Miracle Christmas: Dr Romano's Christmas Baby

Rilla opened her eyes, unsure whether she’d imagined the whispered apology. Luca was staring at her, his dark gaze sleepy and sexy all at once. It was too much and she fluttered her eyes closed again for a few more moments.

She should get up and have a shower. Remove herself from the temptation of his nearness. But it was nice to snuggle into a comfortable sofa and rest her eyes in peace. A thought rose in her foggy brain and she voiced it before it floated away.

‘Why did you come back, Luca? To the General? Why not just sign the divorce papers and put an end to something we should never have started in the first place?’

Luca opened his eyes again. Her sleepy gaze was startlingly honest. He shrugged, struggling through the fog of fatigue and lust to remember exactly why he’d been so crazy. ‘The divorce papers arrived and I saw the job advertised the next day and I thought, Why not?’

Rilla felt her pulse leap at the mention of the papers. So he had received them.

‘Time to come back and put the past to rest,’ Luca continued. ‘And, anyway, it’s what I always wanted. We always wanted … remember?’

She did. Vividly. All those hours in bed, spinning their dreams, weaving their futures together. Him, the medical director of the emergency department at the Brisbane General. Her as the NUM. Colleagues and lovers. Partners at work and in life.

‘I remember,’ she whispered.

His heavy-lidded gaze was mesmerising and Rilla could barely breathe as the air between them was sucked away. She remembered everything about their life together as if it had been yesterday. The laughter, the excitement, the plans, the love. The way everything but them had ceased to exist. They’d been so good together.

Until they’d imploded.

The sinister thought and the memories of that terrible time forced Rilla to sit up straighter. How had they got so close?

‘It was a mistake to come.’ She rose from the sofa as if she’d been poked with an electric cattle prod. She moved away another step, trying to evade the innate lure that demanded she go closer.

What was the matter with her? Sure, she was emotionally vulnerable and physically overwrought. But it was no excuse. She wanted to scream at the power he still had over her seven years down the track. But how could she want to scream and feel him inside her at the same time?

She could feel the familiar itch under her skin and the prickle in her veins and didn’t trust what would happen if she didn’t leave immediately.

Theirs had always been a passionate relationship. Desire and lust had kept them enthralled, oblivious to all else. A fact that had been driven home to them as the cruel jolt of her miscarriage had woken them from their haze of lust to discover they hadn’t had the wherewithal, the history to make it work.

A lot of water had flowed under the bridge since then and she was damned if she’d walk that road again. Rilla didn’t explain but simply turned around and walked out.

Luca blinked, taking a second to realise she’d gone. Damn it! ‘Wait,’ he called, stalking into the darkened hallway, catching her as she put her hand on the doorknob.

‘No,’ Rilla threw over her shoulder as she wrenched the door open. She was tired and she wasn’t going to do something stupid because neither of them was alert enough to resist. Damn her for her sexual vulnerability and damn him for this insane pull he still had over her.

Luca covered the distance to the doorway in four long strides, placing his hand against the door above her head and pushing it shut, keeping it there, sealing her escape route. ‘Stay,’ he murmured.

His chest, pressed to her back, crowded her against the doorframe. His other hand automatically went to her hip. They were so close. His breath heaved in his chest. He could smell her perfume and her shampoo. Hear her husky breathing. Her hair was temptingly close, the curve of her neck and the slope of her shoulder visible through the thick chocolate strands.

‘Please, cara, you said you were going to stay,’ he whispered huskily, as his pulse thrilled faster. He moved the hand from her hip to her shoulder and turned her round, pushing against the frame to step back a little, remove himself from the intoxication of her nearness.

Rilla shook her head. ‘I haven’t got the energy to fight tonight, Luca. To go back over this stuff. I’m tired.’

Their gazes locked for a heat-infused moment. He was too close. Rilla swallowed. The temptation to reach out and touch his jaw was overwhelming. ‘Goodbye, Luca,’ she said, as she turned away, her voice aching with an unspoken and totally inappropriate hunger.

Luca caught a whiff of her scent as her movement swirled and parted the air between them. He moved closer for a second infusion, placing his hand back up high on the doorframe. ‘You don’t wear your ring any more,’ he said to her back. He had noticed it in the bush and it had bugged him ever since.

‘No.’ Her voice trembled and she swallowed.

Luca inched closer, his control hanging by a thread. ‘We’re still married,’ he said huskily. ‘Why did you take off?’

Rilla didn’t turn round. Luca’s presence loomed from behind, so very close, and she knew if she looked at him she’d be lost. ‘It was time.’

She turned the knob but his hand prevented the door from opening. Blocking her freedom.

‘Let me out.’ Her voice sounded cracked and thready and she hated the naked streak of arousal so blatantly evident. There was an unbearable heat down low and her nipples were painfully tight.

Luca’s heart drummed frantically as her smell worked its way past his diminishing resistance. It was Rilla’s essence and he wanted to bite into her neck, slip his arms around her waist and reacquaint himself with every inch of it.

Rilla couldn’t stand the tension any longer. ‘Please, Luca,’ she half groaned, half whispered, her lips and body pressed against the wood of the door trying to escape the flare of his body heat behind her.

Luca was drawn like a moth to flame as he moved closer, pushing against the length of her. ‘That’s what you used to say,’ he whispered, his lips in her hair. ‘I missed it, Rilla.’

His breath caressed her scalp and her knees almost buckled at the husky timbre of his voice. His slight accent ruffled her name and a surge of pure want coursed through her. Rilla searched frantically through a brain that was powering down, seduced into standby mode by the feel of him, hard against her. Blood was being shunted to other areas of her body, tightening her breasts and pooling in her belly. She suddenly felt very, very awake.

This was madness. How could her body betray her so badly? She didn’t want to want this.

‘You’re so beautiful,’ Luca muttered, the hand he had up high on the doorjamb lowering to push her hair off her shoulder, exposing her neck. His fingers stroked the soft skin there and he gave a triumphant smile as she stretched it for better access. His hand tightened on her hip.

‘Rilla?’

She swallowed. ‘Luca, this is crazy.’

Yes, it was. But her voice was a hoarse plea that grated erotically along his nerve endings. His abdominal muscles contracted as if she’d trailed her nails across them. Luca put his hands on her shoulders and turned her round again. ‘I know.’

She sank against the door, his aroused body pressed against the length of hers intimately. His breath was ragged, clearly audible, rubbing against her skin like sandpaper. She shouldn’t want this. But she did. Seven years without his touch, seven years of absence disappeared in the fog of desire that encroached on her senses. It was as if nothing had ever come between them.

Luca wanted to kiss her more than he’d ever wanted anything. He lifted his hands to the cleavage of her shirt, to the top button straining to keep itself inside its hole. He looked at her, giving her a chance to pull back. Her tawny gaze glowed her surrender and he slowly popped each button in turn, exposing her chest to his hungry gaze.

Rilla moaned as the air hit her heated skin. The look of naked desire in his black, black eyes forced her to swallow hard. He was looking at her like he could devour her. His breathing was harsh as his gaze roamed over her greedily. She felt her nipples bead beneath the lacy fabric of her red bra and she almost arched her back in blatant invitation. Luca groaned, his gaze roaming over every luscious inch.

No one had ever looked at her like he did. No one. With eyes that stamped Mine all over her. She found it hard just to breathe under the weight of his possessive, hungry gaze. She should have felt objectified. But she didn’t.

‘I’ve dreamt about touching you. Like this,’ he whispered, a finger following the swell of a breast down into her cleavage. The finger tracked the lace edge back out again and in one deft movement pushed the lacy cup aside and stroked an engorged dusky tip.

Rilla fought against the moan that rose in her throat. But it still found its way out. Part of her hated it that he could do this to her. Hated it that he could freeze her out for seven years and still her body flowered beneath his touch. Yearned for his touch.

Luca swooped his head the short distance to claim her mouth. The first touch of her lips was like throwing petrol on a fire and he pushed her hard against the door as he savaged her mouth. She moaned and he increased the pressure until he was plundering her sweetness so thoroughly he wasn’t sure where she ended and he began.

God, he had missed this. Missed her. Despite everything, he wanted her as much as he ever had. ‘Tell me you missed me,’ he whispered against her mouth, his breathing coarse. He needed to hear he wasn’t alone in this madness.

‘I missed you,’ she cried, no thought of denial as he created havoc of such delicious proportions she thought it might just kill her.

Luca wished that made it better. It didn’t. This whole thing was making him crazy. Everything burned. His loins were on fire, his chest was bursting with the pounding of his heart, his brain exulted in their inevitable joining and railed against it too. Damn! He didn’t want to want her this much. He was supposed to be seeking closure—not revisiting old ground.

‘Yes,’ she cried as his hand jerked aside the other bra cup and his lips closed over the turgid peak.

Rilla looked down at his dark head fastened at her breast and had such a fierce sense of possession it sucked her breath away. She plunged a hand into his hair, pressing him closer, arching her back, urging him to take more.