kissed her, held her. She leaned as close as she could. She never wanted to leave his arms.
He scooped her up and with keen determination quickly looked about. After three strides he turned and sank onto the sand at the very base of the cliff. His arms loosened enough for her to wriggle and wrap her legs around his waist. Embracing him. She kissed him back, pouring herself into the passion, wanting to give him everything she could. She’d missed him, needed him. She couldn’t get close enough.
‘I was worried I’d lost you,’ he groaned breathlessly, between kisses that grew both frantic and yet more tender. ‘That I was never going to have you...not really have you. Not like this.’
She took the lead, impatient and yet aching to savour the preciousness of this moment. She grappled with the zipper of his jeans. He shifted beneath her, helping. Helping again by sliding his hand under her skirt, up her thighs, pulling her panties aside enough to access her secret heat. But then she hesitated, looking deeply into his eyes, drawing courage from what she saw in them. Her heart soared. Lust was a mere fraction of all she was feeling.
‘I love you,’ she whispered.
There was another flawless moment of silent, straining emotion before he breathed—a broken sigh of pleasure, an aching heart filled to bursting.
‘Another first?’ he whispered back, gazing into her eyes as she nodded. ‘The most precious,’ he muttered gruffly.
Her eyes remained locked with his as she sank down, taking him hard and deep within. Her core moulded around his, strengthening, securing. They both sighed at the searing sweetness. Fully clothed, yet bared to the soul, Stella had never felt as close to anyone as she did to him then.
‘I just want to love you,’ he breathed, combing his fingers through her hair and cradling the nape of her neck. ‘Just want to stay close like this.’
She knew he meant more than physically—that he felt this emotional connection as profoundly as she.
‘Don’t ever shut me out.’ His eyes gleamed with that contrary mix of arrogance and vulnerability that she now understood and adored in him.
‘Never.’ Another tear escaped, but her soul eased. ‘I’m here for you—you’re here for me.’
It really was that simple. That true. That perfect. She had never thought she could ever feel this happy. This loved.
He smiled that gorgeous, dimple-studded smile that was simultaneously wicked and challenging and irresistible and heart-stopping.
‘Always.’
PRINCE EDUARDO DE SANTIS cradled the tiny baby in his arms and looked across the room at his sleeping wife. She was pale and she had smudges beneath her eyes, and her hair was swept back in a loose, messy ponytail, but he’d never seen her looking so beautiful.
The bells celebrating the birth had only recently stopped ringing across the city. The bells in his heart were still going strong—reverberating with joy around his body. His wife and daughter were well and happy and safe. And he’d never felt so lucky. Never so grateful.
‘No reason why she couldn’t be a non-commissioned officer if she wanted,’ he said slowly, turning to the older man who stood in the room with him.
A slow smile spread across General Zambrano’s face. ‘No reason. She’d be good at training on the base.’
‘Part-time is possible, eventually?’ Eduardo suggested.
He’d not wanted Stella to work during her pregnancy, and she’d mostly relented in her opposition to that request, accompanying him on outings only when she was feeling well. But now...
He knew she wanted to be the best, most ‘there’ mother she could, and he had no doubt that she would be, but he suspected she missed flexing other muscles as well. Attending art exhibition openings with him wasn’t going to be enough for her. She needed options.
‘Of course. Just one or two classes a week, and she can do them more or less as and when she likes. She was always our fittest female recruit. Beat more than half the men.’
‘The strongest of the lot.’ Eduardo smiled smugly. And the most determined.
‘You know her quite well, then?’ The General actually winked.
‘Getting there.’ He was going to need the rest of his life to really get to know her.
‘Don’t think you’re going to make plans for my future without letting me have a say in it.’
A cool voice from the corner made Eduardo turn back towards the bed. His heart soared when he saw the glint in Stella’s eyes.
‘You’re awake.’ He stated the obvious with the smile she always pulled from him—from the deepest corner of his heart.
‘Of course I am,’ she answered sweetly. ‘I’ve been awake the last five minutes, eavesdropping on you two cooing over our baby.’
Even her father let out a rare laugh. ‘Then you know I’m late getting back to my office already.’
‘Shocking behaviour for a general,’ she admonished him. ‘But utterly appropriate for a father and brand-new grandfather.’
Eduardo glanced at the older man and saw the softness in his eyes. And the concern.
‘Now I’ve seen you awake and well...’ her father began.
‘I’m fine, Dad. Stand down. Go.’ She reassured him and released him, with a smile that held just a hint of vulnerability. ‘I love you,’ she said softly.
‘I love you too,’ her father mumbled, gruff and swift, and he was out of the room before he’d even finished the garbled words.
With a chuckle, Eduardo carried his daughter over to her mother. ‘He’s getting better at it,’ he teased. ‘And so are you.’
That she’d gone through most of her life without being told that she was loved still broke his heart. So he made it his business to tell her every day. Several times a day. And he liked to show her too—every way he could think of.
‘I’m making him practise all the time.’ Stella glanced from the door her father had just walked out of back to him. ‘Eventually it’ll come naturally, right?’
That was his Stella. Brave and honest and always trying so very hard.
‘He dotes on his granddaughter already.’ Eduardo carefully passed their sleeping baby to her. ‘I had to prise her from his arms before.’
‘Really?’
A happy glow lit her eyes, making the blue that touch more vibrant. He could look into those eyes for ever.
‘You’re not just finessing that?’
He
