Christmas Kisses: The Spanish Billionaire's Christmas Bride / Christmas Bride-To-Be / Christmas Wishes, Mistletoe Kisses

Anguished, she knew she had probably landed herself in the deepest hot water that she had ever been in—and that included becoming an unmarried mother. She’d thought she had found a safe haven at last from all the past hurt that had wounded her, and the thought that she might have to leave that haven practically as soon as she’d arrived made her feel sick to her stomach.

All she could do was leave the outcome to a greater force than her own mere will. Learning to trust again was not something that came easily after what she had been through, but why not give it a try for once? she thought.

As the moonlight beaming in from the open window touched Cristiano’s head and shoulders with an almost ethereal glow—and with Christmas just around the corner—she asked herself if there had ever been a better time in which to make a heartfelt request of the Divine?

CHAPTER TEN

THE sensation of a silky hirsute leg rubbing up and down one of her own bare legs beneath the bedclothes caused Dominique’s eyes to ping open in heart-racing shock. Caught between the land of sleep and wakefulness, for a moment she forgot where she was.

As the beautiful bedroom with all its fine antiques and luxurious furnishings came into view in the softly smudged morning light—instead of the shabby bedsit she’d grown used to—reality hit with a vengeance. And—more importantly—the reality of just whose leg was rubbing up and down against hers.

Turning her head, Dominique came face to face with a pair of smouldering dark eyes that would warm up a statue on a freezing winter’s night. And right now, with the look Cristiano was giving her, Dominique was anything but an inanimate block of stone … ‘Buenos diás.’He smiled, placing a deliberately sexy little kiss on her startled mouth.

‘I thought—’

‘What did you think?’ He cupped her face and his leg inserted itself silkily between her thighs.

The melting sensation that made her feel like marshmallow was stealing through her body again, and Dominique struggled to give her thoughts voice. ‘I thought—I didn’t expect to find you still here,’ she admitted, and there was a husky cadence to the words that finally emerged.

‘Did you want me to leave?’ he asked, tanned brow furrowing.

‘No … It’s just that …’ Struggling to contain her embarrassment, Dominique sighed. ‘I thought you might not want anyone else to know … That we were together, I mean.’

‘Why would you think that? Do you imagine I am ashamed of being with you?’

‘No … But—what will your family think when they find out, Cristiano? What if they think that I deliberately—?’

‘Seduced me?’ he interjected, his dark brows wriggling comically like a pantomime villain.

Despite her anxiety, Dominique couldn’t help but smile. ‘I just want them to know that I’m not some manipulative little gold-digger. I would die if I thought they believed that for even a second!’

‘If you were a gold-digger, do you think you would even be here right now? Do you not think I would have recognised that right from the start? You did not even want to talk to me when I first came to your flat! Much less try and get money from me!’

‘As long as your family know I am only here because of Matilde … because I don’t want her to miss out on having a family who really love her.’

‘I do not even have to tell them that … They can already see for themselves the kind of woman you are, Dominique.’

‘And they do know that I didn’t deliberately get pregnant to try and trap Ramón? It was an accident, you see. He—’

‘I do not want to talk about Ramón!’

The anger in Cristiano’s voice as well as the tension that rolled off his body, made Dominique recoil for a moment.

‘I am only too aware of how my reckless cousin could behave. You do not have to draw me a picture! I am sorry if it hurts you to hear it, but it is a wonder he did not father many more children out of wedlock than just Matilde! Deep in her heart Consuela knows it too.’

‘It doesn’t hurt me.’ Her slender shoulders lifted and fell in a weary shrug. ‘Not any more. Please don’t be angry because I brought up the subject. I just want things to be out in the open … for there to be no doubt I’m here for all the right reasons. I was just afraid of what Consuela and the others would think if they found out we had slept together. You must understand my fears?’

Driving his hand through his already tousled black hair, Cristiano looked thoughtful for a moment. ‘No one is going to think any less of you, Dominique. You will have to trust me on that. In fact, I know they will be glad that I have such a close bond with you. There is nothing to worry about. Truly. Now, come here … Have I not said that I will protect you and take care of you?’

He dropped another lingering kiss on her softly parted lips, as if to seal his assertion, and a sigh of pleasure helplessly left her. But at the back of Dominique’s mind she wondered exactly what Cristiano meant by vowing to protect and take care of her. After making passionate love to her for most of the night, did he still view her welfare as something he was interested in merely out of a sense of duty and honour, because his cousin had made her pregnant and her child was a Cordova?

Even though his arm was lying possessively across her middle, Dominique moved to push up into a sitting position. If the truth were known, Cristiano was probably just as commitment-shy as his cousin. Doubly so because of what had happened to his wife … Her stomach turned over in dismay. Her wish that there might be a chance for them to enjoy a proper relationship was probably just a foolish pipedream, and one she should quickly put aside unless she wanted to make herself thoroughly miserable. It was nearly Christmas, and she at least wanted the opportunity to try and enjoy the season in this magical place before she had to face any more heartbreaking reality.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I need to put the bottle warmer on for Matilde’s feed.’ She glanced down at the wristwatch she wore out of habit most nights. ‘She’ll be waking up soon.’

Grasping the swathe of silken hair that spilled down over her breasts, Dominique started to swiftly plait it. At the same time, she glanced over to where her baby lay in peaceful slumber.

Cristiano slid his arm coaxingly round her waist. ‘She is not awake yet. There is still time to wish each other good morning properly … sí?’

His warm lips found the spot between Dominique’s shoulder and neck and his teeth nipped gently. Her treacherous body responded immediately, her breasts growing heavy and her nipples stinging with avaricious need to feel his hands and mouth there. But, as delicious as Cristiano’s seductive touch was, she knew she was going to have to distance herself a little today out of sheer self-preservation. Making love with him had left Dominique much more vulnerable to beinghurt by him than before, when their relationship had been purely platonic … He had rocked her world to its innermost core, and the repercussions were already making themselves felt.

‘I’m a little … tender,’ she told him. It was no contrived excuse. Her lover had been mindful of her welfare, but at times passion had dictated he was not always as gentle as he might have been.

‘I am sorry if I hurt you, mi ángel … Forgive me.’ Cristiano’s glance was rueful. ‘Next time I will try not to be so demanding. But I cannot minimise the passionate effect your beautiful body has on me, Dominique … Not when every touch makes me burn for more and robs me of the desire and will to even get out of your bed today!’

Thrilling at hearing him say there would be a next time, Dominique stored away the little bubble of joy that burst inside her and scooted to the edge of the bed.

‘I’ll go and sort out the bottle warmer, then get a quick shower before Tilly wakes.’

‘Very well.’ Behind her, Cristiano lay back on the pillows with his arms over his head, deliberately—or so it seemed to Dominique’s hungry eyes—not pulling up the sheet to cover his awesome bare chest, as if to show her what she was missing. ‘If you must desert me I will lie here until my other favourite girl awakes!’

Everyone seemed in particularly high spirits that morning, and Cristiano was no exception. Being with Dominique and Matilde—or Tilly, as her mother so affectionately called her—affected him profoundly. Apart from arousing his deepest male instincts to take care of them both, just being in their presence lifted him out of the dour and humourless mood that for too long a time since Martina’s death had been an unhappily frequent visitor.

Now, as he instructed the crew that were so carefully carrying the huge Christmas tree into the family living room as to where the tree should be placed, he found himself anticipating Dominique’s childlike awe when she saw it with mounting pleasure. And when he was alone again after the men had gone, and his mother, aunt, sister and Dominique were all in the kitchen, helping to prepare food for the family’s special ‘arrival of the tree’ lunch, Cristiano allowed himself a few moments of quiet reflection about what had occurred the previous night.

In Dominique’s arms he had not just found the physical satisfaction his body craved, he had also found a woman who—although she had been badly betrayed—had not closed the door on being with a man again, and had given him a tantalising glimpse of what it could be like if Cristiano were to commit to her on a permanent basis. His nights would be filled with the most intensely passionate loving, he didn’t doubt. And his days—his days would be filled with thoughts of going home to her loving arms whenever he was away from her, and when he was with her he would not want for anything but her and sweet Matilde.

The idea was temptation personified … Yet even as he considered it Cristiano knew a most terrible dark fear as well—the fear of losing Dominique and Matilde as he had lost Martina and their baby, and also Ramón, another family member he had vowed to watch out for and protect. What if he failed Dominique and her child as he had failed them? It did not bear contemplating. Cristiano knew he would be drained of everything if that happened. Every positive, hopeful aspect to his life would be gone. He had already been down one of the darkest roads of life, and he did not want to go down one as soul-destroying again. For the sake of his sanity he could not risk it. He simply could not …

‘Your mother told me I could come and take a peek.’

The woman Cristiano had been contemplating with such passionate fervour arrived in the room with her baby in her arms, and the vivid blue eyes that could rarely conceal her feelings were already alight with wonder at the sight of the magnificent Christmas tree.

‘Oh, Cristiano! It’s so beautiful—and the smell of pine is just divine! But it’s so high! How on earth are we going to put the fairy or the star on the top?’

His arm automatically sliding round her slender waist, Cristiano grinned, planted a loud kiss on the baby’s downy cheek and then did the same to her wide-eyed mother. ‘Some poor idiot will no doubt have to risk a broken neck to climb up a ladder and place it there—that is how!’

‘Oh!’

‘You may well say oh, señorita!’

Unable to resist her adorable expression, Cristiano kissed Dominique again—only this time his mouth moved over her lips instead of her cheek and lingered there. They had the completely ravishing taste of vanilla and honey combined, and he passionately wished that he could take her back to bed and stay there for the rest of the day.

‘Cristiano?’

‘Hmm?’