Maisey Yates - Luxury Escapes

He slowly pressed her down on the bed. She arched her back, rubbing her breasts against his chest. They had too many clothes on. He needed her naked. He needed to be naked. To be able to slide inside of her, and finally purge himself of the almost surreal level of desire he felt for her.

He moved his hands over her curves, cupped her breasts, teased the hardened points of her nipples. He could come just touching her, even through her clothes. Never, not even when he’d been a teenage virgin, had a woman ever tested his self-control like this.

“Wait,” she said, rolling away from him, her eyes wide. “I don’t … I can’t …” Her breathing was ragged, her lips swollen. “I can’t.”

“Why is it that you can’t all of a sudden? You want this—I know you do.”

“I don’t,” she said, her breathing ragged. “I’m sorry. We … it would be better if we were just friends. What would happen if this—” she gestured to the air between them “—didn’t work out? Then we would be bitter divorcés shuttling our child back and forth and sharing holidays. But if we just keep it platonic then things would be simpler. It’s the smartest thing to do.”

“I have no trouble keeping my commitments. When I speak my vows to you I will mean them. If you see divorce in our future it will not be me that’s instigated it.”

Alison forked her shaking fingers in her hair. “Well, I have no intention of divorcing you, but when you introduce sex into a relationship it complicates things.”

Maximo stood up from the bed, not bothering to hide the thick length of his erection that was pressing against the front of his slacks. “Things are already complicated by the attraction between us. Sex would only alleviate some of the tension.”

He turned and walked out of the room. Alison cursed out loud to the empty room. Why had she done that? Why had she kissed him like a sex-starved maniac?

And why did you stop him? That was the question her body was asking. She was so hot for him, wet for him, needy for him. His kiss had totally stolen every ounce of her control. She’d been ready to let him do anything he wanted with her, to her. She’d craved the loss of control, the descent into blissful oblivion at his hands.

And in the end that was what had jarred her back to reality. The feelings inside of her had gone so far beyond just a simple case of lust. And she couldn’t deal with that. She just couldn’t.

She didn’t want to fall in love. She liked Maximo too much already and if she gave into her desire for him what would keep her from falling all the way? Nothing. She was too dangerously close to love already to take the chance.

In that moment when he’d told her that the test was negative she’d just wanted to cling to him, and it had been so easy to imagine that their relationship was real, and that they were a real couple, drawing support and strength from each other.

But that wasn’t the case. They were just two strangers thrown together, making the most out of a crazy situation. He had his life, she had hers, and together they had the baby. But that was all that linked them.

Maximo had said he wouldn’t divorce her, and maybe he wouldn’t. No matter what he would never abandon her baby.

He’d been faithful to Selena, but he’d loved Selena. Without love what was going to keep him interested in her? When she gained baby weight and got stretch marks, what would make her more interesting, more attractive than other women? And he could certainly have any woman he wanted.

There was no way, no way at all, that she was going to set herself up for that.

And if she had to spend the rest of her days achy and physically unsatisfied it would be a small price to pay to keep her soul from being irrevocably shattered.

Over the course of the next three weeks Maximo broke his promise to her. Oh, he never once tried to force himself on her, not that she had ever believed he would, but he didn’t try to seduce her, either. And some small, confused part of her was disappointed that he seemed to have accepted that she truly didn’t want a sexual relationship with him.

Now that he’d come to that conclusion she lay awake every night, her body on fire, her mind replaying snatches of every encounter she’d ever had with him. And then adding some more interesting things.

In her mind they hadn’t stopped the day they’d found out the test results. No, in her fantasies she had kept kissing him, had unbuttoned his shirt to reveal the hard muscles and golden skin she knew lay underneath. And he’d done the same to her: unbuttoned her shirt, flicked open the clasp of her bra and then he’d lower his head and take one tightened bud into his mouth …

Alison snapped the laptop she’d been using shut and stood abruptly. It was the computer Max had given her to establish contacts at the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. She and Max had discussed getting a Turani branch established after they’d found out the test results, and he’d given her the task of getting it mobilized. She didn’t really like doing all of the work over the Internet, but it had been better than just sitting around wallowing in her lust for the man she couldn’t, wouldn’t, let herself have.

Maximo had been nice enough to provide her with a computer, and a staggering budget. He’d also given her the use of an empty bedroom that had been converted into an office. The windows faced the ocean, the bright crystalline water offering her at least a modicum of stress relief, even if it could not take away the hunger that constantly gnawed at her.

It was getting so bad that she was starting to wonder exactly why she was denying herself what she so desperately wanted.

Imminent heartbreak, possible abandonment, the loss of all of your independence and hard-earned self-worth!

Her practical self remembered all of the reasons. It was the wanton little hussy that had control over her erogenous zones that seemed to forget.

Thankfully her morning sickness had abated. If she couldn’t have some measure of relief from the constant arousal that kept her in a perpetual state of heightened awareness, then at least she wasn’t also spending most of the morning with her head in the toilet.

Even now she felt restless, her body humming just from the knowledge that Maximo was down the hall working in his own office.

He’d been so good to her since they’d come to the island. He’d been kind and attentive and taken care of anything she could possibly need. He was playing the part of doting, but platonic, fiancé just perfectly. It was as if he was doing it on purpose to make her life miserable.

She stretched and tried to shake off the electric feeling of arousal that seemed to have attached itself to her every nerve ending. Her skin felt as if it was too tight for her body, and everything inside of her felt as if it might jump out and escape at any moment.

What she needed was some physical exertion. Badly. She’d been feeling so awful since she’d gotten pregnant that she hadn’t worked out at all. Maybe that was why she felt so jittery. She’d had no outlet for her energy; none of the release that a good bout of exercise always gave her.

It was way too easy to imagine ways she and Max might find some physical release together.

Walking out of the office and down the hall to her room, she made the decision to get out of the house and get some air. Maybe breathing in the stale atmosphere of the villa was chipping away at her common sense. Except the villa smelled wonderful and there was nothing stale about it, but hey, a girl needed her excuses.

She rifled through her belongings until she found a swimsuit that Maximo had had sent over to Maris a few days after they’d arrived. It was brief … shockingly so. The black, stretchy fabric didn’t have enough yardage to swaddle a newborn, and yet it was intended to cover a grown woman’s curves. And hers had only become more ample as her pregnancy progressed.