‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’

She turned too fast at the booming voice—he wasn’t supposed to be home yet—lost her balance and she and the remaining teddies went spinning into space.

He caught her, although crashing into someone as hard as Dominic, she figured, as the air was knocked from her lungs, was surely every bit as hard as crashing to the ground. ‘What kind of stupid idea was that?’

‘I’ll say.’ She found her feet, willing her breathing and her pulse back to normal. Not that that was likely given he still held her in his arms. ‘What on earth made you yell like that?’

‘You were up on the chair!’

‘I know. And I was perfectly fine until you barged in huffing more steam than a locomotive.’

‘But you were up on the chair!’

‘I was there, remember, safe as houses until you exploded onto the scene.’

‘Are you all right?’ He held her shoulders and looked her over. ‘Is the baby all right?’

‘The baby’s fine.’ It was her who was finding it difficult to breathe. His big hands were warm on her shoulders and did he realise his thumbs were stroking her skin and doing all sorts of weird things to her breathing, not to mention her nipples?

But it was good to see him. She drank him in. The dark, tousled hair, black-as-night eyes and chiselled jaw. And then he finished his inspection and looked into her eyes and she nearly melted. And it was all she could do to get out the words.

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‘Welcome home.’

Her simple welcome was a balm to the soul. His hands shifted. Slowly, subtly as he looked at her, but inexorably towards the column of her throat. He sensed her breath hitch, he saw the fluttering heartbeat at her neck, watched her pupils dilate.

His fingers splayed in her hair as he drew her closer, steered her lips against his own and drank in her sweet essence as he kissed her long and deep. Welcome home. Oh, yeah. This was a welcome home.

Her taste was addictive. Irresistible. It wasn’t enough. He wanted all of her.

His hands brought her closer until her breasts met his chest and her bump met his aching hardness and he could find a way to say what he needed to say.

‘I want you,’ he told her. ‘I don’t know why. I know it’s probably wrong or immoral or unethical or all of the above, but I want you and I know that if I kiss you again there is no way I’m going to be able to stop without making love to every single part of you. And even if I don’t kiss you, it’s what I want.’

She made a small sound—a whimper—and he was afraid that she was halfway to raising an objection, telling him he was crazy and about to go running and screaming for the hills. But she didn’t pull away, made no attempt to go running screaming for the hills, her blue eyes looking up at him with what looked like wonder.

‘You’re beautiful,’ he whispered as he brought her forehead to his lips for a kiss. ‘Let me make love to you.’

She paused—a moment in time, she knew, had never felt so rich and agonizingly beautiful.

‘I’m afraid,’ she whispered, trembling into his arms.

He kissed her cheeks. Her eyes. Her nose.

So am I, he heard, the words coming from the cracks in the stone that was his heart. So am I.

But he said nothing. He just kissed her and swung her into his arms. Lust, he told himself, trying to reassure himself, plastering over the cracks while he carried her to his room next door. Pure animal lust.

Absolutely nothing to be afraid of.

He placed her reverentially on the bed. Along with Rosa’s cooking, his big bed was one of his favourite things when he came home from business trips. Now, with Angelina lying on the covers, her chest rapidly rising and falling, her cheeks pink, her hair like a golden halo against his dark cotton, the bed shot straight to the top of the list.

Oh, God.

He wanted to be able to go slow except he didn’t know if he could. He knelt down next to her and dipped his head, unable to resist the lure of that wide mouth and those parted lips, unable to stop himself from exploring her with one hand. The dip of her waist, the flare of her hip, the curving tightness of her belly. Everywhere his hands found magic, every part of her a joy, and when he cupped one breast, brushed one peaked nipple with his thumb and felt her mewl of pleasure in his mouth, he felt a primal surge of pride.




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