by Anne Mather
Antonia drew a trembling breath. ‘Are you?’
‘Let me put it this way,’ he murmured, his tongue tracing the delicate contours of her ear, ‘I don’t know what you’ve done to me, but I can’t contemplate my life without you. Does that answer your question?’
‘Oh, Reed—–’
She tightened her arms around his neck, and she felt his instant response to the lissom provocation of her yielding body. ‘Oh, God, I want you,’ he groaned, sliding the dressing gown off her shoulders and uttering a frustrated sound at the enveloping folds of her nightshirt beneath. ‘Why do you always wear so many clothes!’
‘I didn’t know I’d be sleeping with you, did I?’ Antonia responded huskily, assisting his removal of the offending nightgown, and Reed gave a sigh of approval when she was naked in his arms.
‘Help me!’ he said, shrugging off his jacket and tugging off his tie, and her fingers moved obediently to the buttons of his shirt.
But when he gathered her warm body against his, he didn’t carry her into the bedroom as she had anticipated. ‘I want you here—and now,’ he told her thickly, wrapping his lean flanks about her, and Antonia discovered there was something rather erotic about making love on a sofa …
It was weeks later before Reed told her all of what had occurred the morning he visited Celia’s apartment. And by then, he and Antonia were married, and spending their honeymoon on the exotic island of Tahiti in the south Pacific.
Everything had happened so quickly, sometimes Antonia had to pinch herself to ensure she wasn’t dreaming. But she wasn’t. It was all marvellously real, and since the night Reed had talked his way into her flat, they had never been apart. She had moved out of the flat and into Reed’s apartment the day after he had visited his parents in Ireland, and although she continued working at the institute until they were married, they had spent every free moment together.
The weeks before their wedding had flown. Antonia had had a long telephone conversation with her mother as soon as she was settled in the St James’s Street apartment, and Mrs Lord had adopted a very knowing tone when she heard her daughter’s news. But it had been Susie—and Reed’s parents—who presented the biggest obstacle, and Antonia had not looked forward to her first visit to his family’s home in County Wicklow.
And at first, there had been a certain restraint on the part of Reed’s mother and father. It was to be expected, Antonia told herself, knowing she was marrying into a staunchly Catholic family, to whom her divorce from Simon made a church wedding out of the question.
But somehow, she didn’t quite know how, the visit had not proved to be the disaster she had anticipated. Maybe, as Reed had intimated, when he came to her room that night, his parents could see that she was making him happy, and in the days that followed, Antonia had come to accept his assessment of the situation.
It was Tricia who eventually told her that it was much more simple even than that. ‘They like you,’ she said, pulling a wry face at her brother. ‘They were always a little doubtful about Celia. She was never quite relaxed when she came to stay in the country.’
Susie’s reactions had been reassuringly uncomplicated. She already liked Reed, and the knowledge that when her mother married again they would have a proper home life once more was a very persuasive factor.
‘Will we live in the country?’ she asked Reed, the first weekend they took her and Antonia’s mother to Stonor, and he had smiled.
‘Would you like to?’ he asked, and at her nod, he continued: ‘Then, we’ll have to see about finding you a pony, so that you can get about more easily,’ and her whoop of delight had made her mother shake her head.
‘Bribery and corruption,’ she had teased Reed, and he had waited until later to exact a sweet punishment.
Waking on the morning of their last day in Tahiti, Antonia lay for several minutes without stirring, just looking at the man who had made her world so complete. It hardly seemed possible it was less than four months since they had first met. Now, she couldn’t remember a time when he had not been an integral part of her life.
‘What are you thinking?’
Reed’s eyes had opened as she lay musing, and Antonia snuggled nearer to deposit a lingering kiss at the corner of his mouth. ‘I was thinking how much I love you,’ she admitted, shifting so that his possessive arm could close about her. ‘I wish we never had to leave here.’
Reed’s eyes were openly caressing. ‘I thought you might be eager to get back home. That you might be missing Susie.’
Antonia sighed. ‘Well, I do miss her, of course, but I know she’s happy.’ She ran her hand across his chest, loving the fine whorls of hair that curled confidingly about her finger. ‘Your parents have been absolutely marvellous. Letting her stay with them.’
‘Well, she seemed to take to them,’ remarked Reed modestly, and Antonia’s lips tilted.
‘They spoil her,’ she declared, remembering Susie’s excited voice, the last time they had spoken to her on the phone. ‘A pony and a dog of her own. She’s never going to want to leave Drumbarra.’
‘I think that’s their idea,’ said Reed, allowing a lazy laugh to escape him. ‘Still, at least that takes the onus from us. They’ve got the granddaughter they always wanted.’
Antonia nodded, wondering how to phrase her next words. ‘But would you mind?’ she ventured carefully, watching his expression, ‘if we added to our family rather sooner than you expected?’
Reed levered himself up on one elbow to look down at her. ‘You’re pregnant.’
‘Hmm.’
‘God!’ He bent his head to give her a very disruptive kiss. ‘How long have you known?’
‘Since about the first week we were here,’ admitted Antonia reluctantly, and his eyes widened incredulously.
‘So why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I didn’t want to—spoil our honeymoon.’
‘How could that spoil anything?’ demanded Reed huskily, his eyes running possessively down her body. ‘Hell, we’ve been here four weeks, and you’ve known all that time!’
Antonia ran her fingers along the roughened curve of his cheek. ‘Well, not definitely,’ she murmured, colouring. ‘These things take time.’
Reed shook his head. ‘Do you mind?’
‘Do you?’
‘That’s a crazy question,’ he muttered huskily. ‘Of course I don’t mind! Just so long as you don’t shut me out.’
Antonia moistened her lips. ‘I—Simon was never interested’ she confessed, by way of an explanation. ‘When I told him I was going to have Susie, he asked if I wanted to get rid of it.’
‘I’m not Simon,’ said Reed forcefully, brushing back the silky hair from her temple with caressing fingers. Since their wedding, Antonia had allowed her hair to grow, and now it tumbled softly down her back. ‘And—as it happens—I have something to tell you, too.’
‘You do?’ Antonia was apprehensive. Her eyes darkened. ‘What is it?’
As if sensing her uncertainty, Reed lowered his length beside her and gathered her closer to him. ‘Don’t look so worried,’ he told her softly, as anxious anticipation feathered along her spine. He brushed her lips with his thumb. ‘I heard from my father a week ago, as you know. But I didn’t tell you everything he wrote.’
Antonia’s tongue circled her lips. ‘It’s not—Susie, is it?’
‘No.’ Reed was very definite on that point. He paused. ‘Do you remember, we tried to contact Sheldon to organise the adoption order?’
‘Yes.’ Antonia held her breath.
Well—I didn’t want to tell you sooner, but Toni—love; Sheldon was drowned in the South China sea more than six months ago.’
‘I think we should have a second honeymoon,’ declared Reed, coming into the bedroom at Stonor with a towel draped carelessly about his hips. ‘What do you think? Would you let Maria and my mother take care of our son as well as our daughter?’
Antonia, who was seated before the vanity unit in the master b
edroom, rhythmically brushing her hair, lifted her slim shoulders. ‘I thought you had that deal with the Canadians to attend to,’ she reminded him. ‘Didn’t you tell me Cohen and the others were coming to dinner on Tuesday?’
‘Well, yes, I did.’ Reed came behind her, running possessive fingers under the thin straps of her slip and sliding them off her shoulders. ‘But I’ve learned to delegate,’ he added drily, bending to stroke sensuous lips across her soft skin. ‘Wouldn’t you like to spend a couple of weeks in the south of France? It’s marvellous there at this time of the year.’
Antonia lifted her shoulder to facilitate his caress, and shivered in pleasurable anticipation. ‘Reed, the Turners will be here in fifteen minutes,’ she protested, when his questing hands slid beneath the lacy bodice to find the swelling fullness of her breasts, and he tossed the towel aside before drawing her up into his arms.
‘They can wait,’ he told her huskily, pressing the slip down over her hips. ‘You did say Miss Forrester had taken the children to bed, didn’t you?’
‘I did say that, yes,’ Antonia conceded laughingly, winding her arms around his neck. ‘Oh, Reed, can we really take another two weeks to ourselves? Won’t your parents think I’m a very indifferent mother?’
‘My mother will be overjoyed to have charge of our family once again,’ her husband assured her firmly, drawing her gently, but insistently towards their enormous four-poster. ‘We went along with her wishes and had a second wedding in the church at Drumbarra. How could she deny us a second honeymoon?’
Antonia sighed reminiscently. ‘It was a lovely wedding, wasn’t it?’ she murmured, remembering the tiny church at Drumbarra; the white surplices of the choirboys; the fragrant perfume of the flowers. ‘I didn’t think when you sent me that gorgeous bouquet last year that this year the same flowers would remind me of our wedding.’
‘You did get them then,’ remarked Reed drily, pulling her down on to the bed beside him and crushing her slender form beneath the muscular weight of his body. ‘You never told me.’
Didn’t I?’ Antonia’s slim fingers entwined in the hair at his nape. ‘No—well, I didn’t want to encourage you, did I?’
‘That’s the truth,’ murmured her husband ruefully. ‘Be thankful I didn’t take no for an answer!’
‘Oh, I’m very thankful for that,’ responded Antonia fervently, and then gave herself up to the blissful possession of his mouth …
ISBN: 978-1-472-09743-9
ACT OF POSSESSION
© 1985 Anne Mather
Published in Great Britain 2014
by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited
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