Her eyes were dark and full of need as she pulled him over her onto the bed. “Take me,” she whispered.
A low growl rose in his throat as he looked down at her, spread across the bed for his pleasure. He didn’t even take the time to pull off his pajama pants. He couldn’t. Leaving them across his thighs, he positioned himself and thrust inside her, filling her.
She gasped, gripping his shoulders. Her face filled with anguished ecstasy, and for a moment he thought he’d gone too far, too deep. He started to withdraw.
“No.” Gripping her fingers into his flesh, she started to move beneath him. “More.”
He pushed inside her again, and she moaned. He rode her, harder and faster, until the bed frame rocked loudly against the wall.
“Stop!” she whispered, looking up at him. “Don’t wake the baby!”
He exhaled in a surprised laugh then, leaning forward, kissed her forehead tenderly. Gripping her hips, he slowly thrust inside her in a controlled movement. Somehow the silence just deepened the pleasure. Made it forbidden. He rode her wet and hard until she gripped his upper arms and he heard her soundless scream of pleasure. With a rush of ecstasy, he slammed into her one last time with a shuddering, silent gasp as his whole world shimmered and exploded.
He fell on top of her. It might have been minutes, or an hour, later before he was aware he might be crushing her beneath the weight of his body. He didn’t know how much time had passed, which was strange. For one precious moment, it had almost felt like sleep….
He started to move away from her, but she grabbed his arm. “Stay with me.”
He hesitated. He knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep beside her. But in this moment, he could deny her nothing. Without a word, he rolled back and pulled her to his naked chest, spooning her smaller body with his larger one.
She turned around in his arms. “I love you.”
Shocked, he stared down at her in the dark bedroom. Her beautiful, round, upturned face was glowing, tears sparkling down her cheeks in the moonlight.
“I love you, Eduardo.” Closing her eyes, she pressed her cheek against his bare chest. “I never stopped loving you, and I never will.”
A tremble went through his body as he stroked her hair. Hearing those words on his wife’s lips—the words he’d detested and avoided hearing from any other woman—was a sudden, precious gift. Sweet beyond measure.
Poison in his heart.
Now he had even more to lose. Even more to protect. His arms tightened around her. Would she still love him if she found out what he’d done? After Brandon McLinn explained it to her in the most destructive way possible?
He said with forced cheerfulness, “What do you think about spending Christmas in the south of Spain?”
Pressing her face against his chest, she gave a contented sigh. “Spain?”
He stroked her back, keeping his voice casual. “I have a villa on the coast, not too far from my old village.” And five thousand miles from Brandon McLinn. “What do you say?”
She smiled up at him sleepily. “I’ll go anywhere with you.”
Eduardo gloried in his wife’s generous spirit and trusting heart. Callie knew his flaws better than anyone. And yet somehow she’d chosen to love him.
It was the most precious gift he’d ever received. And the one he least deserved.
Within minutes, she fell asleep in his arms. Eduardo stared out the windows at the dark city and the vast blackness of the Hudson River. It was cold December, when night lasted forever and spring was a distant promise. She loved him. And it was like hot summer to a half-frozen man.
He would never let her go. Ever. Even if it cost his very soul.
In the darkness, his eyes hardened.
He wouldn’t lose her. Not now. Not ever.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SITTING by their pool overlooking the Mediterranean, Callie was trying—again—to convince her body to tan in the warm Spanish sun. She glanced back toward their luxurious, enormous villa, where her baby was taking her afternoon nap. Callie loved it here. All right, she was still shockingly pale, but she’d never been so happy.
Or so sad.
In the four months since they’d left New York, her handsome husband had taken their family all over the world via private jet, to all the glamorous places she’d once dreamed of as a girl. They’d spent Christmas here at the villa, decorating their enormous Christmas tree with oranges. On Christmas Eve, they’d gone to a candlelight service, then after putting the baby to bed she and Eduardo had a midnight supper by candlelight. It had been a special, sacred night between them, the one-year anniversary of the first time they’d made love.
When she woke the next morning, Eduardo was gone, as always. Getting Marisol from her crib, she’d gone downstairs to discover an obscene number of gifts beneath their Christmas tree, and beside it, a debonair Santa with twinkling black eyes, in a red suit far too large for his sleek physique and a fake white beard over his chiseled jawline. Marisol had laughed in wonder and delight, and so had Callie. Santa had presented their baby with so many expensive toys and clothes that it could have satisfied a child army. Marisol had responded by playing with the tissue paper and then trying to chew on her own shoe.
Callie had giggled. “See what happens when you spend too much money on a baby, Santa?”
Santa turned to her. “And I have something for you, Mrs. Claus, er, Cruz.”
Reaching into his big black bag, he’d pulled out a key chain that had her initials, “CC”, created in what looked to be diamonds and gold. She’d taken the key chain with an incredulous laugh.
“It’s beautiful … but are you crazy? People lose key chains. I’ll be scared to use this.”
Santa smirked. “The key chain isn’t the gift. Look again.”
Frowning, she looked down at the ridiculously expensive gold-and-diamond key chain and saw the key. Her mouth went dry as she looked up. “What’s this?”
He gave her a sudden wicked grin. “Go outside.”
Still in her red-and-green flannel pajamas, she’d lifted their baby on her hip, and gone out into the courtyard of the villa, with Santa close behind. Even on Christmas Day, the Spanish sun was warm, and the air smelled of orange groves and the ocean. She’d stopped abruptly in the dusty courtyard.
There, with a big red bow on the hood, she saw a brand-new Rolls-Royce.
“The silver reminded me of you,” he murmured softly behind her. “It’s the color of the dress you wore to the Winter Ball a few weeks ago. You sparkled like a diamond. You shone like a star.”
Turning to face him without a word, Callie pulled down his white beard. Eduardo’s handsome face was revealed, his dark eyes glowing with admiration.
“And every day, Mrs. Cruz,” he said, stroking her cheek, “you’re more beautiful still.”
With an intake of breath, she threw one arm around his neck and, standing on tiptoe, gave Santa the kiss of his life. It wasn’t until Marisol began to squirm and complain that Callie recalled that she was squashing their baby, and that she probably shouldn’t let her baby see her kissing Santa Claus anyway.
Callie drew back with tears in her eyes.
“Thank you,” she whispered, then shook her head with a laugh. “But I’m afraid you’re going to be very disappointed with my gift to you.”
“What is it?”
“Soap-on-a-rope