Christmas with Her Ex(31)

It was one a.m. on Christmas Eve and a baby was born.

Kelsie was the first to speak. ‘Congratulations, Anna. He’s beautiful.’

‘A boy?’ The new mother raised tearstained eyes and nodded as the knowledge sank in. ‘I cannot believe he is here.’

Over the next sixty minutes tiny Josef had been nursed, dressed in a hand-towel nappy, and clothed in a signature bear outfit from the boutique, so amusingly he looked like Wolfgang in miniature, complete with little blue cap. A tiny naked brown teddy bear sat beside him.

Now sated and wrapped in an Orient Express cashmere scarf donated by Max and settled with his mother after another feed, he was a contented baby.

Wolfgang had recovered, apologised for his unprofessional fainting attack and hastened to offer refreshments, but Max had taken over his duties and sent him off to sleep.

Anna was clean and warm, pleasantly drowsy and tucked into the narrow little bed with her baby. Already she’d spoken to her at first shocked then ecstatic boyfriend on Connor’s phone.

A doting waitress had been allocated to sit with the new mother as she rested, until they arrived in Paris in the morning, where she and her baby would alight. Kelsie had promised to drop in before they disembarked.

Connor had left instructions for them to wake him through the night if needed so all bases had been covered.

They’d both washed in the tiny basin in Kelsie’s room and Connor took Kelsie gently by the arm and steered her back to the bar car, where Max had procured them a pot of tea.

Max smiled and went on his way, ensuring all was back to normal on the Orient Express.

Suddenly they were alone on the long settee in the bar car and Kelsie watched Connor flop back in the seat.

She had to smile as he said with disgust, ‘Moments of unusual interest. Babies!’

Kelsie put her head on his shoulder. ‘Such are the dear wee things. You were awesome.’

‘And you were incredible.’ He leant her way and stroked her cheek and she felt like drowsily turning her mouth to his hand and kissing his palm, but she wasn’t sure of her reception after the way they’d parted earlier. He might think she was jumping him again. Seemed she was still a coward.

Instead she said, ‘So we have a mutual admiration society. Sounds good to me.’

She closed her eyes for a moment as she nestled beside him on the long couch. Not a night she would forget in a hurry. Then she forced her eyes open and sipped the tea. ‘As good as this is, I think I’m too tired to drink it.’

She heard him pick up his cup and then a long swallow. Felt him move his head, as if realising the time. Funny how little things like that made him seem more real. As if them meeting like this had a purpose. Another long draught of his tea and he put his white and blue cup down. ‘Then let’s get you to bed.’

Ha. Kelsie pouted. ‘It didn’t work for me last time,’ she murmured.

He smiled, put out his hand and pulled her into a standing position. ‘You can’t have everything you want.’

‘What did you say?’ she whispered as they crept along the darkened corridor.

She didn’t think he would come in when she offered but he did. When her compartment door shut behind them she felt like giggling, but surely Anna and the waitress would hear her if she did.

‘I should just kiss you and go,’ Connor said very softly.

‘I can do that without noise,’ she whispered against his mouth, and she could feel his smile against his lips.





CHAPTER NINE



KISSING CONNOR WAS like diving into a hot whirlpool. Again.

Despite both their efforts to cool their ardour, their kiss deepened into something more after the tension and stress of Josef’s arrival and the awareness already between them, until Kelsie surrendered to it… and to Connor.

In fact, it deepened into something that the joining of their mouths couldn’t satisfy, and her hands began to seek, his followed and both their clothes became disarrayed, all silent flutters of their fingers but no less intense as the dramatic emotion of the night mixed with the unsatisfied emotion of the time before that.

Now it culminated in a flurry of silent desperation as both of them were touched by the past and then lost in the present, in a small swaying cabin in the dark as the snow fell outside.

Until Kelsie stood within the circle of his arms, her once tied dressing gown not designed for resistance, open to the waist as Connor feasted on the bounty within—and she had Connor’s shirt pushed aside, baring his chest, her eyes shut, head thrown back. Still with her eyes shut, grinding her teeth as his tongue circled her, while her hands slid across the inflexible muscles of his upper abdomen. Her fingers grazed the pebbled nubs of his nipples, travelled over his taut back and her body arched helplessly against the iron hardness of him and the onslaught of his mouth.