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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 had his thinking been correct?

      Alanna wanted a baby. Quite desperately, judging by her disappointment over not conceiving yet. She’d started reading books on the subject, and had circled the days on the kitchen calendar when she was most likely to conceive. Tonight was not optimum but it was close enough.

      Back at the reception, he’d reasoned that no way would Alanna let this day end without sex, especially since they hadn’t made love last night. She’d been busy with Holly on last-minute wedding preparations whilst he’d been out having a few drinks with Richard and Mike. When he’d finally come home around one o’clock, Alanna had been in bed, sound asleep.

      So he felt quite confident that some of his desires would be satisfied tonight. Although not all.

      For a few seconds tonight he’d glimpsed a different Alanna, one who’d almost agreed to have a quickie. Her gorgeous green eyes had glittered wildly with the idea.

      He wanted that Alanna to surface again. He also wanted a wife who didn’t lock the bathroom door after her any more. One who wasn’t so darned protective of her privacy.

      Such thinking revived his frustrations. All of a sudden, he wanted to snap at her. Taunt her. Challenge her.

      Do you only let me make love to you because you want a baby? he felt like flinging at her. Do you fake your orgasms? Do you care for me at all, or am I just a means to an end?

      Actually, Reece didn’t believe she faked her orgasms. But there was something fake about Alanna. He just didn’t know what. Up till this point, it hadn’t bothered him how much of herself she’d kept to herself. As long as he’d got what he wanted, he hadn’t made waves.

      But everything had changed tonight. Reece wanted more from Alanna now, and, by God, he aimed to get more!

      Alanna sat in the passenger seat of Reece’s red Mercedes sports, her face turned away from him, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

      She knew Reece was angry with her. She could feel it. If there was one thing Alanna had become adept at over the years, it was sensing a husband’s anger.

      Not that Reece’s anger was anything like Darko’s. She’d trembled with fear when he’d been angry.

      Alanna wasn’t even close to trembling at that moment. But she was agitated. And upset.

      She hated having made Reece angry. Hated herself for her silly overreactions. He’d hardly behaved badly. So he’d been a little possessive of her. A forgivable sin, considering he’d been turned on at the time and she’d been off teaching another man to dance.

      In hindsight, however, Alanna suspected most of his anger came from the fact that he’d witnessed her momentary willingness to go along with what he’d wanted. Seen it in her eyes, he’d said.

      She’d acted like a tease. Going hot, and then cold, on him. No wonder he was mad.

      She should apologise. She knew she should. But the words simply wouldn’t come, and before long Reece was turning into their driveway and braking abruptly to a halt. He zapped the automatic gate-opener, then waited, his fingers tapping impatiently on the steering wheel till they opened.

      Once again, Alanna tried to force herself to say something. She turned her head in his direction, but still could not find her tongue, gazing past him instead at the impressive facde of their home.

      Every now and then—usually at the oddest moments—Alanna took a mental step back from her present life and tried to see it as others saw it.

      All of her girlfriends thought her a very lucky woman. Which she was. She lived in an extremely beautiful home. Drove a snazzy car, and had a fabulous wardrobe.

      But it wasn’t any of these material things that were the main subject of her girlfriends’ ‘you-are-so-lucky’ remarks.

      No, it was Reece himself they envied Alanna the most. Her charismatic and very handsome husband.

      Admittedly, he was a dream of a husband. Hardworking, cheerful, complimentary and generous. A great lover, too, who, till tonight, had not been at all demanding where their sex life was concerned. He seemed content with fairly straightforward lovemaking. In bed. Tonight had been the first time he’d wanted something different.

      So, yes, on the surface, she was a very lucky woman.

      But all that would mean nothing, she realised with a pang in her heart, if she never had a child.

      Reece hadn’t been the only person to feel unexpected jealousy tonight. When she’d accompanied Holly upstairs to help her change out of her wedding dress, Holly had confided to Alanna that she was already pregnant.

      Alanna had done her best to express delight at the news, but, down deep, she’d been worried. Reece had been

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