by Hill, Teresa
"I can't, Tucker." She bent her head and covered her eyes with her hand. "I just can't."
"You can," he insisted. "You still have feelings for me. Tell me that you don't. I dare you."
Her head came up and her arms went back around her waist, tighter than before, as if she were trying to pull inside herself. "It's just too much. It's too hard. The risks are too—"
"I want you back, Rebecca." The words burst out from him. He couldn't stand to hold them in any longer. "I haven't said it before, because I didn't think you were ready to hear it, but I can't wait any longer."
Rebecca cringed. The pain she felt at his words was like a brand, searing its way into her heart.
Want, he'd said. Not love.
At one time she would have given anything—anything—to have heard him say that he loved her, and at another time, she would have settled for feeling as if he still wanted her.
That's the way it had been between them before.
He'd wanted. She'd loved.
He'd walked away. She'd shattered into a million little pieces.
He'd hardly ever said he loved her, even when they'd been married. She'd known, anyway, that he hadn't married her because he loved her. It had been his need for her—desire coupled with something else. A sense of ownership, it had felt like at times. That she was his.
He'd needed her then, but not for long. And she wouldn't be able to bear it when he decided once again that he didn't need her anymore.
"Say something, Rebecca. Say anything."
"I don't know what to say."
She felt his arms come around her from behind, felt his warmth and his strength. He moved slowly, giving her time to object. He held her gently, and she could have easily gotten away from him.
"Tell me you don't feel anything for me anymore," he whispered, his breath fanning her right ear and sending a shiver down her spine.
"I don't love you anymore, Tucker. I stopped a long time ago."
He went still behind her, but he didn't let go. So she forced herself to continue.
"And I don't want you anymore."
"That's a lie," he said, dangerously quiet and still. "Maybe you don't want to want me, but you do."
"It's the past," she said quickly, before she lost the courage to go on. "If we could go back to when we first met. If you'd been like this then. If you'd wanted to be a father to Sammy, and if I'd been ready to be a wife—"
Her voice broke on a sob, and he held her tighter. Finally, she let her head fall back against his shoulder, and let the misery consume her.
She'd played through the "what ifs" so many times in her mind. But the worst one to deal with was—what if they were meeting now for the first time? What if he had changed and she had grown and had more confidence in herself? Where would they be headed now if they were meeting for the first time?
She let her mind wander while he held her in his arms. They'd be together now, if they'd been able to wipe out the past and start again. The only thing standing between them was her fears that he'd hurt her again.
"Oh, Tucker."
"We can't go back," he said, clearly frustrated. "Don't you think I would if I could? I'd give anything—anything in this world—if I could change things, if I could somehow take away the hurt and erase all the mistakes."
He turned her to face him, tilted her head up so that he could look into her eyes.
"I'd give anything, Rebecca."
She saw the pain in his beautiful brown eyes, a pain so deep that it was hard to watch it there.
This man, whom she thought felt no pain and harbored no regrets, had paid the price for his mistakes and for some of hers, as well.
"We can't go back," he said. "But we have a lifetime ahead of us, Rebecca. I don't want to be alone anymore. I don't want to spend another minute without you."
And then his lips came down to hers, surprising her, catching her in his spell before she had time to protest, as if she would have had the strength to protest.
"Come to bed with me, Rebecca." He whispered it against her lips.
"Oh, Tucker." It was the last thing in the world she expected from him then.
"You want to know if there's anything left between us. You want to know if it would still feel the way it used to. If it's still as good as it used to be. If you'll still feel like you belong to me."
"I don't belong to you anymore," she said.
"Come upstairs with me. Show me I'm wrong. Show me you don't want me anymore. I'll show you I'm right." And then he turned and walked away. One scorching look at her, and he was gone, into the house.
She walked after him to say... something. She didn't know what. But all she did was watch him go up the stairs.
To her bedroom?
She couldn't believe he was just going up to her bedroom, like a man who had every right to be there. And she couldn't believe that once again, he'd looked inside her and saw just what she'd been wondering.
Would it feel just the same?
It couldn't.
Would the feelings still be there with him? The ones she thought she'd lost forever? The ones she'd never felt with another man?
Or had that part of her shriveled up and died? That's how it had felt before he came back—like something inside her had just died.
She was too much of a coward to find out. That was part of it. But most of all, her sense of self-preservation was too strong.
"Tucker?" she said as she stormed into her own bedroom. "This is ridic—"
And then she started tripping over her own words until she decided that the safest thing to do would be to close her mouth.
He was undressing.
He was in her bedroom taking off his clothes. His shirt was gone. His socks and shoes, too. She'd come into the room just in time to hear the rasp of a zipper and then the sound of his pants falling into a heap on the floor.
Her mouth went dry, and she turned to look away as he stripped away his last remaining piece of clothing. At least she tried to look away.
God, he was the most beautiful man.
And he was climbing into her bed.
Chapter 14
He waited.
He was getting better at this waiting stuff. And it was getting easier to wait, because it was the best way he knew to throw her off balance.
That and climbing naked into her bed. That seemed to be working especially well.
So he waited.
And remembered.
For a while after their marriage, Rebecca had been a little shy. She'd hesitated about coming to bed with him. He used to sit in bed, naked, just like this, and watch her while she got ready for bed. He watched while she lingered in the bathroom, then at her dressing table, brushing her hair, then finally undressing slowly.
It had irritated him a little, at first, to see her reluctance, to know that for some reason she was still a little uncomfortable with that most intimate side of their marriage.
Not that she hadn't pleased him. She had. And he had pleased her. There'd been no doubt about that.
But he'd pushed her, too far, too fast. He'd overwhelmed her a little with a passion that had frightened her at first. He'd wanted everything from her, all of her, with no reservations. And she'd seemed determined to hold something back from him.
And then he'd finally figured it out. What he'd taken for reluctance hadn't been that at all. She was just a little shy. She was searching for some measure of control in the middle of the whirlwind that had overtaken them.
When he'd finally backed off, just a little, and given her some time to get used to things, she'd been fine. She'd come to him in her own time.
She would come tonight, on her own.
If he'd pushed, he could have gotten her here already, he thought, but he didn't want it to happen that way. He wanted her to come to him, and then maybe she wouldn't regret it in the morning.
And maybe, if there were no regrets about the night, they could start planning their future.
Togethe
r.
In the morning.
* * *
"Come to bed, Rebecca," he said finally.
She was speechless. Her cheeks were flushed, her heart pounding, her thoughts all a jumble, and she couldn't have pried her eyes away from the man in her bed for anything.
The naked man in her bed who was calmly inviting her to join him.
"Tucker, this is crazy."
"It makes perfect sense," he said, warming her whole body with nothing but the look in his eyes and the sight of him there in her bed. "You say you don't love me anymore. You claim you don't want me anymore, but your body tells me something else, Rebecca Jane.
"Come over here and show me you don't want me," he said, turning back the covers in invitation.
"Stop it," she said, scrambling over to the bed and catching the edge of the comforter before he uncovered any more of himself.
He tugged back, just enough so that she ended up sitting on the bed beside him.
And then he smiled, wickedly.
"Show me," he said. "Show me you don't want me, Rebecca."
She sat there, trying to avoid his eyes, trying not to stare at the subtle play of the muscles in his chest as he inhaled and exhaled.
She'd never known the act of breathing could be so sexy.
And she knew just how all those muscles felt, just how she fit against them, how they fit together.
She remembered the very first time he'd taken her blouse and her camisole off and held her close, her breasts nestled against the little golden hairs that curled tightly on his chest.
The sensations—she couldn't even describe them, except to say that he'd opened up a whole new world to her, a sensual, breathtaking world.
And, God help her, she still wondered if he could take her there.
She gave a start when his hand closed over hers. He must have caught her staring at his chest, must have read her mind, once again, because he took her hand and put it over his heart, held it there so she could feel the rise and fall as his lungs filled and emptied.
"Come and show me," he said, his heart pounding beneath her hand. "Show me you feel nothing for me."
She pulled her hand away as if she'd been scalded by his touch, by his tormenting.
She couldn't do that. And he knew it.
Rebecca could barely breathe now, and her voice trembled with something—fear and yearning—that all-too familiar tangle of emotions that he'd always managed to bring to the surface in her.
Yes and no.
Stop, but don't stop.
Make love to me, but don't make me love you. Not again.
Why didn't he just put an end to it? He would win out in the end. He always did with her.
Why didn't he just pull her into his arms and trap her there on the bed underneath him? She didn't have it in her to protest anymore, and he knew it.
She braced herself as best she could, and looked at him as he sat there in the bed waiting for her.
He knew that she'd give in. He'd known it all along, just as he knew how much she wanted him, yet didn't.
If she'd been stronger, she would have kicked him out of the house by now. She never would have let him get this close, never would have let him see that the attraction between them was still there.
If only she'd been stronger.
But she wasn't that strong when it came to him. She didn't have the ability to hide her feelings from him. And she couldn't walk away from him. Not now. Not anymore.
All she could do was hope that being with him again wouldn't be anything like she remembered.
She could hope that maybe she'd prove to him, to herself as well, that the passion had died out along with the love she once felt for him.
She didn't love him anymore.
She said it to herself, for herself this time and not in some deliberate, desperate attempt to hurt him, as she'd done before, downstairs.
She couldn't love him anymore.
Maybe this would prove it.
Maybe it would lay to rest all the ghosts of the past and all their hopes that they could somehow put their tangled lives back together again.
And if it did that, it was a small price to pay, as she saw it.
Rebecca looked down at him, there in her bed, the sheet riding dangerously low on his belly, those little curls of hair trailing down the center of his chest, down under the sheet.
And then she started trembling all over again.
"What do you want from me, Tucker?"
"Tonight. Just give me one night."
She couldn't breathe, couldn't speak, though she managed to nod.
Yes.
The tension in the room soared instantly.
He smiled, tried to hold it back, but couldn't. He knew victory when he saw it, and this was it.
She waited there by the bed, shaken to the core, and tried not to think of what she might feel come morning.
Tucker casually threw back the covers, and she braced herself for his touch, but he walked past her, instead.
She heard the click of the bedroom door's lock, then couldn't avoid looking at him when he came to stand directly in front of her.
The lights were off in the room, but the moon was out tonight, and it was shining in through the window. It caught the golden highlights in his hair and touched on the ripples and hollows on his chest.
She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself, but couldn't manage that at this moment.
"Come to me, Rebecca." He held out his arms. "Take that one step, just one, and I'll do the rest. I need to know that this is as much your decision as mine."
She hesitated to take that first step into the abyss, the one that would put her firmly within his grasp, within his power.
But then, she'd always been there. She'd never managed to escape. Maybe she never would.
What was it about him?
Would she ever understand it? Would she be able to survive it this time?
"Just a step," he coaxed.
She stood up. The blood rushed to her head, and the heat flamed in her cheeks. She couldn't turn back now. She had nowhere to run that he wouldn't find her.
"Come on, Rebecca. You can do it."
He was smiling, teasing her now that he knew he'd won.
He was her downfall, her siren's song.
Rebecca felt a little too unsteady on her feet to manage the step that seemed so important to him. He'd have to settle for a hand, instead.
She took a deep breath, hoping it would steady her, and reached out to touch those subtle curves of muscles in his upper arm.
He was hot to the touch, scorching hot. She was surprised she didn't see the steam rising off him.
Rebecca lost her nerve and went to pull away from him, but he caught her first and pressed her hand back to his arm.
"Don't stop," he said, and something in his voice gave her the courage to continue.
She let her hand glide up his arm to his shoulder, then down to those little blond curls on his chest.
He groaned and closed his eyes. A fine sheen of moisture covered his chest, and her heart beat even faster.
He was trembling, yet utterly still.
And she was lost.
The power vibrated around them, closing in on them like a force field, binding them together and locking out the world around them.
She touched him, fingertips furrowing through those curls, up the center of his chest, past the pulse point under his chin, brushing past his lips and then along his clenched jaw.
She shivered and swayed toward him. He was swaying on his feet, as well.
She took both hands, palms flat against his chest, and made little circles with her thumbs.
"Mmmm." He made a long, low sound of pure pleasure.
He brought his hand up to cup her jaw, to caress her cheek, then slip into her hair. He pulled out the pins, one by one, until her hair fell to just beyond her shoulder.
He took a handful of it and buried his nose in it, inhaling deeply, then pulling
it back so that he could tease her ear with his mouth.
"Touch me," he whispered.
Rebecca blushed, knowing what he wanted. Her hands made their way down to his belly, then lower. She remembered—yes, she thought as she found him fully aroused—she remembered exactly how he felt.
He gasped, then groaned, shivered with pleasure, while she teased and stroked him.
"Rebecca," he whispered.
She smiled for the first time since she'd come into the room, because the power wasn't all his.
It was hers, too. And it was such a heady feeling. Such pleasure came from knowing that the things he did to her, she could do to him, as well.
It told her that she wasn't the only one taking a risk here tonight.
"Rebecca?"
"Hmmm?" His skin was silky-soft there, satin on steel.
"If you keep that up, this is going to be over way too soon."
Laughter bubbled up inside her and spilled out. She was soaring, so free, so high above all the worries that had been holding her down just a few minutes ago.
Inside her, the passion danced and sizzled, like a drop of water on a hot grill.
And she heard the music, felt the rhythm and the throb—the desire she'd thought she'd lost—spiral up inside her, setting her free. She felt so free.
"Come to bed with me." She invited him this time.
He came willingly.
They fell together on the bed in a tangle of arms and legs and clothes.
And it was just the same.
Inside, she felt just the way she remembered. He felt just the way she remembered.
His hands, his lips, the muscles in his arms, the brush of his thighs against hers. The heat, the need, the passion, as overwhelming as it always had been.
She couldn't breathe, couldn't wait, couldn't bear for it to end, because she wasn't ready to let go of this feeling. How could she ever let go of this?
Her clothes were gone, most of them, anyway, and his mouth opened over her breast.
His body settled over hers and he was pushing inside her, inch by inch, slowly, powerfully, into the heat of her.
So long. It had been so long since they'd been together this way, and yet the feelings were all still there. So familiar, and so strong.
