Rebecca Winters - Affairs Of The Heart

Before she had a chance to change her mind he lifted her, her skin smooth and cool yet at the same time on fire under his hands, and swivelled her around and across to the bed.

She was certifiably insane. She must be, to let Damien do this to her. Five minutes ago he’d been accusing her of sleeping with someone else. She should be so offended she’d never think of giving him even the time of day.

And yet there was definitely something to be said for being insane. She sank into the soft down quilt and writhed under Damien’s hot mouth, currently blazing a trail towards her breasts, relishing the sensations triggered in her flesh.

Because sanity had no place here. Logic had ceased to exist. Feelings took precedence and what she was feeling now, what Damien was making her feel, was extravagant and pervasive enough to block out every other rational thought.

Except one. He wanted her. She’d expected rejection to follow the disbelief; she’d been prepared for it. No way would he have expected her to turn out to be the woman he’d made love to in the boardroom. But it hadn’t happened that way. He hadn’t rejected her.

He wanted her!

His mouth moved lower, fingers tracing under the edge of her bra and hot breath met her lace-covered nipple, already exquisitely sensitive with her early pregnancy, setting off spears of sensation that pierced her deep inside. Her back arched and she shuddered into his mouth.

Nothing else existed, nothing else mattered, but what he was doing to her and the way he made her feel.

Special.

Beautiful.

Loved?

No. That was what she wanted, not what he was giving. He wasn’t the kind of guy to fall in love. And right now she’d settle for feeling special. Right now she’d settle for feeling beautiful.

A noise, half purr, half groan, escaped her. And right now she’d settle for more of what his magic hot mouth was doing to her breasts—and lower…

Her fingers curled in the quilt as his hands caressed her, his tongue possessing her, circling her navel and driving her crazy with want and need as he deftly discarded her lace underwear. He touched her on her now exposed flesh and her breath caught with the intensity of the feeling. Nerve-endings she’d never known existed all but screamed their presence, their effect expanding inwards, waves of pleasure rippling to her every extremity only to come crashing back again at her core.

What force magnified mere touch to make it so bold, so all-consuming that it carried her away on its tide? Whatever it was, it was beyond comprehension, beyond dispute. Instead she let herself go with it as his tongue dipped lower, unable to fight the onslaught of heat and sensation on her skin and deeper, much deeper, inside.

She wanted more of this. She wanted more of him.

She wanted so much more…

Nothing would ease this delicious torture but having him deep inside her.

‘Please…’ she begged, the agony of her need rendering her powerless in his hands. And he gave something like a low growl and pulled away from her so abruptly that she felt his absence like a snapshot of grief. Her eyes fluttered open to see him looking down at her as his shoes and clothes came off, a flurry of leather and fabric until only air separated their naked skin. And then even the air was gone.

He lay down next to her, pulling her close, his smouldering eyes fixed on hers as he brushed a strand of hair from her cheek.

‘You are so beautiful,’ he said. ‘I’ve dreamed of having you again ever since that night.’

And before her heart had a chance to swell he rolled her beneath him and entered her in one swift, deep movement.

And then it was his turn to cry out, something guttural and indiscernible, but which spoke of his hunger and need.

She clutched his shoulders, momentarily relishing the feeling of completion with him deep inside, pulsing with life and heat before he moved, easing back, teetering on the edge before stretching her full again.

She responded to him, meeting his rhythm, joining him in the dance as he repeated the movement, again and again, slowly, then faster, building the pace and her anticipation until he slowed again, driving her to the edge of need and desperation as her hips urged him home.

She felt his need peaking with hers and spurred him on, angling her hips to meet him as he drove himself deeper with every plunge, building her higher and higher with the magic of his rhythm until his whole body powered into hers with one final shuddering thrust. She went with him, her senses exploding in a thousand directions that started and ended at the place he now pulsed within.

For a while they lay there, bodies slick with limbs entwined as their breathing returned to something like normal and their bodies cooled, their craving and desire burned up in the fire of their passion—burned up yet far from extinguished. He shifted so his head was lying across her stomach and with his hand he traced circles over her abdomen, his light touch hypnotising her skin at the same time that it stirred her nerve endings.

‘So somewhere inside here—there’s a baby growing.’

His words took her by surprise. He’d hardly reacted to her news that she was pregnant to him—it certainly hadn’t seemed to have had any impact—until now. Did he have no concept of what a child meant? Was the idea of family that foreign to him?

‘What happened to your family?’

His hand stopped and dropped back to his side as he swung his gaze up to the ceiling.

For a while she didn’t think he was going to answer, his steady breathing the only sound in the spare masculine room.

She touched her hand to his head, stroking his hair with her fingers.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to pry.’

He caught her hand in his, brought it to his mouth, and pressed her open palm against his lips with a half kiss, half sigh. ‘It’s okay. I don’t think about it too much.’

‘It must have been awful.’ She knew loss. The death of her brother and his family had been bad enough. She didn’t have to know the details to understand that losing his parents and possibly other members of his family too at such a young age must have been devastating.

‘They had a market garden near Adelaide, where they’d settled after coming out from Italy. It was only small to start, but they built it up and when they could they did picking work as well—apples or pears—before the tomato season really kicked in. I was the youngest so I stayed home but they took my two older brothers—Santo and Jo. Before the tomato crop ripened they could make more in one day picking than the market garden could make in a week. It was my job to look after the garden.’

‘How old were your brothers then?’

‘Thirteen and fourteen. Santo was the image of Dad; he was so proud of him.’

‘What happened?’

He made a sound, a sigh mixed with a note of despair, and she noticed his whole body tense. ‘The orchard they were working on was up in the hills. They hitched a ride in the back of a pick-up truck with a bunch of others from the city. The access road was narrow, a steep dirt track with no safety rail. A car came round a bend the other way. The truck swerved to miss it but too far, too close to the edge. Once the front wheel went over there was no hope…’

Her breath caught as she imagined the horror of the accident and its impact on a young child. ‘You lost everyone?’

‘There were fourteen packed into the back of the truck. Only two survived. They didn’t stand a chance when it rolled.’

He took a deep breath and raised a hand to rub his temple. ‘I didn’t know about it until the next day. It took the police that long to identify everyone.’

‘You spent the night alone?’