Not wanting to spook her, he kept his movements slow, and it did the trick — she wasn’t afraid when he gripped her fingers gently. She was anything but afraid, if truth be told. As he began rubbing his thumb along the back of her hand in soothing strokes, she felt heat flickering low in her stomach.
“Who are you?” she gasped, feeling a bit off balance, a sensation that grew more intense as he increased his efforts.
“You might not remember exactly who I am, but I can see in your eyes that you can feel what I am to you, Adara.” He lifted her hand to his mouth and ran his lips along her knuckles before turning the hand over and kissing her palm.
“I can feel something,” she said, and her cheeks heated.
“Don’t be shy, my love. My name is Chris, and we’re engaged to be married. We’ve often . . . shared a bed, and soon you’ll see that we have nothing to be embarrassed about around each other.”
She wanted to tell him to stop — tell him not to talk that way — but his words were wreaking havoc on her insides, making her also want him to keep on doing and saying the things he was. Strange.
“I’ve tasted you many, many times, most cherished Adara. Our love life, if I may say so, is breathtaking.” Chris moved his lips to her wrist, to the exact place where her pulse was beginning to beat out of control.
His tongue drifted out and he forged a tingling path against her skin, going up to her elbow and then back down to her wrist. She was practically moaning by the time he had finished.
“May I lie down with you, Adara? You gave me quite a scare, and I need to hold you,” he told her, making her heart thump.
“I . . . I kind of understand that we might have been in a relationship, but I’m afraid right now, really afraid, and this all feels brand-new to me. I’m not ready . . . I mean . . .” She stopped speaking, not knowing what to say to this man. She was worried that if she turned him down now, he would just go away, and though she wasn’t sure who he was, he did feel familiar to her. She couldn’t help but want him right there beside her.
“I won’t make love to you tonight, my lovely Adara. I promise you that. I just need to hold you.”
Still, he did nothing more than kiss her wrist, her fingers, her palm. He didn’t lie down, didn’t press her. And after a few moments, she felt her tension ease.
“Yes, I think I would really enjoy it if you held me,” she told him.
He stood, releasing her hand, and she nearly whimpered at the loss of his touch. He looked at her with a knowing light in his eyes. How frustrating it was not to remember this man. How could anyone forget a man like him?
He began undoing the buttons on his shirt and her mouth gaped open. His tanned chest was magnificent, solid, and defined, and beneath it were the most incredible abs she could imagine. The dark hair and tanned skin along with his bright blue eyes and firm jawline — they were all perfection. He was all perfection. Hell, dictionaries probably used him to illustrate that word.
“I . . . um . . . thought we . . .um . . . weren’t going to do anything,” she managed to stammer.
“I didn’t say we’d do nothing. I just said we wouldn’t make love,” he said, smiling broadly and showing his beautiful white teeth.
“Oh . . .” She didn’t know what else to say.
“Do you want me to touch you, Adara?” he asked as he undid the button on his trousers and began sliding them down, leaving himself standing before her in nothing but a pair of boxer briefs.
Her eyes were drawn to the only part of him now covered, and as she gazed at him, she was fascinated to watch his shorts tighten. Wow. Nature had been generous.
“If you keep looking at me with that hungry look in your eyes, I’m not going to be able to keep my promise to you,” he said as he sat back down on the bed.
She kept staring at him for a few seconds more. “I’m sorry. . . . I . . . I was just trying to figure out if I could remember . . . you know . . . um . . . us making love . . .” Adara’s face flamed deepest red.
“I assure you that you will remember, and when you do, you’ll wonder how you could have ever forgotten,” he told her. He lay down beside her and pulled her into his arms.
She was stiff against him for a moment, but as he rubbed soothingly up and down her back with one hand, she began to relax. Slowly, she moved her own hand from her side and rested it on his hard chest. And then she found herself drawing small circles around his nipples and down the solid lines of his abs.
“Ah, I could lie here all night and feel your touch. What it does to me is indescribable,” he said on a slight moan.
“I can’t remember us, but it’s almost as if I can remember doing this,” she had to admit.
“To hear you say that brings me so much pleasure,” he murmured as he turned from his back to his side so they were facing each other. Her covered breasts pushed up against his chest, and their faces were now only inches apart.
“Lying next to you feels so familiar. I wish I knew the right words to say,” she said with a hesitant laugh. Then she spoke again. “Do we often cuddle like this?” When he didn’t answer immediately, she grew concerned. “What’s wrong?”
His eyelids drifted down for a brief moment. But he opened them again and their gazes met.
“I don’t want to lie to you, Adara. It’s hard for you to speak of your emotions. You say everything with a look, with a touch, but you’re uncomfortable, it seems, with speaking from your heart. When you know me again, I hope you’ll be able to tell me more openly what you’re holding there inside that beautiful heart of yours.”
She wasn’t sure how she felt about this man, but she did know she wanted to give him almost anything he desired. She wanted to please him, to love him — and for him to love her. She didn’t have the words, but she did want to show him what she was feeling right now.
Leaning in — was this something she did often? — Adara captured Chris’s lips, and suddenly emotions filtered through her that made her press her body against his in an attempt to find relief.
He nibbled on her bottom lip before biting down a little harder, making her open up to him. Then heat overtook her as he explored the recesses of her mouth, capturing her tongue with his in a wild dance, then releasing it and tracing her lips again.
He pushed against her back and drew their bodies tightly together. He groaned against her lips, and she thrust her hips forward, needing to feel his hardness against the part of her now aching the most.
“Adara, Adara, what you do to me,” he gasped as he pulled back only the slightest bit so he could look at her.
Gazing at him through passion-filled eyes, she couldn’t imagine ever having to struggle to tell him how she felt. “You’re so beautiful.”
He chuckled. “Men rarely like to be described as beautiful, my princess.”
“Oh, but that’s the first thought that comes to my mind when I look at you. Beautiful — absolute perfection.”
He moved a hand up her side and slipped it around to her stomach before traveling upward, over the curve of her breast, and her breath whooshed in when his palm came into contact with her swollen nipple.
“You, my darling, are the one who’s beautiful. And I want to show you all night long how much I worship your beauty, but I can’t. I made a promise to you, and I intend to keep it,” he said with a deep sigh. He pulled his hand away and let it rest on her side.
“If we’ve already made love before . . .” She wasn’t quite able to tell him that she had to have him inside her right now, but she desperately wanted him to keep on with what he was doing.
“Oh, you are a temptress, and I will pay the price tonight. I predict an ice-cold shower in my near future. But I insist on waiting. I hope that it’s not too long, but I will hold off for your sake. Then, when we finally come together, it will be spectacular.”
Though her whole body was aching, Adara felt another sensation of warmth travel through her as Chris flipped onto his back, drew her against him, and whispered loving w
ords against her hair.
She still felt the desire inside her, but it was ebbing as a different warmth filled her, a warmth she was sure was telling her that she was in love with this man. Her memory had to return soon.
Chapter Eight
Stretching her arms above her head, Adara lifted her back from the bed and let out a groan of relief. She’d slept so soundly, and that was amazing, really, under the circumstances.
“Are you okay?”
She jumped and turned her head to find Chris sitting by the bed, a smile and a day’s growth of beard on his beautiful face.
“I feel pretty great, actually,” she said. “No headache today, and no . . . I don’t know. I’m just not feeling bad.” But as she woke up more fully, she suddenly felt self-conscious and pulled the covers all the way up to her chin.
“There’s no need to hide your body from me, sweetheart.” He rose and sat down on the bed, and then reached out and tugged her toward him.
“I . . . um . . . I know,” she said, shaking away the cobwebs in her poor head. “Or at least I think I know.”
“You’re just confused. The doctor said that’s to be expected for a while.”
“Why don’t you tell me how we met? What were our lives like up until the plane crash? Maybe that will help jog my memory.”
There was that hesitation again. He did that a lot. Adara wondered whether he was just thinking about where to begin.
“We’ve been together for three months,” he finally said.
