Carides's Forgotten Wife (5 page)

She had stopped breathing now. Any moment, she had a feeling she was going to tip sideways in her chair and lose consciousness completely. But to have him look at her like this, to have him say those things... This entire nightmare was being twisted into a dream. Perversely, she was enjoying it. Perversely, it was everything she had ever wanted. But not like this.

Still, she found she couldn’t turn away. “That is... It is an incredibly nice thing to say.”

“I’m stingy and arrogant, remember? I am neither generous nor particularly nice, to hear you tell it. I am not being kind when I say these words. I am being truthful. There’s a limit to the sorts of truths you can tell in my position. There are very few things I know for certain. But this is one of them.”

He shifted the position of his hand, cupping her face, his palm warming her. Igniting her. “You are my wife. I wish to know everything about you.”

He dropped his hand away from her face, drawing it back to his side of the table. She cleared her throat nervously, shifting the cutlery on the table in front of her as a displacement activity.

“Did you go to university?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“What did you study?”

She shifted, feeling uncomfortable and edgy beneath his intense dark gaze. “I was a history major. As you’ve probably guessed, I like old things. Really, the older and dustier the better.”

“Is that a jab at my age?”

She laughed. “Um. It wasn’t, but that’s an interesting point. No, I like the smell of books, musty pages and such. Aged velvet furniture that’s always a little damp.”

“Doesn’t sound too appealing to me.”

“No. Of course not. Your room here is all modernized.”

“I like things sans dust and mold, what can I say,” he returned. “So you did your history degree.”

“No,” she said. “I went for two years. And then I stopped.”

“Why?”

“I married you.”

Her answer settled uncomfortably between them. An accusation, when she hadn’t meant it to be one.

“Which begs the question,” he said, “that I have been dying for the answer to. How old are you?”

She fiddled even more intensely with the silverware. “Twenty-three.”

“So you were twenty-one when we married.”

“Twenty. I was just shy of my birthday, and we have been married a little over two years.”

“That seems a bit too young.”

She lifted her shoulder. “My father was dying. We both knew it. Knowing that I was safe with you, knowing that we were settled brought him a lot of joy. Neither of us wanted to deny him that.”

“And then your father died and... I have been off partying. I left you here in this house by yourself with no finished degree doing...”

“You helped. When he died. You didn’t just abandon me and go to parties. You supported me. You took care of so many details when I was far too emotional to do it myself.”

The relief on his face touched something deep inside of her. “Well, that’s something.”

“And I’ve been organizing my family history. Our family tree, which stems back to the founding of the country, actually. So it’s very rich and...you know, complicated.”

“Wonderful. So I left you here to grow moldy with the old furniture you love so much. How generous of me.”

“No,” she said, her chest tight. Because it was the truth. Her father had died and Leon had returned to the exact lifestyle he had been living before their marriage. He had never touched her, not once, but he had continued to sleep with other women. She knew it. She wasn’t blind. Gossip magazines were alight with it. The poor, sad Tanner heiress and her wandering husband. But she didn’t want to tell him that. She didn’t want to tell this man that.

How strange that she did not want to disappoint him with the truth about himself.

“You are not being truthful with me.”

“I’m not entirely certain the truth is beneficial in this situation.”

He rose from his seat and came to stand in front of her before dropping to his knees. They were eye level, and he was so close she could smell the soap on his skin, could feel the warmth coming off his body. She was seized by the desire to touch him. To close the distance between them. But she didn’t. She just sat there, frozen as ever.

It turned out she didn’t have to close the distance, because he was the one to do it. He reached up, cupping her cheeks with both of his hands, drawing her face down toward him. “Then we shall make a new truth. I see no reason why we cannot make a new life. You have shared with me your dreams, and I find that I like the sound of them.”

“You aren’t working right now. You are...housebound. I am the only entertainment you have.”

His dark gaze turned stormy. “You make me sound like a child.”

In some ways, he was. In some ways, he always had been. A man with a very short attention span who was constantly on to the next toy. The newest thing, the shiniest thing. As a girl she had found it exciting. His flashy cars, his sharp wardrobe, even the beautiful women he would sometimes bring to her father’s parties. Until the sharp claws of jealousy had sunk deep inside her. Until she had wanted to occupy the position those women were in.

It was the moments in between that got her. That held her affection for him. The spare times when she’d caught a hint of haunted darkness around the edges of his bright smile. The times when he’d looked at her and seen down deep.

The times he’d looked at her, period, and not just past her.

“I...”

“I am not a child,” he said, his voice a dark temptation she couldn’t turn away from.

And before she could say another word, before she could protest, before she could even breathe, Leon had closed the distance between them. And he was kissing her like she had never been kissed before. As he had never kissed her before, since he was the only man she had ever kissed.

His lips were hot, firm and commanding as they moved over her own, his tongue a slick, sweet enticement as it delved deep inside her mouth, sliding against her own. Immediately, her breasts felt heavy, her core a hollow ache, wet with need for him at the first touch of his mouth to hers.

She was drowning. In this. In him. In the desire. Completely and utterly at its mercy.

She wasn’t even sure she cared. Because she was being swept away on a tide that she couldn’t even hope to fight against. Desire dictating her every response, her every movement.

She felt... She felt ravenous for him. Completely and totally starved of the one thing she had craved for so long. She wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning out of her chair and crushing her breasts to his chest, nearly sighing with relief as she pressed herself against him. She wanted to meld herself to him completely, wanted to get lost in this forever.

It was a sickness, a kind of madness that overtook her completely. The desire to feel his skin against hers, to have nothing at all between them. His memories didn’t matter. His broken ribs didn’t matter. His betrayal of their vows didn’t matter. All of the hurt, all of the torture she had endured over it didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered but this. The fact that she was kissing him finally.

He slid his hand down her back, pressing her more firmly against him. She parted her thighs, resting the part of herself that was aching the most for his touch up against his hardened arousal.

He growled, drawing his hand down lower to cup her rear, pressing her even more tightly to him, rolling his hips against hers.

It occurred to her then that it wasn’t only alcohol he had gone a long time without. Granted, she had gone twenty-three years without this kind of sexual contact, but Leon was accustomed to more.

And it was that thought that found her pulling away from him, running her shaking hands through her hair and sitting back in her chair. “I’m sorry,” she said, the words rushed.

He looked at her, frowning. “Why are you sorry?”

“You don’t remember anything. You don’t remember us. And you’re injured...”

“This,” he said, his eyes meeting hers meaningfully, “has nothing to do with memory. This is another bit of honesty, I think.”

Except it wasn’t. Because they didn’t do things like this. Because he had never touched her before. She couldn’t bring herself to voice that admission. Could not do that to what was left of her pride.

“I think it would be for the best if we held off on things like this.”

“Why is that?” he asked. “Is it because you are so angry with me about something that happened before?”

“It’s because I don’t feel right about asking you to sleep with a stranger.” It was nearly the truth.

“Everyone is a stranger to me. I’m a stranger to myself. And yet I seem to sleep in my own body every night.”

“It’s different. And you know it.”

“Is it?”

“I think you’re just...just male. And therefore would come up with any excuse for sex.”

He shook his head slowly, his dark eyes searching. “You are my wife. You are not a stranger to me. And I can feel...that there is something broken between us. I know it, as surely as I know certain things about myself. I do not need a memory to know that I wish to fix that.”

Her throat tightened, pressure building in her chest. “It is not entirely on you to fix it.”

“I want to try.”

She gritted her teeth, trying to hold her emotions in check. “Let’s wait. Let’s wait until you remember.” The words nearly choked her, because the last thing she wanted was to wait. If they waited, he would remember his indifference. If they waited, he wouldn’t want to fix what was broken. Because in Leon’s eyes their marriage wasn’t broken. Why would it be?

With their current arrangement he was allowed to behave as he saw fit. To do exactly what he wanted whenever he wanted with whomever he wanted. Once he remembered that their arrangement consisted of her staying home while he behaved like a man with no wife at all he wouldn’t want to change a thing.

“You are not my doctor,
agape
.”

“No, I’m not. But I am the one who—”

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking that because I don’t have my memories I’m not in full control of my desires. A man does not need a memory to know that he wants a woman. He feels that in his body. In his blood. Mine burns for you. My mind may not remember, but my body suffers no such affliction.”

She drew in a deep, shuddering breath, the weight of all the restraint, of the denial pressing down on her. He was promising things that didn’t exist outside of misty fantasy for her. Pleasure, satisfaction on a level she could hardly comprehend. But it wasn’t for her. Not really. And she had to resist. No matter how enticing it was.

“No,” she said, standing from her chair and sweeping past him, not pausing to look back at him as she walked straight into the house. She kept going. She nearly ran. All the way through the house, up the stairs, down the corridor and into her bedroom. She shut the door tightly behind her, and leaned back up against the wall.

And she couldn’t help but feel she had run away from her salvation.

CHAPTER FIVE

S
HE
WAS
BREATHING
HARD
, her heart fluttering in her chest like a trapped bird in a cage.

She wanted him. And this sorely tested her. All of her willpower, all of her restraint. He was offering her what she wanted on a platter. Seemingly. But she knew that as decadent, as wonderful as it all seemed, it would be poison in the end.

“It would be. It would kill me.” She spoke those words aloud into the emptiness of the room. Trying to make herself believe them. Trying to force herself to feel it.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight, curling her fingers into fists. And she waited until she stopped shaking before she moved away from the wall.

When she could catch her breath she reached around and took hold of the tab on the zipper, drawing it down, feeling as though she was casting some of the weight off as she let her dress fall from her body and pool at her feet on the floor. She wandered into the bathroom, turning the tub taps on and letting the water run until it was hot.

She unclipped her bra, flinging it onto the floor, not caring where it landed. She pushed her panties down her thighs, leaving them behind, too. Then she walked back into her bedroom, digging through her closet until she found a pair of sweats, something that would entice her to stay away from Leon for the rest of the night. If she put on anything too silky, anything that might not humiliate her to stand before him in, she could not guarantee that she wouldn’t go and find him later.

With that thought in mind she stared down at the pair of pajama pants in her hand, then shoved them back in the drawer, digging until she found a slightly older, slightly baggier pair. Insurance. It was what she needed.

Additional insurance came in the form of large white cotton panties that would provide more than full coverage, and handle any Leon incidentals that might occur.

She grabbed hold of an equally ancient sweatshirt and added it to her pile of clothing before heading back into the bathroom.

She wasn’t foolish enough to think she would behave rationally now she’d tasted him. Wars were started over sex. The desire for it. The anger over someone else having it in a way you didn’t like. Or with someone you wish you were having it with.

Sex was powerful. And she knew better than to think she was immune.

The water was hot, steam beginning to fill the air. She took a deep breath, sighing as she exhaled. Then she turned toward the counter and began to pin her hair up, slowly, methodically, trying to erase the past few moments from her mind.

“I wonder.” She heard a rich, masculine voice coming from behind her and she turned. There was Leon, standing in the door, his dark eyes like black fire. “I wonder how many times I have stood here in this very place and watched you prepare for your bath like this. I have no recollection. This does not make my mind itch in any way.”

Heat scorched her skin, fascination and embarrassment warring for equal place inside of her. He had never seen her naked before. No man ever had. But of course, he didn’t know that. Of course, he wouldn’t have any concept of just what an invasion this was.

That was her own doing. There was no one to blame for that but herself. And she still wasn’t doing anything to correct it.

“An itch in your mind?” She looked around, desperately searching for a towel, something,
anything
to cover her exposed body.

“That is what it feels like sometimes. When something is familiar but I can’t grab hold of it. As though I have an itch deep in my brain that I can’t quite get to. But this... This is free of all of that. Perhaps because when I look at you it becomes difficult to think at all.”

She swallowed hard. And she forgot to look for a towel. Forgot to be embarrassed. She was completely frozen in her tracks. It would be easy—or it should be—to move her hands strategically and offer herself some modesty. But she felt like she’d been turned into a pillar of salt. Punished for looking at him when she should have turned away.

You don’t want to cover yourself. You want him to keep looking at you
.

Yes, she did. As disturbing a realization as that was, she did.

Historically, people were very stupid when it came to sex. She was proving beyond a doubt that she was doomed to repeat history.

“You do say very nice things,” she said, her voice thin, soft.

“Have I always?”

She shook her head. “You don’t say unkind things. But...”

He took a step into the bathroom and her entire body stiffened. “But I do not lavish you with the sort of praise you deserve. I get that sense. I get the feeling that I never adequately appreciated how glorious a sight you were.” He was gazing at her openly, with no shame at all. Like this was the Garden of Eden and nudity was simply right.

“Do you even remember what women look like naked? Perhaps that’s all this is. Perhaps there is a strange amount of novelty that you’re contending with here.” She still hadn’t managed to move at all. She was standing there, completely bare, her heart pounding hard, her limbs trembling. She felt like a frightened squirrel staring down a large predator she had no hope of escaping.

You don’t even want to escape. You want to offer him your neck.

She gritted her teeth, squeezing her knees tightly together, trying to tamp down the restless feeling that was growing between her thighs.

“I
do
remember what women look like naked. Oddly enough. Not one specific woman, but it is not as mysterious to me as you might think.” He took another step toward her, then another. “I know that you think we should wait. But I want you to listen to me. I feel very much like what we had before this was broken. I said that to you downstairs, and I still mean it. I don’t care what happened. I don’t care where we were. I have a sense that you and I are the right thing. You are the woman I want. The woman I married. Whenever I lost sight of it, why I lost sight of it, it doesn’t matter. If you can forgive me then I want to move forward as husband and wife. And I want to be husband and wife in every sense of the word.” His voice got lower, grew rougher. “And I don’t want to wait for my ribs to heal. I don’t want to wait for a memory that may never come back. My life is a blank, barren field, Rose. I have... I have nothing. I have nothing but this connection to you, this need for you. Give me this. Give me something other than emptiness.”

What he was offering her was a dream come true. All of her girlish fantasies come to life. It was what she had hoped would happen after their wedding two years ago. That wedding night that never actually eventuated.

Two years a wife, and she was still a virgin. Pining after a man who had held her heart as long as she could remember. It was enough to make her want to cry just thinking about it. Enough to make her want to curl up in a ball and wail for just how sorrowful a situation it was. She had wanted him for as long as she could remember, and she had been denied him. She had married him. And she had never once pushed. Not for anything. Even when she had decided that she would divorce him she had immediately rushed to his side the moment she had heard about his injury. Because what else could she do? Leon held all of her heart. There was no denying that.

It was why she had to divorce him even at the expense of the house if she wanted to retain her sanity. Because as long as she lived in hope she would never move on with her life.

And here he was, standing there, offering her hope. Offering her everything she had ever wanted to hear.

She just wasn’t strong enough to say no. She had been strong, for so long, in so many ways. She had done her best to be strong for her father when her mother had died, even if he had done his best to hold it all together for her.

She had stayed strong in the face of his illness, in the face of his impending death. She had stayed strong even as he had asked her to marry Leon, so that he would know that she was protected. Even while the very thought of entering into a loveless union with the man who held every last piece of her soul killed her by inches.

She could not sacrifice anymore. Not for one more moment.

Leon was offering to make this marriage work. He wanted her to be his wife in every way. How could she deny him?

How could she deny herself?

This time, she was the one who took a step forward. Moving toward him. Her heart was in her throat, pounding, making her feel light-headed, dizzy. But even so, she took another step toward him, and then another.

He was the one who closed the distance. He was the one who ran out of patience. He wrapped his arm around her waist, pulling her tightly up against his body, a feral growl on his lips. She could feel him. All of him. His heat, his hardness, the intense thrust of his arousal up against her hip.

Oh, how she wanted him. There were no words for the depth of her desire. For the depth of her longing, her need.

It wove itself around her body, like the vines that overtook the Tanner house, creeping ever higher until it threatened to consume her. Need wrapped itself around her throat, made it impossible for her to breathe. Impossible for her to think.

“Are you afraid of me, Rose?” His voice was so soft, so tender and so full of concern, it made her own heart ache in response.

“Of course not.”

“You look at me as though I am a monster of some kind.”

“Not you. This thing between us. All of this. It feels like a monster. Like something that could consume us both.”

He laughed, the sound rusty, hard. “Yes, I agree.” He dragged his thumb along her cheekbone, his gaze filled with wonder. “Has it always been like this?”

“For me,” she said, the word strangled. “For me it has always been like this.”

“I think it has been for me, too.”

She laughed. “You can’t possibly know that.”

“Of course I can. Just as I know I am generous.”

“I already told you we have differing opinions on that.”

“Which leads me to believe that I perhaps demonstrate the things I feel differently than people might usually. But it doesn’t mean I don’t feel them. This is an old feeling, Rose. I know it is. It’s as much a part of me as my blood. There’s nothing foreign about it. Nothing unusual. It simply is. And much like any other part of myself I’m not sure that you could remove it without destroying me completely.”

“You don’t say things like this,” she said, feeling almost desperate to pull away now. This was too much. Because this wasn’t him. Not really. This was not the kind but distant man she had always known.

The Leon that she knew did not feel this for her. If he did, he would have touched her a long time ago. If he did, he wouldn’t spend his nights in bed with other women.

But she couldn’t say any of that. Not in this moment. Not now. And she couldn’t pull away, either. Because no matter how strong the compulsion was, it could not begin to compete with the desire to stay in his arms.

“Let’s not talk,” she said. “Please, kiss me.”

He didn’t hesitate. He lowered his head, closing the distance between them. And she ignited. All of the need, all of the desire she had felt out on the terrace was magnified now. Magnified by the feel of his large hands spanning her bare waist, of her nipples pressing against the rough fabric of his shirt. Magnified by the fact that she was utterly and completely enslaved to him now. The fact that she was not trying to fight it anymore, even for a moment.

If this was a war, she was conquered.

This was wrong. But she didn’t care. She was doing the wrong thing. And she was doing it for herself. She had spent a great many years trying to do the right thing. And she had gotten nothing in return.

She wasn’t afraid of being wrong. She didn’t even feel guilty. She simply felt exhilaration. Freedom. Here she was in the arms of the man she had always wanted, and she would think of nothing else.

She had always imagined that the moment Leon touched her he would know that she loved him. That she would betray every part of herself if he so much as swept his hand over her cheek. But this was different. So different than how she had ever envisioned it. Because he assumed that she loved him. He also assumed that he loved her.

But because of that...there were no secrets to keep. This was no revelation for him. And there was nothing inside of herself to protect. It made her feel strong. It made her feel not quite so vulnerable.

It made her feel not so much like the neglected virgin bride she’d been.

She pressed her hands against his chest, reveling in the feel of him, in the hardness of his muscles, the evidence of his strength. Before she could think it through, before she could stop herself, she was working the buttons on his shirt, separating the fabric, brushing her fingertips over his bare skin.

She had been struck by his beauty the day he had walked into the library without a shirt. And now she was touching him.

Her fingers shook as she pressed them against his skin, as she traced the definition of his muscles, his coarse chest hair abrading her fingertips as she continued to explore him. He was everything a man should be. But then, of course he was. Her desire for men was shaped around him. Her needs had never been generic. Her need had always been for him. Always and only.

He held the back of her head with his hand, deepening the kiss, his tongue delving deep as he tasted her slowly, leisurely. His other hand slid low to cover her bottom, his fingers pressing deep into her flesh. It was a possessive hold. It was not a hold of a man who was unsure of what he wanted. He wanted her.

It didn’t matter what he had wanted in the past. This was now. And he was choosing her.

She squeezed her eyes shut tight, pouring everything into the kiss.

She didn’t know what she was doing. She had no practical skill in the art of seduction. She had nothing more than her passion. And she doubted there was a woman alive who felt as passionately about Leon Carides as she did. She doubted there was a woman alive who felt this passionately about any man. This was nearly fifteen years in the making for her. And what she lacked in practical skill she more than made up for in desire.