‘Don’t be stupid,’ she scolded herself. ‘There’s no such thing as ghosts.’ But, even so, when she looked at the photographs she felt as if she were encountering something supernatural—the ghost of who she had been for the past two years.
She picked up the first frame and studied it for a moment. It was a photo of her lying on a blanket in an olive grove, the sun coming down at an angle, highlighting her honey-blonde hair and grey-blue eyes. She was smiling coquettishly at the camera, flirting with whoever was behind the camera lens.
She put the frame down and picked up the next one, her heart giving a little skip when she saw Javier with his arms wrapped around her from behind, his tall frame slightly stooped as his chin rested on the top of her head, his smile wide and proud as he faced the camera. She could almost feel his hard body pressing into her back, the swell of his arousal, the pulse and thrum of his blood…
The door of the study suddenly opened and Emelia dropped the frame, the glass shattering on the floor at her feet. She stood frozen for a moment as Javier stepped into the room, closing the door with a click that sounded like a prison cell being locked.
‘Don’t touch it,’ he commanded when she began to bend at the knees. ‘You might cut yourself.’
‘I’m sorry…’ Emelia said, glancing down at the floor before meeting his gaze. ‘You frightened me.’
His black eyes didn’t waver as they held hers. ‘I can assure you that was not my intention.’
Emelia swallowed as he approached the desk. He was wearing a white casual polo shirt and beige jodhpurs and long black leather riding boots, looking every inch the brooding hero of a Regency novel. He smelt of the outdoors with a hint of horse and hay and something that was essentially male, essentially him. He filled her nostrils with it, making her feel as if she was being cast under an intoxicating spell. His tall authoritarian presence, that aura of command he wore like an extra layer of skin, that air of arrogance and assuredness that was so at odds with her insecurities and doubts and memory blanks. ‘I…I was trying to see if anything in here jogged my memory,’ she tried her best to explain.
He hooked a brow upwards. ‘And did it?’
She bit her lower lip, glancing at the shattered glass on the floor, which seemed to sever them as a couple. Was it symbolic in some way? A shard of glass was lying across their smiling faces, almost cutting them in two. She brought her gaze back to his. ‘No…’ She let out a sigh. ‘I don’t remember when that photo was taken or where.’
He bent down and carefully removed the remaining pieces of glass from the photo frame before placing it back on the desk. ‘It was taken a few days after we got home from our honeymoon. I took you for a picnic to one of the olive groves on the estate. The other photo with us together was taken in Rome.’
Emelia ran her tongue over her dry lips before asking, ‘Where did we go for our honeymoon?’
He was standing close, too close. She felt the alarm bells of her senses start to ring when he stepped even closer. The wall of bookshelves was at her back, each ancient tome threatening to come down and smother her. His dark eyes meshed with hers, holding them entranced. She felt her heart give a knock against her breastbone in anticipation of that sensuous mouth coming down to hers. She suddenly realised how much she wanted that mouth to soften against hers, to kiss her tenderly, lingeringly, to explore every corner of her mouth in intimate detail.
He placed his hand under the curtain of her hair, his fingers warm and dry against the sensitive skin of her neck. ‘Where do you think we went?’ he asked.
Emelia’s teeth sank into her bottom lip, her brain working overtime. ‘Um…Paris?’
His hand stilled and one of his dark brows lifted. ‘Was that a guess or do you remember something?’ he asked.
‘I’ve always dreamed of honeymooning in Paris,’ she said. ‘It’s supposed to be the most romantic city in the world. And I saw the stamp on my passport so I suppose it wasn’t such a wild guess.’
He continued to hold her gaze for endless moments, his fingers moving in a rhythmic motion at her nape. ‘Your dream came true, Emelia,’ he said. ‘I gave you a honeymoon to surpass all honeymoons.’
She sucked half of her bottom lip into her mouth, releasing it to say, ‘I’m sorry. You must be thinking what a shocking waste of money it was now that I can’t even recall a second of it.’
He gave a couldn’t-care-less shrug. ‘We can have a second honeymoon, sí? One that you will never forget.’
Emelia’s eyes went to his mouth of their own volition. He was smiling that sexy half-smile again, the one that made her blood race through her veins. What was it about this man that made her so breathless with excitement? It was as if he only had to look at her and she was a trembling mass of needs and wants. She felt the tingling of her skin as he touched her with those long fingers. The fingers that had clearly touched her in places she wasn’t sure she wanted to think about. He knew her so well and yet he was still a stranger to her.
A second honeymoon?
Her belly turned over itself. How could she sleep with a man she didn’t know? It would be nothing but physical attraction, an animal instinct, an impulse she had never felt compelled to respond to before.
Or had she?
How did she know what their history was? She could only go on what he had told her. She hadn’t thought herself the type to fall in love so rapidly, to marry someone within weeks of meeting them. But then maybe she hadn’t fallen in love with him. Maybe she had fallen in lust. She shied away from the thought but it kept creeping back to taunt her. He was so dangerously attractive. She could feel the pull of his magnetism even now, the thrill of him touching her, the stroke of his fingers so drugging she could feel herself capitulating second by second. His eyes were dark pools of mystery, luring her in, making her drown in their enigmatic depths. She felt her eyelids come down to half mast, her breathing becoming choppy as his hand stilled at the back of her neck, pressing her forwards with a gentle but determined action as his mouth came within a breath of hers.
‘D-don’t…’ Her voice came out hoarse, uncertain and not at all convincing.
His hand still cupped the nape of her neck, warm and strong, supportive and yet determined. ‘Don’t what?’ he asked in a low deep burr.
She swallowed. ‘You know what…’
‘Is it not right for a husband to kiss his wife?’ he asked.
‘But I…I don’t feel like your wife,’ Emelia said breathlessly.
There was a three beat pause as his dark eyes locked on hers.
‘Then it is about time you did,’ he said and, swooping down, covered her mouth with his.
EMELIA’S heart almost stopped when his mouth touched down on hers. The raw male scent of him was intoxicating, dangerous, and that alone would have had her senses spinning, but the pressure of his lips upon hers drew from her a response she wasn’t entirely sure she should be giving. He cradled her head in his hands, giving her no room to pull away even if she had the wherewithal to do so. The contact of his mouth on hers was explorative at first, light, tentative almost, but then, with just one very masculine stroke of his tongue, everything changed.
Her lips opened to him as if of their own volition, instinctively, welcoming him inside the moist cave of her mouth. Her tongue met his briefly, flirting around it, dancing with it until finally mating with it at its command. He subdued her with the power of each stroke and thrust of his tongue, teasing her into submission, relishing the victory by crushing his mouth to hers with increasing pressure. Emelia felt the surge of his body against her,