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His wife lay in the curve of his arm, snuggled tightly against him. Her head was nestled on his biceps, her hand lay open and relaxed on his chest. Her leg was a welcome weight thrown over his.
It was the way they’d always fallen asleep after they’d made love, the way it had been in those days so long gone by, days he’d never dreamed of recapturing.
But they had.
Was it a miracle? Or was it some cruel trick of fate? Would his wife stay as she was, even after she recovered her memory… or would she go back to being the cool, acquisitive stranger he’d been about to divorce?
There were so many questions, but there were no answers.
David eased onto his side, slid his other arm around Joanna and drew her close. The last, faint light of the dying fire played across her face, highlighting the elegant bones. She was so beautiful, and never more so than after they’d made love, and he knew that the questions didn’t matter, not tonight.
All that mattered was this.
He buried his face in her hair, nuzzling it back from her shoulder, and pressed his mouth gently to the curving flesh. Still asleep, she sighed and snuggled closer.
The scent of her rose to his nostrils, a blend of flowers and sunshine and the exciting muskiness of sex. He kissed her again, his lips moving up her throat and to her mouth.
“Mmm,” she said, and stirred lazily in his arms.
His hand cupped her breast.
“David,” she sighed, and linked her hands behind his neck.
He smiled against her mouth. “Hello, sweetheart.”
“Was I asleep?”
“We both were.” He bent his head and kissed her with a slow, lazy thoroughness. “It’s late.”
“Mmm.”
“The fire’s almost out, and it’s pitch black outside.”
“Mmm.”
“We should go to bed.”
Joanna’s laugh was soft and wicked. “What do we need a bed for? I thought we managed just fine.”
His hand slid down her body and slipped between her thighs. She made a small sound of pleasure as he cupped her warm flesh.
“Better than fine,” he murmured. “But now I want to make love to my wife on soft pillows and under a down comforter.”
“That sounds wonderful.” Joanna’s smile tilted. “David? We…we shared a bedroom, didn’t we? Before my accident, I mean.”
She felt him stiffen in her arms and she cursed herself for ruining this perfect night. But instead of rolling away from her, as she’d half expected, he sighed and lay back with her still in his arms.
“Yes,” he said, after a long silence. They had shared a bedroom, they’d shared everything…a long time ago. But he couldn’t tell her that, not without telling her all the rest, about the divorce, about how different she was now… “Yes,” he said again, “we did.”
Joanna rolled onto her stomach, propped her elbows on the rug and her chin in her hands and looked down into her husband’s face.
“Even back in the city?”
“Yes, even there.” He reached up his hand and gently stroked her tangled curls back from her face. “We used to share my bedroom until…”
“Until what? Why did we…why did we decide on separate rooms? And when? Have we been sleeping separately for a long time?”
He sighed. Trust this new Joanna to come up with some damned good questions. And trust him not to have any good answers.
The truth was that they’d never “decided” on separate rooms; it had just happened. He’d started spending occasional nights in his study, stretching out on the leather sofa after working late. The excuse he’d offered himself, and Joanna, was that he hadn’t wanted to wake her by coming to bed after she was asleep.
And Joanna had said there was no reason for him to spend the night on a sofa when they had a perfectly usable extra bedroom available. She’d been thinking of converting it into something more to her tastes, she’d added with a brittle smile. Would that be all right?
Of course, he’d told her, and not long after that he’d come home and found Joanna’s clothes gone from the closet in the master suite and what had been the guest room remade into something that looked like a bad layout from a trendy magazine…
“David?”
He looked at his wife. She was still waiting for an answer and he decided to give her the only one he could. An honest one, as far as it went.
“I can’t really tell you, Jo.” Gently, he clasped her shoulders and rolled her onto her back. “It just happened. I’m not even sure exactly when.”
“I asked you once if we’d been unhappy,” Joanna said, “and you gave me the same kind of answer. But we weren’t happy, David, I know we weren’t.”
In the shadowy darkness, he could see the tears welling in her eyes. For one wild moment, he thought of telling her the truth. No, he’d say, hell, no, we weren’t happy…
But they had been, once. And they could be again. The thought surged through him, pushing aside everything else.
“I mean,” she said, her voice trembling, “if we were sleeping in separate beds, leading separate lives…”
David didn’t hesitate. He crushed his mouth to hers, silencing her with a deeply passionate kiss.
“That’s over,” he said fiercely. “No more sleeping apart, Gypsy. And no more separate existences. You’re going to be my wife again.”
“Oh, yes, that’s what I want. I…” She caught herself just in time. I love you, she’d almost said, I love you with all my heart.
But the idea of being the first to say the words frightened her. It was silly, she knew; there was nothing frightening about telling your husband you loved him—unless you couldn’t recall him ever saying those three simple words to you.
“I want to be your wife,” she whispered instead, and she smiled. “And I want to know why you call me Gypsy. You said you’d…” Joanna’s breath caught. “David! What are you…?”
“I’m getting reacquainted with my wife,” he murmured, his breath warm against her breasts and then against her belly. “Your skin is like silk, do you know that? Hot silk, especially here.”
She cried out as he buried his face between her thighs and kissed her, again and again, until she was sobbing with the pleasure of it. And after she’d shattered against his mouth he rose over her and buried himself deep inside her, riding her with deep, powerful thrusts until she climbed that impossible mountain of sensation once again, then tumbled from its peak as he exploded within her.
There were tears on Joanna’s cheeks when David at last withdrew from her. He tasted their salinity as he kissed her.
“Don’t cry, sweetheart,” he whispered.
“I’m not,” she said, and cried even harder, “I’m just so happy.”
He kissed her again as he gathered her into his arms.
“Joanna,” he said, “I…”
He bit back the words just in time. Joanna, he’d almost said, I love you.
But how could he tell her that? It was too soon. He couldn’t even let himself think it, not so long as he both knew and didn’t know the woman he held in his arms.
“I’m glad,” he said softly, and then he rose to his feet and carried her up the stairs to their bedroom, where he held her tightly in his arms all through the rest of the long night.
* * *
When he awoke again, it was morning.
The rain had stopped, the sun was shining, a warm breeze was blowing through the open window.
And the wonderful scent of fresh coffee drifted on the air.
David rose, dragged on a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt. He made a quick stop in the bathroom. The shower curtain was pulled back and there was a damp towel hanging over the rod.
Barefoot, thrusting his fingers into his hair to push it back from his forehead, he made his way down to the kitchen.
Joanna was turned away from him, standing in the open back door so that the morning sunlight fell around her like a golden halo. Her hair was still damp
and fell over her shoulders in a wild tumble. She was barefoot and wearing a pair of incredibly baggy shorts that sagged to her knees and an old cotton shirt of his that still bore traces of the buttercup yellow paint they’d used to paint the pantry years before.
My wife, he thought, my beautiful wife.
His heart felt as if it were expanding within his chest. Back in his college days, during one of the all-night bull sessions that had been, in their way, as valuable as any class time, a guy who’d had one beer too many had said something about there being a moment in a man’s life when everything that was important came together in a perfect blend.
David knew that this was that moment. No matter what the future held, there would never be an instant more right than this one, with Joanna standing before him, limned in golden sunlight, after a night spent in his arms.
“Good morning,” he said, when he could trust his voice.
She spun toward him. He saw the swift race of changing emotions on her face, the joy at seeing him warring with the morning-after fluster of a woman new to a man’s bed, and he smiled and held out his arms. She hesitated for a heartbeat, and then she flew into his embrace.
“Good morning,” she whispered, tilting her face up to his. He accepted the invitation gladly and kissed her. She sighed and leaned back in his arms. “I didn’t wake you, did I?”
He shook his head and put on a mock ferocious scowl. “No. And I want to talk to you about that.”
Joanna’s brows rose. “What do you mean?”
“I like it when you wake me.” The scowl gave way to a sexy grin. “Very much, as a matter of fact. There I was, all ready to greet the day with a special pagan ritual—”
“A special pagan…?”
“Uh-huh. And I had all the ingredients, too. The sun, the bed, my ever-ready male anatomy…”
“David!” Joanna blushed. “That’s awful.”
His arms tightened around her. “You didn’t think so last night.”
