The Wedding Party And Holiday Escapes Ultimate Collection. Кейт Хьюит

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       CHAPTER EIGHT

      THEY HAD FIVE days in California, five days of seeing the sights and enjoying each other’s company and each other’s bodies. Making love.

      That was what it felt like to Sandro, what it was. He was falling in love with his wife, with the warm woman who had broken through the coldness and the ice.

      Looking at her as they strolled down the pier in Santa Monica, Sandro could hardly believe Liana was the same coolly composed woman he’d met two months ago. She wore a sundress in daffodil yellow, her pale hair streaming about her shoulders, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed. She looked incandescent.

      Her step slowed as she glanced at him, her brow wrinkling. ‘You’re giving me a funny look.’

      ‘Am I?’

      ‘Do I have ice cream on my face or something?’ She’d been eating a chocolate ice cream with the relish usually exhibited by a small child, and every long lick had desire arrowing inside him and making him long to drag her back to his house and make love to her in yet another room. So far they’d christened his study, his bedroom, the shower, the beach, and the front hall when they’d been in too much of a rush to get any farther inside. At this rate, Santa Monica pier would be next, and damn the crowds.

      ‘I’m just enjoying watching you eat your ice cream.’

      ‘Is it really that fascinating?’ She laughed and Sandro felt himself go hard as she took another lick, her pink tongue swiping at the chocolate with a beguiling innocence.

      ‘Trust me, it is.’

      She faltered midlick as she took in the hotness of his gaze, and then with an impish little smile she leaned forward and gave him a chocolatey kiss. ‘That’s to tide you over till later.’

      ‘How much later?’

      ‘I want to walk to the end of the pier.’

      Sandro groaned and took her arm. ‘You’re going to kill me, woman.’

      ‘You’ll die with a smile on your face, though.’

      ‘Or else a grimace of agony because you’re too busy enjoying your ice cream to satisfy your husband.’

      She arched her eyebrows in mock innocence. ‘I believe I satisfied my husband twice today already, and it’s not even noon. I think you might need to talk to a doctor.’

      ‘I might,’ he agreed. ‘Or maybe you just need to stop eating ice cream in front of me.’ And then because he couldn’t keep himself from it any longer, he pulled her towards him and kissed her again, deeper this time, more than just something to tide him over until he could get her alone.

      The ice-cream cone dangled from Liana’s fingers and then fell to the pier with a splat as she kissed him back, looping her arms around his neck to draw his body against her pliant softness, and he very nearly lost his head as everything in him ached to finish what they’d started right there, amidst the rollerbladers and sun-worshippers.

      And Liana must have agreed with him, because she kept kissing him, with all the enthusiasm he could ever want from a woman.

      A woman he was falling in love with, and damn if he didn’t want to stop.

      A flashbulb going off made him ease back. The paparazzi hadn’t bothered them too much since they’d arrived in LA; there were enough famous people in this town to make Sandro, thankfully, just another celebrity. But having his hands all over his wife in public was front-page fodder for sure.

      ‘Sorry,’ he said, and eased back. ‘That’s going to be in the papers, I’m afraid.’

      ‘I don’t care,’ Liana answered blithely. ‘We’re married, after all.’ She glanced down at their feet. ‘But you’d better buy me another ice cream.’

      ‘Not a chance.’ Sandro tugged her by the hand back down the pier. ‘I won’t be answerable for my actions if I do.’

      Several hours later they were lying in his bed—they’d made it there eventually, after christening another room of his beach house, this time the kitchen—legs and hands entwined, the mellow afternoon sunlight slanting over them.

      And as much as Sandro never wanted any of it to end, he knew it had to.

      ‘I’ve finished up with DT,’ he said, sliding a hand along the smooth tautness of Liana’s belly. ‘We should return to Maldinia tomorrow.’

      ‘Tomorrow?’ He heard the dismay in her voice and then she sighed in acceptance, putting her hand over his and lacing her fingers through СКАЧАТЬ