‘Would you kiss me?’ she asked.
Maria didn’t know who was more surprised, Micha or herself.
But when the ghost of a smile traced his lips, she couldn’t bring herself to regret it.
His gaze flicked between her mouth and her eyes, before he gently took her lips with his. It was a sampling. A tasting. Atesting. And not even near enough to satiate her needs. Instead, it only inflamed her wants.
‘Again?’ she asked.
Once more, that ghost of a smile pulled at Micha’s lips, but this time when he went to claim her mouth, she met him halfway, half open, and then,then, it happened.
That kiss that she’d only ever shared with him. The rush ofeverythingshe felt when he touched her. Tongues entwined, lips locked, her hand reached to his nape, gently fisting the hair gathered there, determined to hold him to her should he try to end the kiss that fed maddening amounts of magic into her blood.
His hand reached for her hip, fisting her dress in his palm, flexing and pulling her against him, her chest pressed to his, the muscles of his toned body, the growl in his throat travelling straight to her core as he began to lose that incredible control he had over himself.
‘Again,’ she sighed against his lips before he could even think of pulling away.
He pulled her against him and it wasn’t enough to feel him between layers of clothes any more, just like it had never been enough to see him through layers of hurt and anger. She pulled at his shirt, tugging it from the waistband of his trousers, and he laughed a little and held her hand to stop her.
‘Shall we take this inside? Can I finally find a bed to lay you on?’
The plea in his voice was as irrefutable as the want and need in his gaze, in his touch.
‘God, yes, please,’ she replied, and he picked her up in his arms and stalked through the villa and into a suite set for the perfect honeymoon.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Micha hoped thatMaria couldn’t feel how his hands were shaking.Shaking!He wasn’t some naive uncouth boy, but she made him feel like that, in the sense that she took him back through time, to how itcouldhave been.Wouldhave been if Gio hadn’t sent him away and she’d not failed to come looking for him. He thrust those thoughts aside, ruthlessly. The past might have come to haunt him, but he couldn’t bring that into this place. Not now, not here.
He laid Maria gently on the bed, her hair fanning out and around her shoulders, the olive-green silk dress cast in light and shade as it draped against the dips and hollows of her body, her breasts, her chest, her hips, her thighs… He couldn’t stop looking. As if he couldn’t quite believe she was here.
There’d been so much chaos in his mind in Paris, a little bit of confusion, a lot of surprise and a sense of completely overwhelming heady desire. But this? This felt different. This felt intentional, careful, considered and he was at peace with that. He was at peace with her. And that felt…more than it probably should.
Maria bit her lip, the nervous gesture bringing him back to the present. He didn’t want her to feel a second’s hesitation or doubt. Or was that actually true? Did he want her to think this through and still want to be here? With him? Wearing his ring? Carrying their child?
The thought melted the barriers he’d built around his heart, brick by brick in the days, weeks and months that had followed his first move to Paris all those years ago. As he’d waited for her to come to him. Because he could see now that they were here, shehadeventually come to him. And that would have to be enough. Because he could no longer deny his feelings for her. Feelings that had never once gone away.
He picked up her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm, before coming to lie beside her on the bed, half content just to be there with her. He allowed himself the luxury of taking in the changes that the years had made. The lean lines her face had become, the startling light honeyed brown gaze watching him watch her.
‘You have always been, and always will be, the most beautiful woman I ever know.’
Her mouth parted, as if in surprise at the softness of his words, but no sound came out. He gently pushed back a corkscrew curl from her forehead, and traced the curve of her cheek, the side of her neck, the hollow of her throat and across her collarbone.
Her body came alive beneath his, as if his touch were the strings of a puppeteer and he wanted to gather her to him and justinhaleher. As if he could consume her, possess her, until they became one. He’d never wanted anyone like this. He’d been half terrified of his feelings eleven years ago, and was still half scared of them now. But he had to move past that fear if they were going to have any hope of the relationship he sometimes caught glimpses of in the deepest parts of his soul. A knowing of what they could be. Something so good and so pure, he wasn’t sure he was worthy of it.
She looked at him then, something like sympathy in her gaze.
She raised her hand and mirrored the tour his fingers had taken, as she traced a fingertip over his hairline and skin. But her hand swept to his neck and pulled him towards her, and he swore he heard her whisper again, before his lips closed over hers.
He was hers to command.
Again and again and again he kissed her.
Chaste. Worshipful. Adoring. Enlightening.
Sighs not of surrender, but of yearning and want fell between them as he indulged them both, not in fast greedy grabs, but in easy, unhurried strokes and lingering tastes. Slowly, one by one, he unbuttoned her dress, slipping the silk tie around her waist and tossing it aside, even as it put erotic thoughts into his mind for the future. This, tonight, was something special. It was how that first timeshouldhave been between them.
He placed his hand over the silk of the skirt and stroked it up her legs, the satiny glide of the material over her smooth skin a delight to them both. Micha placed kisses to the stomach he bared to his gaze and touch and smiled as she squirmed in delight, breathy half laughs that were innocent and expectant, and lingering over the gentle swell of the child they had created together. Their eyes met as softness sank into something more. Something serious. As if they both knew how much this moment meant to the other, how important it was.
