he pointed out with a sardonic twist of his wide, sensual mouth. ‘My mother avoids responsibility of any kind. May we drop this subject?’
‘Of course,’ Merry conceded, a little breathless while she collided with smouldering dark eyes and sipped at her wine. Her mind, however, remained awash with conjecture about her mother-in-law and her disconnected and antagonistic relationship with her son. At the same time she wasn’t worried about Angelina causing trouble between them because she could see that Angel had few illusions about his parent and intended to protect her from any fallout. And that made her a little sad, made her wonder what it must have been like for him to be saddled with a spoilt heiress of a mother, a party girl, who flatly refused to accept responsibility and grow up. A mother who, from what she could see, had never behaved like a normal mother. Surely that truth must’ve lessened his respect for women and his ability to trust her sex, she reasoned helplessly.
‘Let’s concentrate on us,’ Angel suggested with emphatic cool.
She felt overheated and her mouth ran dry. Her entire body tensed, tiny little tremors shimmying through her pelvis, tremors of awareness, arousal and anticipation. She was embarrassed by the level of her sheer susceptibility, shaken by the power he had over her, suddenly wondering if he too knew the full extent of it...
ANGEL GRASPED HER HAND and eased her up out of her seat. ‘I have a special request,’ he admitted almost harshly.
Enthralled by the golden glimmer of his intense appraisal, Merry moistened her dry lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘And what would that be?’
Long fingers flicked the silken bell of hair that fell to just below her shoulders. ‘You cut your hair. I loved it the way it was. Will you grow it again for me?’ he asked levelly.
Surprise darted through Merry, who had wondered if he had even noticed that she had shortened her hair. ‘I suppose that could be arranged,’ she breathed shakily.
‘Why did you cut it?’ he demanded. ‘It was really beautiful.’
Even more taken aback by that blunt question and the compliment, Merry coloured. She couldn’t tell him the truth, couldn’t afford to dwell on unfortunate memories at this stage of their marriage or mention truths that he might think were aimed at reproaching him. But when she had been pregnant and struggling against an unending tide of exhaustion and sickness to get through every day, the amount of care demanded by very long hair had simply felt like an unnecessary burden.
‘It was too much work to look after when I was pregnant,’ she muttered awkwardly.
‘Fortunately, you no longer have to look after your own hair,’ Angel informed her lazily. ‘Add a stylist to your staff—’
Merry opened pale blue eyes very wide. ‘I’m to have my own staff?’ she gasped.
‘Of course. You’ll need a social secretary to take care of your calendar, someone to shop for you...unless you want to do it yourself,’ Angel volunteered doubtfully. ‘I’ve started you off with a new wardrobe—’
‘Have you indeed?’ Merry cut in jerkily.
‘It’s a wedding present. I wasn’t sure you’d want to be bothered,’ Angel volunteered, a fingertip tracing the quivering fullness of her lower lip, sending a shiver through her taut, slender body. ‘You’ve never struck me as being that interested in clothes or appearances.’
‘I’m not,’ she agreed almost guiltily. ‘Sybil was always trying to persuade me that shopping was enjoyable.’
‘I don’t want you having to do things you don’t want to do,’ Angel told her huskily. ‘I don’t want you to change who you are to fit into my world, so it’s easier to have someone else take care of the less welcome aspects for you.’
Her heartbeat was thumping hard and fast inside her tightening chest. ‘You like me the way I am?’
‘Very much,’ Angel asserted. ‘You’re unusual and I value that.’
A smile slowly tilted and softened the tense line of her mouth. ‘And you have a fetish for very long hair?’
A wolfish grin slashed his expressive mouth, cutting his dark male beauty into high-cheekboned perfection and interesting hollows while his intense gaze held hers fast. ‘Only from the first moment I saw you.’
Warmth flushed through Merry, leaving her breathless. ‘That must be the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me.’
‘I don’t do romantic, koukla mou,’ Angel told her uneasily, a frown line building between his fine ebony brows as he stared down at her in frustration. ‘For me, it was a sexual charge and instantaneous...’
And if she was honest, Merry reflected ruefully, it had been the same for her that first day, a powerful instant physical reaction that had only deepened with repeated exposure.
Lean brown hands dropped to the sash at her waist and jerked it loose so that her breath hitched in her throat. She could feel her breasts swelling inside her bra, her nipples prickling into feverish prominence, the sense of melting at her feminine core. She was trembling, awake on every level even before he picked her up against him and crushed her ripe mouth hungrily under his.
‘Thee mou... I want you even more now than I wanted you then,’ Angel intoned rawly. ‘And that’s saying something. But then I’ve never had to be patient before.’
‘You don’t have any patience,’ she whispered through reddened lips. ‘You want everything yesterday.’
‘Once I got you back I didn’t want to be too demanding in case it made you change your mind. Before the wedding, I felt like I was in a straitjacket around you, forced to be on my best behaviour,’ he complained.
Merry laughed, riveted to appreciate that she had read his uncharacteristic restraint correctly. She knew him better than she had believed, she thought victoriously, and his admission thrilled her. He hadn’t wanted to risk driving her away and losing her. Losing them, she corrected with a sudden inner flinch of dismayed acceptance, the thrilled sensation swiftly dying again. He had practised patience with Elyssa’s mother for Elyssa’s benefit, fearful of losing access through their marriage to his daughter, which put a very different slant on his attitude.
‘Unhappily for me, I am a naturally demanding man,’ Angel admitted thickly, long, deft fingers twitching the buttons loose on her top, parting the edges, pushing them off her slim, taut shoulders until the garment dropped to the tiled floor. ‘No good at waiting, no fan of deferred gratification either...’
Her ribcage tensed as she snatched in a sustaining breath, ridiculously self-conscious standing there in her simple white lace bra. Although they had been intimate twice before, on the first occasion they had been in semi-darkness and on the second they had both been so frantic that she hadn’t had the time or space to feel remotely shy. But now, her face burned as Angel released the catch on her bra and her breasts tumbled free, plump and swollen and heavy.
‘I have died and gone to heaven,’ Angel intoned, scooping her up and carrying her across to the bed. ‘I love your curves.’
‘I’m pretty much stuck with them,’ Merry pointed out, resisting a very strong urge to cup her hands over the swells that pregnancy had increased in size.
Angel cupped the burgeoning creamy swells, gently moulded and stroked them before leaning back to peel his shirt off over his head. Tangled black curls, glossy below the discreet lights, tumbled over his brow, his lean, strong face taut with hunger, dark golden eyes glittering like polished ingots. A thumb teased a quivering pink nipple until it hardened into a tight bud and throbbed, her breath escaping from her parted lips in an audible hiss of quaking response.
‘You should tremble... I want to eat you alive,’ Angel warned her, settling his hands to her waist