She heard him move from his seat and his hand was suddenly on her shoulder, turning her to face him before she could wipe her face or move away. His feather-light touch gently guided her chin so she was forced to look up at him.
‘You didn’t hurt me, honestly.’ He spoke quickly, one hand covering hers and gently stroking across her knuckles with the pad of his thumb.
She shivered, remembering him doing that before, what felt like a lifetime ago. She felt an insane urge to ask him if he remembered that night. If he remembered that he had told her how breathtaking she looked right before he’d kissed her senseless.
It had been their first kiss—the first of many over the long month of their whirlwind romance.
With his golden eyes on hers, Nora experienced a mad desire to lean in and feel his lips under hers again. Just one more time. She felt her tongue trace the edge of her own bottom lip, saw him follow the movement. His fingers flexed on her wrist and she could see a muscle in his jaw tick ever so subtly.
‘Why can’t I stop thinking about doing this?’ he murmured, his eyes dark as he leaned forward slightly and brushed his lips across hers.
Nora inhaled sharply at the contact, hardly believing it. Judging by the sudden widening of his eyes, he was just as shocked at himself. But the shock was short lived and Nora reached up on tiptoe and wound her arms around his neck, touching her lips to his again, seeking the heat of him.
Without warning, he took a step forward and spanned her waist with his big hands, holding her in place as she was pressed back against the kitchen units. The sleek wood was cool against her back and the hard, blazing heat of him engulfed her front. There was no softness in his kiss now...only fire and need. He somehow managed to be delicate even as his lips took hers in an almost brutal sensuous rhythm.
She heard herself moan against his mouth and felt him move even closer, one hand cupping her jaw as he deepened the kiss.
In the months after she’d lost him she’d lain in bed and tried to conjure up the memory of his kisses. They’d only spent a month together—a month of scattered secret moments in between his travelling and her own duties to her father’s organisation. They’d spent most of their time in bed...and yet it had felt like so much more.
She’d thought her memory vivid, but right now she knew nothing had done justice to what it actually felt like to be in his arms, his sinful mouth demanding and coaxing... And she also knew exactly what it would feel like to guide him up to the master bedroom and re-enact every detail of her dreams...
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She froze, pressing her hands against Duarte’s chest and putting a few inches of space between their lips. He frowned, his amber eyes black with desire. And then that frown deepened and she felt the atmosphere suddenly shift.
Duarte took a few steps away, bracing his hands on the marble counter of the kitchen island as he continued to breathe heavily.
‘You have been lying to me, Nora.’
Duarte’s voice was a sharp boom in the stillness. He turned back to face her, amber eyes narrowed with suspicion.
‘That was not the first time we’ve kissed, was it?’
CHAPTER FIVE
NORA CLOSED HER EYES, knowing she had made a fatal error.
‘Answer me,’ he demanded.
All trace of passion from their kiss had gone from his face.
‘No. It wasn’t the first time.’ Nora whispered, closing her eyes tightly as if to block out the weight of her words as she spoke them.
‘We were together.’ He said quietly.
It took her a moment to process the fact that his words were a statement rather than a question.
A strange look transformed his dark features. ‘We were...lovers.’
His words were like a whip against her frayed nerves and for a moment she feared that he had got his memories back—that he would figure out that he was Liam’s father and she would be completely at the mercy of his anger. But then she looked up into his eyes and saw a brief flash of uncertainty as he waited for her to speak.
She had always been a terrible con-artist. Her father had tried and tried to toughen her up and mould her to fit in with the other female operatives in his criminal empire, Novos Lideres. She was too innocent, he’d said. But that innocence had long ago been taken from her in so many ways.
She straightened her shoulders and met Duarte’s eyes. ‘We went on a couple of dates, Duarte. I saw no reason to further complicate things for you over a minor detail.’
‘You are still lying.’
His words were a menacing growl. He took a step forward, closing the gap between them.