“Do you like it when I do this?” The words were thick, raw with need. “Gabriella? When I touch you here?”
“Yes,” she sobbed, “yes, yes…”
His finger stroked her clitoris. It was the most perfect flower imaginable. He loved the feel of it, the desperate little sounds she made when he caressed it. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted to kiss her belly, her breasts.
“Sweetheart,” he whispered. “Sit up. Let me get this damned shirt out of the way…”
“Dante…”
“Just lift your arms and I’ll—”
“Don’t!” She caught his wrists, her eyes pleading with his. “Don’t,” she said unsteadily. “Please.”
“What is it? What did I do? Gaby. Baby…” Hell! What a fool he was. He exhaled sharply, gathered her in his arms, kissed her temples, her eyelids, her mouth. “Forgive me. I should have realized. It’s too much. You’re sick….”
“No. Oh, no. I’m fine.”
Even worse. Dante cursed himself for being a fool. She’d had a baby only four months ago. He should have thought, should have asked.
“It’s…it’s—”
“The baby. Daniel. I understand. Just tell me I didn’t hurt you because if I did, God, if I did—”
She put her fingers against his lips.
“No. It isn’t that.” She took a deep breath. “It’s…it’s that I’ve changed.” She hesitated. “My breasts. My body.” The tip of her tongue swiped lightly over her lips. “Maybe…maybe if you just leave the shirt—”
He silenced her with a kiss. “I want to see you,” he whispered.
Gabriella shook her head. “My breasts aren’t the way they used to be. And…and there are stretch marks on my belly.”
He kissed her again, framing her face with his hands, then gently stroked her hair back from her face.
“You are the most beautiful woman in the world, sweetheart.”
“No. I’m not. Having a baby changes things.”
“Yes. It makes you a woman. My woman.”
She offered a tremulous smile. “I know I must sound silly. But I don’t want to disappoint you. I couldn’t stand it if—”
“Gaby. How could you ever do that?” His mouth twisted. “I’m the one, not you. I disappointed you. I hurt you. I left you alone to face the hardest days in your life and—”
“You didn’t know.”
“But I do now. And I want to see you. Please…”
He waited, wondering how he would survive it if she refused him, knowing he would never force her to do anything even if it meant he had to spend the next twenty-four hours under a cold shower.
She took a breath. Nodded. And let go of his wrists.
Even more slowly, he drew the cotton T up, eased it carefully over her head. He could feel her trembling and he wanted to gather her in his arms, rock her against him, tell her she would always be perfect in his eyes whether she thought so or not.
He tossed the shirt aside. Her hands flew to her breasts. Dante shook his head and drew them away. He looked at her, and the breath caught in his throat.
She was more than beautiful, she was heart-stoppingly lovely.
Her breasts were fuller and all the more feminine for it. Her nipples, a pale pink that had always reminded him of summer roses, were a duskier shade than in the past.
His eyes moved down her body. The elegant indentation of her waist. Her belly, not flat but delicately convex and faintly, all but invisibly, striped with silver.
Yes, her body was changed. His seed, his son, had changed it. She was the essence of femininity.
And she was his.
Pride, primitive and male, the same emotions that must have driven the earliest man when he first emerged from his cave, swept through him. Mine, he thought, and he reached for her and brought her close against his heart within his encircling arms.
“Gabriella. You are exquisite.”
“You don’t have to say—”
He drew back. Kept his eyes on hers as he cupped a breast, traced the erect crest with a finger.
She moaned; he thought he had never heard a more exciting sound.
“Your breasts are beautiful.” He dropped his hand to her belly, curved his fingers over her warm flesh. “And this, your skin gilded with silver…” His gaze narrowed. “You are mine, sweetheart, and I have never wanted you more than I want you now.”
He kissed her, parting her lips with his, kissed her throat, the slope of her breast, and when he drew the ruched pink tip into his mouth, her cry of pleasure shot through him. He teased her with his tongue. Licked. Nipped. Sucked…and suddenly there was a new taste, a taste even sweeter and richer—