White lies

"I’m sorry, baby," he said, the words rough and frantic and urgent. He slid his mouth down her throat, biting at the sensitive arch, licking the small hollow at the base, where her pulse throbbed visibly. "I didn’t mean to be that rough."

So that was why he was angry, not at her, but at himself. But even that wasn’t enough to keep him from having her again. She could feel the hunger in his big, powerful body, and again his loss of control thrilled her in a deeply primitive way. She had been married, but Steve had always kept his cool, kept part of himself securely locked away from her, and the passionate part of her had been hurt, because she’d needed more. The man in her arms now was savage in his hunger, driven out of control by his need for her, and his wildness matched the fierce passion of her own nature. All her life she had needed this answering intensity to balance her; without it, she had withdrawn behind a shell of rigid control, and only now was she being freed.

She clung to him like a vine, her wet body undulating against him. "I love you," she groaned, because that was the only thing she could say, the one outstanding truth in the maze of lies and subterfuges.

He lifted his mouth from her throat, his face so close to hers that his burning gaze was all she could see. "I hurt you," he growled.

She couldn’t deny it. "Yes," she said, and fitted her mouth to his, her tongue delicately probing. His arms tightened so convulsively that she couldn’t breathe, but breathing didn’t matter. Kissing him mattered. Loving him mattered.

But finally he did find some remnant of control, enough to allow him to turn off the water and haul her out of the tub. She never released her hold on his neck as he swept her up and carried her, both of them dripping wet, to his bed. She didn’t care about the sheets. All she cared about was his hot mouth on her breasts, the rasp of his slightly roughened fingertips on her silky skin, and finally his powerful invasion of her body. It was still such a shock to her senses that she cried out, instinctively trying to close her thighs. But her legs tightened on his muscled thighs and the movement only drew him deeper.

He ground his teeth together, trying to force himself to stillness when every instinct told him to move. The need was so urgent that it smothered everything else in the world except the woman he held in his arms, the woman whose slim body clasped him so tightly and pushed him to the edge of insanity. But for her sake he managed to hold still until she was more comfortable with him. Lying propped on his elbows so his weight wouldn’t crush her, he looked down at her and shuddered with pleasure at the intense, absorbed look on her face as she lifted her hips slightly, tentatively, to accept all of him. A deep groan tore from his chest. He knew he’d been too rough and urgent to allow her time to enjoy it before, but this time she was with him.

Her lips parted slightly in a smile so female it took his breath away, and her deep blue eyes beckoned him, dared him. Once again her hips lifted. "What are you waiting for?" she breathed.

"For you," he answered, and even as he lost himself in the mindless ecstasy of making love to her, the truth of that remained. He’d waited for her forever.

He was a light sleeper, so much so that even in the heavy-limbed aftermath he was disturbed by the damp sheets, a discomfort they hadn’t noticed before. Jay lay in his arms, exhausted and deeply asleep; he didn’t want to disturb her, but neither did he want her to become chilled from the wetness. He eased from the bed and lifted her light weight in his arms, then carried her into the other bedroom to place her on the dry bed. She made a disgruntled noise as he jostled her, then relaxed again, and her breathing evened out as he stroked her back. He joined her on the bed, and she snuggled closer, into his hard, possessive embrace.

The way he felt about her was so intense it edged into pain. Even without his memory, he knew no other woman had ever shattered his control as she did. He’d never desired another woman so intensely, never would have waited as long as he’d waited for her. She overshadowed every other concern. Because of her, he hadn’t dwelled on his loss of memory, beyond a peculiar irritation and a certain detached interest in the curiosities of what he had retained. His past life didn’t matter, because Jay was here in the present. They were linked in a way that went beyond memory.

A slight frown creased his brow as he held her, his rough hand sliding from the curve of her hip to the warmly resilient mound of her breast. Of all the knowledge he’d kept, why wasn’t any of it of Jay? Those were the memories he resented losing. He wanted to remember every minute he’d spent with her, and he wanted to remember why he’d let her slip away from him. He wanted to remember their wedding, the first time he’d made love to her, and the total lack of those memories ate at him. She was the core of his life; why hadn’t something been familiar? Why hadn’t he felt some deep-seated recognition of the silkiness of her skin, the rounded curves of her high breasts or the rose-brown of her small nipples? Why hadn’t there been some sense of familiarity in the tight sheath of her body as he entered her?

But everything had been new.

She moved slightly against him, and he stilled his stroking hand, content to simply hold her. They would be married as soon as he could talk her into it, and now he had a very powerful weapon at his disposal:

The scene exploded in his mind. There was a laughing bride and a groom looking excited, proud, wary and impatient all at once. The groom shook his head, beaming, and the bride hugged him tightly. "You made it!" she said exultantly. "I knew you would!"

An older woman and man hugged him just as tightly. "I’m glad you’re back, son," the man said, and the woman cried a little even as she smiled at him, the smile full of love. Then there was a rush of other people to shake his hand and hug him and clap him on the back, and the scene dissolved in a confusion of voices.