“I don’t want to hurt you,” he murmured between kisses.
She pulled back just far enough to rip open his shirt and bare the rest of that amazing chest to her. “What about you?” she asked, then nibbled his full lower lip. “I wouldn’t want to cause you discomfort, either.”
He didn’t bother answering with words. Instead, proving his physical prowess in spite of his injury, he lifted her, taking most of her weight with his good arm, and carried her to the bed.
For a long while they simply stood there, next to the enormous bed still rumpled from the previous night’s tossing and turning, and stared into each other’s eyes. There was so much she wanted to know…to say…to believe. Words would never be enough to convey what she felt at that precise moment.
When they could no longer bear to merely look, they undressed each other slowly, the urgency taking a back seat to the more tender emotions neither of them could deny. Her blouse floated down to the floor. Shoes were kicked aside. His trousers as well as her slacks joined the tangle of attire scattered around them.
All that stood between them was the sheerest, most intimate of fabrics and soon those were gone, as well. The white bandage was stark against his dark skin, a startling reminder of how he had risked his life for hers. His broad shoulders looked powerful enough to hold up the world and she was so glad he carried the weight of hers for she was incapable of that enormous feat just now. The marvelously sculpted width narrowed into a lean, ribbed waist. The beat of her heart increased to a rapid staccato as her gaze moved over his well-endowed manhood and down those long, heavily muscled legs. Every part of him was perfectly formed.
She looked up into his eyes once more and found the same appreciation glimmering there that she felt. Her stomach tingled with the knowledge that her body pleased him, as well. She’d left off the bandage to support her ribs this morning and now she was glad for it.
Suddenly those strong arms wrapped around her and snuggled her body close to his. The nudge of his sex sent all sentimental thoughts and sensations scurrying away; there was only the undeniable need to have him buried deeply inside her.
He lowered her to the tousled bed and settled on all fours above her. Slowly, one lingering kiss at a time, he loved every welt, every bruise, every scrape on her flesh. Each flick of his tongue and tease of his lips sent shower after shower of heat and desire cascading along every square inch of her. That wicked mouth brushed the silken curls of her mound and she cried out with the intensity of it.
He parted her thighs and continued with his sensual torture. Using his tongue, his teeth and his lips, he suckled, nibbled and laved her to the very edge of orgasm. She wanted to beg him to stop, to plunge into her, but instead she urged him on, threading her fingers into this thick, dark hair, arching to meet him. One long finger slid inside her, making her feminine muscles contract wildly. She moaned her approval.
Another finger slipped inside, circled and rubbed. With two fingers deep inside her he suckled the budding part of her sex and sent her completely over the edge. She tensed as every sensory perception froze then focused entirely on that one part of her as wave after wave of sweet satiation flooded her. Her body grew limp with the heat of it.
She locked her legs around his and urged his hips toward hers. She needed him inside her now. To finish this the right way. Still, he held back; instead, taking more time to lave and suckle her breasts. Her fingers bit into his muscled arms, her hips rose to find fulfillment, but he denied her.
She was ready.
Michal peered into the blue eyes that had gone almost navy with desire. Lust glazed those wide depths, and it pleased him greatly to know he had taken her there. Her body arched like a bow once more, seeking to become one with his, but he held back, needing to see her like this a moment longer. To know, at this precise second, that she was completely his, body and soul.
The truth she had denied him only made him want her more. Common sense told him he shouldn’t trust her if she refused to tell him about the child, but her desperation made him understand. He knew desperation. Fool that he might be, he was certain he knew her.
She was his once more and that was all that mattered.
If he died tonight, having her at his side would make it worth the price.
With that thought he thrust fully into her hot, welcoming body. They cried out together and raw, primal pleasure quaked through them. He trembled and so did she.
His body burned with the need to spill his seed deep inside her…to make her with child again…to share every step of that momentous occasion with her this time.
Her hips rose to meet his every thrust, her gaze locked with his and in that moment of completion, when both their bodies reached the ultimate pinnacle, he knew that whatever happened tomorrow, tonight and the woman in his arms were all that mattered.
THAT NIGHT Michal made love to her twice more. Cocooned in his arms, Ami slept deeply, her body sated from their lovemaking. He held her tightly as if he feared she might somehow slip away during the night.
She dreamed of their time together before. Their lovemaking. The night Nicholas was conceived…on the eve of that dangerous mission.
She moaned, pushing away the next images that surfaced, but she couldn’t stop them. They tumbled in one over the other, dampening her skin with sweat…making her heart race…
HE WAS ON HIS KNEES. His olive skin and dark eyes contrasted sharply with his graying hair and his gauzy-white robe. Her gaze jerked back to his chest. The knife had been plunged deeply into his chest; blood soaked rapidly across the front of his white robe.
The pain in his eyes as he looked up at her shook her. “W-why?” he croaked.
She stared into those anguished eyes with no emotion except relief and then, suddenly she knew…
She stumbled back a step, her head shaking with the realization forming in her brain. Her eyes connected fully with his and she whispered, “Daddy?”
AMI BOLTED UPRIGHT in the bed, her lungs heaving against the lack of oxygen. She blinked in the darkness and the dream shattered into a thousand screaming pieces of agony.
Michal moved up beside her in the darkness, his arms going around her, comforting her.
“Are you all right?” he whispered hoarsely.
No.
Her heart thundered hard, but failed to send enough oxygen to her brain to ensure its proper function, leaving her unable to form the single syllable required to articulate that one word out loud.
She wasn’t all right. She would never be all right again.
She’d killed her father.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MICHAL WATCHED Ami sleep the next morning for a while longer before he left her. Part of him wanted to hold her again and to hear her cry out his name in that sweet, melodic voice caught in the throes of ecstasy, but she had hardly slept at all after the nightmares. He didn’t have the heart to wake her now that she appeared finally to be resting peacefully. Though he’d held her and crooned to her until she dozed off once more, her bits and pieces of sleep had been riddled with more nightmares. She had sobbed, crying out frequently.
I didn’t know. I didn’t know.
Whatever demons had haunted her, they had been relentless. None of her mumblings had made sense. The one phrase was the only string of distinguishable words.
When he considered all that she had been through since he’d dragged her back into his world, he supposed that was completely understandable. Even if she never fully remembered her past, her time with him had given her numerous events to evoke future nightmares.
She was right in that regard, he admitted. He had pulled her back into his world. Selfishly. But, had he not, the people of his own homeland would have hunted her down and executed her for the murder of Yael Peres. She had been much safer with him than left on her own.