She didn’t add that she hadn’t even allowed herself to savor those memories during the time she’d been away from him. It had simply hurt too much to remember.
“And you really thought I could forget those weeks?” he asked, sounding incredulous. “Just put our marriage behind me and go back to the way things were before I met you? You honestly thought my feelings were that shallow?”
“I—No...”
Had she thought it would be so easy for him? Had she had so little faith in the love he’d claimed for her that she’d thought he could put it behind him and go on as if he’d never met her?
She still remembered how amazed she’d been when Gabe Conroy, the handsome, virile, dashing young man she’d fallen in love with almost at first sight, had told her he’d felt the same way about her.
She’d been shy and inexperienced and awed by the intensity of her feelings for Gabe. She’d fallen in love for the first time in her life. She’d been literally swept off her feet by Gabe’s passionate, whirlwind court-ship—but had she failed to comprehend how much it had truly meant to him?
“I’m so very sorry I hurt you, Gabe,” she murmured. “If there had been any other way...”
He sighed wearily. “There was another way, Page. You could have told me.”
“I wouldn’t risk your life,” she repeated. How many times had she already told him that? How many more times would it take before he believed that she’d had no other choice?
“Why can’t you understand,” she asked, “that I loved you enough to give up everything for you?”
“And why can’t you understand,” he asked roughly, “that we should have faced this together? I know you’d been accustomed to handling everything on your own before we met, but when you married me that was supposed to have changed. We married for better or worse, remember?”
“Until death do us part,” she whispered with a shiver. “And that was an ending I just wasn’t ready to face.”
“We keep coming back to the same place,” he muttered, sounding discouraged. “You say you’re sorry, but you still won’t admit that you were wrong to leave.”
She swallowed a huge lump in her throat. “I couldn’t let him hurt you,” she whispered.
“And yet you almost destroyed me,” he answered starkly.
Another sob ripped through her. “I’m—Oh, God, Gabe, I only wanted—”
Before she’d even realized he’d moved, he had her in his arms. He held her in a desperate, almost painful grip, his face buried in her hair. She felt the fine tremors running th
rough him, and she clung to him, offering comfort, seeking something she was afraid to define.
His skin was so warm. She’d almost forgotten how the muscles rippled beneath the surface, how the coarseness of hair contrasted so deliciously with the sleekness of flesh. She could feel his heart hammering in his chest. His erection swelling against her abdomen.
He still smelled faintly of soap and shampoo from his quick shower. Nestling against him, she closed her eyes and indulged herself in experiencing him with her other senses.
His mouth moved against her cheek, and then closed over hers. Page lost herself in the kiss.
She’d been alone for so long. For so long, she’d dreamed of him holding her like this, comforting her, sheltering her from the pain, the fear.
A groan rumbled deep in Gabe’s throat, making his chest vibrate against her breasts. He worked his hands beneath her loose T-shirt to stroke her bare back. His palms were warm against her skin—hot. Greedy. He slid one hand lower to pull her more snugly against him.
He wanted her. She had no doubt of that. He made no effort to hide the evidence. But was there more? He’d loved her once—did he still? Were the old feelings still there, buried somewhere beneath the hurt and the pain?
“Page,” he said, his voice raspy. Shaken. “I—”
She pulled back to look at him, straining to see him in the darkness. She saw only the feverish glitter of his eyes. The hunger. The need.
A need that seemed to match her own.
She placed her hand gently against the rock-hard line of his jaw. For the first time in so very long, they were together. Alone. They had this one night.
If nothing else, she thought wistfully, maybe she’d been given a chance to properly say goodbye to him. A chance that she had been too afraid to take before.
“I’ve missed you, Gabe. I’ve missed you so badly.” She ran a fingertip over his mouth, and felt his lower lip quiver beneath her touch. She remembered the first time he’d kissed her. How she’d known even then that her life would never be the same.