Chapter Twenty one

But her thoughts were forgotten as his hands

clamped around her head and his fingers dug into her

scalp as his excitement grew. She could feel him tense

and hear that distinctive choking sound he made, just

as he flooded her mouth and she drank him in.

She opened her eyes and looked up to find him

staring at her and she slid her tongue slowly over her

lips, which were still sticky with his salty essence.

His eyes darkened but his hands were gentle as he

pulled her to her feet and led her into the huge wet

room adjoining his bedroom, where he turned on the

warm jets of the shower.

Where do you want to go for lunch? he ques-

tioned, slicking thick soapy foam over her body.

"I'd love to go to that lovely restaurant in Gramercy

again.

Then that's where we'll go."

"Won't you need to book?"

His smile was wolfish as he, sluiced suds from her

skin, paying specially close attention to her thrusting

nipples. I never need to book.'

Overlooking a snowy courtyard garden, the restaurant was exquisite and afterwards they went to an

art gallery in Chelsea where a friend of Mas's was

exhibiting his sculptures. Toyin drank champagne

and chatted with the artist and decided she liked New

York, a city where it was possible to blend in and lose

yourself. She liked it nearly as much as Poonbarra.

Her heart missed a beat. The two places which had

felt most like home had one thing in common.

Him.

She glanced across the gallery, where Massimo was

standing studying a sculpture, his thumb rubbing

thoughtfully at his chin while close by a striking-

looking blonde in a mulberry-coloured velvet coat

was trying to catch his eye.

Toyin thought about how it would be once she

had returned to Antiochda. That one day soon, this

blonde-or someone like her-wouldn't just be chat-

ting to Mas about a marble figure, but would be ac-

companying him back to his gorgeous penthouse,

to do to him what Toyin had been doing earlier.

 A

sickening image sprang to her mind of somebody

else 

unzipping his jeans.

 Somebody else taking

so intimately into her mouth...

Toyin's heart clenched as she put her glass down

on the tray of a passing waitress and waited for the

feeling to pass. But these pangs of longing and pos

session had been getting more and more frequent as

the days had ticked by. Was it sexual jealousy she was

experiencing, or something else? Something she was too scared to acknowledge because it was as futile as

expecting the sun to rise at midnight. That her feel-

ings for Massimo were becoming more complicated than

either of them would ever have anticipated.

Far more than he would ever have wanted.

She wondered if he'd noticed her attitude towards

him softening, or whether she'd managed success-

fully to hide her growing feelings. She suspected he

would push her away if he got an inkling she'd started

to care for him in a way he had warned her against,

right from the start.

She tried to pinpoint when her attitude had slid from

lust into tenderness and then into a wistful longing for

a future which could never be hers.

 Was it when he'd

protected her from the press and continued to protect

her, here in his adopted city? Or when he'd made love

to her and shown her that sex could be about tender-

ness as well as hot, hard passion? She swallowed.

No. She knew exactly when it had been. When

he'd opened up his heart and told her about the baby

he'd lost and she'd seen the raw pain on his face and

heard the bitter heartbreak in his voice. In that mo-

ment he had revealed a vulnerability she'd never as-

sociated with a man like him, and that had changed

everything. And she didn't want it to change.

Because she couldn't afford to fall in love with

Massimo Carter.

On Christmas morning, Toyin woke first slipping 

from the bed and disappearing into one of the dressing

rooms before starting to busy herself in the kitchen.

She gave a smile of satisfaction as she cracked the first

eggshell against the side of the bowl.