Goddammit, no.
He wouldn’t let this tear them apart.
Her pride was wounded because he wouldn’t explain, couldn’t explain, and he understood that. He needed a better excuse, but he just didn’t know how to keep lying to her anymore.
When considering his options, he’d thought it was best she imagine he’d been working and, perhaps, been stupidly neglectful, rather than having her know he’d been locked up in little more than a cage, sweating for human contact and hungering for her. She’d blame herself. Fuck. It was he who’d gone through hell for both of them—he wouldn’t allow her to go through it, as well.
But would this Whitney be content with whatever version he could come up with?
Frowning at the thought, he tucked her deeper into his arms and buried his face in her fragrant hair.
She stirred in his arms, her face peaceful in sleep. He stared into her face. A part of him doubted himself, his eyes, the feeling of her in his arms. But she was no dream, God, she wasn’t a dream. And he drank up the sight of her like a thirsting desert survivor.
“You’ve grown so beautiful, Whitney,” he said in a barely audible rasp. “You’ve filled out and feel so good and womanly in my arms . . .”
He stroked her cheeks, adoring the bones of her face, the feel of her skin. “I love you, you know that, right?” He kissed her lips, knowing he’d do anything, anything, to hear her say I love you back.
He laced their hands together and looked at her tattoos, just to remind himself that he still owned her, remind himself she was still his . . .
And he told himself that he hadn’t lost her while trying to save them both.
Chapter Three
Hands on her ankles, pulling her down . . .
“No!” Whitney screamed, but a hand that smelled of cigarettes grabbed her and cut off her air, her breathing.
“You’re a dirty little girl, if you don’t stay still you’ll never go out of this house again, do you hear me? Do you want me to punish you?”
She went utterly still, thinking, Please don’t hit me . . .
But he still hit her.
A fist smacked across her temple and pain exploded in her head, leaving her dazed and frightened, whimpering softly, helplessly, as he pulled down her panties, then pushed up her nightgown, and took her in her own bed, in her own home, while Whitney stared up at the ceiling, thinking of the dark-haired young man she’d seen at Chloe Lexington’s home . . . and how he’d smiled at her . . . and how that smile had made her feel . . .
She woke up crying, alone in bed, and for an instant, she felt as lonely and miserable as she’d been every night that man had come to her bed.
She curled into a ball, but the scent of roses suffused her nostrils, and the confusion cut off her sobs. A lone red rose lay on one of the pillows, and Whitney’s memory of last night came crashing down on her.
Andrew.
Andrew was home.
Excitement barraged through her at the realization. She sat up, and with a frantic tapping on the Creston screen sitting on the nightstand, the drapes rolled open.
Her gaze darted across the room for evidence, and her spirit soared when she saw a half-full glass of water on his nightstand, his shoes of yesterday scattered on the floor. Her stomach fluttered uncontrollably as yesterday replayed itself in her head, and for a moment she lay back on the pillow and lovingly surveyed both her wrists, as had become habit.
She closed her eyes and kissed each one, her lips lingering on his name, then she sighed as she remembered yesterday, their desperate lovemaking, how good it felt to sleep next to him. Her body felt sore in all of her most sensitive places. Deliciously sore. Impulsively, she bent to smell his pillow, and her pussy watered.
But her heart.
God, her heart was breaking.
She just couldn’t do this to herself.
Act like three years hadn’t happened.
Pick up where they left off.
She was too vulnerable with him. Too hurt.
A heaviness settled in her chest as a vivid recollection of the past three years without him swept through her, then she realized the shower water had just shut off. Her pulse fluttered as the significance of that sunk in.
She jerked up in the bed as the door rolled open and quickly clutched the sheet to her chest, her heart sinking.
Oh no.
The sunlight only made him look darker.
Sinfully. Sensually. Darker.
It was a struggle to contain her response to him when he spotted her on the bed, with her hair undone and falling past her shoulders, and those liquid oil-field eyes acquired a mysterious new shine while his lips pulled sensually at the corners.
How could she ever protect herself from him when he was so close again?
His torso gleamed from his shower. With his wet, dark hair slicked back from his smooth forehead, his manly features sharpened to levels that surpassed the sexiest centerfold. Every pore and inch of his body was hard and rugged, and the white towel draped around his hips was a stark contrast to his hard muscles and deep tan.
Her body came alive with a vengeance. She wanted to take off that towel and take him in her hands, her mouth, her body again. She wanted to feel his piercing rasping against her sheath and know that she hadn’t made him up. Suddenly she knew, without even the tiniest hesitation, that she would never willingly let this man go without a fight first.
Never.
No man in the world would ever make her respond like this. No hands would know her body, pleasure her, tame and control her passions, like he did. No one would ever own her heart when she had never been able to take it back from him. She had been waiting three years. For this man.
No. She wasn’t going to let him go.
But she wasn’t going to make it easy, either.
She’d endured too much, had come too far along to hand her heart over as if she was worth nothing.
“You have no idea,” she began, because he really didn’t, and couldn’t know, how much she had missed and ached for him daily, “how glad I am that you’re back.”
The tenderness that warmed his dark eyes crammed her chest with emotion. “And you have no idea,” he answered, and meaningfully added, “how good it is to be back. With you.”
Smiling softly, she tugged the sheet from the bed corners and started wrapping it around herself. “Andrew, I really need to make sure we’re clear on what happened last night.”
Propping a shoulder on the threshold, he crossed his arms as he watched her. “I’m all yours,” he said, looking very much like he was thoroughly enjoying the sight of her in his bed.