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  She set her teeth and quickly removed her own clothes, all the time watching Alexis. He made no move to touch her, and she wished she had turned off the lamp in the sitting room, and that her task might have been accomplished with the benefit of concealing darkness.

  When she had finished she faced him proudly. There was no response, unless she counted the sudden ridging of muscles in this throat and the darkly possessive gleam betrayed in his eyes before he closed them.

  So much depended on her getting it right, on her rebuilding what she had destroyed. She pushed back the covers until his body was completely exposed, her breath fluttering in her throat. She had told him she loved him, she had told him she wanted him, she would now show him the depths of her capacity to feel both. She had never even dreamed of doing anything like this before, and the balance must be finely weighed.

  She stroked her fingers lightly over his taut shoulders, then bent her head to follow their touch with the warm pressure of her lips. Against his throat she whispered how much she wanted him, letting her body make its own admissions, feeling the pulse thud and race beneath his skin where her mouth touched, but still Alexis made no sign of acceptance, of understanding or responding to her words. She moved downwards, telling herself that she had known it would not be easy; that he had been badly savaged by their final encounter, pouring out her love, letting her senses dictate her actions, lingering in her worship of his body, touching it with reverence and joy, wanting to show him her need to touch him rather than a mere desire to arouse him. His stomach quivered under her caress, and he made a small sound that might have been a protest. His hands lay flat against the bed, palms down, but the knuckles gleamed painfully through his skin, and seeing that bolstered her wavering courage.

  ‘Alexis, I want you so badly—please love me!’ Each whispered admission eased something of her own pain, each touch of her hands and mouth against his body reinforcing them. She stroked his thighs, feeling the abrasiveness of the dark hair shadowing them, against her tongue, hearing his sharply indrawn breath and glorying cautiously in it. Her lips brushed his toes, her palms stroking over his calves. Surely by now he must know she was speaking the truth?

  She raised her head and looked up at him. His eyes were closed, his face the colour of parchment. She worked her way back up over his body, trying to show him with every caress the quality of her love. By the time she reached his throat again every muscle in his hard frame was locked, and she ached with tension and in sympathy with the agony of mind she knew he was enduring. She touched his throat tentatively with her lips and knew that her self-imposed control was starting to crack. She couldn’t go on much longer. If he didn’t respond soon. ‘Alexis, please, please love me….’ she had no need to think of what she should say now, the words tumbled out feverishly, matching the hot little kisses she was scattering over his face. Her tongue touched his lips and she was trembling so badly she couldn’t stop. Tears formed and welled from her eyes, desperation sharpening her senses, her body soft and fluid as she pressed it against his, whispering pleas for his love against his skin.

  ‘Alexis, I love you so much!’

  He moved, his arms locking round her, rolling her beneath him, his voice thick as he muttered, ‘You’d better mean that, Sienna, because God help me, I’m going to love you anyway, and if you’re lying you’re going to destroy us both.’

  His mouth burned against her skin, touching her as she had longed for him to touch her all the time they had been apart. He found the impatient peaks of her breasts and eased the aching pain from them with the warmth of his mouth, his hands sliding down over her body showing her the arousal he had fought to control when she touched him.

  She cried out as he entered her, lost in the pleasure of being with him, murmuring her love with incoherent, panted cries until his mouth silenced her, echoing the hunger of his body.

  Fierce, primitive pleasure swept through her, her body delighting in the capitulation of his, responding to and encouraging his avid response. He cried out her name as the moment of climax seized them both, and the way he said it was balm to her aching heart. She was dimly conscious of him telling her he loved her as she slid down from the heights, and of trying to respond, but exhaustion was sweeping through her, and all she wanted was to sink against his body, to be cushioned and protected by it.

  ‘Good morning. You slept well!’ Sienna turned her head, her eyes opening to their widest extent as she saw Alexis grinning back at her. For a moment she felt totally confused, and then it all came rushing back. Stupidly she flushed, not a soft pink, but a deep dark red, and as though he knew the reason for her embarrassment Alexis laughed softly, and bent his head towards her, nibbling the soft curves of her throat. ‘Still love me?’

  Her lashes shielded her eyes from him. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Still want me?’ His hand slid beneath the sheet and found the outline of her breast. ‘Are you going to show me?’

  She looked up at him, but there was no mockery in his eyes, only a wicked dancing amusement, the satisfaction of a man who is well pleased by the effect of his masculinity on the woman in his life. Sienna felt her spirits lift and said demurely, ‘Are you going to show me? After all it must be your turn.’

  Her answer seemed to satisfy him, because he pulled her against him and murmured into her throat. ‘So, no excuses… no denials that it happened, no more telling me that you don’t want or love me?’

  ‘After all the trouble I went to prove that I did?’

  His eyes danced. ‘Mmm… I think perhaps I gave in too easily. Are you sure you don’t want to convince me all over again?’ His thumb stroked her nipple and her body flared into urgent life, arching unashamedly against him, her mouth parting beneath his, her soft sigh of pleasure bringing an answering groan from his throat.

  ‘You’re supposed to be recuperating,’ Sienna reminded him when he at last released her.

  ‘So I am—like I told you, losing you was what made me ill.’

  ‘The doctor diagnosed it as malaria.’

  ‘So it was,’ Alexis agreed promptly, ‘but very much exacerbated by my mental and emotional vulnerability. Sienna….’ He held her face between his hands, suddenly serious. ‘Why did you do it?’

  She didn’t need to ask what he meant.

  ‘Because it was the only way I could protect myself. I love you so much, Alexis. I couldn’t stay with you as your wife, believing you didn’t love me. I had to get you to send me away.’

  ‘Yes.’ In that one word of acceptance of everything. ‘When you ran out of the cottage and I heard that car….’ He shuddered. ‘I shouldn’t have married you the way I did, but I knew then I could never let you go. I knew once you were well you’d never agree to see me again. At that time we didn’t know about your memory. I took a chance, telling myself I could make it work, that my love was enough for both of us, that you must still have some feeling for me. I knew I’d hurt you—and badly,’ his mouth compressed, ‘but I told myself I’d make it all right. When I found out you’d lost your memory I took the coward’s way out. I thought once we were lovers… once you had accepted me as your husband.’

  ‘We’ve both made mistakes, both been less than honest with one another.’

  ‘And now….’

  ‘The doctor said you needed to rest—at least three days in bed was his prescription,’ Sienna said mischievously, ‘and then a good long holiday.’

  ‘Mmm… was that as well as the three days in bed, or because of it, do you suppose?’ Alexis asked dryly. ‘Sienna, about last night….’ She looked down at his chest, curling her toes into the mattress. ‘I told myself I wouldn’t accept your pity, that there was no way you could convince me that you cared for me. My pride took a bad beating that last time, and….’

  ‘And?’ Sienna prompted softly.

  ‘Oh, God, you little witch, you know exactly what I mean!’ Alexis groaned, tilting her chin so that he could look at her. ‘If I didn’t know for sure that there’d been no other
men, right now I’d be asking myself just where you learned to….’

  ‘To?’ she prompted.

  ‘To pour out your love, in a libation. To give so generously of yourself.

  I didn’t think our love stood any chance unless I could convince you completely that I’d lied when I said I didn’t want you, and I couldn’t think of any other way,’ she told him. ‘I didn’t just want to show that I wanted you, I wanted you to know how completely I….’

  His fingers brushed her lips. ‘I do know, but let me hear you say it again.’

  His lips touched hers lightly and then withdrew, and on an unsteady laugh, Sienna said huskily, ‘Alexis, I love you. I want you. Mmm… Alexis?’

  ‘Stop talking and let me love you. Let me love you now, Sienna, the way I wanted to, in my heart of hearts, that very first time I saw you, the way it should have been, the way it will be from now on.’

  ISBN: 978-1-408-99904-2

  RESPONSE

  © 1984 Penny Jordan

  Published in Great Britain 2015

  by Mills & Boon, an imprint of Harlequin (UK) Limited

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