Christmas Holiday Husband by Kris Pearson

problem was Cal’s paternity, but she’d hide that by ensuring he never came near the farm.
    She’d been contracted to work at Wharemoana until the end of January when the new school term began. Then she’d be putting plenty of distance between herself and Tony, however much that hurt. Perhaps a casual liaison was possible?
    Leaving him would be hell on earth, but the prospect of a temporary paradise was almost overpowering.
    And there was always the chance they might prove incompatible. It might fizzle out to nothing.
    Yeah, right .
    “I’ll think about it,” she conceded.
    Her body buzzed. Her brain smoked. She was at least halfway toward making the most stupid decision of her life.
    And then Tony leaned across and kissed her.
    It was a small soft kiss that was sweetly regretful, hugely hungry, and which never quite finished because Ellie’s determination fractured and she slid possessive hands over his shoulders...brushed her fingertips over the velvety new growth of his hair...and pulled him down to deepen their embrace. She wanted him, right at that instant. With eleven years’ hard-leashed passion that had suddenly rushed free. With the longing that had never ended.
    xxx
    Tony moved his body over hers, pinning her beneath him, positioning himself for the penetration that could certainly not occur yet, even though she’d parted her thighs to cradle him.
    “Ellie,” he breathed, pushing his hips against hers. He’d grown outrageously hard, already primed again for possession. She’d responded so fast that his brain still processed the permission given, but his body was way ahead. Thundering with blood. Tight with passion. Desperate to claim her and subdue her and stamp her as his. All his male instincts raged at fever pitch. He could barely believe his luck after the long bitter guilt-ridden years he’d endured.
    And her mouth! Delicious.
    The first savage tide of desperation subsided. He kissed her more gently, nipped her nose, brushed his lips over her eyelids, whispered against her neck that she was beautiful, that he wanted her even more than he had all those years ago in Sydney.
    She sighed beneath him, murmured, “The girls will see.” But then she closed her lips around his earlobe and sucked.
    Tony growled deep in his throat. Groaning, cursing, laughing softly, he levered himself off her and lay face down on the rug.
    To judge from the excited barking of the old brown spaniel the girls were still some distance away, but...
    “Tonight, then,” he said. The negotiating was over.

CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    The cliffs did yield fossils—old crumbling shells that intrigued the twins, because the sea was several miles away.
    “How did they get here, Daddy?”
    “This land used to be way down under the ocean. It got pushed up in a huge earthquake, or maybe lots of little ones, thousands of years ago.”
    “Millions, more likely,” Ellie said, still feeling his kiss, hearing ‘tonight then’ echoing through her brain.
    “So there might be dinosaur bones? Really?”
    Eyes grew wide. Antonia started to scrape harder with her trowel. It would take hours to make much impression. Uncovering any possible dinosaur was weeks away.
    Ellie saw Tony’s amused glance. “Can you find an old cow bone or something?” she muttered, flicking her eyes out over the rough ground. He took the hint and wandered off, returning a couple of minutes later with something concealed in his hand. She watched as he pushed it into a crack not too far distant.
    “There are some more shells over this way, Ellie,” he said. The twins scampered over to him, and the weathered old bone was duly discovered.
    “Dinosaur! Daddy—look, a real dinosaur bone!” The thrill factor was huge.
    Tony turned the bone around in his hand. “It just might be,” he said. “I suppose by some miracle it’s possible. What do you think it could have been? A big toe?”
    To Ellie it looked suspiciously like a sheep-shank discarded after a riverside