CHAPTER THIRTEEN
‘DON’T TELL ME that you didn’t enjoy last night,’ Santos said now, his voice rough and raw, his searing gaze burning into her. ‘Don’t tell me that it wasn’t what you wanted—what you still want. Let me—’
No, Alexa wanted to cry, seeing what was in his eyes, knowing what he intended and wanting desperately to avoid it. But the word was never spoken aloud, pushed back into her throat by the rapid descent of his mouth, the fierce pressure that forced her lips open under his, crushing them in the force of his passion.
And for a moment she yielded. For the space of several frantic heartbeats she could do nothing else. She wanted his kiss, wanted it desperately and although it tore at her wounded heart she couldn’t hold back her response, couldn’t stop herself from putting all her love and her hunger into kissing him back. Feeling it, Santos caught her up in his arms, crushing her closer, taking her mouth with the force of the primitive male passion that had him totally in its grip. And just for a moment or two Alexa let herself enjoy the bitter-sweet delight that it brought her.
But only for a moment or two. The second it went on longer than that the bitter-sweet tipped over into agony, into something she couldn’t bear any longer, not knowing that it was all she could feel. And so, summoning up all the strength she possessed, and some she had no idea she could be capable of, she pressed her hands up against the wall of his chest and pushed as hard as she could, wrenching her mouth away from his with a force that drove her halfway across the room, panting with distress and unable to look him in the face for fear of the cold flames of anger that she knew must burn in his eyes.
‘No!’ she managed at last, her voice cracking desperately under the force of her despair. ‘Last night was—was fun. I enjoyed it, yes. But that’s not all there is to marriage.’
‘It was more than fun.’
Santos too was breathing hard, each breath seeming to rasp rawly in his chest, and his eyes seemed totally colourless, almost translucent above cheeks that had lost all colour in the intensity of his response.
‘It’s what I want from marriage. And I want more of it.’
And so did she, Alexa admitted to herself. So why was she holding out like this? Why should she deny herself this, at least, when it was what she wanted so much?
‘I want more of it too,’ she admitted and watched his head go back sharply in disbelief, seeing something that flashed in his eyes that startled and stunned her.
It amazed her so much that she suddenly had the courage to take a huge chance; to risk everything she had on one enormous gamble. What did she have to lose anyway? There was nothing more that could be taken away from her. It was all or nothing anyway.
‘I’m prepared to share your bed—in fact I’ll enjoy that—but I will not marry you.’
All or nothing. But she knew that she had gambled and lost when she saw how Santos’s expression changed, his face closing up in rejection of what she had said.
‘It’s marriage or nothing,’ he flung at her, a cold, hard verbal challenge.
‘Why are you so insistent on marriage?’
And why did she have to keep asking? Why did she keep laying herself open to the pain she knew that he could inflict with just a word, just a look?
‘You know why. I want children—heirs. And I want you.’
At least he’d spared her the added misery of reminding her that the status the Montague name brought was important to him too. Not that it could make her feel any worse. She had never believed that a heart could break. But she felt now that she knew that it could, cracking into many pieces inside her chest.
He saw something in the look that she gave him, something she couldn’t conceal, no matter how hard she tried.
‘What else do you want?’ he demanded harshly. ‘Don’t ask for something I can’t give you.’
‘Marriage or nothing?’ she said softly, sadly, knowing there was no other answer. At least the pain was so bad that it actually stopped the tears at the backs of her eyes. There was no way she could have endured to let them fall. ‘Then I’m afraid that it has to be nothing.’
If he had argued, she knew she would have gone to pieces. She could fight herself or she could fight him, but she couldn’t contend with them both at once.
But Santos didn’t even try to persuade her into any other frame of mind. Instead with one long, searching look into her face, he turned and went silently out of the room. Standing frozen in misery in the middle of the kitchen, she heard him heading upstairs to fetch his shoes, then come down a few moments later. Far too few moments later, Alexa acknowledged as she watched him grab his coat from the hook in the hall and pull it on before without another word he headed for the door.