Her fingers curled into his back and he saw her cheeks flush and her breath quicken and knew that she was close, but he held back, refusing to allow her the release she craved until he was ready.
So he slowed the rhythm and she groaned in protest and tried to shift her hips, tried to force the pace.
‘Alessandro.’ Her voice was a breathless whisper of desperation. ‘Please, oh, please…’
Deciding that they had the whole night ahead of them so control didn’t really matter that much, Alessandro drove deeper inside her and felt the sudden clench of lust as she gripped him.
And then he felt her body tighten around his and he ceased to think altogether as they reached the peak together in one long shower of erotic sensation that left them both breathless and unable to speak.
* * *
Christy lay with her eyes closed, feeling blissfully happy and content for the first time in months.
Alessandro loved her.
She knew he loved her.
The night hadn’t been about the children or staying together for the family. It had been about them as a couple. About expressing their love.
He still hadn’t told her that he wasn’t going to let her leave, but he would. She knew he would.
He was probably just being sensitive about bringing the subject up.
Tomorrow he’d tell her that she was staying in that arrogant, autocratic manner of his. She’d say yes.
And Christmas would be perfect.
* * *
Christy was making breakfast when the phone rang.
Before she could answer it, Alessandro strolled into the kitchen and picked up the handset. His eyes lingered on her flushed cheeks for a moment and then he gave a slow smile of masculine satisfaction and she blushed deeply.
Help, she thought as she turned back to the hob to stir the porridge. She was behaving like a teenager.
She was so lost in her own dreamy thoughts that she didn’t even listen to Alessandro’s conversation—didn’t even register that he was off the phone until he walked across the kitchen and poured himself a large mug of coffee.
‘That was your brother,’ he said, and his voice was so cold that she looked at him in alarm.
‘Is everything all right? Has something happened?’ A moment ago Alessandro had been looking at her as if he had every intention of skipping work and taking her back to bed. Now he looked remote and unapproachable and nothing like the man who’d made love to her all night.
‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he said smoothly, ‘except that his other practice nurse has slipped on the ice and broken her wrist. So he wonders if you’d consider coming back immediately after Christmas.’
Her heart flipped. Surely this was the moment when he was going to tell her that she had to stay, that he wasn’t going to let her leave.
‘Well, I hadn’t thought about going that quickly…’ She hesitated, waited for him to interrupt her and tell her that she wasn’t going at all, but he stood still, studying her face with brooding intensity.
What was he thinking?
‘I’ll ring Peter back,’ she said quickly, ‘and chat about it.’
‘Fine.’ His mouth set in a grim line, Alessandro slammed his mug down on the table so hard that most of the liquid sloshed over the wood. Then he strode from the room, narrowly avoiding a collision with Katy, who was on her way to find breakfast.
She watched her father go with a look of surprise and then saw the pool of liquid on the table. ‘Now I know where Ben gets it from,’ she said wearily as she walked round the table and reached for a cloth. ‘Spilling drinks is obviously a genetic defect. Remind me to screen any man I marry—I don’t want to spend my life mopping up puddles.’
Christy was too miserable even to raise a smile.
Now what?