‘That’s your son!’ she shouted, and rage pummelled her insides so she lifted her palms and pushed at his chest. His body was like steel, not moving, not so much as an inch. She made a guttural sound and pushed harder. Her rage grew.
‘I am aware of that.’ He spoke slowly. Calmly. ‘I explained why the blood test was necessary.’
‘But you didn’t tell me when and I had no idea! I’m his mom! That boy has never had a single procedure in his life that I haven’t been there for.’ Hurt spun like a web in her chest. ‘Every headache, every nose bleed, earache and injection, I have held his hand for. How dare you keep this from me?’
‘Calm down, Frankie,’ he said quietly. ‘This is not a big deal.’
‘Not a big deal?’ She glared at him and hands that had been pushing him formed fists and she pummeled his chest. He watched her, his expression impossible to interpret, and then, he caught her wrists and held them still. But her anger couldn’t be stemmed. She stomped her feet and her fingers formed claws and she tried to break out of his grip but he held her completely still. She charged her body at his and he caught her then, wrapping his arms around her, holding her body tight to his.
‘Let me go!’ she screamed. ‘I can’t believe you did this. I can’t believe you took his blood! I can’t believe you think you had any right...’
‘He is my son,’ he said into her ear. ‘And you understood why the paternity test was necessary...’
‘He’s not your son!’ The words had the effect of surprising Matthias sufficiently that he loosened his grip on her. She jerked out of his grip and pushed at his chest once more for good measure. Her breathing was rushed, coming in fits and spurts. ‘How can he be, when you can speak of him with such callous disregard? You organised for a doctor to do something to a little boy that would have been terrifying and you didn’t even go along yourself? Or tell his mother? What a heartless, unfeeling lump you are!’
A muscle jerked in his jaw. He stared at her without moving.
‘You don’t feel a damned thing, do you?’ she demanded again, glaring at him, and emotions, feelings, needs pushed through her, surging inside her. Whatever sentimentality he lacked, she more than made up for. ‘God, what an idiot I am to think you could ever change.’ She stared at him with a falling heart.
He grunted something, words she didn’t catch, and then he moved to her, pulling her around her waist towards his body and holding her there. He stared down at her and, before she could guess his intention, he’d dropped his mouth to hers, kissing her, punishing her, tasting her, tormenting her.
She groaned, but it was an angry groan, and then she was kissing him back, harder, punishing him right back, wanting to hurt him with the intensity of her kiss. Her hands ripped at his shirt, pushing at him impatiently. Anger seemed to have been the straw breaking the camel’s back and all the feelings she had worked so hard to hold off flooded through her.
She was furious! She was so furious! But desire was lurching inside her and she didn’t want to ignore it. She wanted to use it to silence her rage!
‘I hate you,’ she said and in that moment she did. He stilled momentarily, then leaned down and lifted her, wrapping her legs around his waist. The power of his arousal did something to her body, weakening her, tempting her. ‘I hate you,’ she said again, but her mouth dropped to his shoulder, kissing his naked flesh even as her throat was raw with the ferocity of her anger.
‘Good,’ he said darkly, and she was so angry she didn’t hear the resigned acceptance in his voice. ‘So you should.’
She tasted his emotions; she felt them in every desperate lashing of his tongue, in the intensity of his grip around her waist, in the strength of his arousal. He felt—he just didn’t know what to do with those feelings.
And she didn’t care.
Thought had been put aside. Sense and reason were nowhere in evidence. All Frankie could do was feel and want.
She pushed at his chest and, with frustration, wriggled out of his arms; he guided her back to the ground, his eyes seeking hers for a moment. She ignored his look. She ignored everything. Her fingertips found his shorts and pushed at them; he stepped out of his shorts and shoes and then he pushed at her underpants, jerking them down her legs with impatience and desperation. She kicked them off but before her hands could find the zip of her skirt he’d lifted her once more, his eyes hunting hers with a question.
Her doubts had evaporated. She had only room for anger and need. She swore under her breath and nodded, biting down on her lower lip. ‘Yes,’ she groaned, as he moved her over his arousal and pushed inside her.
Her groan grew louder as pleasures so long denied moved through
her body, and she remembered this. The intensity of his possession—the perfection of melding their two bodies into one.
He thrust into her, one hand on the back of her head, fingers pushing through her hair, dislodging it from the elegant style it had been put into that morning, the other hand clamped around her bottom, holding her where she was.
But it wasn’t enough; she wanted so much more. With a grating cry she pushed at his chest and he stared at her for a moment, lost and confused. ‘Lie down,’ she commanded, and he did, pulling out of her for one devastating moment before they were one again, on the ground of the tennis court, the grass scratchy beneath her knees as she took him deep inside and rolled her hips, the power of this something she couldn’t—wouldn’t—ever forget. Beneath her, she saw his face grow pale and his breathing rushed, she saw desperate need fire in his veins and triumph was her companion.
Except there was no triumph in this—because she had lost. He had won. Sex was sex—there was no love in this.
She ignored the thought; the emotions it brought clawed at her throat and they were useless and unwelcome. She stared down at him, stilling slightly. ‘Tell me this is meaningless,’ she challenged, the gamble one she hadn’t even known she was going to make. ‘Tell me this means nothing.’
His eyes flared when they latched onto hers.
‘Tell me while you’re inside of me that this means nothing. That I mean nothing.’ She felt tears slide down her cheeks, hot and fat. He caught her wrists and rolled her, flipping her onto her back and holding her still.
He moved inside her, gently at first, and then he kissed her slowly, trapping her beneath his body. Grief was equal to her desire. When would it not be?
He was skilled. Experienced. Despite the raging emotions in her chest, pleasure was inevitable. He rolled his hips and a wave began to build inside her, driving her to the edges of sanity, tipping her over it. She gripped his shoulders and he moved deeper. She cried his name out, over and over, as she fell apart.