‘I’m sorry I was angry. It was nothing to do with you,’ Jude husked, tugging her back against him.
‘It’s OK…’ she mumbled, wriggling her bottom back into the heat of his arousal, registering the sizzle of awareness travelling through her whole body.
He kissed the nape of her neck, dallied there, found the slope of her shoulder and let his teeth graze the tender skin and a tiny moan was wrenched from her parted lips, eyes opening in the moonlight as she stretched back into the heat of him. His hands found the achingly sensitive peaks of her breasts and she flipped over and arched into him like a shameless hussy, finding his carnal mouth for herself. And all the inner tensions and insecurities she had been crushing down blew her wide open with hunger for him.
In one powerful stroke he drove into her and the excitement took over, pushing her into an electrifying climax that almost wiped her out into unconsciousness.
‘That was absolutely incredible,’ Jude husked, and that was the last thing she remembered until she shifted awake soon after dawn, dug out one of the pregnancy tests she had bought and crept off to the bathroom to use it.
Tansy stared in near disbelief at the positive result on the wand. She had had her suspicions, but she had not really believed until that moment that she could be pregnant. Her brain hadn’t quite been prepared yet for that development and for a long time she sat on the edge of a glitzy bathtub, set in marble, contemplating the test. Her hand splayed across her stomach as she pictured a tiny version of her and Jude and her heart raced with happiness and a hundred expectations of the future.
Jude strolled into the bathroom naked as she emerged. ‘You’re up early—’
Tansy spun round to face him. ‘I’ve got news!’ she heard herself exclaim, excitement and a sense of achievement bubbling through her.
Jude switched on the shower and sent her a level glance. ‘Yes?’ he pressed with subdued amusement, wondering what the heck she was so pleased about.
‘I’m pregnant!’ she told him.
And halfway into the shower, Jude froze, and he unmistakably paled as though she had given him bad news. ‘Right… OK,’ he breathed, vanishing into the shower, turning to face the wall, the tension in the muscles of his smooth golden back unhidden.
Tansy’s excitement drained away like sand through an egg timer. She blinked, utterly at a loss as to why her announcement had proved to be a damp squib instead of a source of satisfaction and pleasure.
Jude wanted to punch the wall. The terms of the prenup they had both signed were etched in letters of fire inside his head. He had had every clause written according to how he wanted the marriage to play out. He had wanted his freedom back as soon as possible, had wanted a separation the minute he estimated it could reasonably be demanded. Back then everything had seemed so simple to him because he had assumed he would want his life back as it had been. But now, all of a sudden and without the smallest warning, he was discovering that what he had thought he had wanted wasn’t actually what he wanted at all…in fact it was the very last thing he wanted.