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She pulled back, taken aback by the bluntness of his question. He looked startled, too, at having asked that.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, moving closer as suddenly as he had retreated, the shock falling from his face leaving something softer, yet more intense. ‘Stupid question.’ His hand lifted to her face, cupping her cheek as he moved closer. So close that she could feel the warmth of his breath on her lips. ‘I get you.’
‘And that’s not enough?’ she asked, wishing her voice didn’t sound so small.
‘God, Meena.’ He sounded as if the words were being ripped from his throat. ‘It was always enough.’
His hands threaded through her hair, pausing as they encountered the bumps of her scar tissue, smoothing them with his fingertips. He tilted her face back up to his and then his lips were on hers.
* * *
That’s not enough? He wasn’t sure that anything was ever going to be enough when it came to Meena. From before the moment that his lips had touched hers, he’d wanted the wet heat of her mouth. From the instant that he’d felt her tongue against his, he’d wanted more, deeper. When her body pressed against him, he wanted heated, naked skin, cool silk sheets and weeks to rediscover her body.
It had always been that way for him.
When they had first been together, she’d been the one to hold back. To grant first kisses, then touches. And she had held back in other ways, too. She had been the one who had insisted that they keep their relationship a secret. Which he’d understood. Of course he had—St Antoine was a conservative country; women could be judged harshly for sex outside of marriage. And she’d been worried for her job, what might happen if she was found having a relationship with him.
But it had still angered him. Because what did any of it matter, if she was moving to Australia? But she had been insistent that she didn’t want to be the subject of gossip, even if she was leaving soon. And she didn’t want to be fired—she wanted a letter of recommendation. Which had all been completely rea
sonable, he could acknowledge now.
But at the time, once he’d got back to Australia, it had only fuelled this idea that he’d imagined it all. Not the kisses. Not the sex. There was no way his imagination was that good. But the rest of it. Their plans for the future. Their intimacy. The whispered words of love that they had shared, first shyly and then urgently, as his time on the island had drawn to a close and they had realised that they had a decision to make.
Now he knew that she would have come with him if it hadn’t been for the accident... And that all his feelings of abandonment and hurt that he had carried with him for years had come from nowhere—or, probably more accurately, from his own fears and insecurities; they had nothing to do with how Meena had felt about him and everything to do with how he had felt about himself. He’d turned that self-doubt against himself, and it had done so much damage to his heart that the pain had radiated out and started to hurt the people around him. But the damage had been done, whether it was based on a misunderstanding or not. And he couldn’t risk hurting Meena again.
She’d been through too much. Deserved better than him. Better than the person who he was now.
But, when he was kissing her, he didn’t feel like that person any more.
He felt again like the man he had been when he had first met her. When he’d been trying to find a way to impress his parents, getting to know their business and hoping that they would see that he wasn’t as useless as they seemed to think. Like a man who had found the person who made him feel strong, capable and decisive.
Meena moaned into his mouth, and he didn’t care whether he was the boy he had been before or the man he was now. All he knew was that he was a man, and the woman he desired more than any other was kissing him back, and he wasn’t going to stop her.
How could he stop her, when this was everything that he wanted? With Meena in his arms, sliding onto his lap, he could believe that he was wrong. That he could be the person who fell in love with her again. That he could love her without hurting her.
Meena’s hands tightened on his shoulders and he wrapped his arms round her waist in response, rolling over so he was lying above her, the sun hot on the back of his head, her body soft beneath him. Her shirt had rucked up as he’d rolled them over and he couldn’t resist the heat of that golden-bronze skin. His hand explored, and his eyes and lips followed, her fingers threading through his hair as he pressed first one kiss and then another to the soft skin of her stomach.
But then with a wrench she pulled her shirt down, and he lifted himself up on his elbows, looking into Meena’s eyes as she lay beneath him.
Which was enough time for doubt to flicker over her features.
* * *
‘Guy... I can’t,’ she said. ‘This isn’t me.’
His brows creased. ‘I don’t want to do anything you don’t want to, Meena,’ he said, putting more space between them. ‘But...if this is what you want... Meena, it is you. It can be you.’
‘But I don’t do this sort of thing,’ she said, wrapping her arms around her body.
He gave her a small smile. ‘It doesn’t have to be a sort of thing you do,’ Guy said, giving her space, but looking at her so intensely that she felt herself squirm. ‘It can just be something that you want to do now. Here. With me.’
He moved away from her a fraction more, leaving her cold where he had been pressed against her. She relaxed a little, secure in the knowledge that if she didn’t want this then he wouldn’t want it either. This would be so much easier if she actually knew what she wanted, though.
Except that wasn’t right, she acknowledged to herself. She knew exactly what she wanted. What she wanted was laid out in front of her, waiting for her to come to him. The question was whether she was going to take it. She wanted him, but she couldn’t shake that voice in her head that told her that she shouldn’t.
Guy leaned towards her and kissed her lips so softly, so gently, that she felt herself melting. And with that, she knew that this couldn’t be wrong. It didn’t matter what she’d thought she’d had planned for her life. All she had to think about was what she wanted for herself now. And she knew that there was no way that this could be anything other than beautiful.
She kissed him back, her lips curving into a smile.
