She saw a tall man with fine blond hair and what looked like an easy smile, chatting pleasantly with the receptionist. Warily she moved a little closer to André’s big frame. He responded by twisting round until he was half blocking her from view.
‘Now, don’t get jumpy,’ he chided. ‘He’s a competitor, that’s all.’ And he named a hotel chain that she instantly recognised, before going on. ‘He’ll be here scouting. We all do it—check out the competition to see if they’re offering a better service than we are offering ourselves. Since he’s already seen us, we can’t avoid him,’ he added with a clip to his voice that said he wished otherwise. ‘But it’s up to you how we deal with this. We can pretend there’s nothing wrong, exchange a few pleasantries, then get the hell away from him before he realises there’s something different about you. Or we can keep to the truth and get into the complications of trying to explain it all.’
Which told her exactly which option he preferred and, frankly, so did she. In fact the very idea of trying to explain she couldn’t remember her own name made her feel distinctly nauseous.
‘He’ll see the limp,’ she said. ‘And the scar…’ Instinctively her hand jerked up to cover the side of her face.
Lifting his hand, André took hold of her hand and firmly lowered it to her side again. ‘Stop it,’ he scolded. ‘The scar is barely noticeable except in your mind.’
‘I haven’t got a mind, remember?’ she gibed. ‘And he’ll know that too the moment he speaks to me!’
‘It’s your memory you’ve lost, not your wits.’ He sighed in exasperation. ‘All you need to do is smile a reasonably convincing smile, and leave the talking to me. You can do that, can’t you?’
Could she?
‘André—Samantha!’ a deep voice greeted. ‘This is a pleasant surprise!’
Speak for yourself, Samantha thought childishly.
‘Maybe a bigger one for us than it must be for you?’ André suggested dryly as he took the other man’s outstretched hand.
‘Caught red-handed in the enemy camp.’ Stefan Reece admitted it. ‘What can I say? Unless I remind you that the boot was well and truly on the other foot the last time I saw you.’ He grinned. ‘Sydney, about a year ago if my memory serves me right. And you were checking out my establishment—but without this lovely creature along with you to make my day. Hello Samantha,’ he murmured warmly, offering his hand to her next. ‘You’re looking as beautiful as ever, I see.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. If he’d noticed the scar he hid it well, she thought, and was grateful enough to find an answering smile. His laughing eyes darkened; it took him longer than it should have to release her hand again. And she felt the man standing beside her give a restless shift.
‘How’s business?’ André asked, and it was so near to an angry rasp that she glanced sharply at him.
‘Good—though not as good as you seem to be having it,’ Stefan Reece was saying ruefully. ‘Which reminds me.’ He then turned to Samantha, his face lighting up. ‘I went by the Bressingham the other day, expecting it to be open by now, but…’
Samantha had stopped listening. The name Bressingham name had tugged at a chord somewhere deep down inside her, and she was suddenly experiencing such an overwhelming sense of grief that she could barely cope with the power of it. Her heart began to throb so slowly and thickly that her fingernails coiled into taut male flesh without her even being aware whose waist it was she was clinging to.
‘Have you just arrived, Stefan?’ The harsh rasp of André’s voice sliced through whatever it was that was holding her.
The other man blinked, glanced quickly from one tense face to the other and seemed to realise he had made some huge blunder here, though for the life of him he didn’t know what it was. ‘Just checking in when I saw you two standing here, so I…’
‘Then let me make sure they give you the best available suite. On the house, of course.’ With a snap of his fingers André brought a hotel attendant running. With only a few terse instructions he had Stefan Reece settled in one of the best suites, and the arm he had resting across Samantha’s shoulders had turned into a crushing anchor.
‘It would have been nice if we could have had dinner together tonight, but Samantha and I are leaving for London this afternoon, and…’
So soon? The information was just another shock Samantha had difficulty coming to terms with.
‘Shame,’ Stefan Reece was saying. ‘It isn’t often we get a chance to…’
Her mind kept shutting off, she realised. Concentrating on full sentences seemed completely beyond her scope. She kept hearing the word ‘Bressingham, Bressingham’. It hurt but she didn’t know why it hurt.
The arm about her shoulders urged her into movement. She complied as if through a floating haze within which she could hear the two men talking. Yet she wasn’t there with them. It was a strange experience, walking, hearing, yet feeling many miles away.
‘Cara, Stefan is saying goodbye to you,’ a voice prompted softly.
‘Oh,’ she said, and blinked but couldn’t’ focus. ‘Goodbye, Stefan. It was nice to see you again.’ The words arrived automatically. His reply was lost in the resuming haze.
The next thing she knew, she was standing in the lift being transported upwards and André was standing over her, literally propping her up against the lift wall.
‘You don’t have to do that,’ she protested. ‘I can manage on my own now, thank you.’
He moved away but she could tell he didn’t want to. And all he did was move as far as to lean a shoulder against the wall right beside her. He was concerned, she could feel it, yet he didn’t attempt to ask her what had brought the faint feeling on this time.
‘You don’t seem to have managed very well over the last year without me,’ he murmured huskily instead. ‘In fact, I would go as far as to say you’ve made one hell of a mess of trying to manage on your own.’ And, to make his point, his hand came up, gently touching the puckered scar at her temple.
She reacted by flinching away from his touch so violently, this time, that she banged the other side of her face on the lift wall.
‘You bloody fool!’ he exploded. ‘What did you think I was going to do to you?’
‘Just don’t touch me like that again!’ she choked out, green eyes flaring with bitterness. ‘I hate you! I don’t know why I hate you but I really, really hate you!’
‘You’re overreacting.’ He sighed.
‘M-maybe,’ she conceded. ‘But…’
But what? she asked herself helplessly. You are overreacting to a lot of things! Overreacting to a consultation with a doctor which was, in reality, the most common sense thing to have done in the circumstances. Overreacting to a kiss that shouldn’t have happened but did and you enjoyed it! Then you overreact to the prospect of meeting someone you should know but don’t and, to top it all off, you really overreact to a name you do know but cannot work out why!
‘Bressingham,’ she said huskily. ‘What is the Bressingham?’
‘Why?’ He sounded about as uncooperative now as she knew she had been sounding since he’d stridden back into her life.
‘Because I recognise it from somewhere but I can’t remember where.’
‘Story of your life.’
The lift stopped, the doors sliding open to allow two people to come in, stalling Samantha’s desire to retaliate to that one.
So they smiled politely at the polite smiles they received, then stood stiffly beside each other while the lift continued on its way up. And the tension in the small confines of the lift was fraught—so fraught the other couple kept glancing warily at each other. And by the time the lift ejected the intruders on the next floor Samantha was beginning to wonder if her throat would ever open up again.
The doors closed and up they went again, with the same taut silence accompanying them. Another stop, and this time he stretched his arm out to hold back the doors in an indication that they had reached their floor.
Reluc
tantly Samantha limped forward. As she went to go by him, he stopped her with a clipped, tart, ‘You don’t hate me, Samantha. You just wish that you did.’
For some reason—she didn’t know why—her hand snaked out and caught him a stinging slap across his face.
For what felt like a full minute afterwards, both just stood there staring at the other, her with a pain and hurt and anger she just could not comprehend, he with a black fury that said he was having to stand stock still like that or retaliate in some way.
Having just enough sense left to err on the side of caution, she turned and walked away. But once again she found herself having to wait for him to open the suite door for her, and she was trembling by the time that he did so.
Once again she took the direct route to her bedroom the moment she got inside, and once again André watched her make her escape while telling himself to just to let it go—while the feel of her fingers still stung his cheek.
Only this time he found he just couldn’t leave it. This time he refused to be shut out by a closed door. Anger, pride, stupidity, you name it, he found he wasn’t going to give himself time to think about his next action as he strode grimly after her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SAMANTHA was standing in the middle of the room, desperately trying to justify what she had just done, when the door suddenly shot open.
Her heart began to thump somewhere in the region of her stomach. He was angry and she didn’t blame him. Her fingermarks were still lying like an accusation against the side of his face. Remorse pushed her into speech.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said immediately. ‘I didn’t mean to do it. I don’t know what came over me.’
He didn’t even acknowledge the apology. The door closed with the help of his foot. The room was suddenly filled with the scent of danger. His eyes were black and his mouth hard. A warning chill went slinking down her spine. I’ve managed to set the devil loose, she realised uneasily, and decided that this could well be a good time to faint.
But she didn’t feel in the least bit faint. In fact she felt disturbingly—
‘N-no,’ she stammered out, lifting up a trembling hand meant to ward him off as he began striding towards her. ‘Stay there. Let me try and explain…’
He just kept on coming. It was like being stalked by an angry predator. Fear and an unexpected excitement began to war in her blood. He came to a stop a hair’s breadth from her outstretched, trembling fingers. She saw it as a reprieve and rushed back into speech again. ‘It-It’s been a d-difficult twenty-four hours for me,’ she explained unsteadily. ‘I w-was overwrought, n-not thinking straight. I just—snapped. I didn’t want to, but—’
‘Well, guess who else has snapped?’ he posed, caught the outstretched hand and used it to pull her towards him.
The softness of her breasts made impact with solid, male muscle. It was like making contact with pure electricity; a static charge lit up nerve ends so fiercely that she could actually hear them crackle. She tried to pull away but it was already too late; his other arm had snaked around her waist to hold her firmly against him. Even as she released a protesting gasp, his dark head was lowering.
Oh, she tried to fight him. She twisted and turned and went through a series of denying groans and quivers—and kissed him back as if she couldn’t get enough of him. It was awful. She was appalled at herself, yet her mouth clung hungrily and her body writhed closer to the uncompromising hardness of his.
Because she wanted this. Wanted what she knew was going to happen with the need of a woman who had been waiting for this moment for much too long.
Too long…she repeated, and knew it was the truth. Too long hurting, too long wanting, and too long waiting for this man to come to her.
It was a knowledge which had another sob clutching at her throat. He felt it and lifted his head to look down at her. He was still angry. She could see it glinting in his eyes. She could see the passion too, the flame of desire that, angry or not, he couldn’t manage to hide. ‘You’ve vented your filthy temper on me many times, cara,’ he told her thinly. ‘But you’ve never raised your hand to me before.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, but it was a different kind of sorry. It was low and soft and unbelievably sensual—and spoken as she was twisting her fingers free from his so she could gently lay them against the marks she had placed on his face.
His eyes began to burn. Hers darkened in a dramatic surrender to what it was she knew she wanted here. The hand moved on, fingers sliding into his silk black hair and around his nape—before pulling his mouth back to hers.
‘You bloody hypocrite,’ she heard him breathe as they resumed that vital contact.
He was right, and she was. But it didn’t stop the pair of them from enjoying a sensual feeding frenzy with frantic deep kisses and restless hands that touched and stroked and acknowledged no boundaries in their quest to taste the whole banquet.
It was hot and it was hungry. Samantha didn’t know herself, the touch of his stroking hands and the passion in his kisses seeming to draw a completely different person out of her skin: a wild and wanton person with a throbbing, pulsing sensuality that demanded full attention and made sure she got it. Where he touched, she revelled in sheer, luxuriating pleasure. Where he didn’t she writhed in restless demand.
He muttered something into her mouth she recognised as a signal to tone the whole thing down. But, no way, she thought feverishly, and ripped shirt buttons from their holes so she could place her hands against the hair-roughened beauty of burning, tight flesh. All hint of toning anything down faded in that moment as, with a deep shudder, he took back control by running his hands beneath her top. Dragging her mouth from his, she released a soft, shivering gasp as pleasure went singing along her skin where he began to caress her.
‘You don’t know what it is you’re inviting here,’ he growled darkly.
I do, she thought. ‘Don’t talk,’ she commanded, terrified that speech was going to break the magic spell surrounding them.
Instantly his mood flipped back over, the moist tip of his tongue stabbing at her lips in an insistent command for her to part them again. When she did, he began to torment with short, slick, sensual forays into her mouth that made her light up inside.
This was the point where he began to seduce her in earnest, Samantha recognised from somewhere within the turmoil. His hands caressed, his mouth seduced, and her clothes began disappearing. She didn’t care—in fact she welcomed their loss. He stroked her breasts, her back, the soft pink curve of her bottom. When she sighed out in pleasure, he rewarded the sigh with deep probing kisses to keep her submerged in a world of pure sensation.
When he decided to lift her up and carry her to the bed, her eyes came open to reveal the green, darkened by desire but alive to what was actually happening.
‘What?’ he questioned very softly. His tone was a measured seduction in itself. Laying her down, he came to lie beside her, leaning close to her pulsing lips to murmur, ‘Tell me what you want and I will give it to you.’
He was speaking in Italian, low and hushed and intensely intimate. When she merely lay there and listened, with her eyes dark and vulnerable, he said gently, ‘Do you want this to stop now?’
He meant it too. If she told him yes, she wanted it to stop, he would move away without a single protest. But it never even became an issue. Gazing deep into the desire darkened depths of his eyes, ‘No,’ she whispered.
He rewarded her with another long, soul-stripping kiss. But it was also a softly seducing, beautiful kiss. And it didn’t stop there. He began to kiss her all over. He kissed her chin, her nose, the flickering lids hiding away her eyes. He slid that devastatingly skilled tongue-tip around the small scar at her temple. The gesture filled her with the most incredibly sweet sense of loving.
But when she began to caress him he stopped her with a silken, ‘No,’ and firmly returned her hand to the mattress.
It was his seduction, and he was determined to play it his w
ay, she realised. And she just lay there and let him. Why? Because she wanted to be seduced. She wanted to simply lie here and feel—feel anything and everything he could possibly make her feel.
When his kiss began trailing down her throat she groaned as he paused, then bit sensually into the pulse-point leaping there. The feel of his mouth closing around one erect pink nipple lost her the last dregs of conscious reality. Her flesh was alive and demanding total concentration, the smallest brush with his mouth set a million nerve ends shimmering.
I know this, she found herself thinking hazily. I’ve been here before, been reduced to this beautiful state of boneless pleasure many, many times before. I know this man. I know his touch. I know what’s coming, which is why I daren’t so much as breathe in case I distract him.
This was living at its most sensual. When his tongue began slowly circling her navel, sensation fanned out in a heart-stopping ripple, followed almost instantly by an overwhelming stillness as a knowing finger made sliding contact with the very core of her sexuality, centering all that concentration on the one area as desire swelled, then burst like a flower opening up to the life-nourishing heat of the sun.
‘André.’ She sighed, and he felt the thick drug of power surge in his body.
This woman was his. Mine, he thought possessively, every sigh, every pleasurable quiver, every silk-smooth, sensual cell that made up her beautiful body. Even her thoughts—her damned hidden thoughts—belonged to him while he touched her like this.
But it wasn’t enough. He wanted more. He wanted everything, he decided as the power of his own burgeoning desire grew too strong for him to contain any longer. Breaking free, he came to his feet beside the bed, saw her eyes flicker open in bewildered surprise then wince shut again as a shaft of afternoon sunlight struck into them.
In a single stride he had closed the curtains, diffusing the light in the room to a seductive softness, before turning back to find her eyes open again. Without a word, he began stripping his clothes off while she lay there half on her side, and saying not a word to try to stop this.
The Unforgettable Husband Page 8