After the Storm (All I've Ever Needed) (15 page)

Before he had a chance to react to her use of the badly-pronounced Italian endearment, she pushed against his broad chest.
 
He let her propel him backwards, falling across the bed with his hands up beside his head and his feet on the floor.

“Perfect.”
 
She laughed with glee and climbed on top of him, holding his hands down against the bed.
 
“Don’t move these.
 
Now
I’m
going to pleasure
you
until you scream.”

“I’m yours,
cara
.
 
Do what you will.”
 
Stephano chuckled.

“Join us,” she commanded.

“You’re holding my hands,
cara,
” he reminded her.

She released his right hand and raised herself as he positioned himself against her.
 
Moving his hand to her hip, he steadied her as she sunk slowly down onto him.

“I’ll have that hand back now.”
 
Natalie reached for it and brought it back up and placed it beside his ear.
 
He lay stretched out beneath her as docile as a pet lion.
 
The feeling of control was exhilarating and Natalie reveled in it as she raised herself a few inches off his rigid length and sheathed herself again, but she was aware that a pet lion could be controlled only if it wanted to be.

She held Stephano’s gaze as she repeated the tantalizing movement, increasing the circling motion of her hips as her arousal gained momentum.

“Yeah, baby. Yeah,” Stephano groaned and pulled her down for a long, deep kiss as he started to thrust forcibly upwards.
 
A moment later he took full control, surging upright and clamping his lips around one of her distended nipples as he grasped her hips and moved her up and down his engorged length.

I’ll win the next one,
Natalie vowed as she screamed his name and shuddered into her release.
 
But it was almost a tie—her convulsing muscles shattered Stephano’s control and sent him immediately into the throes of his release.

He slowly lowered himself onto the bed, taking her with him.

They lay for a several minutes, their hearts beating in unison, their harsh breathing gradually slowing to normal pace.

Just as Natalie began to wonder if Stephano had fallen to sleep, he whispered in her ear, “Torture me like that one more time,
mia bella
.”

***

Sitting in the office waiting for Stephano to appear, Natalie felt so happy she was afraid.
 
He had called, as he often did, to say that he was in a taxi on his way back from his meeting and should be in the office in ten minutes.
 
He seemed to miss her when he was away from her as much as she missed him.

It was absurd to be this happy.

It couldn’t last, she knew.

It really couldn’t.

Reaching blindly into her bag for her compact mirror to discreetly check that her face wasn’t shiny, her hand closed around a small cylindrical object that she recognized by touch.

About to release it and continue her search, Natalie’s fingers groped for it again and tightened around it reflexively.
 
Something had been at the back of her subconscious mind trying to make itself known for days, but she had been so caught up in Stephano and the sheer bliss of being loved by him, she hadn’t taken the time to be still and listen.

The object in her hand triggered the message and she received loud and clear—she hadn’t had a period since she and Stephano had had that heated, very reckless encounter.

Horrified, Natalie stood up and walked to the bathroom with as much dignity as she could muster.
 
Once she got there her knees threatened to give out.
 
Stumbling into the first of the two cubicles, she locked the door and sat heavily down on the closed lid, leaning weakly against the wall for support.

A missed period didn’t mean pregnancy, but Natalie had a sinking feeling that for her, it did.
 
There had been other signs which she’d ignored.
 
Her breasts felt heavier and just the week before she’d tried on one of her closer-fitting suits and found it uncomfortably snug.
 
She had changed clothing, promising herself to eat less the next time Stephano cooked his fabulous spaghetti and meatballs, or his decadently rich lasagna.
 
She had missed a couple of Boxercise classes in the last weeks, but she had probably burned just as many calories making love with Stephano, so that didn’t explain the weight gain.

It was all too soon.

She’d wanted to be a little more sure of Stephano’s love, to know that he was with her because he loved her and not because he had to be.
 
New love was always so blinding it hid the cracks in a relationship.
 
It was only when the shiny newness wore off that the flaws became apparent.
 
Stephano spent a lot of time at her home, but she hadn’t suggested that he move in.
 
She was grateful that he hadn’t suggested it because the request would have been a hard one to refuse.
 
It was a technicality really since he spent as many as three or four nights a week with her, but she felt better knowing he was only sleeping over.
 
She’d never wanted to be, or have, a live-in lover.
 
It was an old-fashioned view, but she liked the idea of having the commitment of a marriage—though it didn’t mean much these days with celebrities getting married and divorced in a matter of days.

If she was pregnant it would change everything.
 
She wouldn’t want to go through a pregnancy on her own—not that Stephano would let her.
 
He had already said that he was ready to be a father; he would want to be involved.
 
They had been ultra careful after that first fateful time, but it seemed like everything else in their relationship, this was out of their hands.

She had always hoped that she would be lucky enough to have children and having Stephano’s baby would…

Reality suddenly hit her—this was more than a missed period. She was having a baby!
 
Stephano’s baby!

The thought started a strange fluttering inside her stomach.
 
How was she going to tell him?

***

More than a month later, Natalie was still waiting for the right moment.
 
Berating herself for being a coward, she bent nearer to the mirror after their evening shower and quickly applied her night cream, rushing to get under the sheets and away from Stephano’s often too-perceptive gaze.

“Natalie?”
 
Stephano had stopped in the middle of towel drying his hair and was looking at her quizzically.

“Yes,” she answered, her breath quickening.
 
She straightened hastily, realizing that the position would have emphasized her fuller breasts and the slight rounding of her stomach.

“Are you pregnant,
cara
?”

She had worried that he’d question the baby’s paternity.
 
After all he had ensured that he’d used protection after the first slip, but there had been no mistaking the eager anticipation in his voice as he asked the question.

 
“I think so.”
 
Natalie hadn’t yet done a test to confirm it, but her certainty grew with each day.
 
Although she knew it was splitting hairs, she would have felt dishonest to have done the test and kept the knowledge that she was pregnant from him.

“You
are
having my child.”
 
Natalie gasped as he moved to swiftly swing her up in his arms and carry her to the bed.

“I think so,” she repeated hastily, not wanting to get his hopes up.
 
“I haven’t done a test yet.”

“I think you are.”
 
He cupped her breasts and gently molded their firm contours as if gauging their size now in comparison to when he’d first touched them.
 
Natalie held her breath as he glanced slowly down her body and up again.
 
“Your body has changed.”

“Maybe I’m just getting fat,” she suggested, trying to lighten the intensity of the moment.

“I’m pleased,
tesoro
.”
 
Stephano held her gaze, his face unsmiling.

“Are you?”
 
She couldn’t help her uncertainty creeping into the question.

“I am,” he confirmed and then smiled.
 
We’ll get married.”

He bent his head and covered her lips with his, deliberately stifling her objection before she could voice it.

“You’re supposed to ask me, not tell me!” she protested when he finally let her breathe.

“I didn’t want you to say no,
mi bella
.”
 
He said it playfully, but his eyes told her that he meant it.

Sometimes it was scary the way he was able to read her like a book.
 
It would have been romantic if he had gone down on one knee and asked her, but if he had done, she might have been foolish enough to say, “no”.
 
She wouldn’t have refused because it wasn’t what she’d dreamed of even before she’d realized she was pregnant, but because she would have doubted that he loved her as much as he said he did and worried that he was only asking because of the baby.

Perhaps it was time to let life take her where it wanted to, she decided as she wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled his head closer to kiss him back.

*****

Epilogue

Natalie hadn’t expected Stephano to insist that the wedding take place as quickly as could be arranged and begin to set things in motion with head-spinning speed.

They found a large three-bedroom house in Kensington, convenient for travel to the office and close enough, Stephano said, for his mother to come over regularly to see her grandchild when he or she was born, but far enough away for her to not come over every day to bring him food and ensure that he, Natalie and her prospective grandchild were receiving the proper nutrition.

The second reception room was an ideal entertainment space with a games room big enough to hold a pool table and a Samsung SyncMaster 70” LCD flat panel display TV, perfect for hanging around and watching sport when either Stephano’s father, his friends or her brother came for a visit.

Natalie loved the bed Stephano insisted on: an Eastern King Sleigh bed made of carved solid English oak and measuring a whopping 6’6” x 6’6” from The Big Bed Company.
 
They had even bigger beds for sale, but he’d said though he needed to be able to stretch out comfortably he didn’t want to be at one end of the bed and her at the other.
 
She had chosen the bed linen and accessories from the same company, mostly 1000-thread Egyptian cotton in pastel shades.

She had always admired his style but hadn’t realized that Stephano’s wardrobe was almost as extensive as hers.
 
As well as his bespoke business suits and shirts, he had several items of clothing made by Ozwald Boateng, who many credited as being responsible for introducing Savile Row tailoring to the new generation of men.
 
Thankfully, the master bedroom’s double walk-in wardrobes was big enough to hold everything including Natalie’s shoe collection which had grown in the weeks she’d been dating Stephano.
 
She’d bought mostly sensible shoes in the last years, though she’d a few pairs with modest heels for special occasions.
 
Dating a man of Stephano’s height had allowed her to slip on 4”, even 5” heels and not worry about towering over him.
 
They would have to be put away until the baby was born, but it had been divine to indulge one of her fantasies.