‘You must have read my mind!’
‘I must have done.’
But Xenon recognised that the light-hearted interlude was masking a growing tension between them. He could feel his body growing uncomfortably hard the longer he was alone with her. He could feel her arms snaking around him as she climbed onto the bike. In his driving mirror he could see the flash of her bare thighs. Briefly, he closed his eyes because her breasts were pushed against him as they moved away and he thought that this was pretty close to torture.
If it had been anyone other than Lexi, he would have stopped on the way back at one of the many secluded settings through which they passed. He would have parked the bike where it could not be seen from the road and then taken her in his arms and tumbled her down onto the ground. There would be no time to remove her dress and, besides, that pale, sensitive flesh of hers might be damaged by pine needles digging into her back. He swallowed. There would be no time for anything other than to slide her panties off and to lose himself inside her tight, liquid heat again.
The fantasy became so intense that the bike swerved a little as he imagined that first, sweet moment of entry.
‘For God’s sake, Xenon!’
The angry rush of her words in his ear brought him to his senses and he slowed right down. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘You’re driving like a maniac!’
‘I’m not used to anyone riding pillion.’
‘That’s no excuse. Just concentrate, will you?’
‘I’ll try.’ How could he concentrate when she was glued to him like that? He toyed with the idea of suggesting that she didn’t need to clamp her thighs around him quite so tightly, but realised that he was enjoying it too much to want her to stop.
The remainder of the journey was accomplished without incident and when they returned to the house it was to see Phyllida and several other women in the gardens, weaving fairy-lights into the trees. Long tables had been erected and were being decorated with thick garlands of flowers.
Xenon held out his hand to help Lexi off the bike. ‘My sister is taking this christening very seriously,’ he observed wryly. ‘Oh and, by the way, she’s bringing the baby over to meet you later. I should have mentioned it before.’
Lexi froze. It was stupid. Unpredictable. She should have been expecting something like this and yet the word was like the shock of cold water colliding with warm skin. She tried to smile but maybe her attempt was unconvincing, because he caught hold of her as she turned away.
‘Lex? What is it?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’ She shook off his hand and began to walk towards their villa but she could hear his footsteps following her and she couldn’t do a damned thing to stop him. She went inside and heard the door slam shut behind him.
‘For God’s sake, Lex—just talk to me!’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘It’s something,’ he said fiercely. ‘How am I supposed to help when you won’t tell me what’s wrong?’
She stared at him for a moment, gathering her breath and wishing that her heart wasn’t beating so fiercely. ‘You can’t “help” me,’ she said fiercely. ‘Nobody can.’
‘Is it because I mentioned the baby?’
‘What do you think?’ she questioned as all the feelings she’d bottled up for so long came spilling out in a dark and unstoppable tide. ‘Don’t you ever think what he might be like now? Our little boy? He’d be two years old, Xenon. Imagine that. Running around with dark hair and blue eyes just like his daddy. Stumbling over a little plastic ball in the courtyard—’
‘Stop it!’ he said, in a strangled kind of voice.
‘But you asked me,’ she said. ‘And I’m telling you. I’m telling you what it’s like. It hardly happens at all these days, but it was there all the time at the beginning. The pain and the loss. The rewriting of a future into something you don’t recognise. Do you want to know what it was like, Xenon—I mean, do you really?’
He thought that he’d never seen her like this before. He’d never seen her look quite so helpless. Because this was Lexi. Lexi, who had always been so strong. Like him, she’d had to be. Maybe even stronger than him because all the odds had been stacked up against her, right from the start. He nodded, but behind his lips his teeth were clenched. ‘Tell me,’ he ground out.
The words came stumbling over themselves. ‘Every pram that passed me in the street was like an arrow to the heart. You remember all those cute little baby outfits I bought?’ She sucked in a ragged breath. ‘Well, they just seemed to taunt me with what we could never have. Taking them down to the charity shop was so...heartbreaking.’