Page 46 of Husband for the Holidays

What did that mean for their marriage if he was so closed off?

She was lost in introspection when they arrived back at the villa. They paused to hang their coats and put on the slippers Filomena had left for them, then moved into the great room with their purchases. Filomena had gone home and Nemo was staying in the pool house so the villa was empty. Eloise looked for the tree that—

“Oh, my God!” she cried as the Steinway piano hit her eyeballs. A giant red bow sat atop the closed lid. “You didn’t? Oh, my God, Konstantin. Oh, myGod.” She wanted tohugit.

She spun to hug him instead, but craned her neck to stare at the piano through eyes that blurred with tears.

“You’re shaking,” he said with amusement as he rubbed her back. “It’s okay. It’s real.”

“I’m just so—” She turned her face into his shirt, trying to dry her face since tears disturbed him, but they were overflowing anyway. She’d missed playingso much.

“You’re not crying. Eloise,no.” He sounded agonized as he cupped the side of her face and used his thumb to wipe her cheek. “This was supposed to make you happy.”

“I’m ecstatic.” She could hardly speak she was so overwhelmed. She ran her trembling fingers under her eyes. “I know I should say it’s too much and you shouldn’t have. I won’t even call it mine. I’m just happy to see it and play it. I’m never going to leave here. I hope you know that. I’m going to sit right there for the rest of my life.” She pointed at the bench.

“Then who will play the ones I’ve ordered for Athens and New York?”

“No!” she squealed, slipping into gales of laughter because there was no other way to let the joy burst out of her. She clutched her fists into his cable-knit pullover and leaned into him, so overcome she couldn’t process it.

“You’re being silly,” he scolded as he kept her from collapsing weakly to the floor.

“I’mbeing silly?” That was even funnier. That grand piano was worth six figures and he was buying them by the dozen, like eggs. Her shoulder’s hurt, she was laughing so hard.

“Are you going to play with your new toy, or not?” He was trying to sound stern, but there was a big smile on his face andthatnearly broke her.

She’d never seen him smile, not like that. Not with his whole face so he looked carefree and star-power handsome, with a glint in his dark eyes and creases beside his mouth.

She reached up to urge him to dip his head so she could kiss him.

His arms tightened across her back, holding her as he arched over her, making her tingle to her toes as he immediately took over the kiss, consuming her for several wild heartbeats before he straightened and set her on her feet.

“Go,” he said huskily. “The tuner was here when they set it up. I want to know if he needs to come back.”

She had a feeling he was trying to tamp down on his own emotions, but she was torn between the dual desires to touch the piano and touch him. She was dizzy as she moved toward the instrument, still buzzing with sensuality and now growing anticipation and absolute delight. She flexed her fingers as she sat, then lifted the fallboard. Her hands found her warm-up scales and it sounded perfect.

“Don’t judge my mistakes. I’m out of practice.” Especially for a masterpiece that she hadn’t played since relearning it for her audition to the therapy program earlier this year. It suited this occasion, though.

She began picking out the first notes of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy.”

As she did, Konstantin came to stand behind her. He rested his hands on her shoulders, sending a force down her arms that felt electric. She flubbed a couple of notes and kept going, feeling more alive than she ever had in her life.

Konstantin carefully drew her hair tie from her ponytail while she cheated her way through the most complex chords, then sifted his fingers through the length as she poured her elation into the keys.

As the emotion built, then softened, then built again, his light touch caressed her nape and into her throat, making her breasts tighten.

Her shoulder brushed his fly and she realized he was hard, but she continued to race her fingers across the keys, chasing the flights of notes.

It was like they were having sex, folding feeling onto tension, building one on the other in thicker and thicker layers. She wanted that. She wanted sex. She wanted Konstantin. She wanted to feel this wild intensity inside her whilehewas inside her, driving her up and up and up to the heights and then...

The finale. She held that chord soaked with carnal yearning, allowing it to resonate through the room, from her body into his.

His hand slid lower to fondle her braless breast. She arched into his cupping touch, tilting her head back. He swooped to kiss her, drawing her off the bench and kneeing it aside as he pressed her against the piano. Her backside hit the keys in a discordant hum as he kissed the hell out of her.

She had wanted this for years, this hunger that was pouring out of him as though he were starved for her. It was so much more than she had imagined. Wilder. More dominating, more all-encompassing. It probably should have alarmed her, but this craving of his was everything she wanted. The love she’d always had for him was maturing as they spent these days together. It expanded further as he kissed her with unfettered passion. She didn’t know how else to express her feelings except to kiss him back with the same ferocious energy.

As she looped her arms around his neck, he scooped her up and lifted her onto the piano so she was more eye to eye with him. His gleaming gaze was atavistic, his features tense and flushed with lust.

Had she done this to him? It was thrilling. She cupped the sides of his head and spoke against his mouth. “I want to make love.”

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