Marry Me Again (The Second Chance Love Series, Book 1) (24 page)

Would it feel just the same?

It couldn't.

Would the feelings still be there with him? The ones she thought she'd lost forever? The ones she'd never felt with another man?

Or had that part of her shriveled up and died? That's how it had felt before he came back—like something inside her had just died.

She was too much of a coward to find out. That was part of it. But most of all, her sense of self-preservation was too strong.

"Tucker?" she said as she stormed into her own bedroom. "This is ridic—"

And then she started tripping over her own words until she decided that the safest thing to do would be to close her mouth.

He was undressing.

He was in her bedroom taking off his clothes. His shirt was gone. His socks and shoes, too. She'd come into the room just in time to hear the rasp of a zipper and then the sound of his pants falling into a heap on the floor.

Her mouth went dry, and she turned to look away as he stripped away his last remaining piece of clothing. At least she tried to look away.

God, he was the most beautiful man.

And he was climbing into her bed.

Chapter 14

He waited.

He was getting better at this waiting stuff. And it was getting easier to wait, because it was the best way he knew to throw her off balance.

That and climbing naked into her bed. That seemed to be working especially well.

So he waited.

And remembered.

For a while after their marriage, Rebecca had been a little shy. She'd hesitated about coming to bed with him. He used to sit in bed, naked, just like this, and watch her while she got ready for bed. He watched while she lingered in the bathroom, then at her dressing table, brushing her hair, then finally undressing slowly.

It had irritated him a little, at first, to see her reluctance, to know that for some reason she was still a little uncomfortable with that most intimate side of their marriage.

Not that she hadn't pleased him. She had. And he had pleased her. There'd been no doubt about that.

But he'd pushed her, too far, too fast. He'd overwhelmed her a little with a passion that had frightened her at first. He'd wanted everything from her, all of her, with no reservations. And she'd seemed determined to hold something back from him.

And then he'd finally figured it out. What he'd taken for reluctance hadn't been that at all. She was just a little shy. She was searching for some measure of control in the middle of the whirlwind that had overtaken them.

When he'd finally backed off, just a little, and given her some time to get used to things, she'd been fine. She'd come to him in her own time.

She would come tonight, on her own.

If he'd pushed, he could have gotten her here already, he thought, but he didn't want it to happen that way. He wanted her to come to him, and then maybe she wouldn't regret it in the morning.

And maybe, if there were no regrets about the night, they could start planning their future.

Together.

In the morning.

* * *

"Come to bed, Rebecca," he said finally.

She was speechless. Her cheeks were flushed, her heart pounding, her thoughts all a jumble, and she couldn't have pried her eyes away from the man in her bed for anything.

The naked man in her bed who was calmly inviting her to join him.

"Tucker, this is crazy."

"It makes perfect sense," he said, warming her whole body with nothing but the look in his eyes and the sight of him there in her bed. "You say you don't love me anymore. You claim you don't want me anymore, but your body tells me something else, Rebecca Jane.

"Come over here and show me you don't want me," he said, turning back the covers in invitation.

"Stop it," she said, scrambling over to the bed and catching the edge of the comforter before he uncovered any more of himself.

He tugged back, just enough so that she ended up sitting on the bed beside him.

And then he smiled, wickedly.

"Show me," he said. "Show me you don't want me, Rebecca."

She sat there, trying to avoid his eyes, trying not to stare at the subtle play of the muscles in his chest as he inhaled and exhaled.

She'd never known the act of breathing could be so sexy.

And she knew just how all those muscles felt, just how she fit against them, how they fit together.

She remembered the very first time he'd taken her blouse and her camisole off and held her close, her breasts nestled against the little golden hairs that curled tightly on his chest.

The sensations—she couldn't even describe them, except to say that he'd opened up a whole new world to her, a sensual, breathtaking world.

And, God help her, she still wondered if he could take her there.

She gave a start when his hand closed over hers. He must have caught her staring at his chest, must have read her mind, once again, because he took her hand and put it over his heart, held it there so she could feel the rise and fall as his lungs filled and emptied.

"Come and show me," he said, his heart pounding beneath her hand. "Show me you feel nothing for me."

She pulled her hand away as if she'd been scalded by his touch, by his tormenting.

She couldn't do that. And he knew it.

Rebecca could barely breathe now, and her voice trembled with something—fear and yearning—that all-too familiar tangle of emotions that he'd always managed to bring to the surface in her.

Yes and no.

Stop, but don't stop.

Make love to me, but don't make me love you. Not again.

Why didn't he just put an end to it? He would win out in the end. He always did with her.

Why didn't he just pull her into his arms and trap her there on the bed underneath him? She didn't have it in her to protest anymore, and he knew it.

She braced herself as best she could, and looked at him as he sat there in the bed waiting for her.

He knew that she'd give in. He'd known it all along, just as he knew how much she wanted him, yet didn't.

If she'd been stronger, she would have kicked him out of the house by now. She never would have let him get this close, never would have let him see that the attraction between them was still there.

If only she'd been stronger.

But she wasn't that strong when it came to him. She didn't have the ability to hide her feelings from him. And she couldn't walk away from him. Not now. Not anymore.

All she could do was hope that being with him again wouldn't be anything like she remembered.

She could hope that maybe she'd prove to him, to herself as well, that the passion had died out along with the love she once felt for him.

She didn't love him anymore.

She said it to herself, for herself this time and not in some deliberate, desperate attempt to hurt him, as she'd done before, downstairs.

She couldn't love him anymore.

Maybe this would prove it.

Maybe it would lay to rest all the ghosts of the past and all their hopes that they could somehow put their tangled lives back together again.

And if it did that, it was a small price to pay, as she saw it.

Rebecca looked down at him, there in her bed, the sheet riding dangerously low on his belly, those little curls of hair trailing down the center of his chest, down under the sheet.

And then she started trembling all over again.

"What do you want from me, Tucker?"

"Tonight. Just give me one night."

She couldn't breathe, couldn't speak, though she managed to nod.

Yes.

The tension in the room soared instantly.

He smiled, tried to hold it back, but couldn't. He knew victory when he saw it, and this was it.

She waited there by the bed, shaken to the core, and tried not to think of what she might feel come morning.

Tucker casually threw back the covers, and she braced herself for his touch, but he walked past her, instead.

She heard the click of the bedroom door's lock, then couldn't avoid looking at him when he came to stand directly in front of her.

The lights were off in the room, but the moon was out tonight, and it was shining in through the window. It caught the golden highlights in his hair and touched on the ripples and hollows on his chest.

She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself, but couldn't manage that at this moment.

"Come to me, Rebecca." He held out his arms. "Take that one step, just one, and I'll do the rest. I need to know that this is as much your decision as mine."

She hesitated to take that first step into the abyss, the one that would put her firmly within his grasp, within his power.

But then, she'd always been there. She'd never managed to escape. Maybe she never would.

What was it about him?

Would she ever understand it? Would she be able to survive it this time?

"Just a step," he coaxed.

She stood up. The blood rushed to her head, and the heat flamed in her cheeks. She couldn't turn back now. She had nowhere to run that he wouldn't find her.

"Come on, Rebecca. You can do it."

He was smiling, teasing her now that he knew he'd won.

He was her downfall, her siren's song.

Rebecca felt a little too unsteady on her feet to manage the step that seemed so important to him. He'd have to settle for a hand, instead.

She took a deep breath, hoping it would steady her, and reached out to touch those subtle curves of muscles in his upper arm.

He was hot to the touch, scorching hot. She was surprised she didn't see the steam rising off him.

Rebecca lost her nerve and went to pull away from him, but he caught her first and pressed her hand back to his arm.

"Don't stop," he said, and something in his voice gave her the courage to continue.

She let her hand glide up his arm to his shoulder, then down to those little blond curls on his chest.

He groaned and closed his eyes. A fine sheen of moisture covered his chest, and her heart beat even faster.

He was trembling, yet utterly still.

And she was lost.

The power vibrated around them, closing in on them like a force field, binding them together and locking out the world around them.

She touched him, fingertips furrowing through those curls, up the center of his chest, past the pulse point under his chin, brushing past his lips and then along his clenched jaw.

She shivered and swayed toward him. He was swaying on his feet, as well.

She took both hands, palms flat against his chest, and made little circles with her thumbs.

"Mmmm." He made a long, low sound of pure pleasure.

He brought his hand up to cup her jaw, to caress her cheek, then slip into her hair. He pulled out the pins, one by one, until her hair fell to just beyond her shoulder.

He took a handful of it and buried his nose in it, inhaling deeply, then pulling it back so that he could tease her ear with his mouth.

"Touch me," he whispered.

Rebecca blushed, knowing what he wanted. Her hands made their way down to his belly, then lower. She remembered—yes, she thought as she found him fully aroused—she remembered exactly how he felt.

He gasped, then groaned, shivered with pleasure, while she teased and stroked him.

"Rebecca," he whispered.

She smiled for the first time since she'd come into the room, because the power wasn't all his.

It was hers, too. And it was such a heady feeling. Such pleasure came from knowing that the things he did to her, she could do to him, as well.

It told her that she wasn't the only one taking a risk here tonight.

"Rebecca?"