November Harlequin Presents 1(127)

‘Andreas—’ she began against the pressure of his lips, but the attempt to speak, to try to form some sort of protest that she was incapable of sustaining, gave him the opportunity he was waiting for.

In the moment that her mouth partly opened, Andreas seized his chance and deepened the kiss with sensual deliberation. Her parted lips were crushed even more under the passion of his, his tongue sliding into the exposed warmth, the soft moisture, tangling with hers in an intimate dance that made her senses swoon, had her fingers closing over his arms, clenching tight.

But this time it wasn’t the need for support that had her holding him close, as close as she could. This time it was pure physical need that made her clutch at him this way. The need to feel his lean, hard frame against hers, feel the pressure of the strong bones of his chest, his ribcage against her breasts, the curve of his pelvis cradling her hips. And because of that closeness there was no way she could be unaware of the swell of his forceful erection, hot and hard against her, communicating need and passion in a way that no words ever could.

Cold need and heartless passion.

The icy little voice of reason slid into her mind, stopping the heat of her reaction dead, so fast that it made her head spin.

Andreas Petrakos was totally capable of coming on full and hard with his mouth, his tongue, his body, when no part at all of his mind was involved—and least of all his heart!

Hadn’t he shown that when he had brought her here the first time, just after their marriage? When he had brought her into the house, barely stopping to shut the door as he went through it. When he had kissed her as they mounted the stairs and taken her into the bedroom, his mouth practically welded to hers. And with his hands hotly, hungrily busy on her body, finding the fastenings of her clothing blind, dealing with them with rough haste, discarding them like a Hansel and Gretel trail leading from the hallway to his room.

And in that room he had made the hottest, most ardent, most passionate love in the world to her, waking a matching hunger in every inch of her quivering body, showing her pleasures she had never believed possible, taking her to heights of ecstasy she had never known before.

Before dropping her right down to earth again with a sickening, agonising thud, just a few, devastatingly short hours later. She still had the scars on her heart where his black cruelty had slashed into it.

And with the memory everything inside her froze in an instant. The rush of heat that had flooded her body ebbed away as fast—faster—than it had come, taking all the passion with it.

‘Becca?’

Andreas had sensed her withdrawal, her stillness, and his kisses stopped, adding another terrible sensation to the thousands of whirling feelings in Becca’s head and in her heart.

‘No…’

It was all that she could manage and it was just a whisper. A thin thread of sound that did nothing to express what she really felt deep inside: the searing agony of loss, the desperation of knowing that she was so weak—too weak—the bitter despair of knowing that Andreas had only to touch her, to kiss her and she had fallen into his arms, into his control like a foolish child, one that had not yet learned that fire burned—again and again and again.

‘No…’ she tried again, managing to make it actually sound like a word this time. But she still couldn’t put any real force into it. She still couldn’t make it sound like the word that was ringing inside her head, screaming to be heard.

No, no, no, no! that voice said. Loud and clear and savagely honest. A voice that no one could doubt she meant.

But that voice was the voice of panic. The voice of pain. The voice of the woman who had once loved this man so desperately that she had rushed into marriage with him without stopping to think. It was the voice of the woman whose heart he had broken. The voice of the woman whose love had turned to hatred in the black, terrible moments as she forced herself to walk away from him—fighting a cruel bitter war with her longing to turn back, to see him just once more.

It was the voice of the woman that she couldn’t let Andreas see.

Not now, not ever, at least until he had his memory back and he knew once more who she was. Not until she had had a chance to talk to him, to ask him for help for Daisy. To save the baby’s life.

And even then she couldn’t—wouldn’t ever let him see just what he had done to her. She couldn’t let him begin to guess how much he had destroyed her life.

And she most definitely couldn’t do it now.

‘No?’

For a moment she thought it was still her own voice screaming inside her head. But then on a jolt of her heart, she realised that it was Andreas and that he had put a darkly questioning note onto the word.