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‘What are you thinking?’ Guy asked.
‘Nothing,’ she replied, though she didn’t look away. Didn’t break the connection between them.
* * *
That look she was giving him was dangerous.
It was knowing.
It shouldn’t be—she’d told him that she couldn’t remember being with him, but that was not what her face was telling him. He knew that look; he remembered it well. It was the look she got when she was thinking about sex. About him. He should know. He’d seen it often enough. Looked for it, in fact, knowing that they could share a heated look and then she would seek him out later and find a way for them to sneak off together and meet somewhere. That look had led them to this island once. And here they were again, Meena with that look on her face, though he knew that she couldn’t remember what they’d shared here.
‘I don’t believe you,’ he said with a smile that he couldn’t help forming, regardless of the danger they were heading towards. ‘Tell me.’
She didn’t have to. He knew that she was perfectly capable of ignoring his command. It was a question of whether she wanted to share with him. He wasn’t sure that he wanted her to. Whether that was a good idea.
‘I don’t know,’ Meena said. ‘I have these...images...in my head, and I don’t know if they’re real or if I’m making them up.’
‘Why don’t you tell me what they are? I’ll tell you if they’re real.’
‘I—I can’t,’ she said, and he knew that he had been right. She was thinking about sex. Which was interesting on so many fronts. Had she remembered something? If she had, that was huge. From what she’d told him, they would be the first memories that she’d recovered of that time before her accident. And if they weren’t really memories, if it was her imagination, that meant that she was fantasising about him. About them together. And that meant that their past was still very much in the present. He could feel it between them. How could he not when she was positively humming with sexual energy?
‘They can’t be memories,’ she said, shaking her head, her voice uncertain.
‘Why not?’ Surely there was the possibility that her memories could return. She’d acknowledged that to him before.
‘Because I don’t have any memories!’ she stated. ‘These are just...flashes. Feelings.’ Her voice trailed off, but he couldn’t leave this unfinished. It didn’t matter that he knew that he was leading them towards danger.
‘About me?’ he asked.
She narrowed her eyes, clearly fighting with herself about whether to answer honestly. Or at all.
‘Yes, about you.’ She paused. ‘Always about you,’ she added with a sigh. Her body softened beside him and he ached to draw her into his arms. He could see the toll that it was taking on her, not knowing their past. Searching for memories that her brain couldn’t access. He knew how much strength it was taking her to ask him to fill those missing memories for her.
‘What about me?’ Guy asked. She needed this. She wanted this. Wanted to know the answers to these questions.
He knew that he was strolling into danger. But he couldn’t help it. Couldn’t stop himself. Out here, on this beach, on their beach, knowing that Meena was running X-rated fantasies of them through her mind, looking for clues that might tell her if they were real, the real world felt too far away. It could have been that night. It could have been the night that they had come out here and lain on a blanket just like this one, and she had loved and trusted him, and he had been deserving of that love.
While they were here, he could make himself believe that he was that man again, could be that man again. That he could be deserving of her trust.
He turned to her at the same moment as she turn
ed to him, and suddenly she was closer to him than she had been for the past seven years.
His eyes never left hers as his arm curved around her back, watching for any sign that she wanted him to stop. Hoping that she would be the one to be sensible and put a stop to this, because he wasn’t sure that he could. His other hand still rested on the soft, worn cotton of the blanket they had spread on the sand beneath them. Meena’s eyes drifted closed and he watched those long, thick lashes as they brushed against her skin before she opened them again. When she met his gaze this time, there was something new in her expression. A determination and a fearlessness that he had seen before.
He sighed, smiled. Knowing that he was lost. Helpless, as he always had been with Meena.
She leaned in, those eyelashes sweeping shut again as she closed the distance between them. His hand came up to cup her cheek, holding her just before that moment when their lips would meet. Wanting to stretch this moment, to soak in it. In the promise of everything that was to come. To stretch that moment before their lives became so much more complicated.
Their first kiss hadn’t been so considered. It had been furiously hot, between two young, inexperienced kids who had no idea what they were getting themselves into.
He couldn’t launch himself in blind this time. He knew too much for that. Knew where this could lead. Knew how good this was going to be.
And with that memory he groaned, slipped his hand through the thick curls of her hair and brought her mouth to his.
At the first touch of her lips, he wanted to explode. To push her back on the soft cotton of the blanket and show her exactly what they had been missing out on for the last seven years. Instead, he shut off his imagination and channelled every firing neuron into the present moment. To fully experiencing the subtle friction of her lips. To hearing every nuance of the moan that escaped her as his tongue touched hers for the first time. His hand reached for the soft curve of her waist and he schooled it to stay gentle. To ignore the impulse begging him to squeeze her hard. To wrap both arms tight around her waist and never let her go. He dragged himself back to the present, drowning in the smell of her hair, the soft give of her flesh beneath his hands, and wasn’t sure he would ever be able to stop.
* * *
