“No,” she said, shaking her head weakly. “I was confused last night …”
“You were desperate.” At her instant look of indignation, he laughed softly. “As was I. I have known many women, Ava Henderson, and none makes my blood boil like you. I wondered if you would still have this power over me, despite the fact I no longer love you as I did then.”
Her stomach contracted painfully at his words. “And?” She prompted when he didn’t speak.
“And you make me want to rip our clothes off here and make love to you all afternoon. I don’t care who comes into the house. I want you. And I think you want me.”
Ava’s sensible, cautious nature was at war with his words and his wisdom. Of course she damned well wanted him. “It was never about not wanting you,” she said seriously. “It was about whether or not it made sense.”
Cristiano’s smile was indulgent. “You think this makes no sense?” He purred against her earlobe, wrapping his arm properly around her waist and clamping her to his body, so that he could dance her backwards. He moved them through the kitchen door, and then spun, so that he could press her back against it. “Tell me, Ava, what has ever made more sense than this?”
His tongue was demanding and fierce as he plunged it into her mouth. His hands were rough on her body as they pushed at her clothes, desperate to find skin. He groaned as he connected with her flat stomach, and then ground his hips against her as his fingertips grazed her nipples.
“Lock the door,” she mumbled against his mouth, as her fingers loosened his button. Her fingers curled into his pants until the found his arousal and she touched it with relief.
Cristiano made a strangled noise of surprise, but he didn’t move away and Ava continued to touch and feel. His hands worked quickly, pushing away her underwear so that he could nudge his tip towards her moist, ready core. He reached down and parted her thighs.
His invasion was swift, and welcome. Ava wrapped her arms around his neck and he plunged himself deep inside of her, until she made a whimpering sound of pleasure that was intimately familiar to him. She was so close, and he wanted so much more. “This will never be enough,” he rasped, his hands fondling her nipples as he pushed into her again. The door banged behind her; Ava couldn’t care. Somewhere, in the small fraction of her brain that was capable of rational thought, she reminded herself that they would be alone for another two hours, at least, while Marie tended to the cottages and Jackson dealt with the vines. Milly’s nap cycle was reliably long.
It was just them and this insane spring of desire.
He ran his hands down her back and then scooped her buttocks, lifting her as though she weighed little more than a feather. He held her against him, while he moved within her; with her legs wrapped around his back and her arms holding onto him for dear life, he erupted, a guttural cry strangling into the space of the kitchen.
“How can you say this doesn’t make sense?” He kissed the words into her mouth, punctuating each one with a flick of his tongue. “Is your room still the same?”
She thought of Milly and stiffened.
Misunderstanding her silence, Cristiano pulled away. “Don’t you dare tell me you don’t want this,” he chastised.
“I do,” she said honestly, knowing that her heart was leading her terribly astray and not caring. “But not there.”
Again, he misunderstood. His brows knitted together as he stared at her. “Because of him? Did you share that room with him?”
“There’s the guest room downstairs,” she reminded him, not wanting to speak of Angus again, and Cristiano carried her there without another moment’s hesitation. Ava briefly remembered that the reception area was public, and that they could have been interrupted if bad timing had intervened. It didn’t; they weren’t.
He slipped into the spare room, and pushed her back against the door, as he had in the kitchen. “You should have told me you were divorced,” he said darkly, cupping her face while he kept her pinned with his body.
Ava closed her eyes. “Don’t talk. I don’t want to think, Cris. For whatever reason, you make me feel like I don’t care about anything except this. I just want to feel. Please.”
His laugh was a frustrated sound. “Yes,” he agreed finally, pulling away from the door and easing her onto the bed. It necessitated his breaking the physical contact and she made a noise of protest instantly. “I have a week to enjoy what you can do to me, Ava, and I don’t intend to waste a moment.”
A week.
A week.
She held onto the words like a mantra. Only a week, and then he’d be gone. And she could spend that week building enough new memories with him to sustain her for the rest of her life.
She would never love another man. She would never let another man make love to her. This was it. Her one chance to enjoy what Cristiano could offer.
“Make love to me, Cris. I don’t want to regret anything when this week’s over.” She pulled at his shirt, and lifted it over his head, then lifted onto her elbows so she could run her tongue over his broad, muscled chest.
“I want to feel everything you can do to me,” she promised, gripping his shoulders and bringing him down on top of her. “You said last night that we had so much to learn; so much more to discover. Show me.” Her eyes were wide as she stared into his. “Show me now.”
He felt something strange in his chest; something he didn’t want to analyse. “On one condition,” he promised, sliding a finger beneath her underwear and into the heart of her being.
She nodded, no longer capable of speech.
“I never want to hear you mention Angus Edwards again. I want to forget, when I am with you, that you were ever with him. He is nothing to us. He wasn’t then; and he isn’t now. You loved me, as I loved you. Your marriage to him was … an irrelevancy.”
He was so right.
“Promise me you will not mention that man.”
She nodded, but her heart was breaking. With such passion and such love, how had they managed to ruin everything?
“He’s just a friend. You don’t need to feel threatened by him.”
His face darkened. “You are still friends.”
“Yes.”
He slid another finger into her core, and began to massage her most sensitive nerve endings. He had a truly unfair advantage, with so much more experience and an apparently flawless memory for what drove her wild. She dug her nails into his shoulders, as she felt a flash of orgasm pierce her mind.
“Not for the next week,” he demanded, leaning forward and pulling a nipple into her mouth. He rolled his tongue around its edge, then pressed his teeth against it just enough to send a wave of pleasure from the tip to her heart.
“Don’t think about him,” she begged through rasping breaths. “Just this.” And she lifted her hips in a silent plea for him to take her once more.
He laughed thickly. “That will come,” he murmured. “But I want to show you how truly fearsome your pleasure can be now.”
“Fearsome?” She murmured, her breathing ragged as the orgasm began to take over her body.
“Mmm,” he promised. His eyes lifted to the top of the bed. He gripped her wrists and guided them to the metal bars. “We are going to play a game,” he said with the kind of smile that sent her soul soaring into space.
“A game?” She queried, feeling a little like an idiot who could simply repeat his questions.
“A game,” he agreed. “A battle of the wills.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You will. First it is my turn to break you.”
She arched a brow.
“You will have your turn.” He gripped her wrists and lifted them to the bars. “Hold these.”
She gripped the metal, as he’d instructed.
“I am going to try to make you let go,” he said simply. “By pleasuring you. The longer you hold on, the more you will enjoy this.”
“And if I let go?”
His smile deepened. “Then I stop immediately, no matter how
disappointing that is to both of us.”
An excitable clutch of butterflies was battering her insides. “Okay,” she agreed with a catch in her voice. “Sounds easy enough.”
“Does it?” He leaned down and kissed her mouth, hard. “I should warn you then that I don’t play fair.”
Ava’s stomach lurched at the sensual promise.
“We’ll see,” she shrugged, keeping her hands wrapped around the bars.
Only a few minutes later, she realised how right he had been to warn her. With his mouth he had tasted every single piece of her skin, and with his fingers he had explored her core, teasing and torturing in equal measure. Now, with his arousal so close to moving within her, she was aching to reach for him; to pull him into her. But she didn’t. The tiny amount of willpower she had left prevented her from doing what she wanted most.
She wrapped her fingers more tightly around the poles and instead lifted her hips, wrapping her legs around his back.
His laugh was thick. “That’s cheating.”
“My hands are still here,” she denied through gritted teeth.
“Mmm,” he reached up so that he could wrap his fingers around her wrists. “So they are.” He plunged deep inside of her at the same time, and didn’t release his grip on her. He held her beneath him, making it impossible for her to reach for him even if she wanted to. And she did want to. Her fingers were itching to pull through his hair, to caress his back and hold his arms.
He pulled his hands away and on instinct she did likewise, lifting them to his chest.
His expression was one of frustrated impatience, but he stilled his body. His breath was torn from his chest, and it took him several moments to properly bring himself back under control.
“Don’t you dare stop,” she commanded, squeaking and pushing her hands back to the bedhead.
“Too late,” he admonished with a tight smile. “You know the rules.”
“Fine,” she said with a nod. “It’s my turn.”
He grinned and a flare of anticipation heated his body. “Yes.” He flipped onto his back, and gripped the metal rungs of the bedhead.
Ava didn’t waste time. She straddled him and groaned as she felt her muscles expand around him again. “I want to stay like this forever,” she said, without thinking. It was true. In that moment, she wanted nothing more than a lifetime of this.
She moved quickly, wanting to drive him as crazy as he had her, and she was rewarded by his sharp intake of breath. But he didn’t release his grip on the bed. She leaned forward so that her breasts were pressed against his chest and she rotated her hips.
She was teasing him. It was only fair. Cristiano had delighted in sending her to the edge of pleasure and then bringing her back to earth. Again and again he’d driven her there. And now? She was repaying the favour.
“Fuck it,” he cried into the air and pulled his hands free, so that he could grab her hips and guide her as he needed her; as she needed to be directed.
“You lose,” she said triumphantly, but the words were swallowed by the wave of emotion.
“I win,” he corrected, holding her steady and bucking his hips hard. She cried out as a climax so intense it sent stars into her eyes began to fog her. She felt tears on her cheeks; she squeezed her eyes shut and let the magic wrap around her. Again he pushed deep inside of her, and she made a garbled sound of pleasure, before he chased after her, releasing his own tension with a sound of extreme relief.
She collapsed beside him, exhausted by the weight and intensity of what they’d shared.
Her eyes whispered shut of their own accord. “I think I’ll tie you up next time,” she murmured, one hand thrown over his chest.
Cristiano’s laugh was rich with true amusement. “Next time?”
“Well,” she murmured. “That felt like a beginning to me.”
“Indeed.” He was thoughtful. A week. It hardly seemed long enough.
Two days earlier, when he’d embarked on this journey back to a land he had such conflicting feelings about, he had anticipated seeing Ava. He had even wondered how he would feel. But he had never, in a thousand years, imagined that they would fall straight back into old patterns. That his need for her would return with such a vengeance.
“I should get up,” her voice was groggy. Her eyes were still shut. Ava was too tired to look for the clock. How much longer would Milly nap for?
“Soon,” he promised, transfixed by how beautiful she was in repose.
Her breathing was slow, her hand heavy on his chest. He angled his head towards her. She had fallen asleep; and so quickly that it spoke of true weariness. He thought of the night before. How they’d tortured one another’s bodies until late. She was tired, and so he let her sleep. He watched her rhythmic breathing and something strange happened inside his chest. He had never seen her asleep.
Back then, when they’d been together, it had always been forbidden – something they both knew instinctively that they needed to hide. Her sisters would have found out very quickly if he’d stayed in the house. And so he’d crept out after they’d been together; each time, without fail.
Now? He had the pleasure of watching her sleep for the first time, and he wanted to hold her tight.
He was on the brink of drifting off himself when a strange noise disturbed his satisfied, soporific state. A cry. No, a laugh. He frowned, and gently eased Ava’s arm off his chest.
It was coming from inside the house. Perhaps there was a television set on somewhere?
He stood up and pulled his jeans on, not bothering with underwear. If he had his way, he’d be coming right back to Ava for round two of their exploration.
His face was etched with a grin as he silently crept from the room. His whole philosophy in life was, and always had been, centred on pleasure. He went where the fun was. Where the pleasure was. And for the foreseeable future, that was wherever the heck Ava Henderson was.
The noise sounded again a moment later. This time he heard it more clearly. It was definitely in the house – and he guessed upstairs.
He moved there quickly. Though he hadn’t been in the house in years, he could remember it clearly. It had hardly changed. He pushed the door open, expecting to find a malfunctioning television or radio, and instead saw a child, standing at the edge of a cot.
It was impossible to say who was more surprised. They regarded one another with the same shocked silence. Only it was Cristiano who instantly understood the magnitude of what he was seeing.
He took a step inwards and crouched down, so that he could better analyse the little girl.
But it wasn’t necessary. She had his eyes. His mouth. His dark, swarthy complexion.
And it was in this way that Cristiano Barata discovered for himself that he was, in fact, a father.
5
It took him a long time to compose himself. He could barely take his eyes off the child, and every time he did, he felt a knife turning in his gut. She was him! Well, a mix of his heritage, at any rate. There was his mother’s dimple, in her chin. And his father’s permanently curious expression. The thick black hair was just like his had been in childhood, right down to the mop of luxuriant curls. Only her smile, so sweetly heart-shaped, reminded him of Ava at all.
And yet she’d grown this child in her body; her womb had housed this being. Proof of the love they’d once felt for another. And now, the child existed as evidence of Ava’s betrayal.
His fury was a force that consumed him bodily.
She had kept the existence of their child from him. If he hadn’t come back for Tom’s wedding, would she ever have told him?
Nausea perforated his being.
He was lost.
What could he do? She was contained in the cot. She was safe. He needed to confront Ava first. And that conversation was better done away from a child.
His brain sparked with the weight of a thousand questions, and a suspicion was forming in his mind.
He counted back the dates, and then closed
his eyes. Was this child the reason she had come to him in Rio? He had been so stubborn that day. He had been a fool. A foolish, childish, spurned shell of a man; hurting too much to give in to what he desperately wanted and see her again.
If he had?
He groaned into the quiet of the room. He couldn’t turn back the clock. And besides, that was only one time. She had many other means by which to contact him. She could have emailed him. Called him. Tried to see him again. This child was more than two years old. That was a long time of waking up and deciding not to tell him about his own flesh and blood.
His stomach turned over as he flashed his eyes open and saw the baby once more. She was staring at him with the same mixture of rapt fascination. Was it possible that she understood? That she saw something familiar in his face and bearing?
On instinct, he put his hands down, and wrapped them around her sturdy little body. She made a sound of happiness and then reached up to touch his cheek. “Who you?”
“A fascinating question, little one,” he said with a shake of his head. “Who you, more to the point.” He held her in front of him, one arm cupped beneath her, so that he could study her face in more detail.
She made a random connection of sounds, that was a little like mimilli.
“Shall we go find your mother?”
“Mamamama,” she agreed happily, lifting an arm and curling chubby little fingers around his neck. “Dah!” She pointed to the door and he laughed, despite the dark emotions that were inside of him.
He came down the stairs at the same time the reception door swung inwards. Ava’s helper, the young woman he’d seen bustling about the cottages earlier, stepped inside. Her cheeks were pink from the heat of the day. At the sight of Cristiano Barata, dressed only in a pair of low-slung jeans, with baby Milly on his hip, she froze.
The shock of seeing a stranger with the little girl drove away her ability to comprehend the similarities in their appearance. Besides, Marie hadn’t seen Cristiano up close before. She was not so intimately connected with the nuances of his looks to immediately join the dots.
“What are you doing?” She asked, evidently torn between a fear that this man was going to kidnap Milly, and a desire to retain a degree of politeness towards a guest. “Where’s Ava?”