by Paula Roe
She reached for the water jug and poured. When she lifted the glass to her lips, she eyed his reflection through the mirrored wall which was artfully arranged behind glass shelving. He was leaning against the counter with arms crossed, a potent mix of curiosity and masculine sexuality.
She swallowed and suddenly his eyes were all over her throat, taking in every miniscule movement. Desperate for something to do, she abruptly placed the glass in the sink and turned on the faucet. As she rinsed the glass, she studied the rivulets on her skin, as if they held the key to finding the courage to withstand the days—possibly weeks—ahead.
“Which parts were wonderful?” His voice came out deceptively smooth and controlled.
“Sex.”
A muffled sound. Like a choke. Not so controlled. With downcast eyes she hid a smile and continued casually, “Sex was good. Great, in fact.”
“Really.”
His reply was thick and husky, and with curiosity prickling her skin, she chanced a glance.
He was staring at her. At her mouth. The total focus of his gaze, the desire flaming his eyes, hit her square in the stomach, winding her. The air suddenly got sucked from the spacious kitchenette and shrunk it down to microscopic proportions.
She swallowed but it didn’t help. “Yes,” she managed to croak out. “We were—”
His eyes imprisoned hers. “I think I get the picture.”
Flushing, she reached for a towel. Part of her wished he’d just give her some space. The other part—the one rapidly overtaking common sense and self-preservation—wanted him to strip her naked and totally invade it.
“Since we’re being totally honest, a few things have been bothering me,” he murmured. “Like why you walked out on our marriage.”
“What?” She coughed, trying to clear the rough edge to her voice. But when he remained silent, she said slowly, “For one, you lied.”
“About what?”
“You name it. Your family, your money. We spent the best part of six months together and somehow you just forget to tell me who you really are?”
A shadow crossed his face. “And do all those things matter to you?”
“No. But you shouldn’t have waited until the plane had touched down at Copenhagen airport to warn me. Until those reporters chased us through the terminal, until they photographed me topless in the bathroom at your apartment the next day.”
His nostrils flared, his mouth grim, but he said nothing.
“I was woefully unprepared for the stir I’d cause. I didn’t want that. I couldn’t handle it. Marlene was right about that.”
“And so you ended it, elskat.” His voice came in dangerously low, almost like a caress. “Without any discussion or explanation. You walked out on our marriage, out on me just like that?”
She pulled herself up to her full five foot three, felt the unyielding marble counter at her back. “You changed once we got to Denmark. You became another person. We’d lost that spark of enjoyment somehow and went from newlyweds to complete strangers in two weeks.”
Her expression tightened. “I asked you a dozen times to go to counseling with me, to get our relationship some help, but you said there was nothing wrong. I always felt it was my fault—I wasn’t flexible enough, understanding enough. But I always had to bend to your schedule and insane workload.”
Refusing to meet his accusing stare any longer, she skittered her gaze over his shoulder. If he weren’t only a couple of feet away, staring as if he were waiting to catch her in a lie, maybe she could be stronger. More aloof. But, to her mortification, she felt the clogging emotion choke her throat. Furiously she blinked until control was in her firm grasp. “I hated arguing, especially with you. You always had to be right, and my opinion didn’t matter.”
He shifted his weight and recrossed his arms, considering her with curiosity and doubt.
The familiarity of his stance—those muscular brown arms crisscrossing his wide chest, his expression full of powerful scrutiny—made her skin leap to life. She tried to ignore the potent attraction but it was becoming impossible. Her body knew him intimately and insisted on reminding her at every opportunity.
She sighed and straightened the towel on the rail. “You didn’t let on, but I could feel what you were thinking—that we’d made a huge mistake. You worked too much, we argued all the time. Your family hated me and thought you’d married me just to shock them—an accusation you never denied. I was just so tired of fighting. I wanted peace for once.”
When he stepped inside her comfort zone all her nerves went on high alert. If he can be this close and not feel this…our…my hunger for him—surely I must be imagining it?
Finn noticed that she stubbornly refused to meet his gaze, instead staring into the sink, seemingly fascinated by the remnants of water clinging to the basin. It also tipped her hair across her face, hiding her expression.
It made her appear shy. A deadly combination of innocence and lush touch-me curves. As if the burden of the world’s troubles were on her shoulders, breathing down her neck.
She turned him on quicker than a deep hot kiss just before dawn. More disturbingly, he found all his primitive desires stampede ahead, relegating common sense to the back of his mind.
Yet her revelation, tinged with barely restrained hurt, cut like a razor-sharp blade. It poked and prodded, drawing a trickle of guilt until his thoughts tumbled together into one big blur.
Unable to help himself, he gently placed a hand on her shoulder. She jumped. So nervous.
Slowly he touched her chin, turning her to face him, then brushed his fingers against her cheek. So soft.
Her gaze, wide-eyed and panicky, snapped to his. So scared.
“What about your no-touching rule?” she got out.
Rebuffed, he pulled back. “Right. Bad idea.”
Ally flushed. He said that way too quickly, as if it was the most stupid thing he’d ever done. Was she that undesirable? Resistible? Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say…
“You never used to think so.” Damn. You said it.
His eyebrows rose in a silent question.
“We had chemistry. We spent most of our time in bed.” The burning on her cheeks intensified as she tried for a worldly shrug. It felt stiff and a little fake.
“Really?” he asked.
“Really.”
His lips curved and her irritation flared into peevish anger. Did he think she was making it up? Or throwing down some sort of gauntlet? Now wouldn’t that be ironic? She crossed her arms as a bevy of fluttering hit her low in the belly.
Partly because he couldn’t help himself and partly because her angry gray eyes seemed to be daring him, Finn tested the softness of her cheek again with gentle fingertips.
Her skin was smooth and warm, and suddenly he wondered what she felt like in other, intimate places. This close he could make out the faint dusting of freckles hugging the bridge of her nose. This close he could see she wore no makeup. But then, she didn’t need it. Her eyes were wide and as dark as a Danish winter’s day just before snowfall, her mouth lush and inviting, curved up at the corners as if she was enjoying a secret joke or an intimate memory.
A memory…it flashed by so quickly he barely had time to grab it, to imprint it in his brain before it vanished. Foggy and unclear, like an unfocused camera, he saw Ally smiling, her eyes full of love and desire. And in that memory she bent forward and kissed him so tenderly it hitched his breath, struck him down like a penalty shot to the stomach.
He wasn’t aware he’d leaned in until he felt her warm breath feather across his mouth, her tiny gasp of shock parting those teasing lips.
“What was the other thing bothering you?” Her voice came out slightly breathy, as if she’d run too quickly up the stairs. It snared something deep and primal and possessive inside. This woman was his. He’d made her his.
And, heaven help him, he wanted to make her his all over again.
Five
Finn yanked away. �
��Nothing.”
Battling to contain a dozen raw urges simmering below the surface, he stormed into the living area as if a pack of wolf-hounds were snapping at his heels. Now who’s lying? Of course he wanted to touch her. What red-blooded male wouldn’t? And those lips. That body. That hair…
A sharp prickling started on his neck, oozed down his back. An image flashed, of Ally lying naked on a four-poster bed, her wrists bound by black silk scarves and a mischievous look in her eyes.
Blood pounded to his groin again. Shards of pain stabbed in his head and he groaned, grinding the heel of his hands into his eyes. It did no good. The image lingered, and now her smell was in his nostrils, his mouth. Everywhere. That teasing scent coupled with the musky-skinned flame of arousal. He could feel the silken heat of her skin beneath his hands, the erotic pucker of her rosy nipples. Taste the sweetness of the sensitive flesh as he took one in his mouth and sucked.
He released his breath in one forceful hiss, stumbling. Bracing himself with the back of a chair, he fought, breathless, against the barrage of fractured memories crowding his mind.
Ah, her voice, husky with passion, begging him to stop, to let her touch him. And his answering laugh, full of wicked male confidence, telling her to wait her turn.
Then the scene abruptly shattered.
He felt as if he’d been tackled by an entire soccer team. He took two staggering breaths and tried to swallow, but his throat was dry and scratchy. Sweat beaded along his forehead and he impatiently swiped it from his eyes.
He heard Ally’s footsteps behind him and whirled. “Did I ever tie you up?”
“Excuse me?”
“When we had sex. Did I ever tie you to the bed?”
The intake of breath hissed gently between her teeth. “Are you trying to embarrass—”
“You think this is a game to me?”
Ally slowly swallowed in the face of his blazing expression. “I don’t know. Is it?”
When his eyes narrowed, impending danger suddenly replaced the indignation hammering in her lungs.
“If I were playing some sort of seduction game,” he drawled smoothly, “I’d go about it…something like…this…”
Ally jumped as he took one determined step forward.
“You’re naked.”
His words hung like a blunt challenge in the air. Through her shock, she watched his mouth twist into sexy knowledge. Fascinated, she couldn’t tear herself away, he the predator and she a deer caught in his singular gaze.
“Tied to a four-poster bed.”
He took another step, shoving the chair under the table with a loud scrape on the polished wood floor. Helplessly she watched his deliberate, loose-limbed stride disintegrate the space between her and freedom.
“Black silk scarves.”
Another silent step…then another…until he was just an arms’ reach away. She smelled the faint tang of his cologne, heard the shallow breath from his lips that told her he was teetering on the brink of control. His face was flushed and taut, those eyes bled to almost black, the look in them…naked wanting.
The realization struck her full force, as though the moon had crashed to earth and she was ground zero.
He wanted her.
He demolished the space between them to nothing, put his hands on the wall behind her head, effectively cutting off escape.
“You’re moaning, all hot and sweaty,” he murmured.
Ally swallowed the thrum of her heart, mesmerized by that mouth only an inch away. She could feel his warm breath on her skin, smell the arousal on it like a female scenting her mate.
“You have a freckle right here,” he moved and the back of his hand skimmed briefly down the side of her left breast, “and another one here.” His fingers tripped low across her belly, over the fabric of her T-shirt.
His body was so close she could feel the energy in the muscle and sinew beneath the thin barrier of clothes. His searching eyes bored into hers, reflecting arousal and the promise of much, much more, until Ally didn’t think she could stand unaided for another second.
“Anything else?” she got out, her voice croaky with the buildup of anticipation. With an attempted careless gesture she flicked her hair off her too-hot neck, but his breath ended up replacing it. Shivers tripped over her sensitive skin.
“One more thing.”
He grasped her chin, forcing her to look at him. Unable to meet the raw need in his eyes, hers fluttered closed as his mouth descended…only to fly back open on the end of a ragged gasp when his head dipped lower, much lower, and his hot breath and teasing lips feathered over one puckered nipple straining against her T-shirt.
“These,” he murmured, transferring heat and pounding want through the thin cotton fabric, “these are magnificent.”
Ally tried to take a steadying breath but it made her head spin.
Then he glanced up.
Looking down into those dark passion-filled eyes proved even more dangerous. There were secrets there, ones she wasn’t entirely sure she could unravel. Secrets that would hurt and scar and draw painful blood all over again.
“If you’re trying to prove a point, then you’ve made it,” Ally whispered. “I never said we weren’t attracted to each other.”
Abruptly his expression shut down.
“And I think you know I’m deadly serious about this, Ally.” He jerked away.
One second she’d been hot and craving and the next, he’d thrown a bucket of icy reality in her face.
He strode over to the phone and barked a request down the line without so much as a glance backwards. She was thankful, because she was sure her emotions, every last tender one, were written all over her face. Frustration, confusion. And more importantly, a pounding exhilaration that felt like a neon sign plastered on her head, screaming Take Me Now!
So she pulled herself together and straightened her clothing. Made a futile attempt to cool her burning cheeks until she realized her hands were still shaking.
But when Finn hung up and turned back to her, Ally was suddenly acutely aware of what had nearly transpired. Yet he appeared completely unruffled and, for that, she swallowed her sharp retort. If he wanted to act as if a frisson of hot electricity had not sparked and nearly burned them both to a crisp, then so would she. He had always enjoyed arousing her until she was practically clawing at him to make love to her, and for once, she would not go begging like a sex-starved floozy.
He muttered something.
“Sorry?” she asked, wishing she could keep the length of the room between them forever.
“I said, that…shouldn’t have happened,” he said stiffly. “I apologize.”
“That’s the third time,” she murmured, shaking her head.
“For what?”
“An apology. You never apologize.”
Her firm statement plunged his brow into a frown. “Never?”
“No.”
Unsure how to respond to that, Finn watched her hands go to the edge of her T-shirt and fiddle with the hem. Her unblinking eyes grazed over his face, then his lips. She frowned, the action creating a tiny valley of confusion between her eyebrows.
“What about when I was wrong?” he ventured skeptically.
“You made it a point never to be wrong.”
“But what if I was?”
She shrugged, almost as if it didn’t matter. “You’d buy me a gift.”
“What?”
“Earrings. A necklace. A soft toy. Once you gave me an electric flower that danced in time to music.”
“I gave you gifts but not an apology?”
“They’re in a box in my wardrobe if you want to—”
“No!” He ran a hand through his hair and continued more calmly, “No. I believe you.”
“Gee, thanks.” She drew herself up as though he’d offended her. “Look, I know this situation is strange, and I know how difficult it is to trust a complete stranger, but it’ll be a lot easier if you stop doubting me. Now, let’s go.”<
br />
“Where?”
“We’re going out.”
The abrupt switch from hot wanting to businesslike cool threw him and he stood there like an idiot, dumbfounded.
And because his pride was dented and the remnants of lust still sliced at the edges of his common sense, he said, “Afraid something might happen, Ally? That I won’t be able to control myself and end up ravishing you on the floor?”
Her thin smile was unamused. “You should see some of the places we saw together. To jog that memory of yours.”
Ally felt the small heat of victory when she saw a flush creep up his neck.
Six
Bloody victory and its tiny lifespan, Ally cursed later as they walked through the open-air markets at The Rocks. The sky was a clear, brilliant blue, complementing the cheerful sun. Through the gaps in the old colonial heritage buildings, multicolored sails of luxury yachts floated across the harbor, adding a holiday feel to Sunday.
A Sydney ferry cleaved past, throwing up foam and spray. Sydney Harbour looked glorious under the curve of the world-famous bridge.
And she was feeling less than glorious.
Both of them silently acknowledged the danger of revisiting the shortly leashed passion nipping at their heels so they managed to keep up the pretense of not caring, instead putting their energies into their daunting task.
Finn did not touch her again. In fact, it seemed to Ally that his distance was a deliberate rebuke. Punishment. She was getting what she wanted, so why did it feel all wrong?
She’d spent the last couple of hours either in loaded expectance or running off at the mouth. She babbled about her employment history, the places they’d seen together in Sydney, all the little bits and pieces that she thought mattered.
All she got for her efforts was an occasional question or complete silence.
Beneath her nonstop commentary the tension simmered, a constant yet unspoken reminder. If Ally did accidentally brush Finn’s arm—just to make sure she wasn’t imagining it, of course—she felt the zing of heat in the pit of her belly, in her tender breasts. And then she was left with crowded memories and an aching longing in her groin.
