“What do you think?”
He stalked through the room and lifted his jacket off. He gripped the back of a dining chair and stared out at the same vista she was. “You don’t want to know what I’m thinking right now.”
She nodded. “Probably not.”
He tilted his head and studied her without bothering to hide his speculation.
“Have you been sick?”
A frown tugged at her lips. “Sick? When? On the plane?”
“No.” He drawled with exasperation. “In the last six months.”
She deliberately pretended to misunderstand him. “I think I had a cold about two months ago. And I stubbed my toe sometime in September …”
A muscle moved in his cheek. “I mean to look like this.” He waved a hand over her body. “Like skin and bone.”
“So you’ve said.” She ran her hands down her slender frame self-consciously.
“You were never one for dieting,” he wondered aloud.
“No.” She shrugged. And she wasn’t now. How could she explain to someone like Kyle that it had become impossible for her to think about food? That she’d been so miserable she’d gone days without so much as looking in the pantry. “Things change. People change.”
“So you did this to yourself on purpose?” He shook his head. “I don’t like it.”
She arched her brows in a perfect impersonation of hauteur. “Well, luckily for both of us how I look isn’t really something you can control.”
He stared at her for a long moment and then shrugged. “Sure, okay.” He kept his eyes on her as he lifted a phone from the wall. “Room service.” He spoke with the inevitable confidence of a man used to being in control.
“What would you like?” He spoke to her in a way that sent little bumps of desire licking through her. She knew then just what she’d like, and it had nothing to do with food.
She hated this man, but she loved him too, and she sure as hell still craved him on a physical level.
“I don’t know. I’m not really hungry.”
His eyes flashed a warning. “Two burgers,” he said into the phone. “A salad. Some fries. Send some oysters too. And ice cream – plain vanilla.” He disconnected the call abruptly and thrust his hands on his hips. Their eyes were locked in a silent battle of the wills. Tension zapped between them.
Annie felt perspiration running between her breasts though she was frozen to the core.
“We have a little time before lunch arrives.” He tilted his head then held out a hand. “Shall we?”
“Shall we what?” She asked, though of course she knew what he was suggesting. The tension that zipped between them would only be eased by one thing.
But Annie couldn’t do it. Oh, she wanted to. She wanted to so badly her insides were churning and her nipples were stretched taut against the fine lace of her bra. Hadn’t she worn that bra because she’d hoped he’d see it? She’d pushed her fingers past the utilitarian cotton underwear in her draw and lifted out some of the French bras he’d given her over the course of their marriage.
She wanted her husband so badly it hurt, but how could she give so much of herself again? She was so vulnerable to him. If she didn’t retain her power then she’d crumble into a heap at his feet and tell him she’d stay with him no matter how he made her feel.
“The way I see it, we have two choices.” His voice was a husky seduction. Unconsciously she took a step closer towards him. He did likewise, so that barely a step separated them. His eyes roamed her face, searching for answers. But to what questions, Annie couldn’t have said.
“We either go to the bedroom, or we stay here and talk. You can guess what my preference is.”
She swallowed. He was her husband. She’d agreed to come back to their marriage. So was she really surprised by his suggestion.
“We just got here,” she said weakly. Her body was covered in goosebumps.
“And?” He took the final step and wrapped his arms around her waist.
Annie bit down on her lip. “And… don’t you think we can wait a while?”
“Wait?” His lips twisted in a sardonic grimace. “I’ve been waiting for this for six months.”
“Yeah, right.” She rolled her eyes but didn’t attempt to break free of his grip. It felt too good to be held by him again.
He lifted one brow enquiringly and she shook her head, focussing on a point just over his shoulder. “You don’t need to lie to me. I left you. I could hardly resent you for sleeping with someone else.”
He frowned. “That’s what you think?”
“Of course.” She knew for herself how many women would have been vying to take her place. She shrugged as though those thoughts hadn’t kept her awake at night. “I know what your appetite’s like, remember?”
He nodded slowly. “It was frustrating as hell, I’ll give you that.”
“Don’t.” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “I don’t care. What happened in those six months doesn’t matter. I chose to end our marriage.”
He heard her words and understood the deeper implication. “I would care if you’d been with someone else.”
Her eyes lifted to his. “Would you?”
“Yeah.” He dropped his lips to hers. “You will always be mine. You know that.”
“I’m not a possession, and I’m definitely not yours.”
His eyes flashed with a silent warning. “You were mine the minute I met you.”
She shook her head in denial but she couldn’t say the words. She had been, he was absolutely right. The moment she’d walked into his office, timid as a mouse, needing to beg him to help her, she’d been his.
He relaxed his grip around her waist for the briefest moment so that he could scoop her up and hold her to his chest. “You are mine.” He walked swiftly through the luxurious suite towards the bedroom they’d shared on previous trips. He dumped her unceremoniously into the middle of the bed. “You are mine,” he repeated huskily, “And I will not stop until you admit it.”
She gasped as his hands pulled at her shirt, ripping several buttons off as he opened it to reveal her flat stomach and delicate bra.
His hands ran over her body as his mouth took possession of hers once more, and now he straddled her so that, through the layers of their clothes, she could feel the strength of his arousal.
Instantly her body responded. She made a guttural sound of urgency and reached for him. Her fingers pushed at his suit jacket, stripping it from him as their arms became a tangle of flesh and cotton. He pushed at his own shirt, impatient to feel her skin against his.
“Please,” she moaned, undoing his belt and ripping it from his trousers with satisfaction. She threw it to the ground and then unbuckled his pants and slid her hands inside so that her fingers could curl around his length.
He shook his head. “I want you to tell me that you’re mine.” He straightened and stepped out of his pants impatiently. “I want you to scream it to me.”
She shivered. “Please.”
He brought his body back on top of hers and ran his hands through her hair. “You have always been mine.”
“Like you were mine?” She demanded breathily, lifting her legs and silently begging him to take her.
He lowered his head and kissed her with more gentleness than before. But Annie didn’t want him to be gentle. She wanted him to obliterate all of her pain and hurt. “Do you have protection?”
He furrowed his brow. “A condom? We’re married. Why the hell would we need that?”
She let her hands explore his back, delighting in his smooth warmth. “I’m not on the pill,” she reminded him.
“So?”
Her stomach swirled. “Protection. Or this can’t happen.”
He pushed away from her. “You have to be kidding.”
She shook her head. “Why? Why is that surprising to you?”
“Because you’re my wife. We’re both safe. It would never have occurred to me to bring condoms with me.”
/> “Well, I’m not going to risk getting pregnant.” The words made her heart turn to ice. “So if you think we’re going to be sleeping together, you’re going to have to organise something.”
A dark emotion crossed his face. “You said you wanted children.”
Annie blanched. “That was then. I don’t now.”
“You don’t?”
“And nor do you.” She bit down hard on her lip, relishing in the discomfort her teeth caused. “It would be the worst thing that could happen to us.”
Her insistence on that score was something he would analyse later. It required a cool head, and there was nothing cool about his emotions.
He swore softly between his teeth and took in a deep breath. Not since his teenage adolescence had he found it so difficult to control his impulses. In that moment he was a burning torrent of need that was threatening to overtake all his common sense.
But comprehension of the situation dawned quickly enough. He turned back to his beautiful runaway wife and lowered his mouth to her breasts. He took one of her nipples in his mouth, flicking the sensitive nipple with his tongue.
“Kyle,” she moaned, lifting her hands above her head as fireworks of pleasure began to explode inside of her. “I can’t do this.”
“You don’t have to do anything except feel,” he promised her. His fingers teased her flesh, drawing imaginary circles over her pale skin. “I want to taste you all over,” he muttered, dragging his lips to her other breast. He worshipped her with his lips. “I was made to do this to you.”
The sob that escaped her lips was one of euphoric rightness. “Tell me you’re still mine,” he groaned, dragging his mouth lower while his fingers took over, fondling her breasts until she felt like she might pass out. He slid his tongue down her stomach, kissing her as he went, until he reached her most intimate flesh.
She knew what was coming and anticipation set flames licking through her body. “I can’t bear it,” she moaned as his tongue began to wrap webs of lust through her.
“You are heaven,” he growled, his voice animalistic with desire.
“I’m in heaven,” she corrected, tangling her fingers in his thick dark hair. And briefly, she was. She knew that hurt and pain would be waiting to reclaim her soon enough but he was fighting them off and giving her everything she’d been seeking and missing.
“Not yet,” he promised seductively.
And she propped up on her elbows to see what he meant, but then it all became clear. He moved his hands to her, and began to stroke her in the way that he knew sent her wild. She dropped her hands to his shoulders and dug her nails into his flesh and the sensations became too much to bear. “Kyle!” She screamed as desire took her tumbling over the edge of a cliff, into a place where time, space, hate and history had no occupancy. There was only pleasure and there was only sensation and she was lost in a haze of both. Her breath was burning in her lungs, and she was almost intoxicated by the feeling, but Kyle brought his mouth back to her core and kissed her, reigniting the flames he’d just fanned to extinction.
He held her hips as yet again she climaxed, her body quivering with the force of pleasure.
It was a world-exploding intimacy. Her whole body was aching and feverish, and yet it wasn’t enough. She needed him; all of him.
“Where’s the nearest chemist?” She asked, only half-joking.
He grinned. “Not far.” His eyes were heavy with a question he couldn’t find the words for.
He stared at her and the sense of betrayal that had flooded into him when she’d left rushed back.
It was so damned good between them. Why had she walked out? She’d promised she’d be with him for the course of their lives and then she’d changed her mind.
He lay down on the bed beside her and studied her beautiful profile. The desire to bend her to his will was not something he was proud of. But until he knew why she’d disappeared, he could only feel anger and resentment and a need to tempt her to stay, no matter what it took.
“I will do this to you every day,” he promised seriously. “I will make it impossible for you to climb out of my bed. I will make you think only of sex and only of me, and I will make it so that you can’t fathom leaving me ever again.”
Her eyes lifted to his face, shock evident in the depths of her soul. “You know I can’t leave you again.”
“Do I?” He prompted, wondering at her meaning.
“You have my brother’s stupidity for collateral, remember?”
It was so far from the answer he’d been anticipating that a dark, angry emotion burst into his core. “Yeah.” He pushed up, his tone casual. “So we agree that you’re not going anywhere this time.”
Her heart fell. What had she been hoping for? “Kyle?” Her heart turned over in her chest. She was losing him already. The intimacy they’d shared counted for nothing once the moment passed; just like always.
“What is it, Annabelle?”
“Nothing.” She smiled distractedly. “I’ll be out in a minute.” She pushed up from the bed and walked into the en suite without a backwards glance.
She clicked the door shut with relief and leaned against it. Her heart was pounding, her legs were shaking.
Just like that she’d got back in bed with the beast.
Getting over Kyle Anderson had been almost impossible. Coping with the loss of her pregnancy without the love of her husband had almost sent her mad.
And now she was back.
It had all been for nothing.
She clamped her lips together and dug her fingers into her palms to stop from crying. She wouldn’t give in to weakness. After all, she wasn’t weak. She’d made a decision to come back to Kyle because she needed to help her brother. That made her strong. Didn’t it?
She groaned and walked towards the sink. The water was ice cold; she splashed it on her face with relief, then dabbed some soap onto her fingers and washed the last vestiges of her make up off. There was some hotel moisturiser in a little container. She opened it and rubbed it over her cheeks then straightened.
Her eyes clashed with her reflection in the mirror and she stared at the image she made. He was right to be shocked by her appearance. The change in her physical self since they’d parted ways was dramatic. Her fingers trembled as she ran her hands over her ribcage. She could feel bones and worse, she could see them easily. Her breasts were smaller than usual, too. Her hands dropped lower, to her abdomen. The place where life had –briefly – been cradled within her. The life she’d lost.
Guilt sent a fever into her blood. Had that been her fault? She should have taken better care of herself. She would have, if she’d known about the baby. But grief had eclipsed every other emotion and certainly any awareness of a life within her.
“Annabelle?”
She blinked to clear the dark thoughts. “What is it?” Her voice was croaked with emotion.
“Food’s up.”
“Oh. Right. Okay.” She wrapped one of the fluffy white robes around herself and took a bracing breath. She could do this.
She’d been married to him for eighteen months and for most of that time she’d felt that she was playing a part.
She simply had to remember how to do that.
5
“A re we here again already?” He asked, pinning his gaze to hers in the mirror as he straightened his tie. She had spent an hour in the bathroom after lunch – a lunch she’d picked at under his watchful disapproval. Her hair shimmered; she’d styled it into loose waves that fell about her shoulders, and she’d artfully applied that mask of make up he’d come to associate with her.
It was perfect. Long lashes curled like a cat’s, cheekbones highlighted by a perfect amount of bronzer. Her complexion was flawless and yet she’d put some kind of foundation over her entire face, concealing the smudge of freckles he adored. She was so heart-breakingly beautiful that his breath burned in his chest.
“Where’s that?” She kept her expression neutral with great care.
/>
His sigh was laced with pure exasperation. “With you hedging any event I’ve got on in preference of a damned book.”
Her cheeks flushed at the accusation because it was true. “You have a problem with how much I read?” She had begun to read because of him. Because of her desire to keep up with him. The gulf in their intelligence had kept her permanently mired in a sense of unworthiness.
“I have a problem with you not having time for me.”
Her jaw dropped. “With me not having time for you?” She demanded with genuine shock. “My God, Kyle, I spent almost the entirety of our marriage alone and you dare say I didn’t make time for you?”
“That’s absolute crap. I made a point of being with you whenever I could.” He flicked his cufflink with idle curiosity. “Is that why you left me? You felt neglected?”
She resisted a strong inclination to roll her eyes. “Don’t infantilise my words. You didn’t make me a priority. That’s a point of fact.” She was looking at him with a blankness in her face yet her eyes were devouring him.
“Are you joking? What more could I have done?”
“How long do you have?” She posed the rhetorical question and then shook her head. “Let’s not do this.” Grief at the futility of these conversations passed through her. “It’s in the past.”
“No. It’s right here in the room with us.” He slammed his palm against the vanity and a loud noise ricocheted around the palatial suite. “Damn it, Annabelle. Talk to me. Talk to me now like you should have talked to me then.”
Her mouth worked overtime as she tried to moisten her dry throat. “I tried!” She shouted, her cheeks bright red. “I tried! You never listened!”
He spun around, his face a mask of disbelief. “I can’t believe you’re trying to pin this on me. For months I have wondered where you went and why. I have analysed those last few days and tried to understand what it was that made you think we didn’t have something worth saving.” He planted his hands onto his tapered waist, his face impatient. “So? What was it, Annabelle?”
She opened her mouth but there were too many words to find the right ones. She was a jumble of thoughts and doubts. He spoke first.
The Sheikh's Million Dollar Bride & The Billionaire's Ruthless Revenge (Clare Connelly Pairs Book 6) Page 19