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The wish that they could create another baby and then she’d have to be his was savage and insane. Just the way it had been all those years ago.
Reality returned as he came down, tasting the salty sweat on her neck, and the first jabs of shame and panic assaulted him. Hell, he’d taken her like an animal. He should have held back. He didn’t want her to know how much he needed her.
He eased out of her. Felt her flinch.
‘Did I hurt you?’
She was trembling. ‘No, I’m fine.’
The words pulsed in his skull. Mocking him and making him ache at the same time. He forced an easy smile to his lips and turned on the hot jets of the shower. Steam rose as he checked the temperature.
‘Let’s get cleaned up.’
He dragged her under the spray with him. But as he washed her hair, feeling the strands like wet silk through his fingers, that need consumed him all over again. To hold her, to have her, to make her stay.
And the visceral fear that had lurked inside him for so long roared into life and chilled him to the bone.
* * *
‘Is everything okay?’
Xanthe watched Dane leave the shower cubicle and grab a towel, feeling his sudden withdrawal like a physical blow.
He wrapped the towel round his hips. ‘Sure,’ he said, but he didn’t turn towards her as he bent to pick up the toiletries scattered over the floor.
The joy that had been so fresh and new and exciting a moment ago, when he’d taken her with such hunger and purpose, faded. She turned off the shower and pulled one of the fluffy bath sheets off the vanity unit to wrap around herself, suddenly feeling exposed and so needy.
Had she completely misjudged everything? All the signals she’d thought he’d been sending her this evening that there might be more? That his feelings matched her own?
‘I’ll do it.’ She stepped towards him to help pick up her toiletries, but he shrugged off her outstretched hand.
‘I made the mess. I’ll clean it up.’ He placed the bag on the vanity unit, dumping the last of its scattered contents inside.
The strangely impersonal tone sent a shudder through her. She wrapped the towel tighter. Then lifted another towel to dry her hair.
‘Where are the birth control pills?’
The clattering beat of her heart jumped into an uneasy rhythm at the flat question. ‘Sorry?’
‘Your pills? You said you were on the pill,’ he prompted. ‘I don’t see them here.’
He’d checked her toiletries for contraceptive pills? Agony twisted in the pit of her stomach. Slicing through the last of the joy.
‘I’m not on the pill.’
His brows arrowed down in a confused frown. ‘So what type of birth control are you using?’
She could see the accusation in his eyes, hear the brittle demand in his voice, and all the blurred edges came together to create a shocking and utterly terrifying truth.
She’d been wrong—so wrong—all over again.
‘I’m not using any,’ she said.
‘What the hell—?’
He looked so shocked she felt the hole in the pit of her stomach ripped open—until it was the same gaping wound that had crippled her once before.
He marched towards her and gripped her arm. ‘What kind of game are you playing? Are you nuts? I could have gotten you pregnant again.’
