by Emma Darcy
He lifted his head, his clear grey eyes mirroring intense sexual satisfaction.
She smiled, lifting her hand to stroke his cheek. “I’m not disappointed, either.”
His mouth stretched into a wide lecherous grin. “You, my darling wife, are a tiger. And let me give you an open invitation to eat me any time you like.”
“Thank you.” Her eyes flirted teasingly with his. “I love the way you fill me up.”
He laughed, heaving himself off her. “Guess we should be making a move.” His eyes sparkled with happy anticipation. “Tonight, I’m going to eat you, Peta Davis.”
“Ah...a consuming passion.” She squirmed provocatively. “I’ll look forward to it.”
He hauled her up and caught her against him, his hands sliding down to cup her bottom, gently squeezing her soft flesh. “Thank you for this,” he said gruffly.
“A mutual pleasure,” she answered, winding her arms around his neck.
She kissed him. He kissed her. It was like champagne after strawberries and cream, and Peta wallowed in the sweet intoxication of it, wanting to lose herself in him. It worked until it ended.
Then it was necessary to deal with practical realities. It was lucky there was an ensuite bathroom where they could wash and tidy up. They had to get dressed and face their guests again, take their leave of them.
Peta assured herself she could do it with confidence now. She would respond happily to her parents’ good wishes and her brothers’ good-humoured teasing, and she would look Megan straight in the eye and defy her sister’s doubts. She’d chosen right. She was going to enjoy every minute of her honeymoon.
They cleared up the change room, then looked at each other with a delicious sense of guilty pleasure. “Ready?” Matt asked, his eyes simmering over the slinky knit suit she had donned.
She returned the sexy appraisal, proud to be this man’s wife. Even in his dark grey suit, Matt would turn any woman’s head. “Where are you going to start?” she asked.
“What?” His gaze clung to her breasts.
“Eating me.”
He laughed, his eyes dancing with pleasure. “Why do you want to know?”
“So I can think about it.”
“Toes,” he said. “Definitely toes. While I think about what else is waiting for me.”
Her stomach flipped over and her toes started curling. “Okay, I’m ready,” she declared. With orgasmic toes on her mind, goodbyes would be a breeze.
Matt took her hand and together they went back to the reception room to complete their last wedding duties.
They were married.
Next step...children.
And making them would be no hardship.
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE last night of their honeymoon...
The best two weeks of his life, Matt thought. No question. Far North Queensland was the perfect escape from the cold winter in Sydney and The Mirage Resort at Port Douglas had been an inspired choice, given that Peta hadn’t wanted to travel outside Australia. Golf, tennis, swimming, snorkelling off the Great Barrier Reef, whitewater rafting through tropical rainforest...they’d done it all, each beautiful sunny day lived to the full, and the nights...ah, the nights...
He sat back with his glass of wine and watched Peta pick through the last of the coral trout on her plate. They’d chosen to come into town and dine at Portofino’s, a fine Italian restaurant in the main street, a more casual, intimate setting than the hotel provided. Their table was in a corner of its courtyard, shadowed by the heavily foliaged branches of a mango tree. It was a soft balmy evening and Peta had worn an orange sundress. She glowed in the candlelight.
Matt could hardly believe his luck in having met her—met her and married her. She was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman; fun company, great to play with, enjoying the challenge and the thrill of all the activities they’d shared, very much a matching partner...especially in bed. He’d never had such great sex. Nor so often. He only had to look at her—think of her—to be turned on and she was wickedly, wonderfully uninhibited about encouraging him, not to mention pleasuring him as thoroughly as he hoped he pleasured her.
Her lightly tanned skin gleamed like satin. He had to restrain himself from reaching out to run his fingertips over it. The bodice of her dress was moulded to her figure, the neckline low enough to reveal a tantalising cleavage. He knew she wasn’t wearing a bra and he started to get hard, remembering how she’d drawn him into that soft valley and pushed her breasts together, laughingly telling him he was trapped in a landslide.
Matt sipped the cold white wine and forced himself to relax. The night was young. Peta had said she fancied a dessert after her fish—something sweet and sinfully full of calories. Racing her off before her appetite was satisfied would be selfish. He wanted her to have everything she wanted, especially this last night.
“Enjoy it?” he asked as she sat back from her meal with a satisfied sigh.
“Truly superb. Perfectly cooked. Was your fettuccine good?”
“Fine.”
As he took the bottle of wine out of the cooler and leaned across to refill her glass, he spotted a woman with a flower basket offering single red roses, trying to interest the male diners into buying one for their ladies. The romantic gesture appealed to Matt, something a little special on the last night of their honeymoon. Having topped up Peta’s wine, he replaced the bottle and signalled the woman over, taking out his wallet in readiness.
“How much?” he asked, not caring what it cost.
“Five dollars, sir,” came the smiling answer.
“No, Matt...” Peta jack-knifed forward to halt the purchase, grabbing his arm, waving an agitated dismissal to the seller, her eyes sharp with rejection. “Please don’t!”
“Why not?” Her protest made no sense to him.
She looked at a loss for a moment, then seized on a reason. “It would be a waste. We’re leaving in the morning.”
“It’s only one rose,” he argued. “I want you to have it.”
“No. It’s silly,” she insisted.
“Oh, I don’t know.” He handed the woman a five dollar note and took the rose, smiling at Peta as he leaned forward and trailed the soft petals down her bare arm. “I can think of some uses for it.”
She recoiled, as though her skin crawled from the caress. Her eyes flared with hot hatred.
Matt froze, stunned by her reaction.
She huddled back in her chair, hugging her arms, clearly stressed, her gaze flicking away from his, lashes lowering to hide her expression.
Very slowly he laid the offending rose on the table and eased back in his chair, feeling her tension like a knife in his gut. He didn’t understand what he’d done wrong. A bit of playful sensuality should have been harmless fun. They’d toyed with teasing suggestiveness many times, enjoying it.
“Peta?” he called softly, hating the sense of separation that had sliced between them.
She rubbed her arms as though she was suddenly cold. The temperature of the night hadn’t changed. The difference came from inside her...mental, emotional, physical? Matt was totally bewildered by it, and she wasn’t answering, her eyes still downcast, her face closed to him.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I told you I didn’t want it,” she excused herself in a tight little voice.
Their waitress arrived to collect their plates. Seeing a way out of the contretemps, Matt quickly picked up the rose and handed it to her. “Take this, too,” he commanded.
It surprised her. “For me?”
“Yes.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
The natural response, making Peta’s seem even more unnatural. The waitress gave her a questioning look which wasn’t met and promptly left them to a cleared table, scooting away from any argument.
“It’s gone,” he stated matter-of-factly, trying to lower the wall Peta had wrapped around herself.
She dragged in a deep breath and rele
ased it in a long, shuddering sigh. He could see the effort it cost her to lift her gaze to his and there was pain in her eyes. “I don’t want you to ever give me roses, Matt.”
“May I ask why not?”
She winced and looked down again. “They’re used...wrongly. They bring back bad memories. I don’t want to feel that way. Not with you.”
The Latin lover! Her description of that affair sliced into Matt’s mind...surprises, romantic settings, lovely gifts. He’d probably showered her with flowers, maybe even using them in making love to her. Two years of it, leading to nothing but bitter disillusionment! And she was still bleeding from him!
The knife in Matt’s gut twisted. Was all they’d shared since their wedding a pretence on her side? Didn’t it mean anything to her? Why did she have to bring him into it?
Anger spurted over the angst she’d stirred. Where was the clean slate he’d offered her? Just because that cheating bastard had given her roses, did that mean he couldn’t, not even out of genuine feeling for her? Couldn’t she see the difference? She wore his wedding ring, for God’s sake!
He could feel his face tightening, his whole body screwing up at the violation to his feelings for her. “I don’t care to have roses banned from our life, Peta,” he bit out, barely able to hold back a jealous tirade.
It galvanised her attention. She stared at him for several long tension-ridden moments. Finally she said, “Red roses are supposed to symbolise love, Matt.” As though suddenly conscious of her guarded posture, she unfolded her arms and rested her hands on the table, palms open in a gesture of appeal as she wryly added, “That’s not what we have, is it?”
He stared back at her, jolted into a painful realisation that her view of their relationship did not encompass any sense of him being someone uniquely special for her. “What do we have, Peta?” he asked quietly, feeling he was treading the edge of a precipice and there was a deep black chasm right in front of him.
Her mouth moved into an ironic little smile. “You said it yourself...a marriage of convenience...for the sake of having a family.”
The reasoning he’d used to get her...handed straight back to him. Never mind that it was eight weeks on. For her, nothing had changed. Nothing at all. While for him... He struggled to put it in perspective. Quite simply...the world had moved.
Matt hauled himself away from the chasm created by the rage of his own feelings. As much as he now recoiled from the logical reality of what he had proposed to Peta, it was safe ground, he fiercely told himself, a stable platform from which he could work forward.
She was his wife. He’d won that much. She’d just made it plain—once more—that she didn’t love him, and he could hardly blame her for her honesty. It hurt. It hurt more than he’d ever imagined it could. He could barely contain it. Yet he had to. It wouldn’t be fair to take his disappointment out on Peta, simply because he’d expected more than she was ready to give. He’d assumed too much, colouring her feelings with his own.
Time...
Matt clung to time as the answer to his need.
Forget the Latin lover.
Jealousy would only erode the togetherness that was possible between them. It wasn’t an easy thing to discard emotional baggage, even though it didn’t relate to anything he’d done to her. He had to be patient, give her time for it to fade into the background, keep her mind occupied with all that was good in their marriage.
Her hands moved to lie flat on the table. She stroked a finger over the rings he’d given her. Her face was grave, sad. It squeezed his heart.
“I’m sorry, Matt.” She lifted regretful eyes. “I’ve spoilt tonight, haven’t I?”
He cursed the impulse that had shattered his illusions. Yet wasn’t it better for his blinkers to be ripped off before he made other foolish assumptions? Accept what you have and do your best with it, he silently commanded.
The will to recover what had been lost prompted a shrug and a smile. “My mistake.” He couldn’t stop himself from adding hopefully, “All we’ve shared this past fortnight...it just didn’t feel like a convenience to me.”
He waved dismissively, not wanting it to sound like an accusation, putting her under pressure to reply.
She relaxed back in her chair and he saw her gather the determination to move past this fracture. She wanted to mend it. The wish—the need—was in her eyes as she tried a teasing smile. “Mutual lust can go a long way.”
Matt snatched up the ball and ran with it. “And highly pleasurable it is, too.” He managed an appreciative grin.
“It’s been a wonderful honeymoon, Matt,” she pressed on with a rush of warmth. “We’ve had so much fun.”
“I’ve enjoyed every minute of it,” he rolled out with relish.
“Me, too. Especially the whitewater rafting. Though it was so scary at one point my heart was in my mouth.”
Matt effected a quizzical look. “Have I pushed you further than you wanted to go?”
She laughed and shook her head.
They bantered on, recalling the high moments they’d shared, doing their utmost to recapture the mood of taking pleasure in each other, pushing the bad stuff behind them.
But for Matt, it didn’t go away, no matter how hard he worked at it. He sensed it didn’t go away for Peta, either. They covered it up but it lay underneath everything they said and did, a dark area overlaid with bubble and froth.
Peta forced herself to eat the cheesecake she’d ended up ordering because they were pretending so hard that everything was all right.
But it wasn’t all right.
She’d hurt him.
Hurt him because of what Giorgio had done to her, because she’d believed in Giorgio’s roses...and she was a fool. Matt was innocent of any falseness. He’d given her the substance of marriage, committed himself fully to making it work and she’d slapped him down for wanting to give a token of his pleasure in her.
It was mean...it was wrong...though however mean and wrong it was, she could not have borne Matt using the rose as a sensual aid in their intimacy. Impossible to forget that Giorgio had done precisely the same thing. She didn’t want the memory of him in bed with her and Matt. She didn’t want the memory of him anywhere in her marriage.
Yet she’d just put it there with her revulsion to the caress of the rose. And the explanation she’d felt compelled to give.
The whole incident had happened so fast, it had caught her unprepared, reacting instead of realising the effect of such a reaction on Matt. Now the damage was done and couldn’t be undone. She could see it in his eyes, despite the cheerful facade he’d done his best to adopt.
She’d hurt him.
She’d hurt their relationship which she’d come to value very highly these past two weeks. What they had together was good, much better than... cheesecake!
Giorgio had thrown sweets at her for two years.
The cheesecake sickened her.
The guilt and shame churning through her stomach would not accept any more sweets. She wanted what Matt gave her... the solid bread and butter of friendship, caring, consideration of her needs and wants, and she wanted to give the same back to him.
She put down the spoon.
“Not to your liking?” Matt asked.
She met his inquiring gaze squarely. “I’d rather have you.”
His carefully constructed composure cracked and desire leapt out at her.
Peta’s heart lifted. “Let’s get out of here, Matt, and go back to the hotel.”
“I won’t argue with that,” he said with a fervour that told her he shared the need to wipe out any third person from their marriage.
Peta vowed she would make him forget everything but the two of them...together. It was the last night of their honeymoon. It belonged to them.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“IT’S your wife, Matt,” his secretary informed, aware he’d been hanging on this call for the past hour, his concentration on work shot to pieces this morning.
He snat
ched up the telephone. “Peta?” His voice had climbed with anticipation and he cursed himself for it. If she was disappointed...
“I’m pregnant!”
“The blood test was positive?”
“Absolutely. No doubt about it.”
Relief spurted into joy. “That’s great, Peta! Great!”
“We’re going to have a baby, Matt.”
The happiness in her voice bubbled through him like a champagne cocktail. “It’s wonderful news! The best!” Elation topped it off. They’d done it! First hit! Only five weeks since their wedding day and Peta was positively pregnant. “How do you feel?” he asked, grinning from ear to ear.
“So excited I could burst. I can’t wait to tell everyone.”
“Where are you now?”
“Still at the doctor’s office.”
Matt wished he was with her but she’d insisted he go to work, saying it was silly to take time off when her missed period might only be a hiccup in her normal cycle. Matt suspected she’d been protecting herself against his disappointment. They’d both been riding high on hope this past week.
“I’m going home now to spread the good news,” she crowed triumphantly. “I’ll let you tell your mother, Matt.”
He laughed. No doubt she’d be on the telephone for hours. “I’ll come home early. This calls for a celebration. We’ll go out for dinner.”
“No. Let’s eat in. I’ll buy something special and we’ll have an intimate dinner for three. You, me and our first child.”
Her sigh brimmed with heartfelt satisfaction. Matt felt a tightness in his chest himself. “A family celebration,” he said huskily. “I’ll bring the very best champagne.”
“That would be lovely,” she enthused. “’Bye for now.”
Gone before he could hold her talking to him longer. Some of the fizz died with the disconnection but Matt assured himself it would return in full measure this evening. A happy celebration. The happiest. A baby gave them a very solid footing for their marriage to go forward.
Not that it wasn’t highly satisfactory already. No man in his right mind could knock mutual lust and there’d been plenty of it since the night of the rose incident. For a brief niggling moment, he wondered if Peta’s desire for him would ease off now she had what she most wanted. Was he just a stud to her?