* * *
‘Thank you,’ she whispered quietly, as he helped her down from the sleigh and walked with her over the grass to the castello.
‘What? For today?’
‘For today...’ She tilted her head. ‘And for the last few months. I know you’ve only been trying to help and I haven’t made things easier.’
‘No, you haven’t,’ he agreed, but there was no heat to his words. ‘Why is that, Saskia?’
‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘Perhaps I thought I wanted my child to have more than just two people who married because they thought it was the right thing to do.’
‘And there’s something wrong with doing the right thing?’
‘I don’t know. I think I wanted us to know love, and warmth, and family. The things the world believes I had. The things you never had. And, more than that, Malachi, I think I needed to have that. I wanted more than just a marriage of convenience. I guess I’d had enough of my parents, or Andy, or whoever and I just wanted to have someone who really wanted to be with me.’
She stopped, her chest aching as she thought about her parents.
‘Actually, scratch that. I want someone who has to be with me. Who can’t breathe without me. Who can’t breathe without our baby. Who doesn’t want to breathe without us.’
‘I told you—that’s a movie screen fantasy,’ he bit out. ‘That doesn’t exist.’
‘Maybe it doesn’t. But, then again, maybe you’re wrong and it does exist,’ she countered softly, glancing down at her belly as she laid one protective hand over it. ‘I think it might do, even if it isn’t what I’ve been pretending to myself it is. Even if what my parents had wasn’t it after all.’
* * *
He wasn’t sure what he was doing. One moment he was trying to clench his fingers, just so that he didn’t give in to the itch to reach for her again. The next he was kissing her.
His hands cupped her face as he practically drank her in, as if she was the most intoxicating thing he’d ever tasted.
Perhaps she was. But he didn’t care. He didn’t want to stop.
He might have kissed her for hours. Days. Exploring her, reacquainting himself with her and delighting in her. Even when they finally surfaced he found he couldn’t let her
go, and she sighed a deep shuddery breath, her lips still brushing his cheek.
‘What are you doing, Malachi?’
He wasn’t sure he even knew. ‘You accused me of being controlled, reserved, and you told me you didn’t want that.’
‘So...’ She paused. ‘This is you being...impulsive?’
‘Yes.’
He dropped another kiss on her shoulder and felt another quiver cascade through her.
‘You being reckless?’
‘Indeed.’
Another kiss. Another tremor.
‘You being...unsuppressed?’
‘It was,’ he growled wryly. And he lamented the loss of the kiss even as his voice vibrated through her. ‘Until you decided to overanalyse it.’
‘I apologise!’ Saskia chuckled softly. ‘I just—’
‘That’s enough. Stop talking.’ He cut her off, ruthlessly and effectively, his mouth claiming hers. Stamping his authority all over her.