November Harlequin Presents 1(129)

Murmurs of delight she couldn’t hold back escaped her lips in the brief moments that he allowed her to breathe and his name was a sigh on her lips, breathed into his mouth so that he swallowed down the sound as he took possession of her lips again.

‘You see,’ he murmured, husky and soft, letting that tormenting mouth slide along the line of her jaw so that she lifted her chin to tauten the muscles there, feeling it more intensely as he kissed his way to the most sensitive spot just under her ear. ‘This is right. So right.’

One of those caressing hands had moved to her neck now, tangling in the soft hair at the base of her skull, twisting, tugging, pulling her head backwards so that he exposed the whole of her neck and the long, fine line down to her shoulder and the valley between her breasts that lay in the deep V-neckline of her dress. Becca’s head swam as she felt the heat of his breath, the soft, tantalising caress of his mouth as it moved down into that warm valley of her cleavage.

‘I want you…’

She felt as well as heard the words. They feathered over her skin, humid as the breath that seemed to slip inside her bra, coil around her nipples, making them tighten into stingingly aroused peaks that yearned for a touch that was harder, more forceful than a whisper of heated air.

‘I want you,’ he said again.

And she wanted him. The need was a heavy pulse between her legs, a throbbing demand from every aching nerve end along her body. Who cared if the sensual memories hidden in Andreas’ numbed brain took him back into the past they had shared? So what if the touch of her lips, the taste of her skin, woke him to a recollection of exactly who she was and what she had been to him? He had to remember some time, it was inevitable. And surely it was better that he remembered sooner rather than later so that the truth was out in the open and they could renegotiate from there?

But the real truth was that she couldn’t stop herself. And as her body rediscovered the pleasures she had thought she had forgotten she knew that she wanted this. She needed it. She had been dying inside for almost a year for the loss of it.

This was right, her sensual instincts told her. This was what had always been right between them. In Andreas’ arms she had always felt that she was where she belonged, that she had come home. This was the one thing that had never gone wrong between them; the thing that had still been there at the end when it seemed that everything else had gone, been destroyed by hatred, distrust and cruel rejection.

Rejection.

The word was a cold, hard, vicious blade that slashed through the heated delirium inside her head, breaking open her sensual fantasies and making the wild, foolish dreams evaporate, once more letting in the icy winds of reality and self-preservation.

What was she doing courting that rejection all over again? Could she go through that pain, that loss, that terrible, terrible devastation a second time? It had almost destroyed her the first time and yet here she was risking her heart, her soul, all over again.

She couldn’t do this just for the pleasure, for the physical satisfaction it would bring. It would destroy her if she did. But Andreas could. He had already done so once and she had no doubt that he could do it again. Whether his memory returned or not, he could take her, use her, take all she had to give and then turn and walk away without a backward look.

And the dread that brought made her stiffen against his stroking hands.

‘Andreas…’ she tried but he wasn’t listening. His mouth was still caressing her skin, his hands moving down over the soft blue skirt of her dress, over her hips, inching the material upwards as they did so.

‘Andreas—stop!’

Driven by rising panic, she twisted away from him sharply, fear giving her strength she didn’t know she possessed. The force of her reaction took her halfway across the room before she came to a halt and was able to face him, eyes wide, her breath coming in raw, uneven gasps.

She couldn’t really see him, her gaze was blurred and unfocused, and she was grateful for the way that hid the reality of his expression from her.

‘No,’ she said breathlessly, struggling for control. ‘No, it isn’t right—it can’t be right! This isn’t going to happen—I won’t let it happen.’

‘You won’t let it happen?’

Andreas’ voice was a cynical drawl and one dark eyebrow lifted in mocking response to her outburst.

‘Lady, you are fooling yourself if you expect me to believe that.’

‘Of course I expect you to believe it! I—’

‘But I don’t. I don’t believe a word that comes from your lovely mouth.’

‘You—you don’t?’