Wounds of Passion

‘I know, but—’

‘But as you can’t hit back at the man who did, you’re determined to make me pay his bill?’ he harshly asked, and she was horrified.

‘That isn’t true!’

‘Then why don’t you want me to stay here? Do I really look so much like him?’ He caught her shoulders, his hard blue eyes hunting over her face. ‘Look at me, Antonia. Do I really look like him?’

‘I don’t remember what he looked like!’ she burst out, and saw his face tense, his eyes narrow.

‘But you remember me,’ he thought aloud in a low, flat voice.

She didn’t answer. How could she possibly confess to him that he had been haunting her dreams for two years? She hadn’t even realised herself, until now, that she had no idea what the other man had really looked like, although she had never forgotten Patrick.

‘Do we have to keep talking about it?’ she whispered. ‘I’m going up to change.’ She began to hurry towards the door, only to find her way barred.

‘I wish I knew what went on inside your head,’ he said. ‘I’m beginning to wonder if you blame me, even though you do realise it wasn’t my fault it happened.’

Her eyes widened in shock. ‘Of course I don’t!’ she denied, although she wasn’t quite sure she was being strictly truthful. There had been times when she had half blamed him, because if he hadn’t forced her to notice him and then walked off she wouldn’t have followed him and been attacked.

‘You don’t hate me?’

‘No!’

‘Prove it,’ Patrick said softly.

Antonia stared at him with bewilderment. ‘What?’

‘Show me you don’t hate me,’ he whispered.

He reached down and picked up one of her hands. She stiffened at his touch, and his blue eyes watched her intently.

‘If you don’t blame me, or hate me, why do you keep jumping every time I’m anywhere near you?’

‘I can’t help it!’

‘Is it so terrifying just to have me hold your hand?’ he coaxed, and she bit her lip, then shook her head.

He smiled suddenly and her heart turned over at the charm in that smile—the little lines that creased in that tanned skin beside his eyes, the crook of his mouth.

He lifted her hand and she drew a sharp breath as he held it against his cheek.

Watching her, he turned his head slightly and his lips brushed her hand. Antonia couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe properly. His mouth opened against her palm; his tongue moved lightly, moistly, and she began to shake so much that she swayed. At once his arm went round her waist and she tensed, ready to fight, to run, to push him away.

‘Was that so frightening?’ he softly asked, smiling again, and she slowly relaxed again.

‘No, of course not.’ She tried to back away, her eyes flickering nervously. ‘Alex will be back any minute.’

‘What a tiny waist you’ve got,’ Patrick said, his hand pressing along her spine, pushing her closer, closer, until there was barely any space at all between them.

She put her hands against his shoulders to thrust him away, shivering. ‘Stop it! Let go!’

He relaxed his hold again, but didn’t let her go. Staring down into her eyes, he murmured, ‘What was it you didn’t want me to do in your dreams, Antonia?’

Hot colour rushed up her face; her sea-blue eyes widened like great pools of stricken light.

‘Was it this?’ Patrick asked, and his mouth swooped, moving urgently, hotly, against her parted, quivering lips, his tongue-tip sliding between them.

For a second she just stood there like a stone statue, then she fell back into darkness again, back in the confusing, disturbing dreams that had haunted her for two years. She was torn between a wild attraction and a sick dread, fighting herself as much as him, not even sure who he was now that her eyes were shut and he was just a male body touching her, intimately, sending these tremors of devastating upheaval right through her, making her want him, even while she hated him.