‘I do notsulk!’ she flung back at him furiously. ‘And what’s the matter with you? You got what you wanted with my father. You wanted me, youhadme as well... Game over, Sev!’
‘Why is it so damned hard for you to accept that Istillwant you?’ Sev raked down at her angrily, rage firing his dark eyes to brilliance. ‘Because you don’t believe it? Because you’re set on protecting yourself? Or is it the truth that you run away when things get tough? Because if thatisthe truth about you, I’ll stop chasing you.’
‘You said you didn’t run after women,’ Amy remind him nastily.
That untimely reminder struck Sev like a freight train and he looked down at her, wondering how the hell she lit him up like dynamite ready to explode, because heneverlost his temper and he had just lost it. He had her imprisoned against a tree trunk and he knew he should let her go, but when he gazed down into those electric violet eyes boldly daring him in that perfect face adorned with that ripe pink pillowy mouth, Sev somehow forgot all about letting her go and kissed her instead.
Amy’s eyes were locked to his; she recognised the need, the hunger and the longing there, feeling that knowledge thrum through her trembling body like an intoxicating drum beat. Somewhere in the back of her mind exhilaration flared that he hadn’t been lying, that he hadn’t been trying to sweeten her up by flirting, that he genuinelydidwant her the way he had insisted he did. For the very first time with Sev since the break-up, Amy felt that she was no longer powerless or a passive victim.
He crushed her mouth under his and her head swam, and her knees quaked and, all of a sudden, he was lifting her up against him and she couldn’t get enough of him. It was as though every shred of misery and anger from the past weeks spontaneously combusted in a split second into a passion that couldn’t be denied and blazed through her every nerve ending.
Anchoring her to his hips, Sev braced her back against the tree, pushing against the aching throb pulsing at the apex of her thighs until she could feel the long, hard shape of his erection. She moaned at the back of her throat, gripped by that mindless wanting that overcame her when he touched her.
‘We should go back to the house,’ Sev ground out against her cheek as he freed her swollen lips and struggled to catch his breath again while still rocking against that sensitive part of her and driving her insane with the promise of sensation.
‘Stop...and I’ll kill you!’ Amy startled him as much as she startled herself with that threat, but the overwhelming need that had taken hold of her was that impossible to suppress.
Sev lifted his tousled dark head and looked down at her in wondering appreciation and then, with a ragged, breathless laugh, he tasted her mouth again even more passionately, the expert plunge of his tongue sending paroxysms of wanton excitement travelling through her. He lowered her to the ground, jerked down the zip of her jeans, long wicked fingers delving to her molten core and increasing the madness racing through her veins. Only moments later, wild heart pulsing, she was in the midst of a climax and Sev was hoisting her up against him and bringing her down on him with precision. That sudden thrust lit her up like a firework display inside, excitement leaping and bubbling through her trembling body like a dangerously addictive drug. She didn’t know what she was doing, even what she was saying, only that she was sobbing something and she was clutching at his hair and his shoulders as another electrifying orgasm tore through her, making her convulse and shake, every skin cell rejoicing as she heard his groan of completion follow her own.
And then as Sev slowly lowered her back down to planet earth it was time to come back to the real world again, only she could barely face it after what she had done. ‘It was just sex... I missed it,’ she muttered in feverish excuse.
Yes, and that wassoconvincing an explanation when the only sex she had ever had had been one night with him and he knew it, Amy acknowledged wretchedly. Face burning hot as a bonfire, she righted her clothing, drowning in a pit of shame that she knew she deserved, and then her pride came to her rescue and straightened her shoulders. If she made a mistake, at least she should own it, not run away as he had dared to suggest she might tend to do. The awful truth was that she was insanely in love with Sev Cantarelli even if she couldn’t yet spell his name. His coming after her, apologising, showing compassion to the homeless animals had all begun to pierce her defences again. He was fluid and relentless as water in nature, always adjusting to the right level no matter what she did to muster her resistance.
‘We should pick a tree before the light goes,’ Sev told her straightforwardly, smoothly picking up the axe again and striding on.
Relieved as she was by his ability to move on after an awkward moment, Amy still wanted to plant a booted toe somewhere it would hurt him. He hadn’t said anything, well, she hadn’t left him much room to say anything after whatshehad said, she conceded wretchedly, but his silence on that score was somehow worse.
Sev was on a punch-drunk high as he had never experienced before, his body still roaring with endorphins and the recollection of pleasure he had not known existed until meeting Amy. Yes, he had missed her, nothing wrong with that. He was more concerned by an appallingly unfamiliar desire to make Amy’s life happy and perfect, a desire that shook him inside out. He wanted her, he wanted the baby. It was a sexual obsession, he labelled it with relief. What else could it be? A full-grown sexual obsession, sufficient to drive him in the direction of the kind of behaviour he had never entertained before.
‘That tree is a lovely shape,’ Amy mumbled.
Sev didn’t even glance at her; he followed the direction of her pointing hand. After all, Amy was blushing enough for both of them. If he didn’t watch out, he’d start blushing too. But...Dio...it had beenamazing. Didn’t say a lot for his legendary lively womanising sex life that he had never enjoyed that much excitement before, did it?Madre di Dio,he wasn’t in love, was he? He remembered his half-sibling, Tor, at his wedding with his bride, Pixie, and almost shuddered at the recollection of Tor cheesily telling someone that Pixielit up his world. He didn’t feel likethat, did he? He didn’t do love, wasn’t ever planning to marry and yet...the thought of Amy doing those things with another man set him on fire with rage. He didn’t want to share her with anyone except their child. So, they would live together, he reasoned. His child would be illegitimate; it hadn’t done him any harm, had it?
Actually, ithad, Sev conceded, thinking of all the times as a child that he had wished his mother had married his birth father. When he had got to know his father as an adult, he had done so at a very slow pace. Wary and cynical, he had kept Hallas Sarantos at a distance, refusing to credit that the older man could be as straightforward as he seemed, a happy family man, who had beaten himself up with guilt at the knowledge that he had a son out in the world who was a stranger to him. Over time, Sev’s reservations about Hallas had crumbled but, until Amy’s advent in his life, he had continued to keep everyone at a safe distance, telling himself that he was doing so to protect his birth father, because Hallas would be devastated if he knew how unhappy Sev had been as a child.
But who knew what lay in his future or Amy’s if he didn’t marry her? Marriage was a commitment, a binding promise of fidelity and stability. His father had it with his family. Tor had it with Pixie. If he was fair, therewereexamples amongst friends and family who had good relationships, unlike his mother’s side of the family tree. Sev tensed momentarily as he was wielding the axe. He was messing up his hands, and he knew it was because he wasn’t accustomed to physical work, but there was something oddly satisfying about using his muscles and hacking the hell out of the tree. It was a great deal easier than limping through an emotional wasteland where he had never been before and didn’t really want to linger. But if he was thinking about marriage, he had to be realistic and think of stuff he wasn’t accustomed to thinking about, label things like feelings that he had never explored before. And he absolutely hated doing it and took his raging frustration out on the tree.
Watching Sev chop the tree down was strangely sexy, Amy acknowledged, her face still hot because after what they had just shared she should not be even thinking along that line again, should she? She shouldn’t be thinking of the muscles flexing below that sweater, the taut, flat line of his stomach, the breadth of his chest, the tight neatness of his male hips in denim, the long, long straight legs. Oh, she might as well be honest—everythingabout Sev turned her on and made her react like a silly schoolgirl. She had no control over her eyes or her thoughts when Sev was around, but she had to get a handle on her responses if he was going to be living in the house and she was to have daily contact with him.
That night, the tree trimmed and placed in a giant half-barrel and installed ready for decoration in the cluttered entrance, Amy went up to bed, satisfied that she had kept busy because she had gone through the drawing room with labels and the transformation was on its way. Once the clutter was put away, the house would look much better. Sev had left her in peace to work, a state of affairs she had told herself she was very grateful for, even though she didn’t quite believe it after a long bath and climbing into her spacious bed, the comfiest she had ever lain on.
Just as she was reaching out to douse the light, the door opened and framed Sev, clad only in a towel.
In a surge of surprise, she sat up, violet eyes wide and startled. ‘Sev...what—’
‘Well, if it’s just sex,’ he murmured very softly, ‘we don’t need to stop, do we?’
Unprepared for that approach, and the experience of having her own statement tossed back to her in provocative challenge, Amy stared back at him and knew there was nothing she wanted more than Sev in her bed. A sort of might-as-well-be-hung-for-a-sheep-as-a-lamb outlook gripped her.
The silence hummed and perspiration broke out on her upper lip. ‘I suppose not,’ she mumbled unevenly.
Not a shy bone in his lean, muscular golden body, Sev dropped the towel and vaulted in beside her. ‘So we’ll keep it simple,’ he told her. ‘Just you and me...we’re exclusive... OK?’
‘OK,’ Amy responded sunnily, wondering if he could be so insane as to imagine that, pregnant and ordinary as she was, some other man was likely to want to run off with her, particularly when she had Sev. Who would run out on Sev? Her face fell again. Or did he think she was flighty, a bit easy? Likely to go with the first guy who asked? He was naïve, she decided. Nothing was that simple, particularly with a baby involved.
‘We’re living here together now,’ Sev added.
‘Are we?’ Amy wondered what it was about Sev that meant he always had to push against her limits, force her that extra mile, throw in something else she hadn’t even had time to think about and catch her on the hop. Maybe that was just Sev. Maybe he literally thought in the moment, didn’t do all the agonising she did in fear of making a wrong decision.