A Shameful Consequence(42)

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ she said, what he had been expecting all along, but it was for very different reasons. ‘I don’t think I want to go.’

‘I thought you might change your mind.’ Nico said tartly. ‘Well, I need to get out. I’ve had enough of sitting in—’

‘So have I,’ Connie interrupted. ‘And I was looking forward to a night out with you, but I really don’t need to be reminded that I’m a charity case, and neither do I want to sit opposite someone who can’t be bothered to speak to me or doesn’t even tell me that I look nice.’

‘You need my opinion?’

‘I need manners!’ Connie said. ‘It shouldn’t matter what I’m wearing.’ She wasn’t about to explain herself to him. ‘I’m really not up to gauging your mood.’ She walked past him to the door. ‘I’ll tell the driver you’re coming.’

‘Where are you going?’

‘For a walk,’ Connie said. ‘I might go to and have dinner at the taverna.’

‘Alone?’

‘Of course.’ She frowned. ‘I haven’t had a night off since Leo was born. I intend to enjoy every moment of it—and I’m wasting several of them now.’

Her response was nothing like he had expected.

Nothing like he was used to.

She would, Nico knew then, she absolutely would go out without him.

Tonight was about pushing her away, showing her the impossibility of it—except far from pushing her away, instead his hand reached out and caught her wrist and pulled her towards him.

‘You can’t go alone.’

‘Why not?’ she challenged. ‘What, you think I need you to go out with? That I need an escort? I’m very happy with my own company. I know she won’t sulk, I know she’ll enjoy the evening.’

‘You look …’ He hesitated, because she looked far more than the word she had demanded. ‘Nice.’

‘I know,’ Connie answered. ‘Now, if you’ll let go of my wrist, I’ve got a date with me.’

‘You look beautiful.’

‘You don’t get it, do you? I’m not talking about compliments or the lack of them. I just refuse to sit and drag conversation out of you, to be grateful to you for taking me to a stunning place. You’ve been vile since you came home—and I don’t want your company.’

‘I’m sorry.’ It was possibly the first time he had ever said it and certainly to a woman. Normally it was they who were sorry, begging for a second chance, saying that they would change, if only he wouldn’t end things. ‘I’m sorry if I have been, as you say, vile. I didn’t intend …’ He could hardly tell her that he had never expected her to say yes and had certainly never expected the woman that had emerged from the bedroom. And more importantly, he had never intended this night to prove how much he wanted her, to confirm what his body already knew.

She felt the charge run through his fingers to her wrist like electricity, watched the surly man who’d come home slip into tempting lover as he pulled her in, heard the taut voice slip into caressing as the skilled seducer emerged. And she fought it, so hard she fought it. His lips apologised, this time to her mouth, and, God, it was bliss to be back there. To the mouth she’d missed for a year, to hands that roamed her body as if abstinence had been hell. His tongue prised her lips open before her mind was really aware of it. On contact they ignited, two mouths became one. He turned her so her back was to the wall and he kissed her harder.

Their one night had been a long lesson, a more tender guide to a place that was waiting. This was a run and he was chasing, his hands moving to the tie of her dress. He moaned into her mouth as he felt purple lace.

From so little experience, she thought it would take ages, that tenderness was required, but with hungry hands searching, with Nico’s passion contagious, she was a breath away from joining him, from tearing at his clothes, just to get them to that place.

And then she remembered the doctor’s words, which she had barely even registered at the time, because sex had seemed a million light years off. Given her success with the Pill, he had put in an IUD, but he had told her the first time afterwards to take things slowly, that her partner must be gentle.

As good as this was, gentle it was not.

What would Nico know about these things? How could he possibly understand the sudden nervousness and that had her quickly pull away?