But even as he told himself to look away, he couldn’t do it.
Instead, he skimmed his eyes over her, lingering at the slight curves of her breasts where they pushed against the towel before moving on to her long, long, long legs. While they were skinnier than he remembered, they were still killer. Beautiful and strong. He couldn’t help remembering what it had felt like to have them wrapped around his waist as he moved inside her.
“Sorry. I forgot my clothes.” Her voice sounded strained as she brushed past him. The tension he heard there snapped him out of the flashback, and he turned in time to see her duck her head, cheeks flushed.
Her obvious embarrassment made him feel like a total lech. He cleared his throat. “No big deal. I’ll just look…somewhere else.” He crossed to the window.
“Thanks.” A pause, while he heard her rummaging in her suitcase. Yeah, real smooth. He probably should have thought about her getting dressed before he packed her up.
“Hey, did you mess with my bag?” she asked, her voice more vulnerable than he had heard it in a very long time. “Or am I losing my mind?”
“No, it was me. I wanted to help get you ready.” He glanced at her over his shoulder, felt his whole body go on red alert as one side of her towel dipped precariously to reveal a glimpse of a perfect, rose-tipped breast.
She clutched at the towel, and he looked away quickly, but not before he hardened painfully. He told himself to chill out, that sex was the last thing Amanda was interested in right now, but it didn’t work. His body didn’t seem to care. But then it never did when he was around Amanda. He’d wanted her from the first time he’d set eyes on her, and though their relationship had evolved through the years, that desire had never gone away.
“Get ready for what?” she asked, heading toward the bathroom.
“You can’t stay in a hotel forever,” he told her. “I figured, after everything that happened earlier, you’d be okay with coming home with me.”
A stunned silence was his only answer as the bathroom door closed firmly behind her.
As he waited for her, he cursed himself and his rampaging libido. He hadn’t planned on bringing the subject up quite so abruptly, but he’d gone stupid at the first sight of her. Could he have been a bigger idiot?
What he should have said was that he’d been looking for a pair of scrubs to fit him, not that he’d packed up her errant possessions as if he expected her to follow him wherever he went. As if he was a jealous idiot who thought he had the right to control every aspect of her life.
He shook his head, slumped down on the bed. Nothing quite like taking one step forward and seven back. Of course, that was the story of his life with Amanda.
She emerged from the bathroom a couple of minutes later, fully dressed and with a look of total disbelief on her face. “We have one conversation that doesn’t end in a fight and you think that means I’m ready to move in with you?”
“I know, I’m sorry. I handled that badly.”
She snorted. “So you’re not sorry for thinking I’d drop everything and move in with you. You’re just sorry about the way you handled it?”
Well, yeah. Pretty much. But thank God his brain started working before he could blurt that out. “I wasn’t trying to push you into anything you weren’t ready for—”
“Right. Because you never do that.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Sarcasm is not becoming on you.”
“What a shame since I’m so fond of it.”
It was his turn to snort, this time with laughter. It took only a few seconds before she joined in.
When they’d sobered, she said quietly, “You know there’s not a chance I’m going to move in with you, right?”
His levity fled. “Why not?” He put his arms out, gestured around the hotel room. “Come on, Amanda, this is no place for you. You deserve better.”
“Better than one of the best hotels in Atlanta? You are the one who sent me here, if you remember correctly?”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. You’re not taking proper care of yourself—”
“And what? You’re going to change all that?”
“Why not?”
“In case you’ve forgotten, you have trouble keeping a goldfish alive, let alone a person.”
He ground his teeth in frustration. “I want to help you, Amanda. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, except I don’t need your help.” She crossed to him, laid a gentle hand on his forearm. It felt so good that he closed his eyes for a moment, just soaked the sensation in. Soaked her in.
“I’m a grown woman, Simon. I’ve traveled all over the world—in places a lot more primitive and dangerous than downtown Atlanta. I’m pretty sure I can take care of myself.”
He sighed, thrust a hand through his hair. “We’ve already had this fight.”
“And we’re going to keep having it until you get it through your thick skull that I don’t need to be your do-it-yourself renovation project. I can handle things on my own. I swear.”
“Usually, I’d agree with you. But, no offense, lately you’ve done a pretty crappy job of taking care of yourself. I understand why, but still, you’re in bad shape, Amanda. Let me take care of you.”
He expected her to tell him to go to hell, to reiterate all the things she could do on her own. Instead, she tossed her head and asked scornfully, “You don’t actually think I’d let myself depend on you, do you? I’ve been there and I still have the skid marks on my back.”
CHAPTER NINE
SIMON STARED AT AMANDA stonily. Her response to his plea had cut him off at the knees. He was reeling, shocked by the attack after the compassion she’d demonstrated the night before, but the last thing he wanted was for her to know how bad she could hurt him. With the way she felt about him, giving her that kind of control would be disastrous.
For long seconds, he didn’t know what to say to her. After all, he hadn’t expected her forgiveness for not being there when Gabby died—not when he couldn’t forgive himself—but he’d hoped for a little understanding. Obviously, he’d been dreaming.
“We’re never going to be able to get past that, are we?” he finally asked, dully.
Amanda bit her lip, and her gray eyes were sad, but she didn’t retreat. “I wasn’t talking about Gabby. I was talking about all the years before that, when you flitted in and out of my life at whim.”
“I was working.”
“You’re always working, Simon. There’s always another story to tell, always something happening, somewhere, that’s more important than I am. That isn’t going to change now.”
“I’m a reporter, Amanda. I go where the news is. Besides, I never complained about you ‘flitting off’ to country after country doing your doctor thing. I never said a word when you dragged Gabby through five countries in four years.”
“Why would you have? It made your life infinitely easier not to have me waiting at home for you, wondering where you were. I couldn’t complain about your absence if I wasn’t home, either.”
“Are you saying you’d give it up? That you wouldn’t work with For the Children anymore?”
“I think you’re forgetting, I did give it up. Twice.”
“That doesn’t count. You always knew you’d go back.”
“You really think that’s what I did? That I weighed my options when Gabby got sick? You think I said to myself, ‘Oh, well, I’ll give it a year and by then she’ll be dead and I can go back to doing what I really want to do?’”
“You’re putting words in my mouth.”
“Yeah, well, you sure as hell implied it.”
“Don’t change the subject. I may not have always been there, but I was committed to you. You’re the one who walked out on me.”
“Because I couldn’t handle never knowing where you were or who you were with—”
“I never cheated on you.”
“It doesn’t matter.” She waved his words away as if they were inconsequential
, which only angered him more.
“Really? I thought the fact that I loved you—wanted to build a life with you—did matter. My mistake.”
“You didn’t want to build a life,” she flung at him. “You wanted a drive-through relationship, one where you could show up for a few days, have great sex and then get the hell out of Dodge before anything got serious.”
The words hit hard, took all the righteous indignation right out of him. “That isn’t true,” he whispered.
Amanda sighed as she crossed the room, put a gentle hand on his arm. “It doesn’t matter,” she told him softly. “That period in our lives is over.”
“What if I don’t want it to be over?”
“Come on, Simon. Gabby’s dead. There’s nothing connecting us anymore.”
“Gabby wasn’t the only thing we had between us, Amanda.” He grabbed her hand, tugged her closer. Nearly groaned at the feel of her body against his own. Even when they were angry at each other, they responded to one another physically. “I never found what I had with you with anyone else,” he told her. “I’ve never wanted it with anyone else.”
The words were so honest, so raw, that they hurt coming out. As did the instinctive rejection he saw in her eyes.
Wanting to delay that rejection, wanting to pretend that things were going to be okay, if only for a little while, he bent his head, pressed his lips gently to hers.
And there it was, the fire that never seemed to dampen between them. The second their mouths touched, it blazed hot and wild. For a moment, it felt as if she was going to pull away, but he slipped his arms around her waist, pulled her closer, and the moment dissolved.
Instead, her lips opened under his like a flower, and he groaned, low in his throat. He told himself to take it slow, not to spook her, but she tasted so good and he’d waited so long to have her again, to really have her, that he dived right in.
He nibbled on her lips, pulled her lower lip between his teeth and nipped a little—the way he knew she liked. She shuddered against him, her hands clutching at his shirt, and he nearly howled in triumph.
He managed to control himself, though, just barely, and focused instead on tasting her. On bringing her as much pleasure as he could. On reminding her of how good things had been between them before they’d gone bad.
Sliding his hands down, he cupped her ass and lifted her against him, so that the softness of her sex was pressed directly over his own hardness. She gasped a little and he took advantage, delving his tongue deep into her mouth and exploring her hidden recesses.
She tasted exactly like he remembered—of strawberries and the deep, dark chocolate he had a weakness for. He pulled her closer, opened his mouth wider. He wanted to bury himself in Amanda, to immerse himself inside of her until she acknowledged how crazy she was being. Until she admitted that they belonged together, that he could take care of her, despite the mistakes he’d made in the past.
The kiss went on and on and on, long minutes of touching and tasting and exploring that drove him out of his mind. He wanted to caress all of her, wanted to reacquaint himself with every inch of her body. Wanted to claim her so completely that she’d never try to leave him again.
Driven nearly mad by his need for her, he walked them slowly across the room until they were at the bed. Then he lowered her to the mattress, careful not to break the kiss. And when he dropped onto the floor between her spread thighs, she moaned—a wild, tortured exclamation that shot deep inside of him and brought him right to the edge of his control.
Wrenching his mouth from hers, Simon pressed against Amanda’s shoulders until she sank gracefully back onto the bed. And then he looked at her for long seconds, taking in her dazed eyes, swollen mouth, open thighs.
Lust beat deep inside of him, a need to take her, to make her his, to silence her objections once and for all. He wanted to fall on her, to devour her, to kiss and suck and bite every inch of her until she was as wrapped up in him as he had always been in her.
The only thing stopping him was the tenderness he felt toward her, a softness that tempered the wild claws of desire and slowed him down like nothing else could. She looked beautiful and amazing and sexy and yet so delicate that he was almost afraid he would break her.
Leaning forward, he forced himself to be gentle, to go slow, as he slid his lips over her jaw and down the slender column of her throat. She gasped, pressed her head to the side to give him better access as her fingers trailed over the nape of his neck.
They were the signs he’d been waiting for, the acceptance he had craved deep inside himself. And still, he made himself ask. She was so vulnerable right now he didn’t want to do anything to hurt her.
“Let me love you, Amanda,” he whispered against the hollow of her throat. “Let me make you feel good.”
“Yes,” she gasped as she slipped her fingers under his shirt and started to shove at the well-worn fabric. “Please, Simon.”
Her voice was almost a wail, and a flash of desire shot through him so quickly that he feared he would be burned alive if he didn’t get inside her soon. Levering himself away from her, he ignored her moan of disappointment as he ripped his shirt over his head, then pulled her up and did the same to hers.
She wasn’t wearing a bra and his eyes nearly crossed as he got his first glimpse of her breasts. She was smaller than before, but she was still beautiful. Soft and round and perfect. Her skin was creamy-white here, her nipples glowing a deep rose in the dense afternoon sunlight.
Slowly, carefully, he reached for her. Traced a finger over the blue veins that showed through the delicate skin. Circled her areola the way he knew she liked, savoring the softness of her as much as the thrill of finally having her in his arms again.
Unable to wait any longer, he leaned forward and took one of her nipples into his mouth. Sucked gently and reveled in her quiet gasp. In the trembling she couldn’t hide and the fingers that clutched at his shoulders.
“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured as he kissed his way down her rib cage to her belly button. He paused to blow a stream of hot air directly against her navel, and she responded as he knew she would, with a giggle and an arch of her body that brought them into even closer contact.
“I love that you’re still ticklish,” he told her as his fingers made quick work of the button and zipper on her jeans. Then he was moving lower, nuzzling the soft cotton fabric of her underwear out of the way as he ran his tongue along her bikini line.
She squirmed, bucked against him, but even as he tried to raise his head—to see if he’d gone too far—her fingers were tangling in his hair. Holding him in place as she moved restlessly beneath him.
He closed his eyes in relief, breathed in the sweet, sexy scent that was all Amanda. Then he slowly peeled off her jeans, so she was lying in front of him in nothing but a pair of black cotton hipsters that gaped at the waist.
He tried not to notice, tried not to concentrate on the weight she had lost because he knew he would lose it completely if he did. He’d start lecturing her for not taking better care of herself when the last thing he wanted between them right now was anger.
But it was hard to bite his tongue when she was so thin that her stomach was practically concave, her hip bones jutting out in stark relief. Hard to keep his mouth shut when he could span her waist with two hands, and his fingers overlapped.
“You have to take better care of yourself,” he told her softly as he hooked his fingers on the waistband of her panties and pulled them down her legs.
She nodded. “I’m working on it.”
“Good.” He licked his way back up to her breasts, pulled one strawberry nipple into his mouth and started to suck.
She moaned, a breathless little sound that had him hardening to the point of pain. He moved to the other breast, gave it the same attention, then captured her lips in a kiss that broke the last ties of his control.
Sliding down her body, leaving kisses in his wake, he didn’t stop until his shoulders were betwe
en her thighs and she was spread out before him, her sex soft and pink and beautiful. He slipped a finger inside of her, savoring the way she sighed and trembled. Then leaned forward and delivered a slow, lingering lick right up the heart of her.
AMANDA NEARLY SHOT OFF the bed as Simon’s tongue circled her clit. The desire singing through her veins ratcheted up another notch. Instinctively, she clutched at his shoulders to hold him to her.
It felt so good to be with him like this, felt so good to touch him and let him touch her. It had been so long since she’d connected with another person in any way, let alone sexually, that she couldn’t bring herself to stop this. No matter how sure she was that it was the wrong thing for them.
Orgasm loomed and she shuddered, tried to hold it off. She wanted this moment to last, if not forever then a little longer. She didn’t want to go back to being angry with Simon or hating him or any of the other complicated emotions she felt for him. She wanted to stay right here—in the moment, in the pleasure—forever. Then she wouldn’t have to think, wouldn’t have to make a decision she knew was for the best, but would hurt them both.
Sensing her imminent release, Simon slipped his hand beneath her then slid one long finger inside of her sex. Amanda gasped, lifted her hips to meet him and shuddered as pleasure shook her to her very core.
He stroked her through her orgasm, stroking and licking and taking her higher until it was all she could do not to scream. When it was over, she collapsed on the bed and sucked in long gasps of air as Simon gently stroked her hair.
When she could breathe again, she turned to him. Held him against her as tightly as she could.
It felt so right to be here with him, to cradle his head against her breast as her body yearned for his, that it scared her. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Not this comfortable. Not this good. “Simon, I don’t think—”
He cut her words off with a kiss, so tender, so exquisite. “Don’t think,” he told her, and his green eyes were calmer than she’d ever seen them.