by Robyn Donald
Jake followed, and as he poured himself into her, giving and taking in equal measures, she heard herself say the forbidden words, the words that would put her so completely in his power that she’d never be free again.
‘I love you,’ she cried, triumphantly, joyously, not even caring, because all that mattered was him. ‘Jake, I love you, love you…’
But afterwards, when the passion had faded to a languid afterglow, she hid her face in his chest, refusing to face what she’d done, the magnitude of her surrender.
At least he didn’t gloat.
Eventually he carried her into the house and into the bedroom. Listening to the slowing beat of his heart, Aline wondered vaguely what was going to happen next, but she was too replete, too relaxed—too happy!—to care much.
Once in the bed she said drowsily, ‘I’ve got a bag stashed—’
‘We’ll get it later. You’re exhausted—go to sleep,’ he said, his voice reverberating through her.
And she did.
The dream dwindled, evaporating swiftly into warmth and a piercingly sweet delight as she woke. Engulfed by pleasure, Aline turned her head and kissed Jake’s warm shoulder, then delicately licked his salty, tanned skin, thrilling as he stirred and woke.
After a few moments of sheer, pure satisfaction she gave in to the knowledge that she had to face whatever the rest of the day might bring, and opened reluctant blue eyes.
Open curtains allowed sunlight to spill into the room in golden swathes. Sparsely furnished in a cool, subtle palette of mellow sand tones, the bedroom looked across a narrow lawn onto a curved beach the exact colour of the tiles on the floor. She knew it so well; for the moment it held all that made her life worthwhile.
‘This,’ Jake said in a rough, after-sleep voice, ‘is what I’d planned that first morning. To wake up beside you and hold you.’ He pulled her on top of him and looked at her with narrowed, lethal eyes. ‘But when you stared at me with horror and announced that you’d lost your memory I decided it was your way of reasserting control, which meant that you regretted the whole thing. Even though I was furious, I had to admire your cleverness because it certainly served to keep me at bay.’
‘A bit extreme even for me,’ she said quietly.
His arm tightened around her. ‘Later, when I accepted that it was true, I wondered if making love had tipped you over the edge into a state of psychological shock. Losing your memory meant that you didn’t have to remember any loyalty to Connor.’ His voice was wry and ironic. ‘I was jealous.’
So Hope, bless her, had been right. ‘So you believed the journalist when he implied I was Peter’s lover.’
‘I didn’t know,’ he said indolently, winding a long black lock of hair around his finger. ‘I knew that I should keep my distance, yet when you touched me I lost any sort of restraint, of control, completely. That was when I realised that I felt much more for you than the physical obsession I’d been fighting ever since we met. And when you found out, you looked at me with contempt and such cold, furious rage, and I—it knocked me sideways. I was brutal because I wanted you out of the way while I dealt with everything.’
Looking deeply into his eyes, Aline saw the truth burning in them, clear and stark and uncompromising.
‘And now?’ she asked, stretching on him, her heart quickening at his body’s instant, untamed response.
‘And now,’ he said deliberately, eyes ablaze, ‘we start planning a wedding. I love you. If you hadn’t come to me I was coming to you—I was going to woo you.’
‘I’d have enjoyed that,’ she said, laughing a little, pretending to be disappointed.
His smile was lazy, filled with anticipation. ‘I’m enjoying this much more. You’re all I’ve ever wanted, Aline.’
A simple statement. Aline heard the truth in his tone, saw it in his eyes. ‘I do love you,’ she said intensely, kissing his beautiful mouth. ‘I knew that before I got my memory back—that I’d loved you ever since I’d known you. I think hitting my head twice that day gave my mind an excuse for a little holiday because I needed time without the past cluttering up my thoughts and my emotions to realise that you, and the future, are all that matter.’
He smiled, catching the hands that cupped his face, pulling them across his mouth. Against them he said, ‘Dearest heart, I love you too. No matter what happens, I swear—’
She cut the words off with another kiss. Against his mouth she said softly, ‘You don’t have to make promises. I trust you.’
Jake’s eyes met hers; in that moment, without a word said, they pledged each other a life of trust and love and commitment.
But before they set out on that life, she whispered against his mouth, ‘I love you so much.’
‘And I love you—now and tomorrow and next year and for ever. I will never leave you, never betray you like your father and Connor did. Believe it.’
And at last Aline did.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-8328-6
FORGOTTEN SINS
First North American Publication 2003.
Copyright © 2001 by Robyn Donald.
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