‘It frightens me, what you do to me,’ she told him breathlessly when at last he eased the hungry pressure. ‘You tear my senses to shreds. I can’t resist you!’
‘You think it is any different for me? Feel me!’ he commanded. ‘I am trembling.’ And as he pressed himself against her she could feel the tremors shaking him—even his hands as he ran them beneath her shirt, up over her hips then caressingly across the child before cupping her breasts. ‘I love you, Jemma,’ he declared. ‘Please, whatever else you doubt about me, do not doubt my love.’
She looked up at him, blue eyes searching impassioned black ones for a hint—the slightest sign—that he was being anything but sincere. But it was all there. The man she had come to admire and respect for the strong, powerful personality he was. The man she had come to love deeply and depend upon so totally that she knew she couldn’t live without him now, even if she wanted to, which she didn’t. And the man she knew—had always known, no matter what else got in their way—cared for her. A care he was now insisting had turned to love. A love she did not have the strength to turn her back on, especially now when she could see it glowing warmly in his eyes.
‘I do believe you,’ she said at last. And she did. At last she dared to let herself believe.
‘And forgive?’ he asked. ‘Can you do that too?’
‘Oh, yes.’ She smiled a wryly rueful smile. ‘I can forgive you anything when you hold me like this!’ she confessed.
‘Then I have a better idea,’ he said. ‘Bed,’ he decided, black eyes gleaming as he bent to swing her into his arms. ‘There I can hold you much closer and for much longer and therefore receive a deeper forgiveness!’
‘But—what about my appointment with the doctor?’ she protested as he began striding towards the door.
‘Blow the doctor!’ he grunted. ‘I need you right now more than you need him!’
‘But—!’
He kissed her, his mouth covering her own to muffle out any other protest she might have been considering. And the next time she came up for air he was lowering her on to her own bed, still rumpled from last night’s sleep.
He left her to go and close and lock the cabin door. When he back back she was smiling ruefully. ‘Who has the pass key?’ she asked.
‘I do, of course,’ he grinned, and came to lie beside her.
Strangely, the fever of passion had passed, leaving them without its raging flame to hide behind. A silence settled around them. Leon seemed suddenly extraordinarily concerned in smoothing her long hair out behind her. And she found a similar interest in the absent combing of the silk dark hair at his chest.
‘Where would you like to live?’ he asked suddenly. ‘London? Athens? New York?’
She glanced at him from beneath her lashes. ‘You choose,’ she offered. ‘I have no personal preference so long as we are together.’
‘Mmm, my sentiments exactly,’ he agreed, brushing a kiss across her cheek. ‘But we have to make our base somewhere, if only until the baby is born. After that, you both travel with me wherever I go,’ he decreed, adding grimly, ‘I do not ever want to go through another separation like the age I spent in New York without you.’
Jemma bit down lightly on her bottom lip, then said softly, ‘I missed you too. A million times I wanted to call you up and tell you how frightened and alone I felt. But—’ She sighed, unable to explain.
‘But you could not because you did not think I cared enough,’ he finished for her.
She shook her head. ‘No,’ she denied. ‘I knew you cared, Leon. I never, ever doubted that you cared for me. But caring was not enough—not with a baby coming and you being so very against marriage. It wouldn’t have been fair on you, would it?’
‘And was it fair on you,’ he posed, ‘that you should have to cope alone?’
She shrugged. ‘That business with Cassie and Josh obsessed me. I just couldn’t see you reacting any differently than he had.’
‘Did you do it deliberately?’ he asked.
‘No!’ she denied, her eyes jerking up to clash angrily with his. ‘How could you think I would do such a thing?’
‘I did not,’ he denied. ‘I just asked the question, that’s all. And you answered it.’ He gave a ‘that’s the end of that’ shrug.
‘You believe me—just like that?’ she choked.
His eyes, sombre beneath their lazy lids, held on to hers. ‘Did you not know?’ he mocked her gently. ‘I would believe you if you told me the world was square. You are the most honest person I know, agape mou.’
‘Oh,’ she said, and for some stupid reason felt tears press at her eyes again.
‘Don’t.’ Sighing, he pulled her to him, curving his body protectively around her. ‘Don’t cry,’ he commanded. ‘God, you have no idea what it does to me to see you unhappy! Of course I know you did not deliberately set me up!’ he scolded. ‘I can do simple arithmetic too, you know! And, even if you had done it deliberately,’ he then added wryly, ‘I would not have cared less. My life is incomplete without you, my darling,’ he murmured softly, coming to lean over her so that she could see the sincerity burning in his eyes. ‘I learned that in New York.’ He kissed her gently. ‘Here I am complete.’ He kissed her again. ‘With you—anywhere with you.’ Another kiss, soft and lingering. ‘You,’ he murmured. ‘You—you—you.’
ISBN: 978-1-4592-8468-5
Passion Becomes You
Copyright © 1994 by Michelle Reid
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