Her Secret, His Child. Miranda Lee
Nicolas strode over, lifted the latch then locked it again.
‘Oh,’ she said, feeling totally flustered and confused.
Nicolas cupped her face and forced her eyes up to his. ‘If you think you’re going to waste time out there looking at a view you’ve seen a million times before, Serina, then think again. I didn’t bring you up here to play pretend tourist. Now, as pretty as this dress is that you’re wearing,’ he said, his hands dropping down to the wide belt around her waist, ‘it has to go.’
Serina’s first instinct was to object. But her second thought was to stay silent and just let him get on with it. After all, this was what she’d agreed to. And what she’d often dreamt about over the years. To somehow be able to go back into the past when they were teenagers and so very much in love.
Which they had been.
Not once had Serina ever felt that the intimacies they’d shared were just acts of lust. It had always been lovemaking, not sex. Nicolas had never made her feel used. Yes, he was dominant and domineering, but he was also tender and loving. He never stopped telling her how much he loved her and how beautiful she was.
Her stomach twisted at this last thought. Would he still think her beautiful? She was not as young, or as firm. She’d had a child. Her breasts drooped a bit and her belly, though without stretch marks, was soft and rounded.
‘Nicolas,’ she choked out.
His eyes flashed impatience at her. ‘What now?’
‘Tell me that you love me.’
‘What?’
‘You don’t have to mean it. Just say it. I want to hear you say it.’
Nicolas just stared at her. He would never understand women. Why couldn’t she just be honest? She didn’t want his love, so why ask for fake words?
‘You said you wanted to make love to me the way you used to,’ she went on before he could say anything. ‘Well, you used to tell me how much you loved me all the time. And how beautiful I was. It made all that we did together… seem right.’
Nicolas was totally unprepared for the wave of emotion that her words evoked. It choked him up, a huge lump forming in his throat.
‘You think I’m silly, don’t you?’ she said in a broken voice, which almost brought him undone.
Somehow he managed to hold himself together, though he had to clear his throat before answering her. His words weren’t critical, but his tone was brusque and uncompromising.
‘You’re a woman, and women look at things differently to men. We don’t need the justification of love to make sex acceptable. There’s nothing wrong with a man and a woman enjoying each others’ bodies. Which we have always done, Serina. More perhaps than most men and women. I can honestly say that I have never forgotten what we shared. It was, indeed, unforgettable. It’s why you came to me that night at the Opera House, and why you’re here now. Why I’m here. There is a chemistry between us that refuses to die, or even fade. We will take it to our graves. But we’re all grown up now,’ he said as he removed the belt from her waist and tossed it aside. ‘There’s no need to say things we don’t mean.’
A type of relief claimed Nicolas once he stopped talking and started seriously undressing her. It had taken a supreme effort of will not to say what she wanted him to say. Because, to be brutally honest, he wasn’t sure that he did.
Emotions could be deceptive. Especially desire.
He wanted her the way he’d always wanted her. But was that love?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Even if it was, there was no point in loving her. She didn’t love him back. He’d overheard what she’d said to her daughter. She’d loved Greg Harmon. She didn’t want anything to do with him, except in this most basic way. He’d been right when he said she was just trying to justify her feelings with romantic words. The bottom line was she was here because she wanted sex.
Nicolas’s teeth clenched down hard in his jaw, his last thoughts hardening his heart towards her. She wanted sex, did she? Well, he’d give her sex. And he’d make her beg. He hadn’t forgotten his earlier threat. If nothing else, he would reduce her to that. And he’d make her say that she loved him.
She’d accused him of coming back for revenge. Who knew? Maybe he had…
SERINA could not remember Nicolas undressing her quite this quickly before. In the old days he’d liked to take his time over everything. She suspected that their first rushed encounter had seriously embarrassed him, stinging the perfectionist in his nature. But nothing was ever rushed. The undressing, the foreplay, the act itself. He would sometimes spend up to an hour playing with her body’s erogenous zones, using his hands mostly, but also his mouth. He’d loved making her climax over and over before he entered her, loved watching her eyes, loved the feel of her wet heat when his own flesh finally fused with hers.
She knew all this because he would tell her, his constant stream of hot words turning her on, and keeping her turned on.
Even that fateful night thirteen years ago, when they’d fallen upon each other like wild beasts, he’d talked incessantly, telling her how much he’d missed her; how much he loved her. He’d only become silent when he fell asleep.
Today he was stripping her in total silence, almost roughly, not bothering to linger as he once would have. In no time she was nude before him, trembling with nerves and tension.
He stepped back at that stage and just looked at her, his eyes both hot and cold at the same time. Serina had no idea what he was thinking. He seemed angry for some reason, which upset her.
‘What is it, Nicolas?’ she blurted out. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Why should anything be wrong?’ he snapped and reefed his shirt out of the waistband of his trousers.
Suddenly she understood. He’d come all this way, hoping that they could find each other again. Maybe he’d even hoped she would finally go away with him. One afternoon of reliving old times was not what he had in mind.
Her heart twisted with dismay. Oh, Nicolas, Nicolas, why didn’t you come back for me sooner? Why did you wait till it was too late?
But at least he’d come. She had that to be grateful for. She would not die without knowing that she’d meant as much to him as he had to her.
‘Let me do that,’ she said softly when he started wrenching open the buttons on his shirt.
As she stepped forward to take his hands away, she gazed up into his undeniably startled eyes. ‘I always wanted to undress you. But you never would let me. You might find you like it.’ She started slowly undoing his shirt buttons one by one, satisfied when she heard his breath catch in his throat.
It was exciting, taking control, something she’d never done, either with Nicolas or with Greg. Her husband had been a conventional lover with simple sexual needs and definite expectations of her as his wife. He’d interpreted her initial reluctance to sleep with him as an indication that sex was not a high priority with her. Serina had never led him to believe otherwise. She rarely said no to him when he approached her in their marital bed. But the pleasure he gave her, whilst pleasant enough, never came even close to what she’d experienced with Nicolas, which she knew she would experience today. Already her heart was racing with anticipation of what lay ahead.
Nicolas could not believe he was doing this, letting her undress him. It was not his usual modus operandi when it came to sex. There was, however, affection in Serina’s lovely dark eyes as she undid the buttons on his shirt. Seeing that affection stirred both his body and his soul. It was no use. He couldn’t pretend this was just about sex. Maybe it was for Serina. She’d