Page 37 of Claiming His Baby At The Altar

A flush coursed through her right from her painted toenails and rose up to the roots of her hair. ‘I don’t fancy getting cut feet,’ she said, attempting lightness, ‘so, please, which pair?’

His eyes swept from the shoes in her hands to her dress. ‘Try the red pair first.’

Padding into his dressing room, she sat on the red velvet chaise longue and slipped her feet into the high red sandals, secured them, then stood up and held her arms out in a‘well?’.

‘Perfect,’ he said.

She bit into her lip before blurting out, ‘Does this dress make me look fat?’

Her question made his eyes narrow before dipping to her belly.

His chest rose, lips pulling together before he strode decisively to stand behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, and frogmarched her across the dressing room.

‘What are you doing?’ she asked.

‘Making you look.’

‘At what?’

He brought her to a stop in front of the walled mirror. ‘At you.’

‘I know what I look like.’

‘Do you? Because that is not what your body language tells me. Please,querida, open your eyes and look.’

Sighing, trying her best to appear nonchalant that he was pressed lightly against her back, she raised her gaze to their reflection. ‘There. I’m looking.’ Looking at Ramos. The extra inches from the sandals had elevated her so she now reached his throat.

He rested his chin on the top of her head and, his reflected eyes glittering, moved his hands to hold her biceps.

‘Do you know what I see?’ he asked quietly.

She shook her head, suddenly unable to speak. There was an expression in his eyes that made her feel all choked.

‘A beautiful woman. That’s what I see,’ he whispered. He ran his fingers through the ends of her hair loose around her shoulders. ‘A woman with hair like silk.’ He brushed his thumb at the small section of flesh exposed on her neck. She shivered at the sensation. ‘A woman with skin like silk.’

His fingers tiptoed across her collarbone to reach the base of her throat. His hands flattened against the top of her chest. Slowly, he drew them down, over the swell of her breasts, and gently cupped them.

A tiny gasp flew from her mouth. Tiny because all the air had left her lungs.

His nose buried into her hair. His breath swirled through the strands and penetrated her skull right through to her rapidly dizzying brain. ‘A woman with breasts that are every bit as plump and beautiful now as they were the night we conceived our child.’

Flora tried to shake her head but the arousal flooding her overrode everything. All she could do was squeeze her eyes shut, grit her teeth, and fight desperately against the desire firing through every cell in her body.

His hands drifted to her belly, his mouth finding her ear. ‘A woman with a stomach that carried and nurtured our child.’

The material of her dress swished around her knees, brushing against her increasingly fevered skin.

She needed to stop him...

Oh, God, he was gathering it together and pulling it up.

‘Look,querida.’

Don’t look. Whatever you do, don’t look.

Her eyes flew back open.

The hooded sensuality in Ramos’s reflected stare stole the last of her breath.

---