Christmas Child

by Diana Hamilton

  She negotiated the length of the sprawling white villa and turned onto the sweep of emerald-green grass. He could have gone inside by the main entrance, but somehow she didn’t think so.

  The heat seemed oppressive now and her T-shirt was sticking to her body. She pushed her hair out of her eyes with the back of one hand and glanced around. Twin stone pillars marked the transition between the driveway and the track that led, she guessed, down to the small village and harbour she’d seen from the helicopter yesterday. He would hardly have gone that way, dressed as he was.

  Mattie headed seawards. A short flight of wooden steps led down to the sheltered cove. The silvery sand curved in a crescent, an empty crescent. The fluttering inside her subsided to a dull ache of disappointment then began in earnest again, tying her stomach in knots as she saw him cleaving through the jade-green waters, far out.

  She lifted a hand to shade her eyes from the painful glare of the sun, watching him, her teeth biting into her lower lip. Mercy had talked of sharks. Fear closed its icy fingers round her heart.

  Stupid! she chided herself. He knows what he’s doing, he always does. Foolish to think, even for a moment, that she was watching a man who was trying to outpace some private demons. James wasn’t like that. He was merely using up some of that boundless energy of his while giving her time to think about what he’d said.

  And because his emotions weren’t in play, he wouldn’t be too bothered about her answer.

  He wasn’t as ‘off women’ as he’d believed himself to be. Sex was important to him, after all. It had only taken a few weeks of celibacy for him to come to that conclusion.

  If she wouldn’t oblige then their strange marriage would be over and he’d turn to one of the lovely young creatures who hung around him.

  With a dredging sigh of relief she saw him strike back towards the shore. Her shoulders relaxed and just as suddenly her mind became as crystal clear as the stretch of glittering waters that lay between them.

  His reasons for wanting to make their marriage a real one no longer mattered. Forget the ethics of the situation, they weren’t important.

  She wasn’t a cowering mouse, she was a full-blooded woman and he was her husband. And she loved him enough for both of them, enough to make up for his lack in that department.

  Kicking off her canvas shoes, she walked slowly into the water, heading towards him, and when the wavelets reached her waist she stopped, watching his powerful crawl, the dedication he was bringing to the expending of energy. And when a wave, higher than the rest, soaked her T-shirt, she gasped, feeling her breasts harden, her nipples peak against the wet fabric.

  He saw her then, she knew he did, because he changed to a lazy side stroke, his eyes on her as he slowly drew closer, almost as if he didn’t want her breaking his solitude.

  Still yards away, he stood up, slicked back his wet hair with one hand, and all she could see was the tension in his powerful body and all she could hear was the thunder of her heartbeats, the gentle lapping of the water until, long moments later, he said, ‘What are you doing?’

  A fair question. Fully dressed and up to her waist in water! She felt her lips curve. ‘Making a symbolic gesture—meeting you halfway.’ And held out her arms.

  ‘Matts—’ He began to move towards her and she could see the stark query in his eyes. She pushed through the water, reaching him, her hands touching his shoulders, feeling the silky tightness of his warm skin, the tautly defined muscles that lay beneath with the tips of her fingers.

  His breathing was as shallow and rapid as her own, his stomach muscles clenched. Mattie’s toes curled into the sandy bed of the sea and her body shook with fine, helpless tremors.

  ‘Kiss me,’ she invited, her voice breathless, and saw his eyes darken.

  ‘You want me to?’ he asked softly. But he didn’t reach out to touch her; his hands were clenched into fists at his side.

  Love gave Mattie the courage she needed. Her hands slipped from his shoulders, captured one of the fists and slowly unclenched his fingers, her eyes intent on what she was doing. ‘Can’t you tell?’ She lifted his hand and placed it on one engorged breast, the peaking nipple telling the truth, and she heard the harsh drag of his breath, saw the deep shudder that swept through his body.

  ‘You’ve thought this out?’ The hand that had so briefly held her breast dropped back to his side. ‘It wasn’t an ultimatum, Mattie,’ he said flatly. ‘Just a statement of fact. I want a full marriage, but I don’t want you to agree to something you would be unhappy about.’

  ‘You’re not making this easy,’ she muttered, feeling faintly ridiculous and very awkward.

  Her attempt to show him that she wanted him must have been so clumsy and gauche. She wished she had a tenth of the experience of the Fionas of this world, then it would have been so easy. ‘I would like our marriage to be a full one, too,’ she mumbled. ‘I can’t express it more plainly than that.’

  Her shoulders tense, she turned, pushed her way through the limpid water towards the white sands of the curving bay. She felt like weeping. She’d imagined a very different outcome when she’d walked out towards him.

  She’d offered herself to him and now he was acting as if he wanted her to change her mind, making it all sound so calculated and clinical.

  A sob built in her chest, making her shoulders slump, but it changed into a gasp as he caught her from behind, twisting her round in a flurry of salt water, his hands moving upwards to position her head beneath his.

  His sensually modelled mouth was a whisper away from hers. She felt her lips part, quiver, and time stood still until he closed the tiny distance and took her mouth with his own and then everything exploded with a hunger so savage it shook her to the depths of her soul.

  The tidal wave of pleasure melted her into his body, had her clinging helplessly to him, drowning in a sea of exquisite sensation and when he at last broke the kiss he sounded as shaken as she felt when he told her, ‘I think we’d better go back to the house, don’t you?’ He released her hands from their stranglehold around his neck and she tried to get her eyes to focus properly.

  His kiss had been everything she’d ever dreamed it would be. And more. But he had been unwilling to prolong it while she had wanted it to go on for ever. Had she been too eager? Did sophisticated women kiss differently?

  But the look he gave her when he slipped an arm around her waist as they waded through the final stretch of water sent her hurtling back into a state of delirium, her knees almost buckling beneath her when he said softly, ‘I want complete privacy when I finally make love to my wife. I want a soft bed beneath us and all the time in the world to explore every inch of her body. To touch and taste and finally possess.’

  She would never have made it back to the room she’d woken in this morning without his support. Her legs felt as if her bones had turned to wobbly rubber and her breath came in irregular, shallow snatches. The battle between paralysing nervousness and wild sexual excitement which was taking place inside her was pulling her to pieces, giving her a panic attack!

  The bed had been freshly made, the remains of the barely touched breakfast removed and bowls of sweetly scented flowers adorned the bedside tables. But there had been far deeper changes than that since she’d walked out of this room a couple of hours ago, convinced that he was about to tell her their marriage was over.

  Changes that were far-reaching, almost terrifying in their enormity.

  Could she handle them? She really didn’t know.

  She tried to breathe deeply to calm herself but shivered instead, and James frowned slightly, turned off the air-conditioning unit and said, ‘Get out of those wet things, Mattie, you look cold.’ He was smiling gently but his eyes were veiled. She couldn’t tell what he was really thinking. ‘Or are you simply petrified? Don’t worry, I’m not about to act like a caveman. We’ll take everything slowly. And if you change your mind, you only have to tell me. OK? Now,’ he added prosaically, ‘I suggest we shower the
salt off before lunch.’

  He stripped off his swimming briefs and walked through to the bathroom. No false modesty, Mattie thought, her mouth dry as she watched, hypnotised by his potent male beauty, terrified by the strength of her love for him and the almost certain knowledge that when he did get around to making love with her she would be a huge disappointment to him.

  She could hear the sound of the shower and she longed to have the confidence, the savoir-faire to strip off and join him. She gritted her teeth, willing herself to move, but she couldn’t and she was still there, her eyes wild with something like panic now, when he walked back in, towelling his hair.

  He was perfection. Her throat closed up; she could barely breathe. Her face felt frozen.

  He gave her a long, assessing look and tossed the damp towel aside. ‘This isn’t going to work, is it, Matts?’ He sounded weary. ‘When we kissed on the shore I thought it would, that you meant what you’d said. But right now, approaching crunch time, you look as if you’re about to be fastened into the electric chair. I should have remembered how you always fell in with other people’s wishes. Dawn’s make-over plans—’ bitterness spiked his voice as he went on ‘—my marriage proposal, and the restrictions I initially placed on it. My suggestion this morning that we consummate it.’

  He was pulling drawers out now, eventually finding what he was looking for and flinging a pair of stone-coloured cotton shorts onto the bed. ‘As I said, I don’t expect you to do anything you’d be unhappy with. So we forget the whole thing. OK? I’ll move my gear into another room. I might want you but I’m not about to turn you into a martyr.’

  This was dreadful! A tear streaked down Mattie’s pale face and the scalding heat of it reminded her that she was a living breathing creature, that she could move, she could speak. And she could be as honest with him as he’d been with her.

  She couldn’t tell him the whole truth—that she was in love with him, had been for years. He wouldn’t want her to dump that on him. But she could explain everything else.

  She said, her voice sounding quavery, ‘I’m not terrified of you. Or of making love with you.’ A faint flush crept over her skin and there was a prickling sensation in the most intimate parts of her body. Just talking about making love with him turned her on.

  He had his back to her, the long muscles clenching as he fastened the waistband of his shorts around his narrow waist. She saw his wide shoulders lift in an uninterested shrug, as if he didn’t believe what she’d said.

  ‘To tell you the truth, I’m simply afraid of being one huge disappointment,’ she told him more firmly. ‘I’m completely inexperienced, and compared to—’ she couldn’t bear to say that name, to remind him unnecessarily of the woman who must be almost constantly in his thoughts, so she substituted ‘the sort of girlfriends you’ve had in the past, I’m no oil painting.’

  There, she’d said it. Put her fears out in the open. And her words had grabbed his whole attention. He went very still then slowly turned to face her. Undoing the fastening of his hip-hugging shorts he let them fall to the floor.

  ‘Mattie,’ he ground out, his eyes dark, ‘if your mother were still alive she’d have a hell of a lot to answer for. You have got to learn to stop putting yourself down. Come here.’

  It was a command, but softly spoken. Mattie went. His silver eyes held hers intently for several breathtaking moments before his hands slid to the button at the waistband of her skirt. Dealing with it, he slid the wet and clammy garment down until it pooled around her feet, then peeled off her damp T-shirt.

  Did he realize just how erotic this was? Mattie asked herself wildly as he knelt in front of her, hooking his thumbs beneath her briefs and sliding them down her legs. She was quivering all over, tiny ripples that were more than skin deep, reaching right inside her, tightening, turning her entire body into a time bomb of need, ready to explode.

  She had to hold onto his shoulder to stop herself from losing her balance when he lifted first one small bare foot and then the other clear of her briefs. His skin felt hot and damp, like oiled satin stretched over tough muscle and bone. She dragged in a rough breath and he looked up, his eyes locking with hers, a slash of dull colour highlighting his rugged cheek-bones.

  They were so close. She was naked. He only had to move his head a fraction and his lips would be touching the soft swell of her tummy. The intimacy, the sexual tension, was pretty close to being unbearable. She swayed slightly towards him in instinctive invitation and heard the inrush of his breath rack through his lungs. Exquisite excitement fizzled through her veins. Surely now…

  But he got to his feet, his mouth set in the determined line she knew so well. He led her over to one of the full-length mirrors and swivelled her round to face it, his hands on her shoulders.

  ‘Look at yourself.’ His voice was low, terse. ‘Tell me what you see.’

  Her bewildered gaze met his reflected silver eyes. Uncertainly, she circled her mouth with her tongue, and he said thickly, ‘Then I’ll tell you. Forget what you were programmed to believe. You’re looking at a beautiful woman. You have eyes like pools of liquid gold, a mouth that begs to be kissed, a body to die for—perfectly formed breasts, a tiny waist, flirty hips—’ His hands had dropped, long fingers moving to touch the parts of her body he was describing. Mattie felt too giddy to stay upright; blood was rushing ferociously through her veins, pounding in her head.

  Self-consciousness dissipated, lost in the red-hot mist of all the things he was doing to her, all the new and wicked sensations he was making her feel. She leaned back against him and he buried his fingers in the mound of her femininity. She sucked in a sharp breath as she instinctively parted her thighs, almost swooning with atavistic desire as his fingers probed more deeply, her hazed eyes watching his reflected hands as they pleasured her body, his head coming down as his mouth found the side of her neck.

  And when she felt the potent force of his arousal against her buttocks she squirmed round in his arms, lifting her hips and parting her thighs to accommodate him, all primitive woman meeting her mate.

  ‘Oh, God—Mattie—’ Her name was torn from him as he swept her onto the bed, smothering her face, her breasts, with fevered kisses, the silver of his eyes darkened to pewter when he finally positioned himself over her and plunged smoothly into the slick, receptive, willing core of her body. And the rapture came quickly, for both of them, and it was more than she had ever dreamed possible.

  There had been no pain, not the slightest hint of it, just ecstasy, a soaring upwards flight to somewhere near the stars and a glimpse of heaven. This first time for her would be something she’d always remember, she thought dreamily, stroking the length of his back as he collapsed on the bed at her side, gathering her in his arms, tucking her head into the angle of his shoulder.

  ‘You are incredible.’ His voice, husky and deep, wasn’t altogether steady. ‘How could you even think you’d disappoint me when you’re so beautiful, so sexy?’

  Mattie murmured incoherently, squirming closer. In all of her life she’d never been this happy, this fulfilled. Which made her think.

  ‘James—’ She levered herself up on one elbow, looking down into his adored face, her eyes soft with love. ‘Did you, I mean, have you changed your mind about having children?’ And at the sharp query in his eyes she explained, ‘We didn’t take precautions.’

  It took a split second for it to sink in. He sat upright, swung his long legs over the edge of the bed. ‘Hell, no! Don’t get that into your head.’ He shot an unreadable look over his shoulder. ‘You made me lose all control, and, believe me, that was a first.’ His sudden smile was as wicked as sin, sending electrifying prickles right through her body. ‘You can take that as a compliment. It should boost your tottery self-confidence!’ He got to his feet, grinning down at her. ‘You’re quite something, Matts, do you know that? You blew away my intention to make your initiation slow, very thorough and entirely unforgettable.’

  She reached out and too
k his hand. ‘It was unforgettable,’ she assured him softly. ‘And we’ve got a whole month to be as slow and thorough as we want to be.’

  ‘Correction.’ He bent forward to touch her parted lips with his. ‘We have the rest of our lives.’ His eyes suddenly sobered. ‘Matts—I’ll take precautions in future—but as for just now, is this a safe time for you? Or should we do something about it?’

  He smiled softly at her look of total incomprehension and pulled her up into his arms, his hands locked loosely at her waist. ‘This island may be off the beaten track,’ he told her, ‘but it isn’t completely behind the times. There’s a pharmacy—we could get a morning-after pill.’

  ‘No.’ She felt her body stiffen with rejection. His suggestion might be practical but it wasn’t romantic. And she was determined to keep romance high on her agenda. Besides, she was hardly likely to get pregnant from making love just once. It took some couples years of trying before they were able to make a baby! ‘No, no need,’ she told him firmly. ‘It’s perfectly safe.’ For all she knew it was—how was she to know where the so-called safe time in her cycle came? She’d never thought about it, never had the need to.

  But she felt a niggling twinge of guilt when he took her at her word. ‘If you say so, sweetheart, it’s good enough for me! Now, I guess we should shower and dress, otherwise we’re going to keep Mercy and her lunch waiting. Though, right now, eating’s the last thing on my mind. Coming?’

  ‘Be right with you.’ She wasn’t hungry for food, either. But as they’d suggested lunch at one it would be unforgivably rude if they failed to turn up. Following him through to the bathroom, she had a tiny flicker of sadness at the thought of never bearing a child of his. But he was so obviously and adamantly against starting a family. And if it came down to a choice between having him as her husband and having a whole brood of children by any other man on the planet, she’d choose him.