Mistress And Mother

A winged ebony brow quirked. Intense dark eyes dropped down in speaking appreciation of her unclothed body. ‘I have everything that I want right here…less the threatened sarong.’

Only then registering that she was posing before him as bare as the day she had been born, Molly uttered an only semi-muffled swear word which she had never used in her life before and pelted back to the cover of the bed at speed.

Sholto vented a husky laugh and strolled over to the bed with the indolent cool of a predator prowling on home territory. From the smouldering burn of his dark eyes to the passionate curve of his wilful mouth, he emanated an intense sensuality which mesmerised her.

‘I’m glad you feel lonely after a whole ten minutes on your own…it gives me a very good excuse to get back into bed with you,’ he imparted, coming down gracefully beside her and peeling off his shirt in one shockingly sexy movement.

CHAPTER TEN

‘CHRISTABEL if it’s a girl, Jasper if it’s a boy. We have a tradition of unusual names in my family,’ Sholto informed Molly.

‘It’s a wonder you settled for marrying a plain ordinary Mary known as Molly.’ She hugged her knees as she perched on the concealed ledge in the pool, enjoying the silk-soft ripple of the warm water caressing her skin and the shaded warmth of the sun on her bare back.

Sholto streaked across the pool underwater and surfaced a foot in front of her. ‘But you were christened Mary Ermentrude.’ He laughed as she visibly cringed from the unwelcome reminder. ‘A good solid name, that, but not in common use.’

Molly slid her knees down below the water at the exact same moment as he reached for her. He lifted her into his arms, cupping her hips to lock her thighs round his narrow waist. Her heartbeat hit the Richter scale as she collided with glittering dark eyes ablaze with sensual intent.

‘You were just sitting there waiting for me to do this…’ Sholto registered.

‘Is that a complaint?’

‘A rousing vote of approval,’ he purred in appreciative rebuttal as he waded out of the pool.

Molly dropped her head and let her teeth graze tenderly over the smooth, wet skin of his shoulder and then even more self-indulgently went into reverse over the same path with the soft, nipping pressure of her mouth.

‘Mrs Cristaldi…you’re exciting the hell out of me.’

‘I like doing that…’ Indeed Molly was astonished by how much more confident and uninhibited she had felt since she had had the assurance that he had never slept with Pandora and therefore could not possibly be comparing her in any way in that field. So Pandora was still enshrined in his heart—well, it wasn’t perfect but she could live with that…couldn’t she? Troubled by that thought, she closed it out.

“Three weeks in paradise…we should both be climbing the walls with boredom but I don’t want it to end,’ Sholto confided almost roughly.

They were flying home that evening and she didn’t really want that reminder. She hugged him close in a fierce surge of affection and knew that the

sunlight dancing blindingly on the water was dull in comparison to the blinding, wondering happiness that had consumed her with every passing day on Carvalho Cay.

‘You will be a wonderful mother, cara. Hugs for cut knees, beaming smiles for achievements and buckets of sympathy for disappointments,’ Sholto recited as he brought her down on the bed. ‘And you’ll never lose your naivety because you look at things and always innocently assume that they must be what they appear to be.’

‘If that is yet another crack about the fact that I thought the waterfall and the pool were natural features—’

‘And you argued with me until I pointed out that few ponds rejoice in a complete lack of plantlife and fish and a remarkably convenient set of ledges and steps, not to mention a shallow end, a deep end and a state-of-the-art infiltration system,’ Sholto cut in softly.

He had split his sides with laughter when he’d realised that she had been fooled.

‘Well, I still think most people would’ve been taken in…’ Her voice trailed away due to severe shortage of oxygen as she connected with his blazingly intent golden eyes.

He kissed her and her heart went crazy. She held him tight, smoothing loving hands over every part of him she could reach, raw excitement quivering through her in answer as he shifted with a hungry growl and let his tongue stab deep between her eagerly parted lips…

An hour and a half later, she walked out of the bathroom still towelling herself dry. ‘Three weeks in paradise,’ she reflected with a sunny smile. Not a bad masculine rating for a honeymoon. They had island-hopped in the helicopter when they’d felt like a change of scene. Dominica was only two miles away. They had gone fishing, swum, sunbathed, eaten long, leisurely meals followed by long, leisurely lovemaking. They had also skipped meals to make frantic passionate love and then talk long into the night.

She had learnt so much about his childhood and had done her best to conceal her chilled shudders. As a little boy he had been punished for crying as automatically as he had been punished for shouting or losing his temper, every natural impulse roundly squashed and driven underground because anything less than complete selfdiscipline had been unacceptable. He’d had an absentee, philandering father and a mother who had pushed him away with a frown of irritation whenever he tried to touch her.

And slowly but surely Molly had begun to understand Sholto as she had never understood him before. He was a very physical male and he had learnt only to express his feelings through physical channels. He communicated first with sex. He could be astonishingly tender, gentle and caring but there had to be that initial physical intimacy before Sholto would let himself go and trust enough to talk. No wonder she had been so shattered by his raw and candid verbal assault on her at Freddy’s house! Having established that all-important link, Sholto had shed his reserve and shown his real emotions to her for the very first time.

And that process had just speeded up on Carvalho Cay. As Sholto had let his guard down, she had found that the teasing and the warmth came now without any sexual prompting because he had relaxed with her. His aloof detachment had vanished as if it had never been. It was just a self-defence mechanism…why, oh, why had she never recognised that before?

Only now could she appreciate the simply huge barrier that had dogged their relationship four years ago. She had never had any hope of getting close to Sholto without that initial intimacy. The strength of her love had drawn him as surely as a stack of gold ingots but, new to that experience and uneasy with his own hunger for that all-consuming attention, he had, at times, been repelled by it as well. He had been able to hang onto his reserve then, mask his emotions, walk away without feeling too much pull back. But she didn’t think he would find that so easy to do now…

Sholto was working in the computer room. Molly settled down in the cool of the lounge to flick through an English newspaper that was already several days old. She had bought it the day before on Dominica but hadn’t got around to reading it. Funny how she had only recently dared to start reading newspapers again. For four years she had shunned them and watched television instead, secure in the knowledge that neither Sholto nor Pandora was likely to appear on the small screen.