Which might well have given his mother hope that Skye wasn’t completely committed to the marriage!
Luc strode across the street, setting his mind on a plan of action. He was not going to lose Skye now. No way. In fact, he’d help her start on packing her belongings tonight, sorting out what she wanted to keep and what could be given away to charity. Best to make the move to his apartment this weekend. That might stop his mother from sneaking visits behind his back.
He used the front door key Skye had given him and had no sooner stepped into the hallway than Matt came flying down it to meet him. ‘Nonna was here again, Daddy. You’ve just missed her,’ he cried, his happy face expecting Luc to feel both pleased and disappointed.
‘Well, she should have timed her visit better,’ he replied lightly, ruffling Matt’s hair to project some fun into the moment. ‘How was your last day at school?’
Skye was in the kitchen, cutting up vegetables for dinner. She smiled at him as he came in with Matt but there was a strained look in her lovely blue eyes and she didn’t stop working to greet him beyond saying, ‘Hi!’ No hug. No kiss. A quick instruction to Matt. ‘Let your father sit down and relax before you talk his head off.’
There was a tight restraint about her that knotted Luc’s gut. He managed to drink the beer Matt brought him but it didn’t relax him, and for once, his son’s bright chatter did not give him joy. It took an act of will to respond to it. His gaze kept turning to Skye who just went ahead, preparing dinner, occasionally joining in the conversation, trying to act naturally as though nothing was wrong.
Luc wasn’t fooled. However, it was impossible to say anything in front of Matt. Their son was a complete innocent in all of this, and should be kept so, unless circumstances forced knowledge on him that had to be dealt with. Luc had the feeling those circumstances were gathering around them very ominously at the moment.
He silently railed against his father’s stubborn refusal to accept the woman he loved. Skye was everything he could possibly want in a wife. She had so many admirable attributes, far beyond her outer beauty. Was his mother seeing that now? Was she plotting to stop the marriage or was she beginning to recognise Skye’s qualities?
Matt was still enthusiastic about his Nonna so there couldn’t have been any unpleasantness between his new grandmother and his mother. Not in front of him. Yet something was seriously disturbing Skye. Luc could sense the anxiety behind her every look at him.
He forced restraint on himself all through dinner and the cleaning up afterwards. As soon as they’d bade Matt goodnight and switched the light off in his bedroom, Luc drew Skye straight into hers, closing the door behind them, wanting to close the door on anything that might separate them. He wrapped her in his arms, kissing her with all the deep passion she evoked in him, relief heightening his need for her as he felt her uninhibited response.
This, at least, was right.
It had always been right.
And she was as eager to strip off his clothes as he was to get rid of hers. He loved her. He took her to bed, determined on showing her how utterly and completely he did. She was so incredibly beautiful; the silky softness of her long glorious hair, the lush curves of her that were all woman, the smooth litheness of her legs, winding so possessively around him as he revelled in the sweet fire of her sexuality, knowing she was craving his.
He drove her through climax after climax, controlling his own excitement until it reached breaking point, bursting with the need to melt into her, be one with her, the ultimate sharing of themselves. Her sigh of fulfilment told him she was with him all the way and he kissed her to feel it even more intensely, to feel nothing could ever separate them. They belonged together, as deeply as any man and woman could.
The sense of blissful harmony carried over into their lying together afterwards, Skye’s head resting contentedly over his heart as he leisurely caressed her back. ‘I want to move you and Matt to my place this weekend,’ he murmured. ‘There’s no reason for you to stay here any more, Skye, and I want you settled with me.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, her warm breath fanning his skin, giving pleasure as her answer gave him pleasure.
Luc felt secure enough now to casually probe the concerns his mother’s visit had raised. ‘What’s troubling you, Skye? Did my mother push again for us to postpone our marriage?’
She didn’t lift her head. Her hand glided down to stroke the erotic area under his hipbone as she spoke. ‘Those legal papers we signed…they’re good for three months, Luc. We don’t have to get married on the date we set.’
The delightful fuzz of sensual pleasure was instantly ripped from his mind. He grabbed her hand, squeezing it so hard she cried out his name in protest. But he was already rolling, slamming her hand into the pillow as her head came to rest on it, his heart pumping a much louder protest at what she was allowing to happen, what she was aiding and abetting.
‘You asked me if I’d walk away from everything for you and Matt. I have,’ he fiercely declared, seething over her inconstancy. ‘Don’t backtrack on me now, Skye. It’s done. If you don’t keep your word to me…’
‘Luc, I will marry you. I will.’ Alarm in her eyes. ‘And I’ll go with you wherever you choose to go. That’s not in question.’
‘Oh, yes it is.’ Blood was pounding through his head with the urgent need to make her see what she was doing. ‘You’re actively betraying my love for you by listening to my mother, letting yourself be drawn into giving consideration to people who hurt you. Who will hurt you again. And do everything they can to take you from me.’
‘They won’t, Luc. I promise you. Nothing can tear me away from you now,’ she said earnestly. ‘But I shouldn’t have asked you to give up everything, to sacrifice—’
‘It’s no sacrifice. It’s freedom. Throwing off the shackles of an ownership I now refute in all its malevolent forms. I will not have it touch us.’
‘Malevolent…’ She repeated the word as though it tormented her. ‘I made it so, Luc.’
‘No.’
‘What if it isn’t?’
‘My God!’ he cried in exasperation. ‘What more proof do you need? How can you forget what was done to us?’
‘Your mother—’
‘My mother has her own agenda. My father has not said one word to me about Christmas Day. Nothing is going to change in that court, believe me.’