Whywas he holding back from touching her? What had happened after their wedding? Because she’d spent the last twenty-four hours with her ego destroyed believing he didn’t want her any more but it seemed he did. So why was he over there doing nothing?
‘I can’t.’ But he edged closer, tension now streaming from him.
‘Why?’
‘You look exhausted,’ he growled. ‘You have since the wedding. You don’t need me making extra demands on you.’
A rush of relief swept through her but it didn’t diminish her anger. Those ‘demands’ were the sole personal benefit toherof this arrangement.
‘Why don’t you tryaskingme what I need instead of assuming that you know best,’ she growled back.
‘Can you be trusted to know what’s best for yourself? You didn’t even know you were pregnant.’
She glared at him. ‘Yeah, well, maybe I don’t need you to take care of me. Icantake care of myself.’ She widened her fingers, caressing her breasts, displaying her nipples to the air—and his fierce stare. ‘You didn’t have to sleep with me again just because you thought it would get me to agree to the wedding.’
‘What?’
‘It’s obviously all you wanted.’ she goaded. ‘You’ve kept your distance since easily enough.’
‘Because you’reexhausted,’ he argued harshly. ‘And it’s only been one night. And it’s been anything buteasy!’
The man was infuriating. He’d beenthinkingof her, but not communicating with her, and how could she be so pleased and so annoyed at the same time?
‘Well, it was a stupid idea,’ she flared. ‘I didn’t sleep at all last night and now I’m evenmoreexhausted.’
His eyes widened but his mouth suddenly twitched. ‘You need orgasms to get to sleep, that’s what you’re saying?’
‘I can get them on my own,’ she shrugged sulkily. ‘Don’t trouble yourself.’
He took three paces and wrapped his arms around her. A tremor wracked her body as he pressed hot and hard and huge behind her. She didn’t want to be wrapped in cotton wool or treated with kid gloves. And, honestly, he could justpleaseher.
‘Phoebe,’ he growled hotly, his teeth scraping her earlobe. ‘How could you—’
‘How couldyou?’ She slammed her hands on the mirror and pushed back against him.
‘This bikini…’ He shoved her bikini bottoms down and swept his hand up her inner thigh, testing her slickness and heat.
He didn’t need to. She was on fire—so very ready for all he could give her.
‘You—’ he growled, switching to Italian.
She didn’t know exactly what he said, but she knew to her bones it was dirty andhot. When she heard him unzip, she quivered—ridiculously close already. He nudged her feet further apart and slipped his fingers into her folds, intimately positioning her for his invasion.
‘How can you think I don’t want you?’ He thrust, burying deep inside her while not taking his gaze from hers in the mirror. ‘Never think I don’t want you. I can’tstopwanting you.’
But he wanted to. Frankly the physical need she felt for him was too much for her too only she couldn’t stop it either. She leveraged against the mirror and arched, locking him deeper, closing her eyes in the exquisite agony.
‘Eyes on me,’ he rasped.‘Look at me.’
Her eyelids fluttered. In the steamy reflection she saw his wildness—felt it in his fierce pumping, heard it in his throaty mutters of desire. It wasinsane. Pleasure wrung through her—wave after wave of untamed rapture.
‘I can’t get enough of you,’ he muttered, the admission almost desolate.
She was suspended somewhere between ecstasy and oblivion. He carried her to the sofa, kissed every curve of her body, filled her again—made her writhe and sigh and sweep her limbs around him. Desperately holding him closer and tighter, she sobbed, needing him nearer still. Until on the very edge of darkness she heard his gruff whisper.
‘Sleep, you need it.’
* * *
