into life. Her nipples tightened into aching peaks, her legs turned to jelly and a deep pain began in her pelvis…spreading until she was melting. He was looking at her with such intensity…
Giddy, she leaned against the wall, as weak as a kitten.
‘You don’t want me to stay, Susie.’
‘What are you talking about? I just asked you, didn’t I?’
Very slowly he walked towards her, and the closer he got the more helpless she felt.
‘If I stay…I’m going to have to touch you…’
‘What do you mean?’ She hated herself for asking that, because the answer was written in the intensity of his gaze.
‘You’ve changed… Your breasts have become bigger…’
‘It’s the pregnancy,’ she said weakly.
Dangerous conversation. It played to her weakness and she knew she should resist, should say something funny or sarcastic, but all she could think was, God, you’re beautiful, and I want to make love to you more than anything else in the whole world…
Looking at her, Sergio knew that he could have her. Right now, right here. Hell, they probably wouldn’t even be able to make it up the stairs. But what would that prove? Nothing. And what would follow in the aftermath of that?
Marriage might be out of the question, but was he going to blow their fragile truce by stampeding her into bed like someone who had zero control? He had built his life on control, and he knew it was the most powerful ally anyone could have.
But, God, his whole body was aching. He wanted to reach out and slip his hand under the jumper, wanted to feel the weight of her breasts, wanted to push that jumper up and suckle on engorged, enlarged nipples, bigger and darker now that she was pregnant.
And he wanted to taste her down there, get his fill of her, and then come inside her without the nuisance of protection.
‘I won’t stay for anything,’ he said abruptly. ‘I should go. Is there anything else you need?’
Her body cooled and she stiffened in receipt of a rebuttal he wasn’t even bothering to dress up.
‘Nothing. And you’re right. Silly of me to have asked you to stay. You’re right—so right… You should head off…’
SUSIE’S FIRST THOUGHT when she felt a cramping in her stomach was to ignore it. Firstly, she didn’t want to overreact and be labelled a hysterical hypochondriac by the hospital into which she had been booked. Secondly, Sergio had just left and she didn’t want to summon him back on what would probably be a fool’s errand.
Things had been ticking along between the two of them for the past four months.
The bigger she’d grown, the more she had tried to hide her body under an ever-changing assortment of shapeless clothes. He had rebuffed her that one time, and she wasn’t going to risk falling into the trap of thinking that he might still find her sexy. He didn’t. Somehow wearing attractive maternity clothes or, worse, non-maternity clothes with a high, stretchy Lycra content, would have made her feel vulnerable. She didn’t want to feel vulnerable. Not on top of everything else she was having to deal with—namely the fact that her feelings towards him hadn’t lessened in the slightest over time.
He wasn’t around all the time, but he was around too much. He telephoned her every day without fail. She assumed to make sure that she hadn’t fallen down the stairs in a state of pregnant idiocy. And he showed up every weekend, and usually once or twice during the week. Sometimes just for a cup of coffee, and to make sure that everything was working properly in the house. Occasionally he swept aside her objections and made her go out with him for a meal.
Every second in his presence was sweet torture. She wanted to step back, had braced herself with little lectures on the healing aspect of his frequent visits, told herself that the more she saw him the easier it would get to be in his company without feeling the need to find some smelling salts just in case she came over dizzy and passed out.
But none of her mini-lectures had worked and she was just as susceptible to his presence as she had been from the very first second she had laid eyes on him.
While he… He did everything befitting a man whose sole concern was the welfare of his unborn baby.
He had made sure to employ a gardener, so that she wouldn’t have to do anything remotely manual for herself outside, even though she’d tried to tell him that it wasn’t necessary. He roamed through the house, making sure that everything was working, that no lights needed changing—presumably because the thought of her actually getting onto a ladder to change a lightbulb was far too risky.
He treated her like delicate porcelain and she hated it—because it was a parody of domesticity when she yearned for the real thing. She longed for the days when he hadn’t been able to look at her without wanting her…when he hadn’t been able to be in the same room as her without touching her, and when the sight of a bed had always led to a passionate, inevitable outcome. She wanted his attentiveness to be for her, and not just because she was a vessel for his baby.
Her whole body yearned for his touch. She couldn’t imagine how much of a turn-off she must be for him now, with her prominent belly and her pregnant waddle, and her assortment of unappealing clothes which, as the weather had become increasingly colder with the approach of winter, were all in various shades of black or grey.
And she still wondered whether there was another woman in his life—some frisky lawyer he was keeping under wraps because he didn’t want to unsettle her.
Wild horses wouldn’t have dragged the question out of her. She wasn’t sure whether it was because there was no way she would let him see just how deeply her feelings for him ran, like an underground torrent waiting to burst through given the slightest opportunity, or whether she feared how she would feel if he ever confirmed her suspicions.
She clung to the thought that once the baby was born they would be able to formalise some kind of arrangement. She would no longer need supervision as the woman carrying precious cargo and they would be able to work out visiting rights—a loose arrangement which would give her the freedom to get on with her life without him constantly intruding.
A sudden sharp twinge made her wince and she looked uncertainly at the mobile phone on the sofa next to her.
It was dark and cold outside, and a brisk wind was whipping a sharp drizzle against the windowpanes.
Inside, it was cosy and warm. Another twinge drove her from the sofa and she breathed deeply, tried to stay calm, because the baby wasn’t due for another two and a half months and she didn’t want to start panicking over every little twinge.
Neither did she want to ignore something that could be serious…
With a stifled gasp as another sharp pain in her stomach drove her from the sofa, she picked up the telephone and dialled through to Sergio. Just hearing his voice when he answered filled her with strength, and for a few seconds she almost regretted calling him.
‘It’s probably nothing…’ she began.
About to manoeuvre across a roundabout, Sergio swung the car left, heading away from his apartment. He had picked up the fear in her voice with an ease that surprised him—although why it should, he had no idea. He seemed able to read nuances in her in a way he had never been able to with any other human being in his life before.
‘What’s probably nothing?’
‘You’re annoyed that I called, aren’t you?’
‘I’m annoyed that you’re not telling me why you’ve called, but it doesn’t matter because I’m already on my way and I’ll be with you