by Lora Leigh
She’d been pregnant when she’d been abducted! She’d been carrying his child. A child she had obviously lost.
She fought her ragged breathing, fought the tears and the cries that would have slipped free. Pushing the blankets from her, she forced herself from his bed, from his room and entered her own. Locking the door behind her, she fought to stay upright, to keep from collapsing as rage and pain swept through her.
Whoever abducted her caused her to lose Riordan’s baby.
A ragged sound of pain escaped her, slashed at her. Oh God, it hurt. It hurt so bad. She’d wanted her child. It hadn’t mattered that Riordan hadn’t wanted her, she had loved the baby he’d left her. And now, that baby was gone.
Breathing in, she forced back her cries, forced back the ragged fury, and moved toward the shower. She needed to move, needed to find a sense of balance. Not that a shower would do that, but it would wash Riordan’s scent from her body. It would take the scent of him out of her head, the feel of him out of her body.
Grief lanced her as she stepped beneath the water and let it spill over her head, let it wash away the tears. She wished she could wash away the sorrow and the feelings of betrayal as easily.
She let the driving pain have its way. She knew from experience that the only way to control it later was to give into it when she was alone. When she could let the tears fall without anyone knowing any better.
She wouldn’t cry in front of him. She wouldn’t let him see what his leaving had done to her. She couldn’t bear to let him know he had nearly broken her.
And her poppa was not innocent in this, not by any means. When she’d protested Riordan’s appearance at his arrival this time, he’d told her that Riordan had been recovering from some injury for the past six months and had been unable to join her security team.
What was the truth and what was another of his subtle play on words? He never lied to her, but when he was determined that she not know the truth of something, he was a master verbal manipulator.
As she stepped from the shower and began drying off, she wondered why her father had allowed him back into her life. She knew her poppa, knew he didn’t just change his mind so drastically. What had happened to make him bring back the man he had removed from her life six months ago?
Oh, when he returned, there was going to be hell to pay.
While Riordan had headed her security team, her poppa had been largely absent from the penthouse, staying in the apartment at the Brute Force Security headquarters instead. Something he had rarely done before that. If she didn’t know him as well as she did, she would have sworn he was waiting for her and Riordan to become lovers.
For a moment, the seamless access to another memory shocked her.
Could it be that easy? Could the return of her memories come so easily after six months of struggling to pull them free?
Why now? Why was she remembering now, when even the nightmares that had plagued her before Riordan’s return couldn’t free them?
Was it the fact that Riordan had returned?
Wrapping her towel around her body, she ignored the fierce pounding of her heart and the panic that threatened to surge past her control. One part of her was eager to remember; the other was tight with fear. She hadn’t lost her memories because she had lost Riordan’s baby. As painful and shattering as that realization was, she knew it wasn’t the reason she’d been hiding from the months she’d forgotten.
There was more waiting on her. She could feel those memories now, though. Swirling just beyond the fog, amassing, struggling to push free.
Why they had begun now, she didn’t know, but as she stepped into her bedroom and came to a stop just beyond the door, she knew Riordan had much to do with it.
He stood in the sitting area, his expression carved in stone, though his eyes burned like sapphire fire. His black hair was still damp, his powerful body dressed, and she couldn’t stop a sharp tinge of regret that all that bronze flesh overlaying powerful muscle was covered. Jeans, a white shirt, sleeves rolled up to his strong forearms and the tail tucked in. A belt cinched his hips, and he wore those scarred boots on his big feet.
And she was still dressed in a towel.
“I need to dress.” Her voice shook and she hated it.
Compressing her lips she skirted around him to her dresser and pulled a pair of panties and a bra free. When he didn’t speak, she threw a glare at the broad expanse of his back before entering the walk-in closet and quickly dressing.
The ankle-length steel blue cashmere skirt and dove gray sweater with its tiny pearl buttons was comfortable and warm. She had a feeling she’d need that sense of comfort this morning. Rather than pushing her feet into shoes, she pulled on a pair of thick soft white socks instead.
She rarely wore shoes in the house when her poppa wasn’t there. There was no danger of his business associates arriving, or acquaintances dropping by. The only person she had to worry about was Riordan.
Exiting the closet, she kept him in her peripheral vision, stalked across the room, and before he could stop her, jerked her bedroom door open and walked out.
“Amara.” She ignored the sharp, demanding tone of his voice as she hurried down the hall to the stairs.
She couldn’t deal with him.
Not right now.
If she had to confront him, there was no way she would be able to hide the anger and pain that was still far too close to the surface.
As she moved quickly down the stairs, she could hear the thud of his boots behind her.
Uh-oh, he was pissed. He only stomped when he was pissed. And she knew if she looked back, she’d see an arrogant, determined—and far too sexy—expression on his face. And why the sexy part should be one of her first thoughts just struck her as wrong on too many levels.
“The hell you’ll run from me like this.” Catching her arm just before she reached the dining room, he swung her around to face him, and sure enough, too sexy for words.
“Like you ran from me?” she cried out, jerking her arm out of his grip as his gaze narrowed on her.
“What have you remembered? How much have you remembered?” he demanded without so much as a single doubt that she’d remembered something.
“Does it matter?” she sneered before turning and heading to her office.
She’d be damned if she was going to yell at him in the foyer where everyone would hear, and she sure as hell wasn’t going back to her bedroom.
Riordan ended every argument they’d ever had in her bedroom, in her bed.
He was incredibly sexual. Intense and hungry, seductive and wild.
Another memory, another piece of the puzzle. Bits and pieces were just there, where before they hadn’t been.
“You’re damn right it matters.” He followed her into her office, slapping the door closed behind him. “And what the hell do you mean I ran from you? Like hell I did.”
Turning to him, Amara was taken aback by the expression on his face. Arrogance, yes, but also anger, hunger, and all the other wild emotions she’d always glimpsed just a shadow of before. Those emotions filled his gaze now, his expression, hardening his features and giving them a stark, hungry look.
“You damn sure did,” she informed him, furiously pointing a finger at him accusingly. “You couldn’t even tell me goodbye, damn you.”
“And why the fuck would I tell you goodbye?” He stalked to her, bending his head until they were nearly nose to nose. “It wasn’t fucking goodbye. It was another of those damn half-assed missions your father was always sending my ass out on.”
She stared back at him in confusion.
That wasn’t what her father had told her, but she knew how he got when he felt she didn’t trust him, or when he was angry. He didn’t lie, he just didn’t tell the whole truth.
“Let me guess. He didn’t tell you about the mission he sent me on to England?” He drew back, censure flashing across his expression. “Manipulative bastard. The entire time I commanded your security, he tri
ed to play his damn games with me.”
Her poppa was good at his games, she admitted that.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, her voice hollow even to her own ears. “You left, Riordan, when you could have stayed. But you left me.”
Had he loved her, he would have stayed, wouldn’t he?
His gaze seemed to flatten, harden. “You’re right, Amara. I should have stayed,” he stated, the harsh rasp of his voice shocking her. “I should have ignored your tears and pleas to keep our relationship from him and I should have by God never left you. But I did. Now both of us will just have to deal with it.”
They would just have to deal with it?
She stared back at him in shock.
“I don’t just have to deal with it. I don’t just have to deal with a damn thing,” she cried out, furious that he’d even think she would have to. “What I can do is make sure it never happens again. You can sleep in your own bed. Alone.”
For a second, the office was so silent, so still within the wave of tension that swept through it, that Amara found herself holding her breath.
Then he laughed. A low, harsh sound as his lips curled with mocking amusement.
“Oh Amara, you really haven’t remembered enough about the man you’re dealing with,” he told her softly. “Or you would have never considered such a dare.”
Before she could avoid him, he gripped the hair at the back of her head, holding her in place as one arm went around her back and jerked her to him. Pulling her head back, his lips captured hers as a gasp escaped her and he stilled any protest she could consider with a kiss that shocked her to her core.
If he had kissed her in such a way before, surely she couldn’t have forgotten it.
This was nothing so tame as a kiss.
This was a carnal claiming.
It was lips and tongue, nips and greedy male lust. It was dominant, hot, and impossible to deny. He held her head immobile and kissed her with such carnal male lust it was intoxicating. He claimed her with his kiss until she didn’t know anything beyond the riotous sensations surging through her.
She was only barely, distantly aware—and didn’t give a damn—that the buttons of her sweater were loosening, spreading apart. The clip of her bra released and broad palms cupped her breasts, molded them as callused thumbs rasped their tender peaks. The demanding nature of the kiss combined with the possessive caresses overwhelmed her senses with something that went far beyond pleasure.
As his lips continued to move over hers in long, drugging kisses, his hands slid to her thighs, cupped them through her skirt, and lifted her until her rear was sliding over the top of the desk. His lips nipped at hers, took a series of hard, hungry kisses before they moved to her jaw, her neck.
Whimpering moans were falling from her lips as those burning caresses moved to her neck and her skirt moved up her thighs. He pushed the material to her hips, his fingers cupping the aching mound between her thighs.
“Riordan!” The sharp cry shocked her.
She’d always managed to remain quiet, to stifle her moans. To keep from being heard. But she couldn’t control it now. Couldn’t fight the pleasure, or the moans falling from her lips.
“There you go,” he groaned as he spread her thighs farther and moved between them. “Let me hear all those wild cries, baby.”
His lips moved against her neck in a heated kiss. The caress sent waves of intoxicating sensations racing through her, drawing another cry despite her attempts to hold it back.
And once wasn’t enough for him. As her head fell back, exposing her neck, he explored, tasted, and teased, tormented the sensitive flesh and rocked her with the pleasure of it.
There were no more than a few heartbeats between one exquisite, shocking sensation and the next. When he finished claiming her neck, his lips moved to her breasts. He first kissed one nipple then the other as his hands smoothed up her inner thighs. Then, he captured one straining tip in his mouth with a suddenness that had her arching, crying out, as her sex clenched with a sudden wave of need.
Her hands were in his hair, her thighs spread wide, hips lifting as she braced her feet on the edge of the desk. As his mouth surrounded her nipple and began drawing on it, the fragile silk that covered her pussy was ripped aside and his fingers were parting the slick folds, his thumb glancing over her clit, his fingers stroking the narrow slit that led inside.
There was no time to prepare herself. No time to accustom herself to the arcs of heat and sharp sensation already striking at her nerve endings when he added one that tore free that last fragile hold on any control.
The sudden penetration of his cock inches inside her sent a pleasure-pain strike of pure ecstasy tearing through her.
The cry that spilled from her was lost in the overwhelming heat and steel-hard impalement. Pulling back, he thrust again, and again, finally burying his cock to the hilt as she arched and tried to scream his name.
He was so large, so hard. Her inner muscles clenched, rippled, and struggled to accommodate the flesh filling her. Not that he gave her time for that either.
“Like that, baby?” he groaned, lifting his head to her neck once again. “Let’s see if I can make you love it. Come on, give me all those sweet, wild cries.”
He began thrusting inside her, pulling nearly free before thrusting inside her hard and fast again and creating a rhythm she couldn’t resist, and a savage pleasure she couldn’t fight any more than she could fight the cries that spilled from her lips.
“Damn you! You’re mine, Amara.” Driving harder inside her, he held her to him, bent over her, his hips pistoning between her thighs as she felt herself unraveling.
She was coming apart. Too quickly. The ecstasy rose inside her so fast, so hot, she couldn’t escape it, couldn’t fight it. Until it erupted inside her with such force, with such incredible pleasure, she lost herself in an ecstasy she knew she’d never be free of. A man she’d never want to be free of.
chapter nineteen
He’d marked her.
Amara stared at the love bite at the base of her neck and the one closer to her shoulder and lowered her head as she braced her hands on the sink that evening.
A break in the snow had resulted in a message from her father that he would be back at the estate before the next wave began. It was just her damn luck that her poppa hadn’t forgotten how to travel dangerous snow-packed roads.
He’d spent his youth learning how to navigate Russia’s roadways during the worst parts of winter. It was a skill he hadn’t forgotten, no matter her wishes.
So much for keeping her private life private. That simply wasn’t possible now.
“Don’t worry, he can’t ground you,” Riordan assured her, his tone mocking as he stepped to the open doorway and watched her.
“He can shoot you,” she muttered. “If I don’t first.”
He snorted.
“I let you convince me to keep our relationship hidden once. I won’t allow it again,” he informed her, his tone tight and hard as she turned her head and stared at him.
“Poppa never let me know when he had a mistress,” she said faintly. “I never had to deal with jealous lovers, or catty remarks. Perhaps I only wanted to give him the same respect he afforded me.”
It seemed it was something neither Riordan, nor her father, understood.
Straightening, she stared at the marks again and sighed heavily. “You’re a caveman, Riordan.”
And she had loved it, that was the part she didn’t understand. When he went caveman, she melted
“I told you, I’m not going to hide the fact that you belong to me again,” he informed her, the determined expression on his face assuring her there were no arguments she could use to sway him.
“I don’t belong to you—”
“Want me to prove it again, Amara?” The sudden rasp to his voice had her staring back at him warily.
He leaned against the doorframe, arms across his chest, his gaze narrowed on her as she felt the
tenderness of her body as well as the sudden sensitivity between her thighs. She felt pathetic. Pathetic wasn’t even a good word for how weak she was when it came to him.
“Your ability to make me respond to you sexually does not mean I belong to you,” she told him, proud of the firmness in her voice. “It takes a hell of a lot more than that.”
His lips quirked at the words.
“You love me. You loved me before I left and you damn well know it. Just as you know you still love me.” The pure arrogant confidence in his voice was enough to cause her to clench her teeth in anger.
“You left me—”
“I was coming back.” Graveled and intense, his tone deepened as his arms dropped from his chest and he shifted, straightening as he stared at her broodingly. “Ask that manipulating bastard you call a father what happened that day, sweetheart. Ask him why I left, because it’s evident you didn’t ask a damn thing when he informed you I was gone.”
No, she hadn’t. She’d felt too broken, too betrayed to ask her poppa why Riordan had left. She’d accepted that he had just left, and she should have known better.
But her poppa had been right about one thing.
“If you had cared as much for me, Riordan, as you’re certain I care for you, then you would have told him to kiss your ass. You wouldn’t have left.” She struggled to keep her voice calm, to hold back the pain, the bitterness. “And you damn sure wouldn’t have left without finding a way to tell me goodbye.”
He nodded sharply. “And any other time, I’d accept that—if waiting wouldn’t have meant a man’s life. We flew straight to England and were loaded into a transport on the airfield before flying to the evacuation zone. The second I returned to the temporary base in London I called, only to learn you’d been abducted.”
For a second, he appeared haggard and filled with regret, but just as quickly it was gone.
“You were wounded then?” she asked, remembering her father’s statement that he hadn’t been on her team in the first six months after her rescue because he’d been wounded.
The tension increased in his large body for long seconds as he stared back at her.