The #1 Bestsellers Collection 2011(244)

“You’re still Adam,” she insisted.

“Damn it.” He pushed away from the railing, grabbed her shoulders and turned her around to face him. In the starlight, his features were hard and cold and his eyes were deep, dark, filled with shadows. Gina felt the strength in his hands and the heat of his skin, burning through the thick, cashmere robe right into hers.

“Don’t mistake what’s happening here, Gina.”

She wouldn’t be intimidated. And she wasn’t afraid of him at all—even if that’s what he was trying to do. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know exactly what I mean.” His grip on her gentled slightly even as his eyes became darker, nearly black with the intensity of his gaze. “You’re fooling yourself, Gina. You think I don’t see it? Feel it?”

“Adam—”

“This bargain we made? That’s all we share,” he assured her. “We each want something from the other and when that bargain’s fulfilled, it’s over. Don’t get comfortable here. Don’t expect more from me than there is. And for God’s sake, stop looking at me with those golden eyes of yours all soft and dewy.”

“I don’t—”

“Yeah, you do. And it’s time to stop, Gina. For your own sake if nothing else. There is no us. There won’t ever be.”

Her heart ached.

Literally ached.

Her stomach churned and tears stung the backs of her eyes, but she fought them back, buried the swell of emotion that threatened to choke her. Everything he said, she knew he really meant, and yet, wasn’t there more here than he would—or could—admit? Or was she just fooling herself as he thought? Was she setting herself up for a crashing fall at the end of their time together? Was she expecting to find the boy she’d once known inside a man too changed to remember him?

“We have now,” she said, lifting both hands to lay her palms on his chest. The hard, sculpted muscles felt warm beneath her hands and the pound of his heart shattered something inside her. When he hissed in a breath, she took it as a sign to continue. “And for now Adam, there is an us.”

“Gina …” He shook his head and blew out a breath riddled with frustration. “You’re making this harder than it has to be.”

“Maybe,” she admitted. “And maybe you’re making this far less fun than it could be.”

She moved in toward him, closing the spare distance between them with a single step. Her hands moved over his chest, fingertips exploring, smoothing across his flat nipples until he took a breath and held it, trying not to surrender.

But she wanted his surrender and was willing to fight for it.

He caught her wrists and held them, staring down into her eyes like a man lost in unfamiliar territory. “You’re playing with fire here, Gina.”

“I’m not fragile, Adam,” she said. “I don’t mind a burn or two.”

“This kind of fire consumes.”

“And that’s a bad thing?” she asked, smiling up at him despite the blackness of his eyes, the tight, grim slash of his mouth. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, the Adam she’d once known and fallen in love with was still there, hidden inside him, and she wanted to set him free again. To remind him that love and life and laughter were worth having. Worth cherishing. “We’re married, Adam. This fire is what most people dream of finding.”

“Fires usually burn out fast.”

“Sometimes,” she said with a short nod. “But while they burn, it’s an amazing thing.”

“You’re not going to listen to anybody about this, are you?”

“No,” she admitted.

“Thank God.”

He released her wrists and without a word, reached for the cloth belt at her waist. Pulling it free, he silently swept the sides of the robe back, baring her naked body to his gaze.

Gina shivered a little as the cool, night air kissed her skin, but that minor chill dissipated under Adam’s steady, heat-filled gaze. Her nipples peaked, tightening in the cold, aching for the touch of his lips, his mouth. His hands moved over her body, the hard calluses on his fingers scraping against her skin with an erotic friction that sent heat directly to her center.

Shifting from foot to foot in an unconscious attempt to ease the throbbing at her core, she let her head fall back against the fence post. Adam stroked her from breast to core and back again.

“Your skin glows in the moonlight,” he said softly and leaned in to take one of her nipples into his mouth.

She gasped, arched into him and cradled the back of his head in the palm of her hand. He nibbled at her, scoring the tip of her nipple with the edges of his teeth. Ripples of something amazing rolled through her and Gina held her breath as she watched him suckle her. With each draw and tug of his mouth at her breast, Gina was swamped with more tenderness for this man who tried so hard to keep her at a distance for her own sake.