Christmas Holiday Husband Read online

  Now, she’d prayed. Now. Oh please, now.

  She could see it all so vividly again—Tony lowering himself onto the bed, parting her thighs with a warm knee, and staying poised above her until she’d slid her hands around his taut waist and pulled.

  “No Ellie, wait,” he’d groaned, groping on the floor to find the pocket of his pants.

  “It’s all right. I’m on the pill.”

  “But—”

  “Now, Tony. Please, now.”

  Unable to resist he’d sunk down, rubbing his erect cock against her hot welcoming body, seeking entrance. Suddenly he tensed at her tightness.

  “Yes! Oh please do it!” she’d begged, wrapping her legs around him and holding him prisoner when she felt him trying to draw back.

  xxx

  Gritting his teeth, he’d pushed slowly home, hearing her sharp intake of breath, and feeling her flinch as her hymen ripped to allow him in. Somehow he’d managed to remain still until she relaxed again. She’d shocked him utterly. He’d presumed her a flirt at the hotel pool, thought she was experienced. Had expected no lightning bolt like this.

  “You should have told me, Ellie,” he said, close against her ear, his voice thick with regret.

  “And then what would you have done? Not wanted me?”

  “Impossible. You’re irresistible. But I’d have made the first time better for you.”

  She kissed his shoulder. “Nothing could make it better.”

  “Oh kiddo—this is just for starters,” he’d muttered. And proceeded to show her with ever increasing intensity exactly how much better was possible.

  xxx

  This time she knew there’d be no pain for her. Her body was already slippery with welcome. She’d wanted Tony in Sydney with the passion of teenage infatuation, but now she had so many more reasons to desire him—including the child they shared.

  He tossed his jeans onto a nearby chair and sank down to lie beside her, sliding his hands into her hair, stroking gently. “Ellie,” he whispered. “All this time.”

  “I know. I missed you, Tony. God, I missed you. I didn’t know quite how much until I met you again.”

  For better, for worse she thought, pressing her face against his chest and breathing in his scent. Warm skin... the faint salty tang of the sea... the trace of chocolate she’d always associated with him.

  “You smell the same,” she murmured, laying his chest hair flat with her tongue as she worked her way across to one of his hard little nipples and settled her lips around it.

  He chuckled. “That’s my trick.”

  “You can have another turn soon.”

  “And have you at my mercy again?”

  She laughed. He pulled her closer.

  “I’m not on the pill this time,” she murmured. “Sorry.”

  “Good thing the hospital had a vending machine then. Where have my pants got to?” He eased away from her and grabbed his jeans from the chair, rummaging through the pockets and bending to kiss her knee. “Feeling helpful Ellie? Do it for me like you used to?”

  She twitched the condom from his hand and levered herself up to sit on the side of the bed to sheath him. But he was too beautiful to resist. She linked her arms around his waist and took him into her mouth. She sucked softly, adding long slow wet strokes, full of unspoken love.

  A hoarse gasp of pleasure burst from Tony’s throat before he pulled her head away and gazed down into her eyes. “I’ll beat you home if you carry on like that.”

  She looked up and smiled. “I’m out of practice with these,” she whispered, ripping the little package open. “Out of practice because there’s been no-one...for years, Tony.”

  She’d so nearly said ‘no-one but you’ that her blood ran cold. Cal’s paternity would have been left in no doubt, then—Tony would know the boy had to be his the moment Ginny or one of the twins innocently mentioned his existence.

  Ellie was even more terrified of having her son stolen away now she knew all the resources Tony had at his disposal. She couldn’t hope to compete on material possessions or legal fees, and Cal had wanted a father figure in his life for so long...

  Her heart thundered and her fingers trembled as she smoothed the condom down over his erect cock.

  “No-one for years Ellie? Truly?” His eyes questioned, assessed, saw the truth she couldn’t hide. “Then you’re my virgin again and I’ll need to be gentle with you, won’t I...”

  He slid into her with exquisite restraint, watching her face as he sank deeper... deeper. Ellie drew a shuddering breath as he invaded, hard and inexorable, stretching her to her limits.

  He closed his eyes and waited a moment. “Still so tight,” he murmured, drawing back so the heavenly friction she’d remembered from Sydney caressed every sensitised nerve ending. She felt as though her life had begun again. She sought his mouth, this time claiming his lips with desperation instead of waiting for him to lead. Her tongue searched for his, and she groaned with impatience, wanting more...wanting everything...impaled and frenzied and driven mad with desire.

  But he was not to be hurried.

  He held her down, withholding what she most craved, moving with infinite care and tenderness, a teasing smile curving his lips. After several more of his long slow sure thrusts, she tilted her hips up, wrapped her legs around his waist, and gave in to the rushing heat, the intense surging pleasure, the uncontrollable gripping spasms, clenching around him and skyrocketing out of control.

  Tony rode her harder then, kissing her deeply, all too soon gasping a string of impassioned curses as she sent him into a long shuddering climax too.

  xxx

  “That shouldn’t be possible,” she said, a little later.

  “Extreme lust,” he agreed. “And now we’ve got that out of the way I’ll seduce you properly. They have,” he added, grazing his teeth down her neck, “very big baths here.”

  “With bubbles?”

  “As many bubbles as you like. I’ll enjoy investigating your hidden charms through them.”

  They dozed together until he untangled himself from the embrace of her limbs, rose from the ravaged bed, and sauntered across to the bathroom. Ellie watched the lamplight slide over his long back and gorgeous butt until he disappeared and turned the bath water on with a sudden splash.

  She stretched until every inch of her body became taut, and then relaxed. The attraction was certainly still there between them... Damn. Damn. Damn.

  “Devon Honey or Southern Magnolia?” He stood, silhouetted in the en suite doorway, gloriously naked, steam curling in the air around him, holding out the bubble gels for her selection.

  “Come closer. I can’t see.”

  He dangled the expensive little sachets by their silken tassels.

  Ellie’s eyes roved all over him as he approached the bed. She let the sheet slide down past her breasts, and watched as he started to stand to attention again. She stifled a smirk and kept her face serious.

  “Hmm—Devon Honey seems appropriate in a place called Honeymeade Lodge, doesn’t it?” she murmured, pushing the sheet halfway down her thighs, parting them provocatively, and reaching for the sachets. Tony continued to become more impressive. She twisted the tassels together and draped the two little packages around the sturdy support he’d once again provided.

  “Not lost your powers of recovery, I see,” she said with a joyful giggle, escaping off the other side of the bed and dashing to the bathroom ahead of him.

  xxx

  They sat chest-deep in bubbles. Ellie linked her legs around his waist; Tony held her close.

  “What a naughty girl you still are,” he murmured as her hands slid between their bodies to tease and caress him.

  She watched as he closed his eyes to savour the sensations to the utmost.

  I’ve missed you so much, she thought as she squeezed and stroked. All those years you had with Julia should have been my years. Now it’s too late. I have to choose between you and my son, and it must be him.

&n
bsp; She raised her mouth to Tony’s for a sweet regretful kiss. Their tongues and lips danced together.

  “I’m not the naughty one,” she protested as his words sank into her sensation-loaded brain. “You brought me here to this gorgeous place intending to sleep with me.”

  “Hoping to sleep with you. Hoping very much. But there’s another bedroom off the main room. You could have chosen that.”

  “What!?” she demanded, sitting so erect that her nipples appeared above the foam and Tony found it necessary to dive south and lick the froth off one. “You never mentioned that.”

  “We were,” he mumbled, mouth full, “not exactly in a talking mood when we arrived.”

  She murmured agreement. His mouth was pure sin. She leaned back to make herself more accessible. “A bedroom each. Well, well—how chivalrous.”

  He bit.

  She gasped.

  “I asked Ginny,” he said, raising his head, “to book a suite with two bedrooms. I could hardly do less.”

  Ellie’s mouth became a perfect O as she considered that. “You’ve got bubbles on your face now,” she said, wiping them away.

  “I’ve got bubbles here too,” he said, turning to wrestle the cork from a dark green bottle which sat with two tall glasses at one end of the huge tub. She slid away from him so he could pour, and they sat side by side, sipping.

  “I tried to find you once,” she said, surprising herself. She’d had no intention of telling him that.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I tried to find you to let you know you had a son, she thought, choosing her next words with care. “I knew you’d planned to be away for a couple of years, but just for fun, I wondered if I could find out where you lived, silly kid that I was. I went to the main library and searched through all the Electoral Rolls.”

  More than eighty of them, she remembered.

  “I thought I might come across an Anthony Christian Robinson the right age...”

  “You remembered the ‘Christian’?”

  “It’s nice. Unusual.” She grinned and took another sip of champagne. “But they didn’t have any ages shown. And mostly just initials. There are hundreds and hundreds of Anthony C Robinsons in New Zealand. Christopher, Charles, Carl—who knows.” She tried to keep her voice light. “I couldn’t tell if any of them were you. I found a few Anthony Christians and wrote to each of them, just in case. No-one ever replied. A couple came back ‘Not Here. Return to Sender’ because I’d put my address on the back.”

  Tony furrowed his brow. “I was probably still registered at my old Uni digs in Auckland back then. I remember voting for the first time from there. Typical student flat.”

  “The Christian in the Garden of Eden,” Ellie said in a shaky voice. “Was that you? It sort of seemed appropriate at the time. I remember thinking ‘what a strange co-incidence if it’s him’.”

  “Eden Terrace? You wrote there?”

  “Return to Sender,” she said. “It was one of the ones that came back. I was very close to finding you, and never knew it.”

  “I was long gone. Several years. I’m surprised anyone bothered to re-post your letter. What did it say?”

  Ellie sipped, eyes far away. “Not much. Asked if you were the Tony Robinson who’d been in Sydney. Wondered if you wanted to make contact with an old friend when you returned. Nothing serious.”

  Nothing about the fact you’d just become a father.

  Tony slipped an arm around her and smiled. “Nothing lost then.”

  Everything lost, Ellie thought in anguish, tightening her fingers vice-like around the glass, not caring if it snapped and showered her with biting shards of crystal.

  She sighed and reached up for another kiss. “I won’t be gazing at you across the farm dinner table like some soppy teenager,” she assured him, trying to shake away her sudden mood of despondency.

  “Even if you did, Ginny’s too sensible to comment. And the girls won’t notice we’re having a little fling.”

  Her heart gave a lurch of distress. He saw her as no more than a temporary diversion then?

  Although it had been her who’d laid down the rules on the river bank, Tony’s apparent nonchalance cut deep. She’d need to hide how much this passionate reunion meant to her... act as though he was fun, as though their lovemaking was merely a game. She turned her face away, biting her lip, already sensing the desolation of being abandoned.

  xxx

  “I won’t be able to leave you alone now,” he whispered, somewhere close to dawn.

  “I suppose I could sneak through your balcony door occasionally,” she teased.

  “You drive a hard bargain, woman.”

  “Hard? That wasn’t me, surely?”

  He caressed her breast. “Soft as an angel.”

  Ellie snuggled against him, pulling him nearer, breathing in the beloved fragrance of his skin. She’d come home, but could never let him know that.

  xxx

  They took to the air soon after sunrise, lifting away from the sprawling single storey conference centre. The flight back to Wharemoana was breathtaking. Early morning shadows contoured the spectacular New Zealand landscape as every shade of green slipped away behind them. Ellie marvelled at all the empty space. Roads were so far apart; buildings tiny and isolated. Sometimes the sun flashed off windows or swimming pools. Flocks of tiny sheep dashed to the corners of their lush paddocks as the helicopter soared over. The sparkling ocean grew closer.

  Tony pointed to the approaching homestead, nestled in its surrounding gardens. Ellie could even see the fateful trampoline on the lawn.

  “Home,” he said.

  But not mine, she thought.

  xxx

  At the breakfast table he updated Ginny and the girls. “Quite good news about Steven. Concussed, but probably not too seriously. A big gash on his scalp, but they’ve dealt to that—some of his hair is shorter than mine now. Lots of spectacular bruises, and they’ve set his broken leg.”

  “That’ll be a relief for Peter and Gwen,” Ginny agreed.

  “Can we write on his plaster?” Ants asked.

  Tony stood and rummaged in the refrigerator, asking if anyone else wanted bacon and eggs. “All this flying makes a man hungry,” he said. He looked relaxed and happy, eyes alight with barely suppressed joy.

  He’s transparent, Ellie thought. Surely Ginny couldn’t fail to notice the difference in his mood. She was astute enough to put two and two together—or one and one!

  But she simply said, “I’ve ironed those shirts you need for the Melbourne conference, Robbie.”

  “Thanks. I’ll pack a bag right after breakfast.”

  Ellie sat there stunned. He’d be leaving her already? Their brief tryst was over?

  “I’m back in time for Saturday’s party,” he added in her direction, as though that made everything all right.

  Saturday! It was only Wednesday today. Now she had to face three long days without him, just as they’d become lovers again...just as her body had burst back to life.

  She ate her cereal and toast, not noticing she’d chosen honey instead of strawberry jam. Forgetting to sugar her coffee. Replying quite automatically to the twins’ questions.

  Ginny rose to clear the table, and moved across to the pantry, hands full.

  “Go to your room,” Tony whispered. “Now.”

  “What for?”

  “Because I want you again.”

  “You must be joking...”

  “Not at all. Go to your room.” His dark eyes sparkled with their mischievous invitation.

  “It’s time for lessons.”

  “I’ll give you lessons. The girls can wait. I can’t.”

  He grabbed her arm and steered her out of the kitchen and up the stairs. No-one seemed to notice. And, although Ellie’s brain rebelled, her body felt shockingly ready and willing.

  And able, she discovered, as he pushed the door closed, yanked her panties all the way down and off, and took her against the wall. They stared at each ot
her, breathless, trembling.

  “Up on your toes,” he ordered.

  “I already am. You’re too tall.”

  “Legs around my waist then.” He pulled her up to match his height, driving deeper inside her, rocking his hips against hers until she muffled a scream against his neck and convulsed from head to toe.

  “Good girl,” he said huskily. “Very good girl. My turn.”

  And a few frenzied thrusts later he buried his head on her shoulder, fighting for breath as he groaned, pulsing deep inside her.

  They leaned together, gasping for air. It had been so sudden, so intense, so incandescent.

  And then she registered the full implication of what they’d done.

  “No condom!” she hissed, horrified.

  “Ah.”

  Well, that certainly sums things up, she thought, calculating dates. Oh please—not again. She had so much more at stake this time. Cal’s well-being depended on her continuing to work. The house payments had to be met. And she certainly wouldn’t expect her mother to take care of another child after sacrificing so much for the first. A shudder of dread made her scrunch her eyes closed.

  “Bad timing?” he asked, seeing her pained expression. He dropped a kiss on her nose.

  She opened her eyes and tried to ease away from him. “Not the best. Cross your fingers.”

  “And tie a knot in it?”

  She snorted with laughter, despite her terror. “Great idea, Tony. But rather too late.”

  He tightened his arms around her to stop her escaping. “My fault. I bullied you.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I could have refused.”

  “Could you?”

  “No,” she admitted, relaxing and kissing him, sliding her hands under his shirt and over his chest. “Not a hope. I don’t seem to have grown up at all since Sydney. I couldn’t get enough of you then. And it seems I can’t get enough of you again now. You’re fun to play with.”

  xxx

  Fun, he repeated to himself. That’s all I am to you?

  His eyes roved over her face, enjoying everything he found so enchanting about her. Wide-spaced blue eyes with expressive brows...translucent skin with a smattering of freckles over the cheekbones... her luscious damp mouth.