The Baby Scandal(33)

"When  Caroline interrupted me in that meeting and told me that there  had been  a little hiccup and the baby was on its way, I think I felt my  heart  stop beating." He laughed drily under his breath and looked at  her.

This  may come as a shock you know what a calm, placid, accepting person  I  am..." to which Ruth couldn't help but chuckle with tender denial   "...but I was quite a boor with the driver, who stupidly seemed to   attract every traffic jam and red light between Winchester and London   and idiotically couldn't turn his car into a hovercraft.

"Then I  was even more of a boor when I got here...demanding to be told  what was  going on...accosting every nurse on the ward for updates on  how you were  doing in the operating thea¬tre...virtually asking for the  surgeon's  references to be shown to me ...I'm fairly surprised that  they treated  me as indulgently as they did..."

"I've been in perfectly good  hands," Ruth chided, thrilled with his  confession, though he hardly  needed to tell her, because after all  those months she was to¬tally  secure in her knowledge of how much this  won¬derful man improbably  adored her. "Now, tell me all about her. Does  she have any hair?"

"Not  much, I'm afraid. She's very tiny, but she has the loveliest long   fingers." He seemed to be struggling to find the right words and Ruth   smiled at him.

By the time she was robed and walking, supported  by Franco, with her  parents behind them, to the Special Care ward where  her daughter was,  Ruth had heard enough of her little miracle of  creation from Franco to  write several books on the subject. Fatherhood,  the one thing he had  steadfastly avoided until he had found himself  without option, appeared  to have turned him into a doting, boringly  proud dad.

There she is," he said proudly, pointing to a little sleeping beauty, and Ruth smiled and looked around at her parents.

She looks just like you," her mother said, smiling. "Let's hope she's not as demanding!"

One  year later... and as Ruth lay on the beach, with her head resting  on  Franco's shoulder and his arm thrown carelessly around her, she felt  his  free hand creep suggestively across the taut contours of her  stomach.

"Are  you mad?" She giggled and looked around her, but at a little after   eleven in the night the beach was empty of people. The silvery  moonlight  made the sur¬face of the tropical sea turn to glass and  behind them the  rustle of coconut trees was the only sound to be heard.  That, and the  steady lapping of ocean against shore.


"Why not? How many honeymoons do a couple have?"

"Depends how many times they get married," Ruth said sensibly, and she smiled as his arm tightened around her.

In  our case, then. One honeymoon." He nibbled her ear and blew into it,   sending an erotic thrill through her. "And we have ten long, lazy,   Natasha-free days to enjoy it just how we want to, and if that includes   making love on the beach at midnight, then why not?"

The free  hand slipped beneath her shirt and found the full swell of her  breast,  unrestricted by a bra. He cupped the soft mound and then  rubbed her  nipple with the pad of his finger until it jutted into hard  arousal.  With a sigh of pleasure Ruth stretched out, raising her arms  above her,  all the better to enjoy the feel of his hands on her body.

He was  right. Natasha was back in England, being looked after by her  adoring  grandparents, who, from virtually the minute she had arrived at  the  vicarage for a visit, were insisting on taking her to do the  rounds of  the parishioners.

And Natasha seemed to love the attention. She  had left the hospital at  two weeks, still small and hairless, and now,  at the end of a year,  possessed some very sturdy limbs, a head-full of  pale golden hair and  corn¬flower-blue eyes that were fringed by the same  dark lashes as her  father's.                       
       
           



       

"But what if someone comes along?"  Ruth whis¬pered half-heartedly,  reveling in the flash of Franco's  possessive, hungry eyes. She sighed  as he slowly be¬gan undoing the  buttons of her shirt.

Even at this hour it was warm enough to be  wearing only a short-sleeved  shirt and a pair of shorts. Underneath  them, the giant-sized beach  spread was a scant but effective barrier  against the pale sand, and as  the last of the buttons on her shirt was  undone Ruth wriggled  sensuously, closing her eyes and waiting for that  moment when she would  feel the wetness of his mouth enclose her  throbbing nipple.

She arched herself up a bit and shuddered as  the moment arrived and his  tongue flicked across the sen¬sitive peaks,  followed by his mouth as  he began suck¬ling hard on the protruding buds,  taking them one at a  time until she was lost in a world of sensation.  Her fingers curled  into his dark hair and she moaned when he started  tugging down her  elasticized shorts. He knew her body so well, and yet  it never failed  to amaze her that he could still turn her on with the  same deep, greedy  need that she had felt the very first time he had laid  a finger on  her.

She dropped her knees to either side and his  eager, determined fingers  slipped beneath her briefs, un¬swervingly  finding the little soft spot  and the core of her femininity, gently  rubbing it while her body  re¬sponded with moist approval.

If a  hundred spectators carne along now, there would be nothing she  could do  to stop the waves of pleasure engulfing her and her need to go  to the  final place of fulfillment. He trailed his tongue along her  stomach,  which had fortunately tightened back into shape, although its  contours  were slightly more rounded and womanly than before, while his  fingers  continued to idly tease her pulsating womanhood.

Her underwear  was damp when he finally removed it, so that he could  press her thighs  against the sand, spreading wide her legs and settling  between them to  enjoy the mysterious, intensely feminine dampness  be¬tween.

Ruth  moaned as his tongue slid through the furry, downy patch of hair,   carving a path to that beating center of excitement. She tilted her  body  upwards and rotated her hips while his mouth became greedier,  en¬joying  her writhing body with the appetite of the gour¬mand feasting  upon an  exquisitely prepared meal. Before she could reach the pinnacle  of  fulfillment, however, Franco raised his head, allowing her frantic   craving to abate, giving him time to slip off his shorts and guide his   thick, hard arousal deep into her.


He moved slowly at first,  enjoying the way she moved and wriggled,  wanting him to speed up his  tempo so that she could reach orgasm.

He teased her all the time  about being a vicar's daughter, yet also  being the most wanton,  abandoned woman in bed he had ever known, but,  however many positions  they sampled, this was still the one he liked  most. His body over hers.  Like this, he could look down and feast his  eyes on the vision of her  breasts, bouncing as she twisted under him,  the nipples larger and  darker now than they had been before she became  pregnant.

Sometimes  he stilled them with his hands, loving the feel of their  softness,  enjoying the sensation of massaging them and kneading them  until her  nipples seemed even more engorged and swollen pushing  up¬wards, offering  themselves to his mouth.

Most of all, however, he just enjoyed  watching her face, her eyes shut,  her nostrils flaring as he brought her  closer and faster to her  climax.

It seemed as though he could  never tire of this be¬witching woman who  had borne his child and who,  with the flicker of an eye, could still  turn his muscles to jelly.

Work,  the thing he had lived and died for, had faded into a paltry  second  best to his wife and child. Meals out on a nightly basis had  become an  intrusion into what he wanted most to do-namely, get home as  early as he  could, in time to see something of his daughter. And then,  when she had  gone to sleep, to enjoy his wife's home-cooked food and  the deeply  re¬laxing, wonderfully satisfying conversations they had. No   high-powered banter with clients could come close to watching her  blush  or giggle or just look at him with her wide grey eyes.

He felt  the salty film of her perspiration mixing with his, and for a  fleeting  second he closed his eyes and pushed deep into her, opening  them to gaze  at her face as she emitted a long, satisfied groan and he  felt his own  life force seep out of him and flood her body.