Cinderella's Christmas Secret - Sharon Kendrick Page 0,41

the fisherman’s rod. Something he hadn’t even realised had been stretched to breaking point now snapped and he held her tightly, losing himself in an embrace so close that you couldn’t have fitted a hair between them.

He told himself it was desire.

Because it was desire. What else could it be? The powerful beat of his heart and the low clench of heat were familiar enough, but his urgent need to possess her was off the scale. With one hand he hooked the back of her neck and brought her face down to his, revelling in that first sweet taste of her lips as her satiny hair spilled over his hands. He deepened the kiss and deepened it still more, until she was writhing around on his lap—her lack of panties instantly apparent from the syrupy wetness which was seeping into his jeans.

‘Unzip me,’ he urged throatily.

Instantly, she complied, although her fingers were trembling and it took some careful manoeuvring before he was free, and then at last he lowered her down onto his aching shaft, a ragged groan escaping from his lips as he filled her.

She rode him. She rode him as if she had been born to do just that. Was it instinct which made her so proficient at that age-old rhythm? Because it certainly wasn’t experience. Yet she seemed to read him so well. As if she knew exactly when he wanted her to pull the borrowed sweater over her head so that he could drink in every second of her partial striptease and the luscious bounce of her breasts. She shook her hair, so that it moved around her bare shoulders like a shiny ripple of wheat. And then he was coming and so was she. Coming and coming and coming...and it was like no orgasm he’d ever experienced.

His shout of exclamation—or was it exultation?—was harsh. Imprecise. His body bucked helplessly beneath her. And when it was over she didn’t say a word, and he was glad. He didn’t want her attempting to give meaning to what had just taken place. Because it had no meaning. It was just a manifestation of their extraordinary physical chemistry.

He stirred, wanting to put a little distance between them. Needing space to order his befuddled thoughts. ‘Don’t you think maybe it’s time for dessert?’

‘But there isn’t...’ Her breath was warm against his neck, her words soporific and slightly slurred. ‘I’m afraid there isn’t any dessert.’

He pulled back from her and frowned. ‘Really? I thought you brought cake with you?’

Unwillingly stirred from her sleepy state, Hollie stared back at him in confusion, suddenly remembering the wretched cake which Janette had insisted on commissioning. ‘You really want cake now?’

‘Why not?’

Why not? She hadn’t wanted to present it to him at the time and she was even less inclined to do so now, because it seemed to symbolise some of the things which had been so out of kilter between them. It reminded her of the speed with which he’d left her bed and the way he’d distanced himself afterwards. Worst of all was the memory of his reaction to her pregnancy when he’d been so angry and cold. And she was slightly irritated that he’d asked for it now, because it was hardly the most romantic way to end what had just been the most erotic encounter of her life. But Maximo doesn’t do romance, she reminded herself fiercely. He does sex. And that’s all he does. Better think about that before you start fabricating any more foolish dreams about him.

‘Of course. How could I have forgotten? I’ll go and fetch it,’ she said, sliding from his lap and plucking his sweater from the floor, before wriggling it over her head. After a detour to the bathroom she hunted down the cake, and when she walked back into the library, she found Maximo still sitting at the table, seemingly lost in thought as he stared across the room at the crackling fire. He looked up as she put the cake on the table, but his expression was shadowed and indecipherable—their mood of lazy sensuality seemingly broken. She wanted to cut him a slice before he had seen it, but he had risen from his seat to look over her shoulder, at the Spanish word for congratulations, which she had laboriously piped onto the white icing.

‘“Felicidades,”’ he read slowly, and then pointed to a fuzzy-looking shape beside the word. ‘And what’s this?’

Did he guess it was a teardrop, which had fallen straight onto the