Bridal Reconnaissance (16 page)

She felt a sharp ache, jealous of the woman she had been, the one at whom he had gazed so adoringly throughout their wedding album.

His voice rumbled deep in his chest as he continued, “In some ways you’re more beautiful. Softer.”

More vulnerable. Then she remembered the picture that had captured Mrs. Quade yearning.

She shut her eyes and yearned, too, for what that woman had had. Evan.

Cool lips slid over her closed lids, brushing soft kisses. Broad hands splayed over her back, molding her closer to the taut muscular length of him.

Amanda’s arms slid up and around his neck, pulling him down until his mouth found hers. His lips sipped at hers in gentle teasing kisses.

She wanted more. She wanted everything.

Her fingers wrestled with the knot of the tie at his throat. Tailored suit, red tie. Power tie. He didn’t need the tie to show what anyone who met him immediately knew. He was a powerful man. And it had nothing to do with how he dressed or what he owned, it was simply who he was.

He was her husband.

She moaned in her throat and knotted her fingers in his silk tie. “Evan…”

“Shh…” He pulled back, and the tie slid from his shirt collar. “Christopher’s sleeping.”

“Like a rock. He won’t hear anything. Evan, I want more. I want you!” But did he want her?

He’d promised to protect her, but he hadn’t promised to desire her.

Chapter Nine

He caught her up in his arms, but his eyes weren’t filled with the concern he’d displayed earlier when she’d fainted on him yet again. Now his eyes burned with passion.

For her.

Amanda trembled as desire coursed through her, the feeling new and exciting. The tie slid through her suddenly nerveless fingers and snaked over the railing.

“Evan, I can walk.” The protest was token as he swung around and headed for the other end of the catwalk. Over the stainless-steel railing, she caught sight of the slate floor and the puddle of red where she’d dropped his tie.

Then he passed through a doorway into a room where the blinds had been pulled and darkness reigned. She didn’t tremble with fear.

Desire intensified, weakening her legs, so that she swayed in his arms as he slid her down his body. She felt the bed behind her knees and Evan all along the front of her.

Pressed close against taut muscles, she borrowed
some of his strength and tumbled them both down to the mattress, which bounced beneath their combined weight. A giggle bubbled out of Amanda, surprising her.

So she giggled again. “I thought I’d forgotten how.”

He nibbled at her neck, his hot mouth sending shivers down her spine. “To do this?” he asked, his voice even deeper than usual, with passion.

“To laugh.”

“I’ve heard you laugh with Christopher.”

“Our son makes me happy.”

Evan drew back, levering his weight off her, but his dark gaze stayed steady on her face. “Don’t think that I can, Amanda. I can’t. You wouldn’t have left me if I could.”

“Evan, tonight is not about happily ever after. If I had ever believed in it, I stopped when I lost my memory. Tonight’s just about this…

She wove her fingers through his hair, soft like their son’s. Then she pulled his mouth down to hers, running her tongue over the curve of his lips.

He expelled a ragged breath, and as his control snapped, he took her mouth in a hungry kiss. His tongue slid through her parted lips, tasting, claiming. Then he pulled back again, asking in a tortured groan, “Is it enough, Amanda?”

For an answer, her fingers trailed down to the buttons on his white shirt, sliding them free until the fabric parted and fell from his broad shoulders. The chain dangled free, the diamond ring winking in the faint light filtering in through the blinds.

Again she asked herself why he wore it yet? To remember their love? Or her betrayal?

Hands trembling slightly, she skimmed her palms over the hard planes of his chest, well-toned muscles rippling beneath her caress. “You’re more than I could have ever dreamed, Evan.”

Something flickered in his dark eyes and she read his thought.
But not enough to remember.
Hoping to kiss away any pain she might have caused him, she pressed her lips against his heart. Soft chest hair tickled her nose as she breathed in his richly seductive scent.

“Amanda…”

One hand caught in her hair, gently tugging her mouth up to his. As he nibbled on her lips, the fingers of his other hand tugged the buttons free on her blouse. Under the gray cotton, he would find tangerine satin. One of her weaknesses.

Breaking away from her kiss, he levered himself up, sighing and running a hand over his face. “I’m sorry, Amanda.”

“For what—”

Did he not want her?

He clicked the switch on the lamp and soft light pooled around the bed, washing over them both. “I should have remembered the dark—”

She pressed a finger against his lips. “I’m not scared now, not with you.”

But maybe that was foolish. Because with the feelings he inspired in her, she undoubtedly had the most to fear from Evan Quade, her husband.

His mouth moved beneath her fingers, as if he wanted to voice a warning to her. Then he glanced
down, his gaze falling onto her parted blouse and the bright-colored satin bra beneath it. He groaned, then his tongue flicked out, lapping at her fingers.

Amanda shivered over the erotic sensation and moaned. “Oh, Evan…”

“This is just the beginning, Amanda.”

The beginning.

She had no memory of that. No memory of this man until he’d showed up on her doorstep a few days ago. But her body remembered him as it hummed with anticipation of the pleasure it knew he would give.

And he did.

More long deep kisses. So many she lost count and lost her senses.

The next sensation she knew was the sweet caress of his rough palms across her bare skin. Somehow he’d unclasped the bra and pushed it and the blouse from her shoulders without her being the least bit aware of his movements. She’d been aware of nothing but the teasing entrance and retreat of his tongue as it slid in and out of her parted lips. Tasting, devouring, bringing her to the brink with just his kisses.

But the next movements of his hands caught her attention as his fingers circled her taut nipples, skimming over the trembling curve of her breasts, each pass bringing him ever closer to the centers that ached for his touch. “Please, Evan…”

The rough pads of his thumbs stroked over the area that begged most for his attention. She gasped as pleasure shot from her nipples to the center of her heat that burned for him. Wriggling on the bed, she
reached for him, her short nails clawing down the taut curve of his back as he leaned over her.

But he pulled back, his dark eyes glazed with passion as he stared down at her. “Slow. We’re taking it slow, Amanda…”

And slowly she burned alive with desire as his tongue followed the lazy stroking motions of his hands on her breasts. Teasing, tasting until the moist length of it flicked over her nipples. She arched up, seeking the heat and pleasure of his mouth as it closed over her quivering flesh, sucking, nipping.

She moaned and thrashed her head from side to side on his silk-covered pillows. Her hands, still under his unbuttoned shirt, traveled down the silkier skin of his back, around his washboard stomach, which rippled beneath her touch, to the buckle of his belt.

“No…” The protest sighed out of his lips against her breasts. “Slow down, Amanda. I don’t have much control left. It’s been so long…”

A long time since he’d had any woman or just her? Jealousy ripped through her. But
she’d
left
him.
So who had betrayed whom first?

Another woman, his besotted secretary for instance, wouldn’t have left. Thinking of another woman touching him, kissing him, freed her from the last of her inhibitions.

The belt buckle broke loose beneath her anxious hands, and the zipper echoed his guttural groan as she released it. Once she’d removed his clothes, her hands closed over him, stroking the strong satiny length of him.

“Amanda, no!” Shuddering as he obviously fought
for control of his desire, he pulled her hands away. “I want to pleasure you first.”

The intensity in his gaze had her lying back on the pillows as he tugged her jeans down her suddenly boneless legs. When they hit the floor, his fingers traced the lace edge of her tangerine panties.

She bit her lip as she anticipated his next move. He leaned down, his tongue smoothing over the bitten flesh of her lower lip as his fingers stroked over the satin fabric covering the core of her femininity.

Her legs parted allowing him greater access, and he took advantage, sliding his fingers under that lace edge and combing through her curls. As his tongue slid into her mouth, his fingertip slid into her.

Her hips came off the mattress, pushing hard against his hand. “Evan…” She sighed into his mouth and reached for him again.

But he eluded her, jerking away from her questing hands. His mouth slid down her arching throat, his tongue flicking over the pulse jumping because of his passionate torture. Then he feasted on her breasts again, tongue sliding around her taut nipples, as his fingers slid in and out of her.

She shuddered, losing complete control under his concentrated ministrations. As she panted, passion wracking her, his mouth slid lower, tongue swirling in her navel before he slid lower yet.

He dragged her panties off her legs and replaced his fingers with the stroking length of his tongue. She clasped her hands in his hair, intending to drag him back up. But she grew weak again as pleasure crashed through her.

When she thought she could feel no more, he gave
more. He parted her legs farther and drove himself inside her, the long, hard length of him lifting her to the edge of ecstasy. Again and again he drove into her. She locked her legs around his lean waist and clung tight to his shoulders, her teeth nipping into the satiny smooth sinews as he made love to her.

Body, mind and soul.

She lost them all to him. And more.

When they simultaneously found paradise, crying out their pleasure in unison, she lost her heart, too. But as she slipped off to sleep in his arms, memories teased her, and she suspected she’d lost her heart to him long ago. And now had no hope of ever getting it back.

E
VAN NARROWED HIS EYES
against the early-morning sunshine slanting through the blinds, but his gaze never wavered from Amanda’s beautiful face. The light bathed her delicate features, washing over the curve of her fuller lower lip.

He wanted to kiss her to wakefulness, but he had already reached for her more than once in the night, unable to accept that she wasn’t a dream. His wife was really back in his bed…for now.

Because she needed him. But what happened when the threat was gone, when Weering was back behind bars where he belonged? She would leave him again and return to the life she’d made for herself in River City. And knowing what he did about himself, he’d have to let her go. Again.

Last night, remembering her fragility, he had controlled his raging desire for her. He’d managed as much tenderness as he was capable of.

Last night.

But this morning passion smoldered in him, and slow deep breathing fed—instead of extinguished—the fire burning for her.

His wife.

She murmured in her sleep and her brow furrowed, her dark-blond brows knitting in consternation. Fear. Did she fear more than the madman that stalked her? Did she fear the past, too, and what she would remember of her life as Mrs. Evan Quade?

What had made her leave him? Had she loved him at least a fraction of the love that had consumed him for her? That still consumed him.

He suppressed a shuddering sigh. He couldn’t lament what would never be, what could never be. After all she’d been through, Amanda definitely deserved more…much more than him. She deserved true happiness. And as he’d told her last night, he couldn’t offer her that.

But he could offer her security. All he had to do was track down Weering and eliminate the threat.

Anger caught flame with the passion, and a thirst for vigilante justice hardened his heart. He wanted to hurt the man who had hurt his wife.

But he had to be the better man. He had to control his anger and be satisfied with returning the animal to the cage in which he belonged.

He had to do it before the man hurt anyone else.

On the bedside table, the telephone jangled. Quickly, so as not to awaken Amanda, he grabbed up the receiver. “Quade.”

“Evan—”

“Did you find him?” he interrupted his brother-in-law with the most important question.

The sheriff’s weary sigh breezed through the connection. At the dawn hour, it was no wonder he’d be tired since he’d probably been working all night. The Winter Falls sheriff would take any threat to his town personally, but Evan knew that the sheriff cared more about this one because this one was against family.

His gaze fell again to Amanda’s troubled face. Even her sleep was haunted by this madman.

“I take that to mean you didn’t. Did you at least find any sign of him?” Anything to support their supposition that he had followed them to Winter Falls.

“Maybe.”

“What? Did you talk to the River City D.A.?”

Yesterday Evan had left word at Sullivan’s office, requesting a call back to him or the sheriff’s department about William Weering III.

Dylan grunted. “Yeah. He sent a unit around to the address Weering had left with his parole officer. He’s MIA.”

“No kidding. So what’s he doing about it?”

“He issued a warrant.”

“It’s a little damned late now.” But not too late for Amanda. He would keep Amanda safe.

“And it keeps getting worse. Come down to the docks, Evan. I want you to take a look at a body.”

Evan shuddered as an image of Weering’s last mutilated victim flashed behind his eyes. And then the people twisted and injured with the wreckage of the car Weering had forced off the road. That hadn’t been an accident. The madman had shown them what he
could have done to them, if he’d wanted, if he hadn’t been playing.