All Chapters of TAKE MY BREATH AWAY: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

“Baby, I need your body in ways that you don’t understand…”          Cheryl sucked in her breath sharply. Nikolas drew her against him and ducked his head to nuzzle her exposed throat and nibbled his way up the cord of her neck, then positioned his mouth directly above hers. His hard, long, hungry kiss left her weak and needy. She wrapped her arms around Nikolas’s neck for support, and for gratification curved her body against the front of his.“Hm, that feels good… You have no idea how much…”               Cupping her hips, he pulled her tighter against him. Then he unfastened the single button on her dress and slipped his hands inside, covering her breasts. Nikolas took off her dress and gazed at her full breasts, filling and spilling over the lace cups of her demi-bra. Deep in his throat,

          Cheryl turned over on to her stomach, allowing her body to soak up the warmth of the sunshine as she laid on a padded sunbed in front of the beach house. She was on her own, and for once she was absolutely okay with it. Nikolas was away and, strangely, she was glad about it.           She’d slept heavily, having taken some painkillers for the migraine that had started to grind around her temples after the grueling ordeal of the most disastrous dinner party in the history of mankind.           The pills had knocked her out, and she’d been unaware that Nikolas had come to bed. Then, as the bright morning sunlight had pressed through the unsuitably ornate drapes of the bedroom, he had crawled down beside the bed and roused her by softly shaking her shoulder. “I have to go up to the villa, but I won’t be too long,”

          While opening the bathroom door and seeing her on the floor, Nikolas felt a strange pain in his heart. He’d scooped Cheryl’s inert body up and carried her, as swiftly as he could, to a bed in a guest bedroom in his mother’s villa.           Then he’d summoned a doctor, and after he had examined Cheryl, had asked him outright what was wrong. And the doctor had told him. The unexpected news blew him away, and Nikolas’s next question had been one that any man in his situation might ask. “How many weeks?” “It’s very recent. You did well call me right away. Many women miscarry and don’t even realize they were pregnant. But in this instance…”           He stopped and looked Nikolas right in the eyes “Well… the miscarriage may yet have been avoided. I suggest Miss Richards continue to stay in bed. It is esse

          After trying to talk to her again and again, tired of being pushed away by Cheryl, Nikolas gave up, and, for the time being, he sounded retreat. Every time he asked her a question, her responses were always brief and quite unpleasant. He wasn’t feeling sorry about doing it.          Cheryl was just lying there, the room still shaded, just as she had been lying there yesterday and the days before She might not even have moved for all Nikolas knew. There was just one thing he did know for sure: no more bleedings. She was still pregnant.          The doctor was coming again in that very afternoon. He’d told Nikolas bluntly there was nothing he could do either way, but Nikolas had asked him to come anyway. He wanted to be sure that if anything happened, he would be able to tell himself afterward that he had done ever

          Rejection, instant and powerful, speared through Nikolas. Memory sifted in him from long, long ago. He could scarcely remember Demetrios’s mother from when she had been his babysitter, but he could remember a softness about her, a gentleness.          When he had fallen, she’d picked him up and hugged him. She’d sat him on her lap and sung funny English nursery rhymes to him, songs that had clapping games in them, and she had laughed and smiled. He had missed her when she’d gone…          Cheryl will be like her, warm and loving, gentle and caring. What else does a child need? And as for himself… Well, as a mother to his child, he would have no complaints about Cheryl. As a woman for his bed… again, he could hardly complain. And as a wife by his side, through the long years to com