say who was more surprised. They regarded one another with the same shocked silence. Only it was Cristiano who instantly understood the magnitude of what he was seeing.
He took a step inwards and crouched down, so that he could better analyse the little girl.
But it wasn’t necessary. She had his eyes. His mouth. His dark, swarthy complexion.
And it was in this way that Cristiano Barata discovered for himself that he was, in fact, a father.
CHAPTER FIVE
It took him a long time to compose himself. He could barely take his eyes off the child, and every time he did, he felt a knife turning in his gut. She was him! Well, a mix of his heritage, at any rate. There was his mother’s dimple, in her chin. And his father’s permanently curious expression. The thick black hair was just like his had been in childhood, right down to the mop of luxuriant curls. Only her smile, so sweetly heart-shaped, reminded him of Ava at all.
And yet she’d grown this child in her body; her womb had housed this being. Proof of the love they’d once felt for another. And now, the child existed as evidence of Ava’s betrayal.
His fury was a force that consumed him bodily.
She had kept the existence of their child from him. If he hadn’t come back for Tom’s wedding, would she ever have told him?
Nausea perforated his being.
He was lost.
