Chapter Six
TABBY SURFACED SHUDDERING and gasping for breath, her last recollection of trying to intervene after her father had struck her mother to the floor and, while he was still ranting, returned to kick her.
‘It’s only a dream,’ Aristide murmured softly.
‘No, it was a memory of Dad beating up Mum and me trying to stop him,’ she muttered shakily.
‘And how did that go?’ Aristide prompted in a strained undertone.
‘I got kicked too,’ she mumbled wretchedly. ‘But he backed off after that.’
‘What age were you?’
‘Seven, eight… I’m not sure,’ she admitted. ‘I’ve never told anyone about that before. I was in bed and I heard him shouting and I got up. I should’ve known better—’
Aristide expelled his breath in an audible hiss. ‘No, he’s the one who should have known better when he saw his child in his way. But then he should not have been hurting either you or your mother.’
Aristide cradled her in his big, strong arms as he sat on the bed and she had never felt safer in her life.
Dimly she recognised that was always, always what she had sought from a male: that he would be there for her when she needed him, that he would understand that she was softer inside than her prickly exterior implied.
And then, most of all, that he would make those connections without thinking she was somehow less.
The scent of Aristide, forest-fresh air with a hint of sea salt, engulfed her and she breathed in deep, firmly resisting the urge to snuggle, aware of the hard male contours of his lean, fit body against her.
‘What are you wearing?’ she whispered.
‘Nothing. I was getting undressed and then you were crying out and I wanted to wake you out of that dream,’ he murmured lazily. ‘And what are you wearing? Something silky and small.’
Long fingers tugged at the hem of her shorts and she shrank inside her light vest top, her nipples tightening and pushing forward at the awareness that he was naked.
‘Rather cruel and tempting considering I’m the guy you were set on sentencing to the couch,’ Aristide opined huskily.
‘You weren’t here. I wasn’t thinking of what I was wearing,’ she protested truthfully. ‘Anyway, I wasn’t really planning to make you sleep on the couch. I was just annoyed with you.’
‘You smell delicious, angelos mou,’ Aristide breathed thickly. ‘I think I’d better return you to bed.’
Rising, he threw back the sheet and slotted her into place, throwing the sheet over her.
Without that physical contact, she felt cold and then he climbed in beside her and she relaxed again as he drew her into his warmth.
In a sudden movement, she squirmed round and put her arms round him, her mouth instinctively seeking and finding his.
And just as suddenly, she was pinned beneath him and he was kissing her breathless, heat darting to the heart of her and stirring a tight, intolerable ache.
Aristide released her swollen mouth and lifted his dark, curly head. ‘You’re impulsive,’ he pointed out, as if she weren’t already conscious of that failing. ‘I was sentenced to the couch…remember?’
‘I’m not impulsive—’
‘You so are. I have to know that you want me and that this isn’t some impulse you’ll start regretting at dawn,’ he decreed.
‘I always want you,’ Tabby admitted as if that was so obvious that it should go without saying.
‘And I never stopped wanting you,’ Aristide growled.
‘Has there been anyone else or several someone elses for you since that night?’ she asked, even though she knew that she wasn’t being fair demanding an answer to that question when they had parted as enemies without any kind of future even seeming possible.
‘There’s been nobody since you,’ Aristide admitted after a lengthy pause, brilliant eyes glimmering dark in the moonlight. ‘But that isn’t a fair question—’
‘I know,’ she agreed without regret. ‘But I had to know. I’m possessive. I don’t share—’
‘Neither do I,’ Aristide growled, returning to worry at her parted lips with his lips, the edge of his teeth and then the deep plunge of his tongue, his hunger unhidden and thoroughly stimulating.
‘Did I ever tell you how much I like the way you kiss?’ she asked breathlessly.
‘No. You can tell me tomorrow over a late breakfast. I think we are both due a very late breakfast,’ Aristide positively purred, the vibration of his deep dark drawl travelling down her taut spine, filtering intrinsically into softer, warmer places.
He settled her on the bed and leant over her, all hard profile and dominance in the low light. ‘Have you any idea how sexy it is that you’re carrying my children?’
As a big hand splayed possessively across her abdomen, Tabby blinked and shook her head.
‘Sexy?’ she queried in disbelief because, to date, pregnancy had not felt sexy to her.
It had meant tiredness and nausea and the irritatingly strong rise of hormones that craved Aristide and his lean, hard body round the clock, something that torture would not have persuaded her to admit.
‘It makes me feel proud, possessive, territorial, angelos mou,’ Aristide husked. ‘When I entered that bakery and saw another man fondling your hand—’
‘What other man?’ she exclaimed.
‘The guy in the chef outfit—’
‘Oh, you mean Luca, Violet’s replacement baker. He’s harmless,’ she assured him without concern. ‘He flirts with every female around him and he’s ridiculously touchy-feely.’
‘You need to crush that tendency in him. He’ll land you with a sexual harassment issue,’ Aristide forecast.
Tabby loosed a startled laugh and reached up a hand to cup his hard cheekbone.
‘Aristide, all the female staff, no matter what their age, adore Luca because he makes them feel good, he makes them feel interesting. He’s a genuinely nice person and you don’t meet as many of those as you would like to. ’
‘But you won’t be there any more for him to flirt with,’ Aristide affixed, clearly happy at that development. ‘You’re out of bounds now.’
‘Oh, really?’
For the next two weeks, she was thinking.
‘I’m the only guy allowed to flirt with you,’ Aristide told her.
‘Oh, I don’t think that’s going to work,’ she warned with helpless amusement. ‘Sometimes a little flirting is what makes the day go around a little faster.’
‘Not for you,’ Aristide asserted, nuzzling his jaw against the soft silk screening her aching breasts. She could feel her nipples, tight as buds, straining for attention.
The warmth of his mouth enclosed a pulsing bud below the thin silk and she shuddered, sudden excitement claiming her at even that slight touch.
‘And what do I get in return for not flirting?’ she dared to gasp as he lifted his head again.
‘Me and bragging rights,’ Aristide quipped with a lazy, wildly engaging grin. ‘Only you can pin me down.’
‘That’s you assuming that I want to pin you down,’ Tabby murmured. ‘But just like you, that first night I was only after one stolen experience, only we both got more than we bargained for out of it.’
‘Why did you only want that?’ he demanded.
‘Think about it. I didn’t want this contracted stranger of a husband to become my first lover,’ she argued ruefully. ‘It was a stupid, short-sighted move and I soon regretted it—’
‘I don’t,’ Aristide imparted, lifting the vest top off over her head, quickly sliding his attention to her slender hips and skimming down the fabric there as well. ‘I met you and I have not a single regret.’
‘Seriously?’ Tabby gazed up at him in wonder at that statement. ‘But you must have regrets. You didn’t want children—’
‘It would be more accurate to say that hurt pride made me deny any desire for children of my own,’ Aristide contradicted, lowering his dark tousled head to find the pert buds of her full breasts.
Just as quickly, the concept of talking vanished from Tabby’s mind as the erotic invitation of his teasing mouth caught and played with her swollen pink nipples and his lean fingers joined in the torture.
Her body writhed under him of its own volition.
She was like a touch paper set alight, need burning through her like an arrow, sharp and unsatisfied.
She had wanted him for what felt like for ever and now suddenly he was there and nothing could happen fast enough to answer that fierce craving for sensation.
Aristide was intuitive. It was as though he were inside her head, knowing the extent of her desire, working though that to a painfully slow degree down her body to find all the most sensitive spots.
She couldn’t stay still, racked by hunger and intense urgency.
He parted her slender quivering thighs, traced the heart of her with teasing fingertips when she was already too far beyond that stage.
As his touch glanced across her swollen clit, she went off like a rocket into an orgasm that shot through her like white lightning, momentarily stilling her before her body jerked and convulsed in pleasure.
Unperturbed, Aristide continued to dally there, utilising his mouth and his tongue and his long fingers with a finesse that sent her shooting a second time into orbit, a deep flush drenching her cheeks as she thought of how easily she had responded and the depth of the need that she had exposed.
He had been quite correct when he had accused her of being impulsive, she acknowledged unhappily.
She had not even thought about what would happen if she ended up having sex with Aristide again.
But did that matter any more? They didn’t need a label, she told herself.
They were both single and committed only to their unborn children.
Perhaps friendship would’ve been a wiser option but there was little chance of a platonic relationship developing while they were still so wildly attracted to each other.
He held her against him while she still trembled and gasped and struggled for breath. A lean hand ran down the damp curve of her hip and her heartbeat started to edge up in pace again. ‘Do you want a break or may I continue?’