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He cupped his hand on the back of her head. ‘It wasn’t your fault, Nina.’
‘But she was making my cake—’
‘It wasn’t your fault. A heater was faulty. That wasn’t your fault.’ There was heartfelt despair in his voice as he tried to persuade her. ‘You can’t always control what happens to other people or protect them from unseen danger. Accidents happen, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You just have to accept it.’
‘At least now I know why I react so badly to fireworks and sudden loud noises.’ She risked a look back along the beach to where the moving figures were silhouetted by a brilliant emerald green glow in the sand. ‘I wonder why I suddenly remembered this time?’
‘Perhaps because that particular memory isn’t the preeminent threat it used to be. Perhaps because tonight when it happened, you were with someone you—you instinctively trusted to understand.’
‘I’m c-cold!’ Nina was racked with violent shivers as she knelt in the sand, her cramped limbs feeling numb under her clothing. ‘Oh, God, why am I so cold…?’
‘Because it’s freezing out here and you’ve given yourself a shock.’ Ryan wrapped her tightly in the blanket and stood up, holding her swaddled body high against his chest as he carried her over the sand and up the bank to the house.
Once inside, he set her down by the fire and rubbed at her arms and back through the fabric, but she still couldn’t stop her shivering. She fought her arms free of the mohair folds and wrapped them around him, going on tiptoe so that she could press her face into the curve of his neck, into his warm male flesh.
‘Ryan…oh, Ryan.’ She felt grief, the old remembered pain mixing with a new and confusing swirl of emotion. This man was someone that she feared, that she knew in her heart had the power to hurt her, and yet she wanted him, needed him, needed the strength and support he represented and, yes, the joy, too. ‘Hold me,’ she whispered frantically to him, as he had once begged her. Her mouth opened against his throat, her tongue stroking, tasting him, savouring the remembered ecstasy.
‘Nina—you’re still freezing. You should take a hot shower…’ he began hoarsely.
‘No…I want you to warm me up!’ She let her head tip back, her arms sliding over his shoulders, her hands linking at the nape of his neck, her spiky-damp lashes framing green eyes that glowed with turbulent passion.
He groaned, the blanket falling in hushed folds to the floor as his hands lifted from her back, hovering away from her sides as if he dared not touch her. ‘How do you expect me to do that?’
She licked her parted lips, glossing them with inviting moisture. ‘You know how….’ she said huskily. She half lowered her pale eyelids, giving her upturned face a look of slumberous sensuality even as her body vibrated with tension.
His hands settled convulsively at her waist, his thumbs pushing up against her lower ribs. ‘You don’t know what you want from me,’ he said in a strained voice.
‘Yes, I do,’ she countered, arching her spine so that her breasts moved against his chest. ‘I’m asking you to make love to me.’ Her hands trailed down over his chest and up under his sweater to find the nipples that she knew were sensitive, pressing against his shirt. ‘I thought that was what you wanted, too,’ she murmured, scratching at them with her fingernails.
With a rough curse, he caught at her hands, pulling them roughly out from under the fine wool and manacling them together. Nina retaliating by lifting one knee, sliding it up the inner seam of his trousers until her thigh pressed into the notch between his legs, rubbing against an exciting hardness.
‘Come on, Ryan, there’s no reason to hold back any more,’ she urged throatily, the hot and cold shivers thrilling her body intensifying the urgency of her desire. ‘Remind me what a fantastic lover you are.’
He bent his head and crushed the provocative words back into her mouth in a long, mind-bending, soul-savaging kiss. Then, with shocking suddenness, he broke it off, resting his hard forehead against hers as they both struggled for breath, and he fought for control.
