The Christmas Baby's Gift

And still he waited.

‘Liam!’

It was more impatient now. Very definitely a protest. The smile grew, became a wicked, beguiling grin that he knew she must feel against her cheek. They were so close, so very close.

‘Yes, sweetheart?’ he murmured softly, and saw her deep blue eyes fly open at the calculated provocation of the word.

He met the indigo burn of her gaze head-on, fixing and holding it so that there was no way she could look away, look anywhere but directly into his eyes.

‘Our truth,’ he said, low and huskily, and saw the surrender in her eyes before she even had a chance to open her mouth.

‘Our truth,’ she whispered on a note of submission, a note that yielded the victory to him—at least in this battle, if not the entire war.

And for Liam it was enough. It was all that he had been waiting for. If he was honest with himself, he couldn’t have held out for a moment longer. The force of his desire was like a fire in his blood, the ache in his loins threatening to drive all hope of control from his mind, push him into the sort of wild behaviour that left no room for thought or consideration. And it took every last trace of control that he possessed to kiss her just once more before he made the movement they had both been waiting for.

Up and away, towards his chest.

A twist, a tiny tug, and the white towelling fell to the floor, pooling on the carpet at their feet. In the same instant the soft, heated weight of her breasts tumbled free and he held them securely, one in each of his hands, the whiteness of her skin shocking against the darker tones of his fingers.

The truth, Peta thought, adrift on a sea of wanting. Of need.

Our truth.

The truth was that they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Hadn’t been able to from the start, and still couldn’t now. And so she had known that as soon as he touched her she was lost. That the wild, primitive pin-pricks of fire that started all over her skin would swiftly merge into one total, blazing conflagration that would take control of her, leave her totally at its mercy. And when he kissed her she felt the response deep inside, where everything tightened, tensed, woke to stinging need.

His hands against her breasts and the touch of his mouth on her skin was turning her blood molten, making it pound fiercely in her veins. All the fears, all the doubts of the day, of only moments before, had evaporated, burned up in the blaze of heat inside her.

‘Want me?’

It was a low, husky whisper against the curve of her ear, his breath feathering against her skin. And as he spoke his hands were working a wicked, tormenting magic, thumbs describing tiny, erotic circles over the delicate surface, moving closer and closer to the tight pink nipple, making her shiver in convulsive delight.

‘Want me?’ he said again. And when she didn’t answer he punished her by closing a finger and thumb over each straining bud, tugging softly until she moaned aloud in a conflict of rebellion and abandonment.

‘Peta?’

‘What do you think?’

She was incapable of answering in any other way. Incapable of hiding her feelings from him. Incapable of pretending she felt anything more than the yearning, demanding hunger that had uncoiled deep inside her and was throbbing uncontrollably, low down in her body.

‘I think…’

There was a tremor in his voice that revealed the struggle he too was having to keep control over his powerful physical feelings.

‘I think that I’m wearing rather too many clothes for this. Why don’t you help me out of some, hmm?’

And when she turned faintly confused, passion-blurred eyes on him, frowning in an effort to drag her thoughts back from the erotic paths they were following, he grinned and then kissed her again, tugging his tie free at his throat as he did so. Discarding the sliver of silk somewhere over his shoulder, he lifted Peta’s hands, laid them on his chest, just on the button band of his shirt.

‘Help me…’ he whispered again.

But this time Peta needed no further urging. As soon as her fingers touched the soft linen of his shirt, felt the heat of his skin, the hardness of bone, the power of muscle, she was suddenly in the grip of a desperate hunger. She knew she couldn’t rest until she could touch him, really touch him. Until she could feel his body without the barrier of any form of clothing between them at all.

And so she fumbled and wrenched at the small, pearly buttons, snatching them open, tugging, until one finally spun away to land with a small clatter somewhere on the nearby dressing table.

But neither Peta nor Liam saw it go. Or cared where it fell. They were both intent on getting rid of as many clothes as possible, as quickly as possible, no thought for anything else.

Liam had already kicked off his shoes, yanked open his belt. He paused only for a moment as Peta slid down his zip, peeled the elegant trousers over his hips and down the muscular length of his legs. Even as he freed himself from their clinging coils round his ankles she had made her way back up his body, hooking her thumbs into the sides of the black shorts, easing them away from the heat and pressure of his fierce erection.

Liam’s breath hissed in again sharply and he froze instinctively. The instant reaction made Peta bold, erasing all the insecurity and the uncertainty that his earlier negative response had created. Pausing mid-movement, she looked up at him, blue eyes gleaming, a provocative smile tilting the corners of her mouth.

‘No?’ she teased, making as if to undo her action and let the fine cotton fall back into place.

‘You dare!’

Liam’s voice was low and rough, thick with the hunger that had scored two streaks of colour along his broad, slanting cheekbones.

‘You witch!’ he added even more rawly as she still hesitated, delighting in the power she had to reduce this big, strong, and normally totally self-contained man to this state of yearning need.

‘So now I’m a witch, am I?’ She laughed, never taking her eyes from the darkness of his. ‘Well, if that’s the case, then perhaps I should put you under a spell.’

‘You already have, and you know it! Peta…’

His control was slipping fast. And, if he only knew it, so was hers. Her pulse was pounding so hard that her head felt light, her thoughts swimming. She wanted to take his mouth again, to taste him on her lips, on her tongue. She wanted him to enfold her in his arms, to take her down onto the bed with him, cover her with the hard weight of his body, fill her, take her—take her with him to the fulfilment they both knew was the inevitable, the only end of this shivering excitement.

And yet, at the same moment, she wanted to delay. Wanted to hold onto this thrill of anticipation for as long as she could, so that that fulfilment, when it came, would be beyond anything she had ever known before.

But, even as she hesitated, Liam took matters out of her control. Capturing her wrists in his hard grip, he held both of them prisoner easily in one hand while his other arm scooped her up off her feet and swung her over onto the bed, dropping her down onto the softness of the covers. While she was still recovering from having her breath snatched away by the suddenness of his response, he dispensed with what little remained of his clothing and came down beside her, pulling her roughly towards him.