‘You’ll have to ask your husband that. I’ve already said more than I should have.’
‘But I can’t ask Reece something like that. You have to tell me.’
‘Tell you what?’
Alanna whirled to find her husband standing right behind her, looking daggers at Mike.
‘Your wife wants me to explain how my new program works,’ Mike said without missing a beat. ‘But she’s much better at teaching dancing than I am at teaching computer-speak. Do you want her back now? I gather by that he-man look on your face that you do. Time for me to go, anyway. I’ll just have a word with the bride and groom first. See you around, folks. Thanks for the dancing lessons, Alanna. They might come in handy one day.’
Alanna felt new respect for Mike as he walked away. Whilst she was aware he was a genius in his field, she’d never thought much of his social skills. That little display, however, had been very clever. It wasn’t easy to think on your feet like that.
As she turned to face her husband Alanna decided to tackle his seeming jealousy head-on. She knew she would worry if she ignored it. As for her curiosity over what Kristine had done to Reece… That would have to remain unsatisfied for now. No way could she broach such a subject with Reece. He would be angry with her for discussing him with Mike behind his back. And rightly so.
‘Why were you glowering at me just now?’ she demanded to know. ‘Mike said you were jealous.’
For a moment, Reece’s face stiffened, his square jawline looking even squarer with his neck muscles all tight like that. His nicely shaped lips, usually relaxed and smiling, were pressed tautly together. As for his eyes… Alanna had never seen them so hard. And so cold.
But then he laughed, and the Reece she knew and felt safe with was back. ‘Aren’t I allowed to be a bit possessive of my beautiful wife?’
‘Being possessive is too close to jealousy for my liking,’ she chided, but gently. ‘I don’t like jealousy, Reece.’
Reece pursed his lips, but his eyes were smiling at her. ‘Don’t you, darling? Sorry. Blame that dress you have on.’
‘This dress? That’s silly. This is a very modest dress.’
‘It’s the colour. It does things to me. If you must know, I’ve been thinking wicked things ever since I watched you walk down that aisle,’ he said, his voice dropping to the low, sexy timbre that he used during foreplay.
Reece was a talker in bed, giving her head-turning compliments and calling her ‘Babe’ whilst he caressed her and turned her on.
Her breath quickened just thinking about those times. He was suddenly thinking about them, too. She could see it in his face, and in his eyes.
‘I want you badly, Babe,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘I don’t think I can wait till we get home.’
His calling her Babe at this stage was not only telling, but instantly arousing, as if he’d turned a switch on inside her. Alanna opened her mouth, then closed it again, finding herself speechless under his by now smouldering gaze.
Reece had looked at her with desire before. Many times. But this was a different type of desire tonight. Darker. And infinitely more exciting.
Suddenly, the room around Alanna began to recede, till she was aware of nothing but her husband’s eyes on her. Her lips fell slightly apart. Her mouth went dry. Her skin broke out into goose bumps.
Very dimly, she heard the music change to a slow, moody number.
Without saying another word, Reece drew her into his arms, his eyes not leaving hers as he let them do his talking for him for a while. As he pressed her stomach against his stark arousal the most exquisite sensations gripped Alanna’s body. Her nipples hardened. Her belly quivered. Her insides contracted.
Her arms slipped up around his neck and their bodies melded even closer together.
‘I need to kiss you,’ he whispered into her hair.
‘You…you can’t,’ she answered shakily. ‘Not here.’
‘Where, then?’
She knew what he was asking her. It wasn’t just a kiss he needed. The thought of him taking her somewhere relatively private sent the blood rushing to her head.
Even as she flushed possible places jumped into her mind. There were several powder rooms, a couple of them well away from everyone, on the first floor. Alanna had been upstairs with Holly the previous day, delivering her going-away outfit, so she knew the layout of the place quite well.
The temptation to go up there with Reece was acute. She wanted to. Far too much.
When she’d married Reece last year, Alanna had vowed to keep a tight rein on her highly sexed nature. No good ever came from a man thinking his wife was a whore.
She’d been quite content with their sex life so far. And happy in her marriage. Reece liked and respected her. Would he continue to respect her, however, if she let him do this? It worried her where such a surrender might lead. She wanted to be his wife and the mother of his children, not his married mistress, catering to his every sexual whim, regardless of time or place.
No. She had to resist temptation.
‘I can’t, Reece,’ she said tautly. ‘I have to go help Holly change into her going-away outfit.’
‘She’s dancing away happily at the moment,’ Reece pointed out, nodding towards the bride and groom who were wrapped in each other’s arms, gliding slowly around the dance floor. ‘Come on. Let’s go.’
‘Go where?’
‘You know where,’ he ground out. ‘I saw it in your eyes.’
She drew back and stared up at him, her heart pounding. Was she that easy to read?
‘We’re married, Alanna,’ he went on brusquely. ‘Whatever we do together is perfectly acceptable.’
‘Being married doesn’t make everything acceptable,’ she countered heatedly. ‘I’m sorry, Reece. You’ll just have to wait till we get home.’
His face darkened with frustration. ‘This is bloody ridiculous. You want to. I know you do.’
When his fingers tightened on her arm, Alanna wrenched her arm out of his hold and glowered up at him.
‘Don’t ever presume what I want to do, Reece,’ she bit out. ‘I said no. That means no. I don’t know what’s got into you tonight but, whatever it is, I don’t much like it. Now I’m going to take Holly upstairs to change. Hopefully, by the time we get home you will have gotten over your caveman impulses and gone back to being the sophisticated man I married.’
CHAPTER THREE
THE strained silence in the car during the drive home gave Reece plenty of time to wonder, and to worry. He’d soothed his earlier frustrations with the surety Alanna wouldn’t knock him back when they got home. But
