by Heidi Rice
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘I’M SO SORRY, Mrs Redmond. There’s no heartbeat and we need to operate to stop the bleeding.’
The storm of emotion raged inside her, the sobs she’d repressed for so long choking her as her mind dragged her back to that darkest of dark days. Lying on the hospital gurney, the white-suited doctor looking down at her with pity in his warm brown eyes...
Dane’s hand stroked her hair. His heartbeat felt strong and steady through worn cotton, his chest solid, immovable, offering her the strength she’d needed then and been so cruelly denied. Tearing pain racked her body as she remembered how alone, how useless, how helpless she’d felt that day. And the horror that had followed.
She gulped for air, her arms yearning to cling to his strength as tears she couldn’t afford to shed made her throat close.
Be strong. Don’t cry. Don’t you dare break.
He kissed her hair, murmuring reassurances, apologies that she’d needed so badly then but refused to need now. Then his hips butted hers and she felt the potent outline of him, semihard against her belly.
Arousal surged in her shattered body, thick and sure and so simple. Reaction shuddered down to her core.
Flattening her hands against the tense muscles of his belly, she pushed out of his arms and looked up to find him watching her, his expression grim with regret and yet tight with arousal. Reaching up, she ran her palms over his hair, the way she’d wanted to do as soon as she’d walked into his office.
Absorbing the delicious tingle of the short bristles against her skin, she framed his face and dragged his mouth down to hers. ‘You’re ten years too late, Dane. There’s only one thing I want now.’
Or only one thing she could still allow herself to take.
His eyes flared and her body rejoiced. This was the one thing they had always been good at. She didn’t want his pity, his regret, his sympathy—all she wanted was to feel that glorious heat pounding into her and making her forget about the pain.
His mouth captured hers, his tongue plunging deep, demanding entry. She opened for him, the heady thrill obliterating the treacherous memories.
Large hands ran up her sides under the robe, rough calluses against soft skin bringing her body to shimmering life. He crushed her against him, banding strong arms around her back, forcing her soft curves to yield to his strength. She draped her arms over his shoulders as he picked her up, carried her to the king-sized bed and dropped her into the centre. Parting the thin satin with impatient hands, he swept his burning gaze over her naked skin, the dark rapture in his eyes making her feel like a sacrifice already burning at the stake.
She reached for his belt, desperate to wrap her fingers round his thick length and make him melt, too. But he gripped her wrists and pinned her hands to the mattress above her head, leaving her naked and exposed while he was still fully clothed.
‘Not yet,’ he growled, the barely leashed demand in his gruff voice exciting in its intensity. ‘Let me touch you first. Or this is gonna last about two seconds.’
She stopped struggling against his hold, the terse admission more gratifying than a thousand declarations of undying devotion. Lying boneless, she let her own hunger overwhelm her, frantic to feel the rush of release that would make her forget everything but this day, this hour, this moment.
It was madness, but it was divine madness—the perfect end to a disastrous day. She was sick of thinking about consequences, about her own troubled emotions and the implications of everything that had happened ten years ago. She was sick of thinking, full stop. And, however else Dane had failed her—as a husband, as a friend—he had never failed her as a lover.
Still holding her wrists, he bent to kiss her lips, his mouth firm and demanding, before trailing kisses down her neck, across her collarbone. She rose off the bed, his groan a potent aphrodisiac as he licked at one pouting nipple.
A soft sob escaped her as he ran his tongue around the areola and then suckled the hard bud, making it swell against his lips into a bullet of need. She moaned, low and deep, as he bit into the tender flesh. Hunger arrowed down to her core. Sharp and sure and unstoppable. And then he transferred his attentions to the other breast.
She panted, writhing under the sensual torture. ‘Please, I need you...’
‘I know what you need, baby,’ he growled. ‘Open your eyes.’
She did as he demanded, to find his striking blue gaze locked on hers. Bracketing her wrists in one restraining hand, he watched her as he found her wet and wanting. She lifted her hips, pushing into the unbearably light caress as the moisture released.
She couldn’t think, couldn’t feel, her skin burned as his playful strokes had the pleasure swelling and then retreating, tempting and then denying.
‘Dane...’ His name came out on a broken cry. ‘Stop messing about.’
He barked out a harsh laugh, the fierce arousal in his face sending her senses into overdrive. ‘You want me to use my superpower?’
‘You know I do. You...’
Her angry words dissolved in a loud moan as he released her wrists to part her legs. Holding her open with his thumbs, he blew across the heated flesh. She bucked off the bed. The tiny contact unbearable.
She watched, transfixed, shaking with desire as his dark head bent and his tongue began to explore her slick folds. A thin, desperate cry tore from her throat as blunt fingers entered her, first one, then two, stretching her, torturing that hotspot deep inside only he knew would throw her over the edge.
She screamed, her fingers digging into his hair, urging him on as he set his mouth on her at last, suckling the swollen nub. She hurtled into glorious oblivion, exquisite rapture slamming into her as her senses exploded into a thousand shards of glittering light.
* * *
Dane lifted himself up, the lingering taste of her sweet and succulent, the need for release unbearable. She stared at him, her eyes wide, the sea-green dazed and wary, her body flushed with pleasure, her skin luminous.
Damn, but she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. Even more beautiful than before. She’d lost that openness, that faith in him that had always scared the hell out of him, and now she had a million secrets of her own, but he could still zap her with his superpower.
The old joke made him smile—but the smile turned to a grimace as the insistent throbbing in his groin tipped from torment into torture.
If he didn’t get inside her in the next two seconds he was liable to embarrass himself.
Dane located the condoms in the front pocket of his jeans and grappled with his belt and shoved his pants down. He ripped open a foil packet and rolled on the protection. Grasping her hips, he lifted her up, then paused.
‘Tell me you want this.’
Tell me you want me.
The pathetic plea echoed in his head and made him tense. This was about sex and chemistry, pure and simple. Raw, rough, elemental. He didn’t need her approval. He just needed to be inside her.
‘You know I do,’ she said, bold and defiant.
He stopped thinking and plunged deep, burying himself to the hilt, then groaned, struggling to give her time to adjust before he began to move.
‘You okay? You’re so tight...’ His mind reeled, remembering it had been a while for her. Five years at least. His heady sense of victory at the thought was almost as insane as the delirious wish to be able to take her without a condom.
Draping her arms over his shoulders, she lifted herself up to angle her hips and take him deeper. ‘Just move.’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ he said, laughing.
She was his. She had always been his in the only way that really meant anything.
He drew out, thrust back, feeling her clench around him. The heat in his abdomen built into an inferno as he established a ruthless rhythm, determined to drive her over again before he found his own release.
He clung on to control, an explosive orgasm licking at the base of his spine as her soft sobs became hoarse cries and she reached
the point of no return. Her muscles clamped tight, massaging his length as she hit her peak. He thrust once, twice, and collapsed on top of her, his brutal release violent in its intensity as his seed exploded into the sweet, shuddering clasp of her body.
CHAPTER NINE
‘WELL, THAT WAS...’ Xanthe struggled to breathe while being crushed into the mattress, the floaty, fluffy sensation fading fast to be replaced with all the aches and pains of not one but two mind-blowing orgasms.
Her brain knotted with the stupidity of what they’d just done.
He shifted, lifting his weight from her, and the sensual smile on his too-handsome face was both arrogant and strangely endearing.
‘Awesome,’ he supplied.
‘Actually, I was going to say insane.’
He grunted out a strained laugh and rolled off her. Xanthe watched him sitting on the edge of the bed with his back to her as he bent to untie his boots and then kick his pants off the rest of the way.
‘More like inevitable.’ He took off his shirt and balled it up to drop it next to his jeans. ‘Since we’ve both been primed for it since this afternoon,’ he added, his voice muffled as he pulled his T-shirt over his head and dumped it on the pile of clothing.
Her throat clogged at the sight of his broad back, deeply tanned but for the whiter strip of skin on his backside and the now faded scars that stood out in criss-crossing stripes across his ribs. An echo of sympathy and sorrow and curiosity about those marks hit her unawares. She forced the feelings down, disturbed by the direction of her thoughts.
Dane’s secrets were his own and always had been, and they were no concern of hers.
He stood up and strolled across the room, gloriously naked, his languid stride both arrogant and unashamed. Xanthe became transfixed by the bunch and flex of the gluteal muscles in his tight, beautifully sculpted butt cheeks. Her body hummed back to life—like one of those relighting candles people put on a birthday cake as a joke, with a flame that keeps flaring no matter how hard you try to blow it out.
She slipped under the sheets, far too aware of her own nakedness now. She’d always thought those candles were really annoying.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ she ventured, trying to sound stern.
He glanced back over one broad shoulder as he opened the bathroom door. ‘Grabbing a shower.’
She hauled the sheet to her neckline to cover any hint of vulnerability. ‘I don’t remember inviting you to stay.’
He leaned against the door, thankfully shielding at least some of his more impressive assets and sent her a stern look that she suspected was much more effective than her own.
‘I’m having a shower and then we’re going to get to that talk.’
‘I don’t want to talk.’ She ignored the raised eyebrow. ‘All I want to do is sleep,’ she protested.
And try to forget about the fact that Dane’s position as her go-to guy for earth-shattering orgasms had not diminished in the least.
‘Preferably alone,’ she added for good measure.
Now that stallion had bolted out of the stable. Twice. She did not need a repeat performance.
‘And you can,’ he said. ‘Once we’re finished talking.’
‘But...’
The door slammed behind him.
‘I don’t want you here,’ she finished lamely as the power shower was switched on behind the closed door.
Oh, for—she swore, using a word that would have had Nanny Foster reaching for the soap.
The man was incorrigible. Domineering and dictatorial and completely contrary. Surely there could be nothing left to say about what had happened ten years ago? He’d figured out the truth, they’d jumped each other, had multi-orgasmic make-up sex...end of story.
If she were at full strength she would pick up the phone right now and call hotel security to have him thrown out. Even if it would be somewhat problematic explaining why they should be kicking out the man whose credit card details were on the room.
Unfortunately, though, she wasn’t at full strength. She dragged her weary body out of the bed. If nothing else, the make-up sex had killed her second wind stone dead. She could happily sleep for a month now.
So she’d just have to go for damage limitation.
Grabbing a bunch of cushions off the sofa, she jammed them into the middle of the bed in case he got any ideas about joining her once he’d finished his shower.
And just in case she got any ideas...
She whisked his discarded T-shirt off the floor as the only nightwear option on offer—the hotel’s satin robe had been about as useful as a negligee in a rugby scrum—and put it on to establish a second line of defence. The shirt hung down to mid-thigh, the sleeves covering her hands, and looked less enticing than a potato sack. Perfect.
Not so perfectly, it smelled of him—that far too enticing combination of washing powder and man.
She hauled herself back into the bed, trying not to notice the sexy scent as she prepared to stay awake for a few minutes more in order to give Dane his marching orders. Curling into a tight ball with her back to the wall of cushions, she watched the winking lights across the Hudson River through the hotel’s floor-to-ceiling glass walls, and stared at the corner suite’s awe-inspiring view of the Jersey shoreline.
The buzz of awareness subsided into a relaxing hum and the tender spot between her thighs became pleasantly numb. She inhaled his scent, lulled by the sound of running water from the shower.
The thundering beat of her heart slowed as her mind began to drift. Her eyelids drooped as she floated into dreams of hot, hazy days on the water and muscular arms holding her close and promising to keep her safe.
For ever.
* * *
Dane sat in his shorts and concentrated on finishing off the last few bites of the burger and fries he’d ordered from room service, mindful of the soft snores still coming from the pile of bedclothes a few feet away.
What was he still doing here?
Xanthe had been dead to the world ever since he’d come out of the bathroom. He’d thought at first she might be faking sleep to avoid the conversation they still needed to have about why she’d lied to him in his apartment. Letting him believe she had terminated the pregnancy. Why the heck hadn’t she just told him about the miscarriage then, instead of waiting for him to figure it out on his own?
But after ten minutes of watching her sleep, her slim body curled in the bed like a child and barely moving, he’d conceded that not only wasn’t she faking it, but she wasn’t likely to stir until morning.
Given that, he had no business hanging around. They weren’t a couple. And he didn’t much like hanging around after sex even when the woman he’d just had sex with was a casual date, let alone his almost-ex-wife.
But once he’d begun to get dressed he’d been unable to locate his T-shirt. After hunting for a good ten minutes, he’d finally spotted a blue cuff peeking out from under the bedclothes. A quick inspection under the covers had been enough to locate the missing shirt—and trigger a series of unwanted memories.
Xanthe in her wet swimsuit on the deck of the pocket cruiser, pulling on his old high school sweatshirt to ward off the chill after a make-out session in the water. Him grabbing one of his work shirts to throw over her as she raced ahead of him into the motel bathroom, her belly rebelling in pregnancy. And a boatload of other equally vivid memories—some mercilessly erotic, others painfully poignant.
That old feeling of protectiveness had struck him hard in the chest—and stopped him from walking out.
He’d messed up ten years ago. She was right. He hadn’t been there when she needed him. But there was nothing he could do about that now. Except apologise, and she hadn’t wanted his apology.
He knew a damn distraction technique when he saw one, and that was what she’d done—used sex and chemistry as a means of keeping conversation at a minimum.
He’d been mad about that once he’d figured it out in the shower, but he’d calmed d
own enough now to see the irony. After all, mind-blowing sex had always been his go-to distraction technique when they were kids together and she’d asked him probing questions about the humiliating scars on his back.
Dumping the last of the burger on the plate, he covered the remains of the meal with the silver hood and wheeled the room service trolley into the hall.
Uneasiness settled over him as he returned to the suite. He needed to leave. She could keep the undershirt. He had a hundred others just like it. He didn’t even know what he was still doing here.
But as he approached the bed to grab his work shirt off the floor and finish getting dressed a muffled sob rose from the lump of bedclothes, followed by a whimper of distress.
Edging the cover down, he looked at her face devoid of make-up, fresh and innocent, like the girl he remembered. But then her brow puckered, her lips drew tight, and her hand curled into a tight fist on the pillow beside her head. Rapid movement under her eyelids suggested she was having some kind of nightmare as she stifled another sob.
His heart punched his ribcage and got wedged in his throat. He needed to go. But instead of heading for the door he crouched beside the bed and rested his palm on her hair. He brushed the wild curling mass back from her forehead, instinct overriding common sense.
‘Shh, Red, everything’s okay. Go back to sleep.’
She shook off his hand, her breathing accelerating as the nightmare gripped her. ‘Please pick up the phone Dane... Please.’
The hoarse, terrified whimpers tore at his conscience, guilt striking him unawares. Awake, she’d been strong and resilient. But asleep was another matter.
He couldn’t walk away. Not yet.
Tugging on his jeans and leaving the top button undone, he whipped back the sheets to discover a row of cushions from the couch laid out down the middle of the bed. A rueful smile tugged at his mouth.
What was the great wall of throw pillows supposed to keep in check? His libido or hers?
