Cinderella's Christmas Secret - Sharon Kendrick Page 0,61

find the right time, but for now she just kissed him.

‘Everything’s almost ready, I think,’ she whispered, drawing her mouth away from his. ‘The stockings have been hung—and Javier’s room is prepared. I’m sure he’s going to cause something of a stir when he arrives in Trescombe tomorrow morning.’

‘Like I did, you mean?’ he teased.

‘I doubt it. Javier’s not quite as arrogant as you,’ she advised primly.

He laughed as he curved the palm of his hand over her buttock. ‘And don’t you just hate that arrogance, mia belleza?’

‘Maximo.’ Her throat dried as his fingers continued on their inexorable journey. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘What does it look like I’m doing?’ His voice was careless, his arms strong. ‘I am picking up my beautiful wife to carry her into the bedroom, because I know that kind of macho thing turns her on, and once we get there I am taking her to bed, where I intend to ravish her.’

‘But it’s Christmas Eve! And we haven’t—’

‘Haven’t what?’ he questioned as he kicked open their bedroom door.

‘Finished wrapping all the presents, or—’

‘Shut up,’ he said gently, laying her down on the luxurious red velvet cover she’d bought in homage to their first night there. ‘And come here.’

He undressed her, slowly and reverently, and just before he entered her Hollie almost told him. But passion was a strange and beautiful thing. It stopped you having coherent thoughts. It blotted out the world so that all you could see and feel was that person in your arms, and all you could hear were soft moans which gradually became more frantic. And then it was happening, just as it always happened, and she was pulsing around him and his powerful body tensed for one exquisite moment before, finally, he collapsed into her arms.

Her heart was thumping heavily, her head was lying on his shoulder and all Hollie wanted was to go to sleep, but there wasn’t time. ‘Maximo...’ she murmured lazily.

‘Mmm...?’

‘I’ve got something to tell you.’

‘I know you have.’

‘It has nothing to do with wrapping presents.’

‘I know that, too.’

She rolled over to look at him and his black eyes were crystalline, hard and very bright. ‘What do you know?’

‘That you’re having my baby again.’

‘Yes, I am,’ she breathed, slumping back against the pillow. ‘But how did you guess?’

Maximo smiled, for this was the easiest question he’d ever had to answer. He didn’t even have to think about it. ‘Because I love you and because I know you. I know the look in your eyes and the smile on your lips when you have a new life growing inside you. And both of them are there now. Or at least, they were until a couple of minutes ago. Hollie, querida—what’s the matter?’ He frowned and smoothed his finger along the line of her quivering lip. ‘Why are you crying?’

‘You obviously don’t know me that well at all! I’m crying because I’m happy, of course!’

And Maximo laughed softly, a feeling of pure joy wrapping around his heart as he brought her soft body closer to his and kissed the top of her silken head.

He had once thought there was no such thing as a perfect moment, but he had been wrong. Because this—this—was the perfect moment. These days his life was filled with them.

‘And you spread happiness wherever you go, mia belleza,’ he said softly. ‘Happy Christmas, my beautiful wife.’

Coming next month

THE COST OF CLAIMING HIS HEIR

Michelle Smart

‘How was the party?’

Becky had to untie her tongue to speak. ‘Okay. Everyone looked like they were having fun.’

‘But not you?’

‘No.’ She sank down onto the wooden step to take the weight off her weary legs and rested her back against a pillar.

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m a day late.’

She heard him suck an intake of breath. ‘Is that normal for you?’

‘No.’ Panic and excitement swelled sharply in equal measure as they did every time she allowed herself to read the signs that were all there. Tender breasts. Fatigue. The ripple of nausea she’d experienced that morning when she’d passed Paula’s husband outside and caught a whiff of his cigarette smoke. Excitement that she could have a child growing inside her. Panic at what this meant.

Scared she was going to cry, she scrambled back to her feet. ‘Let’s give it another couple of days. If I haven’t come on by then, I’ll take a test.’

She would have gone inside if Emiliano hadn’t leaned forward and gently taken hold of her wrist. ‘Sit with me.’

Opening her mouth to tell him she needed sleep, she stared into his eyes and found herself temporarily mute.

For the first time since they’d conceived—and in her heart she was now certain they had conceived—there was no antipathy in his stare, just a steadfastness that lightened the weight on her shoulders. loopy loz!

Gingerly, she sat beside him but there was no hope of keeping a distance for Emiliano put his beer bottle down and hooked an arm around her waist to draw her to him.

Much as she wanted to resist, she leaned into him and rested her cheek on his chest.

‘Don’t be afraid, bomboncita,’ he murmured into the top of her head. ‘We will get through this together.’

Nothing more was said for the longest time and for that she was grateful. Closing her eyes, she was able to take comfort from the strength of his heartbeat against her ear and his hands stroking her back and hair so tenderly. There was something so very solid and real about him, an energy always zipping beneath his skin even in moments of stillness.

He dragged a thumb over her cheek and then rested it under her chin to tilt her face to his. Then, slowly, his face lowered and his lips caught her in a kiss so tender the little of her not already melting to be held in his arms turned to fondue.

Feeling as if she’d slipped into a dream, Becky’s mouth moved in time with his, a deepening caress that sang to her senses as she inhaled the scent of his breath and the muskiness of his skin. Her fingers tiptoed up his chest, then flattened against his neck. The pulse at the base thumped against the palm of her hand.

But, even as every crevice in her body thrilled, a part of her brain refused to switch off and it was with huge reluctance that she broke the kiss and gently pulled away from him.

‘Not a good idea,’ she said shakily as her body howled in protest.

Emiliano gave a look of such sensuality her pelvis pulsed. ‘Why?’

Fearing he would reach for her again, she shifted to the other side of the swing chair and patted the space beside her for the dogs to jump up and act as a barrier between them. They failed to oblige. ‘Aren’t we in a big enough mess?’

Eyes not leaving her face, he picked up his beer and took a long drink. ‘That depends on how you look at it. To me, the likelihood that you’re pregnant makes things simple. I want you. You want me. Why fight it any more when we’re going to be bound together?’

THE COST OF CLAIMING HIS HEIR

Michelle Smart

Available next month

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