by Hill, Teresa
He'd always been so gentle with her.
"You know what it feels like. You told me so that day. You've felt it, too."
Oh, yes. She knew that feeling, that ache of a soul starved for love. She couldn't imagine that he'd been searching, too, that he hadn't found someone, that he hadn't found a half-dozen someones to help fill up his life. She couldn't believe he'd been as lonely as she had been.
"I did," she began. "But... "
"What if it was you, Rebecca? What if, all that time, all I needed was you?" he asked, kissing her finally, at the back of her neck.
She gasped, and her body began its awful betrayal. She didn't move. She couldn't. She just let herself sink back against him as he held her.
As he kissed her neck, his touch was light and teasing, but the effect was all too potent. He nosed the stray curls aside, and then his teeth sank into the cord of muscles that ran down the side of her neck and to her shoulders, and she thought she might die from the pleasure.
"Did you remember," he said huskily, "that it used to drive me wild to see your hair like this? Did you wear it just for me, Rebecca?"
"No," she said as she stood there in his arms, paralyzed by the desire he'd awakened in her.
"Maybe you will," he said. "Some day soon, maybe you'll wear it like this again, for me."
Her knees gave way then, and she leaned against him. He caught her easily, held her firmly in his arms with his body pressed against the back of hers.
They stood there, molded together, breathing in time with each other, her heart pounding as quickly as his.
Her head was spinning. Her breasts were full and aching. They remembered his touch so well.
She was liquid fire, his to do with as he would.
His hand moved to the buttons on her blouse, and deftly, he unfastened the top three. Then he pushed her blouse off one shoulder, his lips following the path as it was uncovered.
"I've missed you, Rebecca."
She'd missed him, too. She couldn't deny it, so she didn't try. She just closed her eyes and felt the power, felt the pull of the desire that he alone could create.
And then, she knew this was what she'd wanted. This was what she'd missed when she'd been with Brian. This was why she'd never become Brian's wife. He had never even begun to make her feel what Tucker had made her feel.
She went absolutely still as she admitted to herself, once again, that despite the years and all the tears, he could still make her ache for him.
Tucker pressed his lower body to hers, and she felt the hard muscles of his thighs, felt his arousal as he settled himself against her hips and then rocked back and forth in a slow, sensual rhythm that she remembered so well, one that took her breath away.
Oh, she remembered.
For years, she'd told herself that it couldn't possibly have been as good as she remembered between them, but she knew now. Nothing was wrong with her memory. It was exactly as powerful, as rawly sensual, as capable of robbing her mind of her power to reason.
The years fell away, and she was back where she'd longed to be. He was hers and she was his, at least for these few moments.
She would give herself these few moments.
He rocked his hips against hers. His hand slipped inside her blouse, under the bra, and he found her breast, while his lips found her ear, his warm breath fanning across it as he nibbled delicately on her earlobe.
"I won't hurt you this time, Rebecca. I swear it."
Oh, but he would. She was certain of it. He would hurt her terribly. That wasn't in question, but neither was the fact that he was going to make love to her again, tonight, and she was going to let him.
Because she wasn't strong enough to stop him. She didn't have the will to tell him no. Because some part of her had died when they'd divorced, and now it was coming back to life. He brought this part of her soul roaring back to life.
It was bittersweet, the pleasure and the pain, the past blurring with the present, leaving her dizzy with too many memories, too many feelings.
She shivered uncontrollably but stayed right where she was, with his hand slipped inside her bra to cup her breast and his mouth in the hollow where her neck met her shoulder.
And finally, when she thought she couldn't stand it anymore, he turned her around and took her back into his arms. Face-to-face, finally, he fitted his body to hers from their thighs to their shoulders, pressed together with nary a breath between them.
Finally, his mouth settled onto hers for a long, drugging kiss, for another and another, until the room started spinning around them. She held on tight to him, to the power at the center of her storm.
He broke off the kiss, and they both made a desperate grab for air. He groaned and kissed her nose. She could feel him smiling as he kissed her cheek, and she waited for him to take her mouth under his again.
But he didn't.
He kissed her cheek again, then went still. She felt him pull away slightly, felt his fingers reach up and run down her cheek.
Tears. He'd found her tears, ones she hadn't even known were falling, and yet there they were, on his fingertips, then beneath his lips.
Tears on her cheeks, bittersweet memories flooding her mind as she stood there trembling.
Time stood still and the memories came rushing back, the pain, the humiliation, the loneliness and despair that had come at the end, just before they'd separated.
The memories were closer than she'd thought, and she couldn't escape them. She wished she could, for just a little while. Rebecca still wasn't sure how she'd survived it all, how any of her feelings for him could have possibly survived, but something had, something she couldn't deny and yet couldn't face.
"I'm sorry," he said, his voice tinged with an anguish she knew so well.
And then he stepped away from her. He let her go. He stopped when she wouldn't have been strong enough to stop him herself. She should have been grateful. Instead she just stood there in front of him, cold and miserable.
"It just won't work, Tucker."
"It might," he insisted.
"It won't. Not ever." She wrapped her arms around her middle and tried to stop shivering. "There's too much between us, too much anger and hatred and bitterness. I can't go back to all that. I don't want to—"
He touched his finger to her lips and stopped her right there. "Don't you think I know that? Don't you think I've tried to forget you, that I've tried to forget about us, about the way it was between us, the good and the bad?"
She nodded. She remembered.
He wiped another of her tears away. "But I can't forget, Rebecca. "
"You have to," she insisted.
"Look, I know how impossible it seems. Believe me, I know. It's all I've thought about—you and Sammy and me. I know you're scared. I'm scared, too, but things are going to be different this time, Rebecca."
He held her easily then. He absorbed the cold, brought in the warmth. "I haven't forgotten anything about you. I haven't forgotten anything we shared. I never will. And I don't think you've forgotten, either, despite all those years of trying. Why do you think that is, Rebecca? Why haven't you been able to put me out of your mind?"
"I have," she lied, her sense of self-preservation much stronger than her conscience.
"Then why couldn't you put everything behind you and start over again with Brian?"
She closed her eyes, hoping he wouldn't see the truth. But she didn't fool him. He knew. Somehow he knew exactly what had gone wrong between her and Brian.
"Let me go." She pushed against his chest, hard, but he held her tight.
"Why? He was supposed to be everything I never could be, and you loved him. So why didn't you ever marry him?"
She hung her head and stared at the fabric of his shirt. He wasn't hurting her, but he wasn't about to let go.
"Tell me why you couldn't marry him," he insisted, his voice tinged with anger.
She looked up at him and knew he wouldn't let go until he had his answer. He was stub
born enough and strong enough to hold her all night if he had to. "Because he wasn't you!" She hurled the angry words at him.
He let her go instantly. She swayed on her feet in front of him.
This was her chance to get away from him, her chance to run like the coward she was when it came to facing up to her unresolved feelings for him, but she didn't take it. She had no reason to run now. She couldn't run anywhere that he wouldn't find her.
He knew everything she'd been trying to hide, both from herself and from him, and she had no protection from him now.
Rebecca would have sworn that she could never feel more vulnerable than she had when she'd been carrying his child, knowing that their marriage was never going to survive—but she did, now.
She was as helpless as a baby, trapped by her own traitorous emotions, trapped by the longing she still had for him.
Finally she found the courage to look up into his beautiful brown eyes. She expected to see triumph there. She'd admitted her deepest, darkest secret to him, and she thought he'd be triumphant at dragging it out of her.
But she saw only tenderness, maybe concern, maybe—affection? She didn't dare label it love.
He smiled at her then, ever so slightly. "It's going to be okay, angel face."
And then he held out his arms to her, offering himself to her, to comfort her.
She hesitated, knowing that moving those few inches into the shelter of his arms would tell him more than any admission that could come out of her mouth just now.
He'd trapped her with her own longing, by feeding her lonely soul, yet here he was giving her a choice.
If he'd taken her into his arms right then and kissed her, just once, she would have been lost all over again. She would have been his, to do with as he pleased.
He'd won, and yet he wasn't pressing his victory.
The old Tucker would have had her undressed and on the floor beneath him by now, or maybe on the kitchen counter. They'd argued more than once and ended up one of those ways or the other.
He'd fought ruthlessly back then, with his charm, with his passion, with whatever advantage he had that worked best at the moment, to get whatever he wanted at the moment.
This man was standing before her, holding out his arms to her in silent invitation, waiting for her to decide what she wanted, even though he knew exactly what he wanted and that he could get it. This man, she didn't know.
But she wanted to know him. She couldn't stop herself from wanting to know everything about him.
Drawing deep down inside herself, looking for courage, she eased forward across the abyss of doubts and fears, across the mere inches that separated them until they were almost touching.
She waited there in full surrender while his arms moved ever so slowly to fold her into a tender embrace. One hand settled her body against the strength of his while another pressed her head against his shoulder.
She breathed in the scent of him, felt the warmth of him, the strength and gentleness and patience—she'd never known patience like this from him, except when they were in bed.
One of his hands made small circles against her back and the other one was caught up in her hair, a soothing touch, a loving touch.
She let herself melt against him, gave herself up to the comfort and the reassurance he was offering.
They stayed there for a long time. She lost all track of time, lost a little of her fear of him, but none of the longing she had for him. That had only grown stronger.
His hands ran over her body then, over her arms and her shoulders, her back and finally her hips. With the slightest pressure, he eased her lower body against his.
She gasped as she felt his arousal pulsing between them, but she wasn't afraid of his passion anymore.
He was going to give her time to get used to this, a gift that she'd never expected from him.
He kissed her once, slowly, sweetly, thoroughly, and set her to trembling. If her legs could barely hold her, it didn't matter, because he was holding her. He wasn't going to let go.
He ended the kiss, but stayed close, with his lips just a breath away.
"Give me another chance, Rebecca."
She would have given him almost anything right then. She chose to give him her honesty.
"I'm so scared."
"So am I, but there's nothing new about that. You've always scared me to death."
She doubted that. He'd never been afraid of anything—not until that first night he'd come to see Sammy, at least. She would have pondered the idea of Tucker actually being afraid of her, but he kissed her again. He kissed her like a man who had all the time in the world and wanted to do nothing but kiss her, and she gloried in it.
"Just a chance," he whispered against her lips. "Give me that."
"All right," she said, a moment before his lips took hers again.
* * *
It was too hot to sleep that night, and Rebecca stayed awake long after he left.
She hadn't forgotten anything about the years she and Tucker had spent together. It would have been so much easier if she had.
But now, things were changing.
She still felt the pain from the bad times, though it wasn't as immense now that so much time had passed, and the present seemed so much more important.
At times, he was so much like the man she had married—gorgeous, charming, full of flattery, so sure of himself. And then at other times, she saw a new seriousness and sensitivity in him, a sense of purpose and of responsibility, a vulnerability and a determination to make things right between him and Sammy.
She wasn't worried about him and Sammy anymore. They were wonderful together, happy together. And she believed that they would always be together now, which meant that she and Tucker were going to have some kind of relationship, no matter what.
A chance?
He wanted another chance with her.
She drew the green silk robe closer to her, missing Tucker's own special brand of warmth, despite the heat of the night.
She'd agreed to give him a chance.
A part of her still wanted him, in a way she'd wanted no other man in all the time they'd been apart. A part of her was still terrified of being hurt again.
Now that he wasn't holding her in his arms, setting her blood to boiling, she wondered whether her fear or her desire would prevail.
* * *
He came to her that night in a dream. She thought it was a dream. He was the man he had been when she'd first seen him, the man who wanted her desperately, the one she'd married. The one who'd been happy with her in the beginning, the one who hadn't hurt her yet.
He smiled the way only Tucker could smile, stared at her in a way that made her think she was the only woman in the world and warmed her whole body before he ever touched her. Her breath caught in her throat. Her body came to tingling life. She watched his mouth, wanting it on hers, on her neck, nibbling delicately on her collarbone.
He peeled her clothes off her shoulders while she tugged at his tie, undid the buttons of his shirt, reached for his belt buckle.
He kept kissing her, running his big, warm hands over her heated skin, teasing, stroking, pleasing. Her husband. Her only lover. The man she loved. Hers somehow, when she truly thought he never would be.
Time moved in fits and starts. She put her hands on the bare skin of his chest, admiring the sleek lines, the heat. He was golden, a man who liked to run outside in the sun, sometimes without his shirt on, and it left him with honey-colored skin that she loved.
He nudged her back against something. The kitchen countertop? The bathroom? She couldn't be sure. Then he palmed her hips and lifted her onto the edge of the countertop, nudging her thighs wide. Eagerly, she wrapped her legs around his hips, felt one of his hands between them, stroking, teasing her, making her wait while he kissed her some more and her hands tightened on his hips, urging him closer.
She didn't want to wait. Even in the dream, she knew this would not end well. He would hurt her. Leave her
.
But this was Tucker, and she'd loved him desperately, had nothing but her memories of him for so long, and she hadn't even allowed herself the memories for so long.
So she urged him on, even though she knew that would likely only make him slow down. He loved to tease her, and his patience seemed infinite compared with her own.
"Please," she pleaded, as she so often had, and he deliberately slowed the pace.
It had been so long, she knew, and she was afraid. If they didn't hurry, she might wake up. She might start to remember, not the man she'd loved, but the one she'd tried so hard to hate.
"Please, Tucker," she said again. "Please."
"Did you miss me?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"I missed you so much. Say you're still mine," he demanded. "Say you still belong to me."
Oh, she couldn't do that. Not even for this moment from the past. She couldn't.
"You do," he said, the man used to getting exactly what he wanted. "I know you do."
And then he stopped teasing. He moved against her, his big, hard body pressing home. She groaned, remembering how it felt when he was deep inside her, as far as he could possibly go. Her whole body gripped his like she'd never let him go. Time stopped, and the world seemed perfect, just for those moments.
She had no doubts, no fears, no insecurities.
He was hers, her husband, and she loved him so much.
He stroked and teased some more, kissed her and whispered in her ear how beautiful she was, how perfect.
"Rebecca. My Rebecca."
She was. She was his again.
Oh, she'd waited so long.
To feel this way again, to be in his arms, to be this woman.
She clung to him, buried her face in his neck and called out his name, her whole body awash in sensation, pleasure zinging along every nerve ending in her body.
She was so happy.
And then as she rested on the countertop, breathing heavily, her back against the big mirror of the bathroom, completely spent, he pulled away from her, calmly pulled his clothes back on, turned and walked way.
It was like the bathroom door opened into an expanse of empty time and space. He disappeared through it and kept walking, even as she called out his name, as she cried and begged him not to leave.
