One-Click Buy: November Harlequin Presents

by Susan Stephens

  It was hard, it was fast, it was hot as hell, and it was taking her closer to heaven with each burning second that passed. She could feel the incredible tension building up inside her, climbing higher and higher until she thought she would scream aloud with the pressure of need. It was there in Andreas too, in the tautness of every powerful muscle, the raw, uneven sound of his breathing, the way that his powerful hands were clamped tight around her upper arms, almost bruising the tender flesh. The peak they reached for was so close—so, so close—and yet it seemed that she would never reach it. And then Andreas bent his head, catching one straining nipple in the heat of his mouth and suckling hard, nipping gently at the delicate skin and creating a stinging pleasure that took her right over the edge in an instant. The world disappeared, as she was whirled into a blazing oblivion, seeing nothing, hearing nothing, only feeling, feeling at the highest, wildest pinnacle of sensation that she had ever known.

  Somewhere in the back of her mind she registered the harsh, primitive cry that told her that Andreas was with her in the most intimate way possible and she felt his hard body clench and tighten as he followed her out of reality and into the scorching ecstasy that had claimed them both.

  For a long, long time they lay there, mindless, sightless, breathless, Andreas’ wide chest heaving as he struggled to come back to reality. And only then did Becca dare to do what she most wanted as she folded her arms around his big, still shuddering body, feeling the aftershocks of pleasure pulsing through him as she held him close. Her heart clenched with bitter-sweet delight as, barely conscious, he turned his head and pressed the sweetest, most tender kiss on her cheek before he tumbled into sleep. And a moment later she followed him, still holding him in her arms.

  She had no idea how long she lay there, blissfully unconscious, she only knew that at last, slowly and reluctantly, she swam up from the dark waters of sleep and into the real world again to find that beyond the bedroom window the sun was already beginning to set. The brightness of the afternoon was fading, and darkening shadows were starting to fill the room. But they were as nothing when compared with the shadows that were creeping into her mind and heart.

  Beside her, Andreas still slept deeply, his head pillowed on her arm, jet-black hair fallen forward over his wide brow, his strong jaw starting to be darkened by a day’s growth of stubble. His breathing was deep and even and, encouraged by the fact that he was so dead to the world and so had no idea of what she was doing, she allowed herself just to lie there and watch him, studying his sleeping face—his sleeping, beloved face—so intently that it seemed as if she needed to imprint its image on her mind, store it up there like supplies hoarded carefully against a future famine.

  And she might truly have to do that, Becca admitted to herself, acknowledging with a desperate, sinking sensation of sadness that after this there was no way things could ever be the same.

  Sighing deeply, she lay on her back and stared up at the white-painted ceiling above her, with eyes that fear and misery made blind, the bitter tears stinging hard, fighting to fall.

  ‘We can’t go back,’ she whispered to herself, recalling how on the way upstairs she had been thinking how this one special time with the man she loved could be so extraordinary, so new, so fresh, so wonderful in a way that it could never be again.

  Even if Andreas’ memory never returned, there was no way they could repeat that exceptional, unique and magical moment of finding each other again in a way that almost matched—and totally outclassed—the time that she had lost her virginity to Andreas, just a few weeks after they had met. That glorious time had gone for good and things could never be as great as that again.

  And the cold, creeping sensation of fear that ate into her heart forced her to face the truth and to acknowledge the worry that things could only go downhill from here.

  Downhill to where? How far could things go? How bad could it be?

  Beside her, Andreas stirred, muttering faintly in his sleep, the sound drawing her head round sharply to look into his face just as he stretched lazily and opened his eyes, his black gaze looking straight into her clouded blue one.

  And what she saw in those dark depths made Becca’s blood run icy cold in her veins as she realised that things could very definitely get a whole lot worse.

  And they just had.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ANDREAS had been dreaming.

  Deep in sleep, he had been in a world that was so very different from the hot sunny day he had known when he was awake. A cooler, greyer world, but one where his most vivid impression was of green—lush green grass, rich and smooth as velvet, that sprang under his feet as he walked towards the huge marquee tent that was set up right in the middle of the vast lawn.

  Inside the tent there was the buzz of conversation, the clatter of glasses and every now and then a ripple of laughter. And his eyes, the blurred eyes he had in his dream, were assailed by the sight of hundreds of people, all crowded together. To his unfocused sight, the men were just grey or black blurs, the women multicoloured, bright and silky, so brilliant they made his head ache.

  He didn’t know what he was doing here. Didn’t feel that he belonged. He only knew that this was where he had to be—that they all seemed to be expecting him, because they turned when he came in, all those faceless people, turned and lifted their glasses in a toast, cheering and saying, ‘Congratulations, Andreas! Congratulations!’

  To Andreas’ horror the words felt almost like physical scrapes against his skin, ripping away some much-needed protective layer and leaving him raw and disturbingly sensitive. They added to his sense of being in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong people. There was no one there he could recognise, no one he could turn to, to start a conversation with or even risk giving a smile.

  Not that he wanted to smile at anyone. His mood was quite the wrong one for this happy, cheery gathering too. He felt more like a wild, hungry, savage wolf that had prowled into a gathering of birds of paradise and was hunting for just the right one to pounce upon, to tear to shreds with the teeth that were clenched tight inside his aching jaw. He knew just which one he was looking for, and he stalked amongst the happy party, struggling to control the ferocious snarl that threatened to escape him at any moment. She was there somewhere—instinctively he knew that his prey was female—she was there, and when he found her…

  Suddenly the room fell silent. The buzzing, chattering, brilliant birds of paradise stopped moving, stopped talking, became totally still. And over at the far side of the marquee he could see her. Tall and slender—and totally in white…plain, simple, unadorned white from head to toe, in stark contrast to the colours all around him. When he saw her his tense jaw fell open for a moment as he snatched in a breath, then his teeth came together with a snap as he turned, headed straight for her. The crowd parted to let him through, a wide, clear path was opening up, taking him straight to her.

  He couldn’t see her face, not even the blur of pink that was everyone else. She was white. Nothing but white. Did she even have a face?

  And then, as he came nearer, nearer, suddenly he could hear a single voice, a young, female voice, loud and clear and bubbling with contained laughter, barely held back.

  ‘I do—I do—I do!’

  ‘I do—I do—I do…’

  The words repeated over and over in his head until his thoughts swam with the force of it.

  ‘I do—I do—I do…’

  And behind him the crowd murmured and laughed and broke into spontaneous applause. Applause that swung around and over the words, breaking into them but never quite drowning them out.

  ‘I do—I do—I do…’

  His head was aching from it, the pressure at his temples unendurable. He wanted to lift his hands and rub at them to ease the pressure but he found he couldn’t do so. Something had them trapped, tying them down, keeping them from moving. He heard another voice groan aloud and realised with a violent shock to his system that it was his, and that the words h
e had been trying to form were the same as those in the laughing voice inside his head.

  I do.

  I do!

  Rough and unclear, they were enough to make the white-clad figure before him turn sharply. Blinking hard, he found that his gaze would focus more, his vision sharpening just a little. She was wearing a veil, he realised. A long white, flowing veil that hid her face, concealing it completely. But when she saw him she smiled. He couldn’t see the smile but he knew it was there. He could sense it with some primitive instinct that came to him with the dream. He knew that she smiled in the same way that he knew he didn’t like the smile one little bit.

  ‘Andreas…’ she said and her voice was low, huskily seductive.

  And then she threw back her veil and all he could see were her eyes—her amazing, pale blue eyes—sea-coloured eyes…

  And in his head all that he could hear was that laughter-filled voice saying yet again, ‘Oh, I do—I do—I do…’

  Becca!

  The step he took backwards in his dream, the jolt it gave him, brought him awake in rush. Awake to a realisation that the deep green lawn, the marquee, the guests, were all a fantasy. Reality was that he was in his bed, in the villa, that the growing darkness of dusk was gathering round…

  And that he was not alone.

  He smelled her skin before he opened his eyes, inhaled the warm, intensely personal fragrance of her body, heard the soft sound of her breathing, and knew that some woman shared his bed. The scent of passion, too, was on the sheets, a wild intensity of sex, the after-effects of which still lingered in the heaviness of his limbs, the feeling of deep fulfilment, the strong reluctance to move at all. But at the same time something was nagging at his thoughts, taking him back into his dream for a moment and then out again, back into the present. Something that warned him he had to wake up, had to think, had to act.

  With an effort he forced his heavy eyelids open and found himself looking straight into those same beautiful sea-coloured eyes. The eyes of the woman in his dream. Eyes that were watching him with a look of wary apprehension in their smoky depths.

  And the taste of betrayal was terrible and sour in his mouth.

  ‘Rebecca!’

  No one said her name quite like Andreas, Becca reflected privately. No one else put quite that exotic intonation onto the syllables, making it sound like a totally different word. And no one else had ever put such an icy tone into his use of her name, a freezing fury that made her feel as if she had suddenly stepped onto the most dangerous black ice.

  ‘My darling wife—what the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘I—should have thought that that was obvious.’

  She regretted the words the minute she had spoken them. Regretted the stupid attempt at flippancy in her tone, the even rasher gesture of her hand that indicated the rumpled bed on which they lay, the disorder of the sheets, the crumpled pillows. It also, to her deep mortification, drew attention to her naked state, brought those frozen black eyes to skim over her body, seeming to sear the delicate skin as they went so that hot colour flooded her cheeks and in a moment of pure embarrassment she reached desperately for the nearest sheet.

  ‘I think it’s a little late for that now,’ Andreas drawled in cynical contempt. ‘Now that I remember my past, I have no recollection of immediate events…so….’

  His eyes narrowed, his tone darkening.

  ‘Are you going to tell me just what happened here?’

  ‘You know what happened!’

  He did—didn’t he? Andreas had recognised her; he had called her his wife with that appallingly savage note in his voice. Somehow, something that had happened had jarred loose whatever had been blocking his memory and while he was asleep the scattered jigsaw pieces had been falling into place. But how complete was it? Did he remember everything?

  And what picture did the completed jigsaw show?

  ‘We—we made…’

  ‘We had sex,’ Andreas interrupted harshly as she stumbled over the words, unable to say ‘made love’ when confronted by his darkly scowling face, the contempt that blazed in the jet-black eyes. ‘That much is obvious. What I mean is just what are you doing here in the first place? I told you to get out and stay out.’

  ‘I know you did—but I—couldn’t.’

  ‘And why not? Don’t tell me that you’ve come back to say you’re sorry—that—’

  ‘Of course not!’

  Becca’s total rejection of his challenge rang in her voice. How could he think that she had anything to apologise for? Andreas was the one who had declared to her face that he had only married her for sex.

  ‘I thought not.’

  Andreas flung himself off the bed and stalked across the room to where the black swimming shorts he had discarded with such eagerness—and her willing help—such a short time before lay in a crumpled heap on the floor. Snatching them up, he pulled them on, every rough, brusque movement speaking of hostility and aggression without a word needing to be spoken.

  ‘Much as I love the image of you curled up in my bed with only a sheet to cover you, I think I would prefer it if you put some clothes on,’ he flung into Becca’s ashen face. ‘I’d like to have this conversation without any unnecessary—distractions.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  Becca couldn’t allow her thoughts to dwell on the idea that the sight of her naked body could still ‘distract’ Andreas. It wasn’t the effect she wanted to have on him. Or was it? Her body still sang from the sensual effect of his lovemaking—his attentions, she amended painfully. Her blood was still hot, her skin prickling with sensitivity so that just the feel of the finest cotton of the sheets against it was almost too much to bear. Her body ached in places, there were tiny bruised spots in others, but they were aches and bruises she didn’t mind at all.

  Her nipples were still tender, and the intimate spots between her legs still pulsed faintly with the aftershocks of passion. The thought of having to pull on the close-fitting Lycra swimsuit was frankly unbearable.

  ‘The only thing I have to wear in here is that…’

  An unwary wave of her arm towards where the lavender swimming costume lay in a similar state to his shorts let the sheet slip and she snatched it up again, clutching it to her as if it was a shield against those black, accusing eyes. She saw Andreas’ mouth twitch in an almost-smile of the darkest humour, and shivered when she realised how bleak and stony his eyes remained, no light in them at all.

  ‘In that case I prefer the sheet.’

  No, he didn’t, Andreas told himself reprovingly. The sheet was almost as bad as nothing at all. The fine cotton lay lightly over the slender lines of her body, clinging to the curves of her hips, the rise and fall of her breasts, defining them in a way that made his throat dry. And even beneath the white material, the faint dark shadow between her thighs was visible, reminding him of the way those curls had felt against the most intimate, most sensual parts of his body. Just recalling it made the roar of blood thunder in his head so that he could barely think straight.

  OK, admit it, he told himself, you don’t want to think at all. What he wanted was to throw himself down on the bed beside her, rip the sheet from her body and start to make love to her all over again. The taste of her lips, of her breasts was still in his mouth, her scent was on his skin, blending with his own into the most intoxicating perfume he had ever inhaled. It went straight to his head like the most potent ouzo, clouding it and making it spin.

  When combined with the heat of pounding lust, it was a brutally lethal combination, making him feel as if his head was a volcano where red-hot lava was just pushing to the top, waiting to explode.

  No. He needed to keep a grip on himself, on his temper. He had to think clearly. His body, his senses, might be thrilled to see Becca again but common sense warned him to tread very carefully. If she was back then it was for her own purposes, and he wanted to know just what they were before he made a foolish move.

  Another foolish move. She’d alr
eady got under his guard once, while his brain was scrambled from the accident. He wasn’t going to let that happen again.

  But just the sight of her made him so damn sexually hungry. After living for almost a year without her, he might have thought that he had forgotten the impact she had on his senses. But it seemed that she had only to walk back into his life and he was a slave to his libido like some horny adolescent in the throes of his first physical affair.

  He might have thought that he’d have forgotten…Hah!

  A harshly cynical laugh broke from him as he realised the bitter irony of what he had just thought. He’d spent the last months trying to force himself to forget that someone called Becca Ainsworth—Becca Petrakos legally, but very definitely not morally—had ever existed.

  And failed miserably.

  ‘Andreas?’

  Becca was watching him—nervously, he could almost swear. He had never realised that she was such a good actress. But sitting there like that, with the sheet twisted tightly round her, those beautiful blue eyes wide in a damnably perfect face, she looked the picture of innocence. So innocent that he could almost believe in her himself.

  This was the Becca he’d tried to push from his mind. But then the accident had done that for him by wiping her from his memory, and in the time that he had been out of it she had walked back in, cool as could be. And lied through her teeth to him.

  And he had been fool enough to let his lust for her drown out all thought of common sense. One tug on the golden chain of sensuality that tied them both together and he had fallen straight into bed with her. Right where she wanted him, it seemed.

  But why? What did she want from him? Not just sex, that was obvious. She had to have something else up her sleeve.