‘Good. Because quite frankly, if you weren’t pinning me to the sand at this precise moment, I’d kick you myself for being so arrogant!’ Holly glared at him but his face broke into a slow, sure smile of masculine superiority as he transferred his hand to the top of her thigh.
‘No, you wouldn’t. You’re non-violent.’
‘Funnily enough, not since I met you,’ Holly gritted, and he gave a possessive smile.
‘I bring out your passionate side, I know. And I love the way you’re prepared to fight for my baby.’
‘Your baby? So now you think you produced it all by yourself? Just because you’ve finally decided to acknowledge the truth—’ Holly gasped as Casper shifted purposefully above her, amusement shimmering in his gorgeous dark eyes as his mouth hovered tantalisingly close to hers.
Tiny sparks of fire heated her pelvis, and her whole body was consumed by an overpowering hunger for this man.
Her mouth was dry, her heart was thundering in her chest, and she couldn’t drag her eyes away from his beautiful mouth and the dangerous glitter in his eyes. ‘Cas—you’re squashing the baby!’
‘I’m putting no weight on you at all,’ he breathed, one sure, confident hand sliding under her summer dress and easing her thighs apart.
And then, with a slow smile that said everything about his intentions, he lowered his head. His mouth captured hers in a raw, demanding kiss just as his skilled fingers gently explored the moist warmth of their target, and Holly exploded with a hot, electrifying excitement that eradicated everything from her brain except pure wicked pleasure.
She ached, she throbbed, she was desperate, and when he slid a hand beneath her hips and lifted her she wound her legs around him in instinctive invitation, urging him on.
She’d become accustomed to the wild, uninhibited nature of their love-making. Right from the start the sexual chemistry had been so explosive that there had been times when it was hard to know which of them was the most out of control.
But this time felt different.
Casper surged into her quivering, receptive body and then paused, his breathing ragged as he scanned her flushed cheeks. ‘Am I hurting you?’
‘No.’ Not in the way he meant.
Holly closed her eyes tightly, moaning as he eased himself deeper, every thought driven from her head by the silken strength of him inside her.
She’d never known him so careful, and yet there was something about the slow, deliberate thrusts that were shockingly erotic.
She was no longer aware of the warmth of the sun or the sounds of the sea, because everything she felt was controlled by this man.
Her body spun higher and higher, her excitement out of control, until she gave a sharp cry and tumbled off the edge into a climax so intense that her mind blanked. She dug her nails hard into the hard muscle of his sleek, bronzed shoulders as her world shattered around her and her body tightened around his.
‘I can feel that,’ he groaned, and then he surged into her for a final time, his climax driving her straight back into another orgasm.
When the stars finally stopped exploding in her head, she opened her eyes and pressed her lips against his satin-smooth skin, desperately conscious that she’d succumbed to him yet again.
‘That,’ Casper murmured huskily, ‘Was amazing.’ Clearly in no hurry to move, he stroked her hair away from her face and stared into her eyes with a warmth that she hadn’t seen before. ‘Now, where were we in our conversation? I’ve lost track.’
Appalled at her own weakness, Holly closed her eyes. ‘I was about to kick you but the baby did it for me.’
‘You were about to forgive me,’ Casper said confidently, and she opened her eyes and looked up at him.
‘So is that what it was all about this time? Apology sex?’
Casper didn’t answer for a moment, his hand unsteady as he stroked her hair away from her face. ‘It was love sex, tesoro,’ he said huskily, and Holly stilled.
It was like seeing a shimmer of water in the desert.
Real or a mirage?
‘Love sex?’ She was almost afraid to say the words. ‘What do you mean, “love sex”?’
‘I mean that I love you.’
Her heart was thudding. ‘You told me that you weren’t capable of love.’
‘I was wrong. And I was trying to show you I was wrong. I think I express myself better physically than verbally.’ His eyes gleamed with self-mockery. ‘I was always better at maths than English. I’m the cold, analytical type, remember?’
A warm feeling spread through Holly’s limbs and she started to tremble. ‘Actually, that isn’t true,’ she said gently. ‘You’re very good with words.’
‘But hopeless at matching them to the right emotion, if my lack of success at an apology is anything to go by.’ Gently, he stroked a hand over her cheek. ‘I love you, Holly. I think I loved you from the first moment I saw you. You were warm, gorgeous, sexy.’ His eyes flickered to her mouth. ‘You were so sexy I couldn’t keep my hands off you.’
‘And the moment we’d had sex, you wanted me to leave. Stop dressing it up, Casper. I’m not stupid.’
‘I am the one who has been stupid,’ he confessed in a raw tone. ‘Stupid for not seeing what was under my nose. When we had sex the day of the rugby, I didn’t know what had happened. I was living this crazy, cold, empty existence, and suddenly there you were. I was shocked by how I felt about you. I actually did think that you were different—and then you kissed me in the window.’
‘You thought I’d done it for a photo opportunity.’
‘Yes.’ He didn’t shrink from the truth. ‘That is what I thought. And everything that happened after that seemed to back up my suspicions. You hid from the world and then announced that you were pregnant. It seemed to me that you were trying to make maximum impact from the story.’
‘From your description, I should obviously be considering a career in public relations.’
‘You have to understand that, when you’re in the public eye, these things happen. You grow to expect them.’ Casper drew away from her and sat up, his gaze thoughtful. ‘Women have always wanted me for what I can give them. Even Antonia, who I thought loved me.’
Holly pulled a face. ‘Yes, well, I can see why your experience with her made you very suspicious of women. I’m not stupid.’
‘No, you’re certainly not. And I’m not blaming Antonia. The blame lies entirely with myself.’ Casper’s admission was delivered with uncharacteristic self-deprecation. ‘I allowed myself to see only bad in women, I expected only bad from women. And the chances of you having become pregnant on that one single occasion when I’d been told I was infertile—to have believed your story would have required a better man than me.’
‘You’re obviously super-fertile.’
He gave an aggressively masculine smile. ‘So it would seem. And now I need to ask you something.’ The smile faded and there was an unusual vulnerability in his dark eyes. ‘Do you still love me? Can you still love me? You haven’t said those words for a long time.’
Holly swallowed, her heart thudding hard. ‘You didn’t want to hear them,’ she whispered. ‘When I said them, or when I showed affection, you backed off. I didn’t want to scare you away.’