A Debt Paid in Passion

by Dani Collins

  It was all going to start happening again and this time it would hurt even more.

  * * *

  Raoul was aware of his wife turning to marble as he finished with his mother—which he hurried because Sirena’s growing tension needed to be addressed. She tried several times to climb off his lap, but he held her in place until he’d ended the call.

  “Let me up,” she said icily.

  “I don’t suspect you of taking that bracelet,” he growled. Doubt might have flickered through his mind, but he was entitled, wasn’t he?

  She dug her elbow into the middle of his chest. Her legs determinedly tried to find the floor. “Get your hands off me,” she snarled.

  He lifted his grip, angry that she was angry. He didn’t help her rise, just protected his genitals as she scrambled to her feet and zipped her boot. Flushed, with her hair loose and disheveled, she located her purse and would have walked out without another word.

  Leaping up, he met her at the door. “You’re not walking out like this.”

  “Oh, you expect me to stay here and put out so you can accuse me of using my body for leniency again?”

  The muscles in his abdomen were so tight there shouldn’t have been room for his stomach to compress under a blow, but his gut knotted as though she’d kicked him.

  He clenched his fist where he’d braced his arm across the closed door, aware that his wife was incredibly passionate, but the lack of inhibition she showed him was the result of weeks of building on their connection out of bed as much as in it. She still had morning-after blushes and charming as they were, they reminded him that physical intimacy was still new to her. She wasn’t capable of using sex for any kind of manipulation. It was purely joy and pleasure for both of them.

  “No,” he bit out, shamed anew that he’d ever reduced her generous giving of herself to such a low transaction. He knew how much damage his accusation had done to her acceptance of his desire and need for her. Bringing it up again only pushed them farther apart than they already were and he felt a cold, anxious sweat break over him, not wanting to be here in this uncertain place. “I do expect you to talk this out like an adult, though. Not storm off in a fit,” he insisted.

  “I’m the one reacting badly? Your first thought was that I’d stolen again! I knew you didn’t trust me when you set up my account without giving me access to any of yours, but to look at me like that, so blatantly accusing me—”

  “You did it once before, damn it. Is it so surprising—”

  “Once,” she cried, holding up a single finger. “One time I thought I’d lean on someone else’s resources instead of trying to do everything myself. It was wrong, I know that, but it was one time. Have I taken anything from you before or since? Not even a few bob for nappies from the change on your night table. But you can’t wait to find fault! Does it feel good? Does it justify the way you hold back your heart and don’t trust me? God, I knew it would be a mistake to get this involved with you!”

  She turned away, so she didn’t see the way he was knocked back, as if her outburst had been a spray of bullets. He couldn’t even defend himself, aware that subconsciously he was waiting for a sign that his growing feelings for her were misplaced. She was coming to mean far too much to him. Every time he thought the level of emotion between them was as much as he could handle, his attachment grew. The more you cared, the more you risked and he was getting in so deep there was no self-protection left. He didn’t like it, he couldn’t deny that.

  But to hear her call their relationship a mistake was a brutal blow. He hated seeing her shoulders buckle, hated knowing that she was only standing here in this room with him because he was barring the door.

  “Look, the thing with the account I set up for you—”

  “I don’t want to hear it, I really don’t. Would you let me take Lucy home? She needs her nap.”

  “I’ll come home with you.” He moved to fetch his laptop. As he did, she walked out. Beyond the door, Lucy let out a sudden cry.

  “I’m sorry,” the nanny said anxiously as he emerged to find Sirena trying to comfort the baby. “She scratched herself.”

  An urgent call came in at that second and Sirena wound up leaving without him. When he managed to fight traffic and get home, he was relieved to find them there, even though Sirena was pale and frazzled. Mother and baby were both out of sorts. He was beginning to think Lucy had Sirena’s sensitive nature for undercurrents, because she was obviously unsettled by her mother’s tension.

  He took over soothing the fussy infant and, despite his urgent need to sort things out between them, suggested Sirena take a bath. It was late when they sat down to a quiet dinner, just the two of them. Sirena picked at her food.

  The silence built.

  “Sin—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “I called her back,” he said, overriding her hostility. “Her housekeeper is sure she saw it on her dresser top after we left. It’s fallen behind some furniture or something.”

  “So it’s not that you believe me. You believe the housekeeper.”

  He drew patience into his lungs with a long inhale. “You barely wear the jewelry I give you and don’t spend half the money in the account I opened for you. I have no reason to believe you’d want or need that bracelet.”

  Her mouth stayed pinched while she rearranged her food.

  “I’ve put what happened behind us. Today was a slipup on my part, that’s all.”

  “Fine,” she said in the way women did when they meant, Like hell, but he took her at her word, determined to get them back on the comfortable footing they’d been enjoying. When they went to bed, he reached for her as he did every night.

  She didn’t melt her body into his the way he’d come to expect.

  He wanted her. Badly. This break in their connection needed to be reestablished with the physical joining that brought him a kind of pleasure and sense of accord he couldn’t even articulate. But while she didn’t outright push him away, she didn’t open to his kiss and heat to his touch the way she usually did.

  With urgency riding him, he slowed his touch, trying to reassure her and himself that nothing had changed. He knew all her trigger points and lightly stimulated them: the dimples at the small of her back that made her shiver, the tendon in her neck that turned her to pudding when he scraped his teeth against it, the underside of her arm that was ticklish, but also made her turn into him and twine her leg around his waist.

  When she moaned softly and combed her fingers into his hair, he shuddered with relief, but kept the pace gradual and thorough, wanting her to know how much he revered this bond between them. He didn’t know how else to express his feelings for her. They were too deep and disturbing to even try to voice. Surely when they were like this, she felt it and understood?

  Her hand moved restlessly on his shoulder and he kissed his way down the inside of her arm. Her wrist was sweetly feminine, the fine pulse beating frantically against his tongue, her fingers trembling against his mouth. He lightly sucked one, then another, anointing all her sensitive places, biting into the mound below her thumb until he’d imprinted himself on her lifeline.

  She arched, the seeking signal enough to blast through his control, but he was determined to have every inch of her before she had one inch of him. He rolled her onto her stomach and used his leg to pin hers, then stroked her body with his. Her skin was soft and smooth, her form lovely with its curves and nectarine-scented skin. He kissed his way down her spine as he stroked her legs and buttocks, intensely turned on as she gasped and lifted into his touch and moaned his name.

  Pushing the mane of her hair away from her neck, he settled on her, letting her feel how aroused he was. The slam of his heartbeat was like a piston trying to stamp into her. He slid a hand beneath her, cupping her breast then moving lower to the wet heat that was all his.

  “I can’t get enough of you,” he admitted in a hot whisper against her bared ear. “I think about this all the t
ime, giving you pleasure, feeling you melt for me.” She was close to shattering, straining beneath him, making gorgeous noises that had the hairs all over his body standing up as he fought losing it without even entering her.

  Easing away, he rolled her to face him.

  She was trembling, her arms shaking as she tried to draw him over her. Her thighs fell open, but he only kissed down her breastbone to her navel.

  “Raoul, I’m dying,” she moaned, trying to draw him back up to her.

  He was hanging by a thread, but took his time settling on her. Easing into her was like immersing himself in heaven. He went slowly, savoring every heartbeat while fighting the threatening eruption. Catching her inciting hands in his own, he held them still and let her feel him in complete possession of her.

  “I will never be careless with you,” he told her, deeply aware of the effect he was having on her, the twitch of her thighs scissoring his waist, the clasp of her sheath, the shaken breaths sawing between her lips. “This is too important to me.”

  He swallowed her gasp as he covered her trembling lips with his, wanting to crush her with all the passionate hunger in him, but venerating her instead, doing everything in his power to transmit that she was pure sweetness, utter joy to him. Perfect.

  But he wasn’t superhuman. The connection so vital to him was also his lifeblood and he needed to stoke it. The withdrawal and thrust sent a wave of intense pleasure down his back, pulling him tighter and harder, making the need to drive himself into her unbearable. He basked in the sheer magnificence of her, moving with gentle deliberation as he savored the effect she had on him, the way she responded to his strokes.

  Their struggle was long and slow and deep. Impossible to give up and impossible to prolong. When the high keening noise came into her throat and her teeth closed on his earlobe, when her climax was only a breath away, he let himself fall, his wife clutched firmly in his arms.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  AS RAOUL KNOTTED his tie, he wasn’t sure if he should feel smug or sorry. Over his reflected shoulder, Sirena was motionless on their ravaged bed, deeply asleep.

  Last night had been intense. Even after he’d fetched Lucy for a feed a couple of hours ago and come back fully expecting they’d both finally catch a few winks, Sirena had reached for him as though they hadn’t been colliding all night. They’d nearly killed each other with the force of their most recent release.

  Then they had finally passed out. When his body had woken him out of habit at six, he’d considered canceling today’s meetings, but two very in-demand people had flown in on his request. He had to make time for them.

  He didn’t like leaving Sirena without saying goodbye, but he was loath to wake her when he was the reason she needed her rest. Shrugging on his suit jacket, he moved closer to gauge how deep into REM she was.

  Her face was contorted with agony and her limbs gave a twitch of sleep-paralyzed struggle. Alarmed, he sat to grasp her shoulder, sharply saying, “Sin!” to snap her awake.

  “Nooo!” she cried and her hand came up so fast it caught him in the mouth before he knew it.

  “What the hell?” He dabbed a finger against his lip, expecting she’d split it.

  Her wild eyes came to rest on him, terror slowly receding as she curled her offending hand into her chest. “Did I hit you? Oh, my God, I’m so sorry.” Her horror was as real as the remnants of panic still whitening her lips.

  “You were having a nightmare. What was it?”

  Shadows of memory crept into her eyes before she shielded them with her lashes. Without enlightening him, she drew the blankets up to her neck, shivering and looking to the clock. “What time is it? I didn’t realize it was so late. Did your alarm go off?”

  “Sin?” He smoothed her hair away from her sweaty temple. “Tell me.”

  “I don’t want to think of it. Will you check Lucy while I have a quick shower?”

  “You should sleep in.”

  “I don’t want to try in case it comes back.” She slid from the far side of the bed, leaving him uneasy.

  * * *

  Despite the passion that remained acute as ever between them, Sirena couldn’t shake the sense of an ax about to fall. She brushed aside her worries by day, telling herself to trust that Raoul really had put his suspicions away, but her subconscious tortured her at night. He woke her from horrible nightmares at least once a night, bleak, frightening dreams where he wrenched Lucy from her arms and condemned Sirena to utter abandonment. Sometimes she was in prison, sometimes she was outside his gates, rain soaking her to the skin, cold metal numbing her fingers, his feelings for her completely beyond her reach.

  He’d reassure her and be considerate and affectionate and would make love to her so sweetly she thought she would die, but she still wound up alone and rejected when she closed her eyes.

  “I don’t know what else I can say,” he bit out over a week later after a sullen dinner when he had remarked on the dark circles under her eyes.

  They were in Paris, the city of lovers, sharing after-dinner coffee in the lounge. The nanny had taken an evening off with friends. The housekeeper had tidied up the dishes before leaving for the night. Outside the rain-specked window, the ink-black path of the Seine wound in gilded streaks past the purple and red and yellow lights of the buildings on the far shore.

  “Tell me the bracelet has turned up,” she said with a melancholy shrug, trying to be dismissive but actually feeling quite desperate.

  Thick silence. He’d made her tell him what the dreams were about, but it hadn’t helped either of them cope. His lack of response almost sounded accusatory to her.

  “It’s not like I want to be like this,” she pointed out defensively.

  Her phone rang in the depths of her purse. She stood to find it, hoping to avoid another dead-end conversation about something she couldn’t control.

  “You could try trusting me. That’s what this comes down to.”

  She caught back a snort and insisted, “I do,” but her heart twisted as though it knew she was lying. What could she do about that? If he loved her, she might be able to believe that he wasn’t on the verge of rejecting her. But what he felt for her was passion—and that wasn’t a forever type of feeling, was it?

  “You don’t even trust me enough to talk about this without seizing any excuse to walk away,” he said pointedly.

  “What is there to say?” She dropped her purse onto the sofa and folded her arms. “I’m supposed to ignore the fact there’s no one else it could be? Is your mother losing her memory? Not a bit that I’ve noticed. Could it be the housekeeper? The one who’s been with her for ten years? Oh, I know, it’s Miranda, who gets paid a fortune on top of that trust you set up for her.”

  A flash of something moved in his eyes. She didn’t try to interpret it, too busy rushing on with the facts piled up against her.

  “Did a thief break in and steal one bracelet in a houseful of electronics and art? No! Unless you took it, the only other person it could be is me.” She pointed to her chest. “I’m ready to confess just to get the breakup and court proceedings over with.”

  A cloak of such tangible chill fell over him, he virtually turned gray and breathed fog. “A divorce? Is that the kind of court proceedings you’re referring to?”

  Her fingernails clawed into her upper arms. It wasn’t, but if he reached for the D-word that quickly, it must be something he was considering. The pain that crept into her then didn’t even have a name, it was too all encompassing and deadly.

  Into their staring contest, his phone rang. He didn’t move, but it broke the spell. She looked away, body pulsing with anguish.

  “Is it?” he demanded through his teeth, ignoring his phone.

  “How else will you react when it never turns up?” she said in a strained voice.

  When she dared to look at him, he was so far inside himself there was no reaching him. It was as if the man who had been her protector and sounding board and partner had checked out and le
ft the brute from the end of his driveway.

  Her heart retracted into a core of ice, cracking from its own cold density.

  His phone went silent and her tablet burbled.

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” she cried, rounding to the coffee table and glancing at the screen to see it was her sister. A different chill moved into her chest. The timing was wrong for a friendly visit—

  She swiped at the screen. “Ali?” she asked before the vision of her sister came into focus, crying.

  “It’s Dad. He’s had a heart attack. Mum’s in the ambulance. I’m going to meet them at the hospital.”

  Sirena wasn’t aware of swaying, only felt herself steady as firm hands grasped her and eased her onto the sofa. Raoul caught the tablet as it tumbled from her numb fingers.

  “She’ll be there as soon as I can make arrangements,” he said in a rasping voice, ending the call. He tried to take her hands, but Sirena jerked from his touch, practically leaping to her feet.

  “I have to pack.”

  “You’re in shock.”

  “I need to do something.”

  “Fine. I’ll order the flight.” He ran a hand over his face, looking surprisingly awful. Maybe it was memories of losing his own father.

  That thought made her stomach bottom out. Not dwelling on it, she went through the motions of packing, counting nappies for Lucy, fretting about the time it would take to circle half the globe. Would she reach her father in time?

  Calling back the nanny didn’t make sense. As nice as she was, she wasn’t family. Sirena just wanted Raoul. For all their horrid conflict, he was a pillar. She couldn’t dismiss how supportive he was as he booked a private jet, bundled them into a limo and buckled Lucy securely beside her in the plane’s cabin.

  “Text when you land so I know you arrived safely,” he said.

  “You’re not coming?” Her barely there control shredded to near nothing.

  “There’s something I have to do.”

  Divorce. The ugly word came back, more noxious than ever. This was it, the expulsion from his life she had feared. Or rather, expected. Bile rose to the back of her throat, sitting in a hot burn despite her convulsive swallow. At least she had Lucy.