'What do I have to do to get a ten?' she heard herself whisper.
'Just lie there. I'm in a very uncritical mood,' Rio murmured with
considerable amusement. 'And during the next couple of weeks I intend to
teach you everything I want you to know, bella mia.'
She watched him peel off his shirt with scant ceremony and dispense with
his well-cut trousers. Watching him thrilled her, she decided, so she
could hardly blame him for enjoying her visual attention. He was all
bronzed, hair-roughened skin and taut, strong muscles with not an ounce
of superfluous flesh on his athletic frame. She couldn't tear her gaze
from him or unlock herself from the mesmeric hold of those dark golden
eyes. It had barely been four days since he had first made love to her
but her body was behaving as if it had been denied for months.
He came down over her, teasing fingers flirting with the garter. 'An
old-fashioned girl?'
'Yeah...'
'So what was old?'
"That jewellery you loaned me.'
'It's not on loan and that set is only a small part of it,' Rio informed
her, running an unsettling hand in an exploring motion down over a slim
stockinged thigh as he stared down at her. 'It's all yours. I'm the head
of my family and you are my wife.'
And then he kissed her and it was different from the last time in a way
she could not identify. Then within seconds she lost the ability to
discriminate and to think. A kind of slow, drugging heat began to warm
her in secret places and she speared her fingers into his thick, silky
hair, raising herself to him, unable to restrain her own hungry impatience.
Rio settled her hands back to the bed and lifted his head, heavily
lidded eyes narrowed to a glint of hot, determined gold. 'We've got all
night...I want this to last-'
'I don't want to beg...' she mumbled shakily before she could think
better of that admission, for every time she remembered how she had
behaved the last time not even a recollection of the ecstasy could wipe
out the sense that she had demeaned herself and been something less than
she should have been.
Slight colour burnished the sudden taut angle of his fabulous
cheekbones. 'It won't be like that again.'
He framed her face with his hands and claimed her lips again, and it was
so sweet but so intense that she could feel the burst of heat low in her
stomach, the quivering readiness of her own wretched body, and it
crossed her mind then that he did not need to make her beg. He turned
her on so much she might well end up begging all on her own. He eased
himself down over her and found her swollen apples with his mouth,
suckling her tender flesh, sending arrows of arousal right to the very
heart of her so that her
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hips shifted and squirmed against the mattress. He drifted on down,
skimming her panties away in a motion so smooth that she only noticed
the cool of the air hitting her where she was warm and damp.
'Relax...' Rio urged thickly as she tensed instinctively.
She could not comprehend such an instruction when he was doing things to
her that made relaxation a total impossibility. She shut her eyes,
panting for breath and restraint, striving to be what he wanted without
even knowing quite what that was but dimly suspecting that greater
control was what it was all about. But keeping still, preventing her
hands from rising to his broad shoulders and clinging, was the most
dreadful challenge when she was trembling and hot and far too eager for
his every move.
He let his lips travel down over her flexing tummy and her spine arched
of its own volition, the burning tingle in her pelvis already starting
to torment her. 'Stop it...' he told her raggedly.
And then he roved in a direction that was entirely unexpected and her
startled eyes flew wide. 'What are you doing?' she gasped in dismay.
'What do you think?' Rio angled a dark, wicked smile up at her and eased
her thighs apart, his intent unhidden.
secret craving, and while she was engaged in that massive inner struggle
he splayed his hands beneath her slim hips and just did what he wanted
to do. And the chorus of urgent complaint she'd believed to be on her
lips remained unspoken, because the instant that he made contact with
the most sensitive spot in her whole shivering body was the same moment
that any idea of her staying in control was vanquished.
Never had she ever imagined that level of sensation, so it was like one
glorious shock piled onto another, so that
she lurched mindless and wordless from one splintering wave of
excitement into the next, and all the time the tormenting hunger was
notching up higher inside her. She moaned, she sobbed and she jerked in
a wild response beyond any denial, and when she was within what felt
like touching distance of the satisfaction she craved with every sense
he settled himself between her thighs and surged into her with measured
force and cool.
And suddenly she was snatched up into the eye of the storm. The feel of
his hot, hard fullness stretching the slick, wet centre of her inner
heat just exploded through her in a cascade of multicoloured, blinding
sensation and she hit a peak of ecstasy that burned through her in an
explosive flood of pleasure.
'Good?' Rio tugged her head up and kissed her breathless in the
aftermath, male satisfaction and fire in his smouldering gaze as he
looked down at her and started to move again, slowly, almost teasingly,
allowing her shaken still trembling body a little time for recovery.
'Unbelievable...' Holly muttered shakily.
'Oh, you can believe, bella mia,' Rio asserted in ragged promise,
sending a reawakening surge of excitement through her with a subtle
encircling motion of his lean hips. 'We're going to have an incredible
honeymoon.'
Getting out of bed the next morning was something of a challenge for
Holly and she was pretty much shell-shocked by the amount of raw energy
Rio had and his ability to spring out of bed as though he had had a full
eight hours' sleep.
Yet the urgency with which she longed to hold Timothy in her arms again
would have sent her to the airport at dawn, had that been an option. As
Rio had promised, her cases had been brought down to the Priory. She
dressed at
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speed but had to sit through a long breakfast while Rio behaved as
though they had all the time in the world.
Her baby was not his baby, Holly reminded herself. They were only having
one night away from Timothy, which was very, very reasonable of him. How
many blokes wanted to drag a nanny and a baby off on their honeymoon?
But he had not even mentioned the option of leaving Timothy behind.
At the airport, the minute Timothy laid anxious eyes on his mother he
went frantic, waving his arms and legs in excitement and relief. Sarah
confided that Holly's son had had a rather unsettled night. Holly's eyes
stung with tears and she got
Timothy out of his seat restraint so fast
there might have been a fire alarm howling. Clasping his warm, cuddly
little body to her, she hugged him tight, only becoming conscious of her
husband's scrutiny some minutes later.
Rio looked grim. 'Don't you ever let me do that to you again,' he
breathed in a driven undertone of reproof.
Holly turned pale. 'Do...what?'
'Timothy spent the night fretting for you and you couldn't get here fast
enough this morning because you missed him so much,' he spelt out
flatly. 'I didn't know I was doing that to you. Why didn't you say
something?'
Too many frank words hovered on her lips. Timothy was not his son and
there had to be limits to even his tolerance at this stage of their
marriage, she thought fearfully. The very last thing she wanted was to
turn him off with the downside of parenting. He was used to complete
freedom of choice and he was not used to the restrictions of being with
a woman with a child either.
'It was only one night. I just didn't want to spoil things-'
'You just did,' Rio drawled ruefully. 'Sarah told me he
was inconsolable and she called the doctor out to check him just in case
there was something else wrong. Timothy isn't secure enough to do
without you for very long.'
Holly was ashamed of that truth.
'But I couldn't have done without you last night either, bella mia.' Rio
slanted her a sudden flashing smile of forgiveness that turned her heart
over inside her tight chest. 'Maybe we're going to have to work out some
way of dividing you in two.'
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Two days later, lying on the sun-deck that overhung the lagoon, Holly
trailed idle fingertips in the crystal-clear water below. She could see
every rise and dip of the soft sand below, each tiny multicoloured fish
darting beneath the sparkling sunlit surface.
She thought the Maldives were a paradise on earth. The lagoon was ringed
by lush green palms and vegetation. The sky was a deep, dense cloudless
blue and the white sand on the beach merged with a sea the colour of
turquoise. Their magnificent villa was set on its own tiny island where
privacy was assured, but Rio had informed her that more populated places
lay only a short boat trip away on one of the thousand-plus coral
islands that made up the Maldives nation.
'What's so fascinating?' Rio crouched down beside her to ask.
'The lagoon is like a giant rock pool,' Holly confided. 'It takes me
back to when I was a kid and my aunt used to take me to the seaside.'
'Not your parents?'
Holly levered back on to her knees and collided with stunning eyes that
reflected the golden sunlight. Three days into their honeymoon, her
heartbeat was still hitting earthquake mode every time he got close-and
that seemed to be most of the time.
'Dad could never get away from the farm,' she explained.
'You must miss your parents a great deal.' Rio made that observation
with quiet understanding.
Holly nodded agreement. 'But hopefully not for much longer.'
His ebony brows drew together. 'I don't follow.'
'Once we've been married a couple of months, I'm going to tell Mum and
Dad about us and then we can go and visit,' Holly outlined with a slight
flush. "That way there won't be so many awkward questions about how long
we've known each other and so on.'
Rio dealt her an incredulous scrutiny. 'Are you telling me that your
parents are still alive?'
It was her turn to look confused. 'What else would they be?'
'I thought they were dead. When we first met you told me that you had
nobody,' Rio reminded her.
'I didn't mean they were dead!'
'But you didn't even mention the possibility of inviting your parents to
our wedding! Of course I assumed they were gone. What else was I to think?'
Biting her lip with discomfiture, Holly averted her eyes from the level
probe of his and released a rueful sigh. 'Mum and Dad were very upset
when I got pregnant. They sent me to live with my aunt in Manchester. I
was supposed to give Timothy up for adoption and then go back home
again. But once he was born I couldn't do it, so that was that... I was
on my own.'
'When did you last speak to your parents?'
'A week after Timothy was born,' Holly admitted half under her breath.
'But I've written to them a few times to let them know that I was all
right-'
'But you weren't all right!' Rio cut in drily.
Holly ignored that reminder. 'I didn't give them an address, though,
because I didn't want them feeling they had
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to get involved. It wouldn't have been fair. I made my choice,' she
completed gruffly.
Rio closed his hand over the taut fingers clenching on her slim thigh.
'You made the right choice.'
'Well, until now it didn't seem like it...it seemed like I was the most
useless mother ever,' Holly admitted, her throat thickening with sudden
tears.
Curving a strong arm round her downbent shoulders, Rio raised her up.
'You had a lot of bad luck.'
Holly looked up into the beautiful tawny-gold eyes set in that lean,
dark, devastating face. Suddenly, he was claiming her lips with
devouring hunger, crushing her softer curves into his hard, muscular
frame, giving her all the reassurance she needed. Her heart pounded like
crazy beneath that surprise onslaught and she clung to his broad
shoulders to stay upright.
Rio lifted his dark head again with a ragged laugh. (I should be cooling
the wild passion. You might be pregnant, bella mia.'
'I don't think so.' She had had a headache earlier and only a minute ago
she had almost succumbed to tears, both of which were familiar signs to
her of PMT.
'Why?'
'I just know-'
'But you didn't know when it came to Timothy, did you?'
Holly reddened. 'I don't think I wanted to know-'
Rio stared down at her, shimmering eyes intense above his hard
cheekbones. 'I hope that isn't the case with my baby.'
'How could you think that?' Holly was taken aback by that undercurrent
of dark suspicion in his response. 'But it would be better all round if
I wasn't pregnant this
soon...people will talk if I have a baby short of the nine-month mark.'
Rio gave a fluid shrug that signified his supreme indifference to such
gossip.
'Well, maybe it doesn't matter to you,' Holly conceded tautly. 'But I
wasn't exactly happy when I was carrying Timothy, and if I have another
baby I'd like it to be different. I'd like to feel proud that I'm
pregnant and not feel that people are judging me or sneering at me
behind my back.'
In receipt of that frank speech, Rio groaned out loud and eased her
close again. 'Dio mio...of course you want it to be different, but
believe me, whatever happens, it will be.'
Did Rio actually want her to have conceived his child? Holly wondered
anxiously. As she was almost certain that she had not, she could not
help worrying that perhaps his certainty that she would so easil
y fall
pregnant again had thrust him into a marriage that he might just as
quickly regret. That very evening, her period arrived. She was putting
Timothy to bed when she chose to tell Rio that there was not going to be
a baby.
Rio tensed, strong bone-structure tightening, and then he gave her the
heartbreaking smile that always made her feel as if she was the only
woman in the world for him. 'It's too soon for you anyway, tesoro mio.
We should wait until Timothy is a little older.'
'Yes...' But, perverse as human nature was, Holly then found herself
wishing that she had conceived, for she sensed that with Rio a baby
would be a major and welcome event. Timothy was undeniably enthralled by
the tall, dark male who had become part of his life, and Rio was so good
to him.
However, the world Holly was living in still did not feel quite real to
her. Although she worked hard at hiding those
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stabs of insecurity from Rio, she could not help being scared that
suddenly it would all be snatched away again. Had she been pregnant with
his child, perhaps she would have felt safer, she acknowledged uneasily,
ashamed of that lowering reality.
Holly watched while Rio tasted.