Christmas Holiday Husband (15 page)

He smiled and flicked a quick glance up at her. “That’s the general idea. Just what I had in mind.” His tongue swiped over her again.

“Tony—that’s...”

“What you enjoy most in the whole world?” He sat back on his heels and smiled. But didn’t release her. Again Ellie glimpsed her wet flesh.

“Looks sexy, doesn’t she,” he suggested. “Like ripe pink watermelon, shining with juice. And tastes...” he leaned forward again and swirled his tongue around very slowly. “... just as good.”

She groaned and squeezed her eyes closed for a few seconds.

“Enjoying that?” he whispered, licking delicately, lifting away and then settling at a different angle. He suckled for a further delicious time. “Are you watching?” he asked, smoothing his face over her belly.

“No,” she lied. For the sight of him doing this to her was way too good to look away from...the sensation so concentrated, so extreme. Her own eyes looked back at her, full of guilty pleasure and desire. “Mmmmmffff...” she protested.

“Getting closer, are we? Enjoying it more than usual?”

She ground out his name as the first little twitches and flickers raced through her.

“I want to know you’re not faking,” he insisted. “So watch what I’m going to do.”

Ellie saw one of his hands relax its grasp on her hip, uncurl and flex, and then a long finger slid inside her, pressing upward and forward as his continued to pleasure her.

She clamped a hand over her mouth to stifle the scream as all her internal muscles convulsed, and pulsed, and pulsed until he finally pulled away and looked up with wickedly glinting eyes. “Yup—she doesn’t fake it,” he said.

She bent and tore at his shirt buttons. He grabbed her hands away with both of his, then grasped the shirt and hauled it off over his head. Hunger flooded through her as she reached for the waistband of his jeans. He caught her hands again and held her arms out wide in his steely grip.

“Want me after all, do you?” He smiled, keeping her at bay, winding her up to snapping point.

“Yes, dammit! Get your pants off. Let me go.”

He took a lazy breath, eyes holding hers as she appreciated the rise and fall of his chest. She licked her bottom lip.

He released her and stripped away the rest of his clothes.

She watched intently as he sheathed himself. “Me on top?” she asked.

Tony smiled, sat on her bed, and stretched out on his back. “Want to boss me around, do you?”

“I want to do things to you that you can’t imagine,” she snapped. “I want to make you die of pleasure. But not just yet.”

I want all I can get of you before I have to give you up,
she thought with fierce regret, straddling him until he was buried deep. She was one huge want, one endless wave of desire, one savage yearning firestorm that could be extinguished only by him.

The depth of her feelings terrified her. Now they’d reignited their loving she knew she’d have to cut him out of her life, but would never be able to banish him from her heart. She’d fight with total desperation, but couldn’t hope to win.

The deceit of lying to him had her spinning in circles. Withholding the knowledge of his son from him was huge. Guilt threatened to choke her. He deserved to know. He and Cal
both
deserved to know. She knew that. She knew that with every fibre of her being.

“Where have you gone to?” Tony asked.

“I’m here,” she said, dazed and distracted. “I’m right here with you. Why would I want to be anywhere else?”

xxx

They moved together like beautiful machinery, each a precise fit for the other. Tony heard the familiar farm noises floating on the summer air, the wind rustling the trees, a distant truck engine idling with a throbbing bom-bom-bom. In the bedroom there was only the soft moist meeting and withdrawing of flesh... the small breathless sighs of ecstasy and impatience... the sucking of mouth on mouth, tongue around tongue.

She was his insatiable Sydney girl again, hair flying as she rode him. Finally he tumbled her beneath him, thrusting fast until she screamed and stifled the noise against his shoulder.

“Two to you,” he said once she was calm again. “You’re still such fun to play with.” Again he brought her to clenching breathless orgasm before surrendering to his own pumping release.

And as he relaxed, he remembered she’d made it plain this was no more than a temporary diversion for her. He lay sprawled across her, heart thundering, wracking his brain for ways to make her stay.

CHAPTER
TWELVE

Ellie stepped into the green silk dress and drew the zipper up with care. The woman in the mirror looked back with approval.

She brushed a glimmer of colour onto her cheeks and eyelids, added mascara and lashings of lip gloss. The woman in the mirror blew out a big breath of apprehension.

“Ellie!” the twins squealed as she descended the grand staircase. Plainly they’d been waiting for her. They tugged at a hand each and led her into the sitting room.

“Aren’t you a pretty threesome,” Ginny said, glancing up from her magazine.

Ellie looked down at the twins. Carolyn in sparkly pink with violet flounces, Antonia in the opposite. “You’re real princesses in these fairytale dresses, aren’t you?”

“Same goes for you,” Ginny said. “All the local men will be lining up for a dance.”

A warm hand descended on Ellie’s bare shoulder. “They can wait their turn.”

She drew a swift breath.

“Robbie—you’re looking very handsome,” Ginny continued without missing a beat.

Ellie turned to inspect him. “Where’s the sweaty farmer gone?” she asked, lips quirking. He’d left his navy shirt unbuttoned enough to show a hint of tanned chest. She wanted to lick him, right there.

“Sweaty farmer had a wash.” His thumb slid up under her hair and caressed her nape, unseen by the girls or Ginny.

“Dirty, was he?”

“Filthy.” He grinned, and removed his hand. “I’m hoping you’ll be able to fit between the girls’ booster seats. Otherwise we’re going to have to reconfigure things in the car. Come on, Mopsy and Flopsy,” he added, reaching down for his daughters.

Xxx

Vehicles coated with varying degrees of dust were drawn up around the country hall. An arch of pine branches and Christmas baubles ringed the open doorway, incongruously topped by an oriental wind-chime tinkling in the light breeze. Outside, groups of men stood, one hand in pocket, the other clutching a beer. Inside, hundreds of fairy lights had been strung across the beams, and half a dozen women bustled around a long supper table. The twins hopped and skipped, eyes wide, drinking in the magic. Ginny joined the supper team.

Ellie had expected a country hoedown atmosphere, but was amazed to find a crisp white tablecloth covering the trestle table that served as the bar. There was as much wine as beer. And a live band occupied the far corner of the hall.

“I’m surprised,” she admitted to Tony. “Quite civilised.”

His hand slid around her waist. “Yeah, we may be out in the wops, but there’s a lot of money in the area and we know how to behave.” He grinned at her outraged expression. “Some lovely old houses on the bigger estates. Speaking of which...” He turned, and she followed his alert gaze. A white-bearded giant stood in the doorway, glowering up at the wind-chimes before casting a disparaging glance around at the occupants of the hall.

“Alfred Hamlin,” Tony murmured. “Thinks he owns the district, but I suspect his star is waning. Glenleighton’s not what it was.”

A young denim-clad woman appeared behind him, eyes cast down.

“And his granddaughter,” Tony added. “Named after him, poor girl.”

Ellie’s eyebrows shot up. “Alfred?”

“Alfreida,” he muttered. “Almost as bad.” He guided Ellie closer to the door. “Evening Alfred.”

Alfred surveyed them both with rheumy pale blue eyes and apparently found them wanting. “Robinson,” he grated.

“Ellie McKenna,” Tony said by way of introduction.

The white beard dipped in a greeting of sorts, and its owner turned away and stumped across the hall toward the bar.

“What a horrible man,” Ellie whispered, catching Tony’s irritated expression. “Is he always like that?”

“Pretty much.”

The moment was broken with squeals of “Alfie!” as the twins rushed over to lay claim to the granddaughter. She dropped to her knees and held out her arms to them, hugging them close and then admiring their frilly dresses. Ellie saw old Alfred turn and survey the group.

Tony grimaced, and leaned close to her ear. “And now he’s sizing me up as a suitable husband for her.”

Her breath caught. “Are you interested?” she managed.

“Never in a million years. Nice enough girl, and good with horses, but not an ounce of spirit. She’s been under his thumb her whole life.”

Ellie’s pulse returned to its rightful speed, and she inspected Alfie with new eyes. She wore a short denim skirt and blue polo shirt, and her brown hair was dragged back into a long wavy ponytail. Her nails were trimmed close, unvarnished, and her face looked devoid of makeup. She appeared far too young for Tony. “How old is she?” Ellie asked.

He shrugged. “Twenty-something.”

“Twenty-not-much.”

“Not interested, so it doesn’t matter.” He slid his arm around Ellie’s waist again, and gazed down at her with warm eyes. “More interested in you.”

I wish you weren’t,
she thought, looking away after a few seconds.
I wish I hadn’t answered that ad. Hadn’t got tangled up with you again. And most of all wish I didn’t have to give you up after the Christmas holiday.

She sighed, and glanced sideways at Alfie. “She’s almost pretty now her grandfather’s gone. She doesn’t look so scared. I wonder why she didn’t dress up more for the party?”

“Alfreida!” the grandfather barked from across the hall. Alfie flinched, and rose. She had long, slim legs, and her knees now sported a comical dusting of talcum powder— someone must have spread it over the old wooden floor to make dancing easier.

“I don’t think she has much female company at Glenleighton,” Tony said. “You should talk to her. She might enjoy it. She’s one of the farm hands, and works her butt off for that old bastard. Whoever marries her will get one hell of a farm.”

“And you’re still not tempted?”

He squeezed her waist and grinned. “I’ve already got one hell of a farm.”

Ginny bustled back just as the band launched into ‘Strangers in the Night’. “Lemonade, girls? Or Coca-Cola?” she asked, leading the twins away.

Tony drew Ellie into his arms for a dance that stirred up all her memories of the nightclubs in Sydney eleven long years ago. They circled the floor, the only dancers for the first minute or so. And once they’d turned away from prying eyes, she pressed a lingering kiss onto the slice of warm exposed chest she’d spent the last half hour fantasising about.

xxx

She woke to the early Sunday sunshine spilling in through Tony’s French doors. The party had been wonderful—people from all around the district had dressed to the nines, eaten to excess, danced themselves silly, and in some cases drunk themselves into a stupor.

The silk frock from Paris had made her feel beautiful. She’d drifted into Tony’s arms time and again, and melted against him as they swirled around the dance floor together. When Peter or any of the other local men claimed her as their partner she’d sought glimpses of Tony across the country hall, and when she saw him dancing with other women, shafts of jealousy speared right through her.

But it’s me who’s going home with him
she’d reminded herself, trying to smooth the edge off her unreasonable possessiveness.

When Tony had undressed her, his indrawn breath at finding nothing beneath the green silk except his tiny panties had been well worth the wait.

She lay half dreaming for several minutes, listening to his slow breathing, watching the sunshine and leaves making patterns on the wall. If only it could be like this every day—to wake in the arms of this handsome, challenging man...to be fiercely wanted and lovingly seduced.

Lovingly?
Dream on
, she chided herself. There’d been no talk of love on either side, and that was the way she needed to keep things. Needed—yes. Wanted? No.

She knew she’d give almost anything to stay with him. Anything except her son.

xxx

Tony woke to find himself curled around Ellie with his face buried in her beautiful hair. He kissed her shoulders, caressed her back, and nuzzled her neck. He needed no words. The intimate language of lips and fingertips conveyed everything he wanted to say.

She’d made it clear she had no interest in an enduring relationship. But he’d show her how good it could be...tempt her to change her mind about seeing him merely as ‘fun’.

She sighed and he smiled. That sigh had surely been an invitation?

“Yes?” he whispered, reaching sideways to the bedside cabinet. He ripped the condom packet open, readied himself for her, and parted her thighs.