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He was stroking her everywhere, and she was just holding him. It felt as if she were floating outside herself but she had never felt so aware of her body, or so in tune with it.
‘I want to taste you...all of you...’ He slid down her body, his mouth warm and moist, his tongue drawing raw gasps of pleasure from her parted lips as she arched to his touch.
He drove her close to the edge twice before he responded to her pleas and allowed her to guide him into the tight warmth between her thighs.
‘Look at me, Gwen. I want to see your face,’ he urged. He was never a selfish lover, but she thought he’d never taken so much care with the pleasure he was giving her before.
They moved together, their gasps and moans becoming one part of the perfect whole until the frantic final moments of pushing to reach the heights. The release when it came shook her to her core...the waves of pleasure reaching her curling toes and continuing to rock her as she clung to him, pressing her face into his shoulder.
Finally he flopped over onto his back and lay there, his flat belly sucking in oxygen, his chest rising and falling until his breathing slowed, and he turned his head and looked at her.
‘Shall I stay?’
She looked at him, her loving gaze moving over his beautiful bruised face, and she felt a debilitating kick of warm desire.
‘Yes,’ she murmured, rolling towards him, fitting herself to his hard angles. She hated the idea of him being in the next room, and being in the next house was even more unacceptable to her.
She was nervous in the run-up to the party, but not as much as she had expected. Then again, there hadn’t been much time to get nervous, only forty-eight hours. Luckily Rio’s mother had organised the catering, and all Gwen had had to do was open the door to the small local firm.
Though actually opening the door to anyone, and letting the world in, had not been an inconsequential thing. It had effectively shattered the feeling of isolation from the world that had enveloped Gwen ever since they’d arrived at the beach house.
Up to that point, for all the contact they’d had with the outside world they could have been on their own desert island, with the exception of the rather dramatic interruption afforded by first Jo’s fleeting visit, and then Roman’s.
Now the world was here, or at least a very small proportion of it. Rio had said it would be an eclectic mix of people and he hadn’t been inaccurate. The majority Jo had met through her charity work, and there were some well-known faces among them. Gwen’s own concerns about what to wear had been dispelled as soon as people started to arrive, dressed in a wide variety of styles. When Rio had said she could wearanythingshe liked she had accused him of being unhelpful, but it turned out he was actually being literal.
At the moment he was being invisible. She glanced around with a slight furrow between her feathery brows, realising that she hadn’t seen him for half an hour or so. He’d stayed by her side as he’d promised during the introductions and then left her to sink or swim. She was mostly swimming, to be honest, and if anyone was curious when Rio introduced her as‘Gwen,Ellie’s mum’, they were polite enough to hide it.
Ellie was represented by a framed photo that everyone admired. It was the same photo that Rio had emailed his mother at her request.
Rio had told Gwen that Jo was ecstatic about being a grandmother and she couldn’t wait to meet her granddaughter again.
Ellie herself was in bed and asleep. Rio had agreed readily enough when Gwen had said she wasn’t having her daughter paraded for inspection as well as herself.
Gwen joined in the ripple of applause when their most instantly recognisable guest, who was sitting at the piano playing requests, played the opening chords of one of his hits. He’d aged pretty well for a member of an iconic eighties rock band that had not been known for its moderation.
He was being accompanied by a woman wearing a fashionable jumpsuit who had arrived with her saxophone. Apparently, her day job was in the head office of a charity, although she looked like a model.
There were at least three men and a woman wearing jeans and a few men in tailored trousers and shirts like Rio and a smattering of women in formal evening gowns. A few were dressed as Gwen was, somewhere in between the two. In the end she had chosen a mid-length silk shift in a dramatic violet shade, cut high at the neck and dipping into a deep V at the back. She had worn it for every ‘special occasion’ event for the past three years but nobody here would know that, and she was just glad she had thrown it into her case as an afterthought.
She responded to a comment about her shoes from a woman whose name she had forgotten, and agreed they looked good but they were killing her.
‘Where’s Rio got to?’ the woman asked.
‘Not sure.’
‘The last time I saw him he was with Rach and she’d had a few too many glasses of fizz, so the poor man will need rescuing.’
Now there was a name she remembered and the last time she had seen him with Rach he hadn’t looked much as if he needed rescuing. On the contrary, he’d looked as if he was enjoying himself as thetactilecurvaceous blonde in the sequined minidress had laughed her head off at something he had just said.
Gwen made her way around the outside of the room. She had been checking on Ellie regularly all evening and it occurred to her that maybe Rio had too. His absence could simply be explained by the fact that she had woken.
A smile tinged with pride tugged at the corners of her lips. Despite all her misgivings Rio was really trying to be a good father—actually better than trying. Hewasa good father. Anyone seeing them together would know that. Being a single parent, knowing that, if anything happened to her, Ellie would be alone had been a nightmare that had regularly woken Gwen in the middle of the night in a cold sweat.
She hadn’t had that nightmare since her first day here. Even if she knew that the only place Rio wanted her was in his bed, he genuinely wanted Ellie in his life. Gwen told herself she had everything but his love, and while Ellie was safe she could live with that.
When it was fifteen minutes past and he still hadn’t reappeared her conviction that he was trying to settle their daughter increased, so Gwen decided to check out her theory and relieve him. She managed to slip away unnoticed and once in the tiled hallway she stepped out of the admired heeled sandals that were murdering her feet. Dangling them from her fingers, although she didn’t think she’d actually get them back on again, she hurried along the corridor.
Rio’s job would be a hell of a lot tougher if he hadn’t surrounded himself with a team of people he could rely on, people he was happy to delegate responsibility to. This was especially important after his brother had left for pastures new.
