‘What’s the use?’ she said. ‘When we both know you only have to kiss me to change my mind again?’
Had there been resentment in that voice? No, he decided, not resentment, but resignation to her lot, and the eyes were dark and languid, luscious and green and sensually wanting.
‘Take the robe off, then,’ he instructed.
She didn’t even bother to object to his autocratic tone! She simply did it, wriggling herself out of the silk and casually tossing it aside so she could go back to what she had been doing—which was watching him undress.
Her eyes fluttered down as he began releasing his trousers—and remained there watching with the sensual blatancy of a woman who knew what was to come.
He was very aroused and, like her, he was quite blatant about it. As he stepped up to the bed, she reached out a hand and stroked him. That stroke said, Hello, you’re mine. And the passionate way he responded said, Yes, I know.
Even as he eased himself down beside her she was welcoming him, arms up, eyes dark, hair a shimmering splash of fire on snow-white percale. ‘I think you set me up for this, downstairs,’ he murmured suspiciously.
‘Mmm,’ she said. ‘What did you expect? A grand announcement that I’d given up the fight and decided to forgive you?’
‘Why the sudden change?’ he asked, gently tracing the delicate oval of her face.
‘I just woke up and I wasn’t angry with you any more,’ she explained. ‘So I decided to seduce you. It always worked in the past, when we’d had a row.’
‘This was no ordinary row, though, was it?’ he pointed out.
‘No.’ Her eyes clouded for a moment. ‘But I also woke up remembering how much I love you.’ She sighed out soulfully. ‘I’m victim to my own emotions. It’s really very tragic, when you think about it.’
‘You little liar,’ he gritted. ‘You woke remembering how much I love you. Don’t think I don’t remember that smug look in your eyes over the honey spoon.’
His hands reached out to draw her so close that their mouths were almost touching and their eyes had nowhere else to look but straight into each others.
‘I loved you more than any man deserved to be loved,’ she whispered sadly, ‘and you threw it all right back in my face.’
‘I know.’ And he did know. It was a truth of his own he’d had to bear the weight of for twelve long, miserable months.
‘But I fell so fast and deep for you that it knocked me for six,’ he confessed. ‘There you were, a completely new phenomenon to me. You were younger than I was used to, more impulsive, as unpredictable as hell…’ His hand came up to touch a lock of silken fire. ‘You flirted with any man who would let you; you teased the life out of me—I was both fascinated and infuriated by the easy way you had other men flocking around you.’
‘I worked in a hotel,’ she reminded him. ‘It was my job to be friendly to people.’
‘You were a flirt in your cradle,’ André dryly responded. ‘I have that on authority—from your father no less. It made me so filthy jealous to watch you behave like that with anyone else but me, that sometimes you were very fortunate I didn’t turn caveman and drag you off by your beautiful hair!’
‘None of that gives you the right to say what you did to me when you found me with Raoul,’ she said painfully.
Releasing a sigh, André kissed her. It was an apology; neither of them saw the kiss as anything else. ‘It wasn’t only your head Raoul messed with,’ he admitted heavily. ‘I couldn’t seem to move without him slipping in with some remark about the men he had seen you with. It was okay. I had no problem with his suggestive remarks when it was always my arms you slept in each night. But then your father died only a few months into our marriage. You were so inconsolable you wouldn’t let me near. I resented that, amore. I resented you shutting me out yet seemingly being quite happy laughing and joking and smiling with other men.’
‘They didn’t expect to sleep with me,’ she responded. ‘And I could sleep with you but I couldn’t—’ She stopped to swallow the tears again.
‘I know. I understand.’ His hand moved on her hair again. ‘You were having to cope with too many other emotions to have room left for what it was you thought I wanted from you.’
‘It was always sex, André,’ she whispered thickly. ‘Every time I looked at you I saw desire burning in your eyes, and I…’
‘You’re wrong, you know,’ he murmured. ‘It wasn’t the desire for sex, it was the desire to share your pain with you. And, as for the sex, I gave you what you only ever seemed to want from me—which made me feel like a damned good stallion but did absolutely nothing for my emotional needs. I only wanted you to love me.’
Unable to remain still any longer, she was so angry, she sat up and away from him, while André bent an arm beneath his head and watched her spark.
His other hand came up to rest on her back. It had been meant as a soothing gesture, but she turned on him like the unpredictable firecracker she was. Coming to lean right over him, she hissed into his face, ‘I loved you! How dare you imply I didn’t love you? I lost a year of my life because I believed I would never be allowed to love you again!’
His hand moved, caught her nape, long fingers tangling with her hair and, without giving her a chance to say another stinging word, he brought her mouth down onto his own—and quite simply shut her up.
His hands found her body and hers found his. He kissed her slow and he kissed her deep and she sank seductively into it. No more talk; it wasn’t needed. This said it all for them, despite what they had been saying only minutes before. They couldn’t argue with desire when love surrounded it. It was different, special. It was the true elixir of life.
So they made love like tender lovers, touching, tasting, slow and easy, hot and deep. Their senses knew each other. It was why Samantha had responded every time he’d come near; her mind could shut him out but her senses could not.