Wife With Amnesia. Metsy Hingle

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      “Don’t,” she said, moved by the anguish in his voice, in his eyes. Reaching out, she touched his clenched fists. “I’m all right.”

      He stiffened momentarily at her touch. Something dangerous flashed in those steel-colored eyes. But before she could pull her hand back, he closed his fingers over hers, held. “I know. It’s just that…” He whooshed out a breath. His expression grim, he continued to stare at her while he seemed to engage in some inner struggle. “I’m sorry. I know how much you hate it when I push. But after last night…after thinking that you might…” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “I guess you’re just going to have to add one more sin to my list of transgressions. Because God help me, I’ve got to do this.”

      And before she realized his intent, his mouth touched her own. He brushed his lips against hers in a kiss so soft, so gentle, that instead of pushing him away, Claire rested her palms against his chest. Muscles flexed beneath her fingertips, and she could sense the strength, the tightly leashed control, the fire held in check. The sweetness of his restraint moved something inside Claire. Curling her fingers in his shirt, she returned his kiss.

      When he lifted his head, he stared at her. Sure she’d made a mistake, Claire started to retreat. But before she could, he angled his head and his mouth came crashing down on hers again. Then his mouth was shaping hers, claiming her lips in a hungry kiss that made her blood heat, made her heart thunder in her chest. For a moment sanity deserted Claire. Her senses whirled beneath the searing demand of his mouth. Feminine need shuddered through her, throbbed in her womb. Instinctively she arched her body toward him.

      His groan hit Claire like a slap. Shocked by her actions, she snapped open her eyes. Sweet heaven, what on earth had she been thinking? She didn’t know this man—not even his name. Shaken, she unclenched her fingers from his shirt and shoved at him—hard. He released her at once, and had she been standing, she was sure she would have fallen. “Wh-who are you?” she demanded, hating the tremor in her voice, a tremor that she realized wasn’t caused by fear alone.

      Eyes narrowing, desire still glittering in their gray depths, he watched her with the same intensity that he’d kissed her. Out of nowhere the image of a wolf tracking its prey raced through Claire’s mind. Whoever this man was he was dangerous. Maybe not physically, because she didn’t think he would harm her, but on some deeper, more personal level. “I asked who you were,” she said, unnerved by his silence.

      “Matt.”

      “Matt,” she repeated, sampling the sound of his name on her lips. She waited for some flicker of recognition, some memory to go with the name. When none came, her head began to throb in earnest. Pressing her fingers to her temple, she closed her eyes and ran his name, his face, his kiss through her mind again.

      Nothing. No inkling that she knew him, that she remembered him. All she encountered were more blank pages. Her heart picked up a panicked beat at that realization, and she was forced to acknowledge that her memory was filled with far too many blank pages. Swallowing hard, she opened her eyes and found his gaze fastened on her as though he were sizing her up. The idea that he might be, unnerved her—almost as much as her inability to remember.

      “Do I know you?” she blurted out and immediately regretted asking the question. Of course she must know the man, Claire reasoned. Why else would he be at the hospital? And why else would he have planted that toe-curling kiss on her?

      “Yeah. I guess you could say you know me,” he said, his mouth hardening, his dark brows slashing in a frown. “After all, I am your husband.”

      “M-my husband!”

      Matt clenched his jaw as the color drained from Claire’s face. He felt as though he’d been kicked in the gut. For a few moments when she had kissed him back, he had thought…he had allowed himself to believe that she still loved him, that she had forgiven him.

      Frustration and disappointment slammed at him like punishing fists. He jammed his hands into his pockets to keep from reaching for her again. Damn, what an idiot he’d been. Only an idiot would have let himself believe that Claire’s brush with violence had somehow changed things between them and wiped out the six miserable months since she’d left him.

      Now as he stared at her too-pale face, saw the bewilderment clouding her cinnamon-brown eyes, he bit back a curse at his own lack of caution. How could he have been so reckless? Jeff had warned him that something like this might happen. That the blow to Claire’s head and her disoriented state could be an indication of something more serious.

      Only he hadn’t heeded Jeff’s warnings to take things slowly. No, he’d been too eaten up with guilt for failing to protect her. And he’d been scared spitless that he might lose her forever. When she had finally opened her eyes, looked up at him and hadn’t turned away, he’d been too staggered by relief to think beyond the fact that she was all right.

      Then she had touched him. And his ability to think at all had gone right out of the window. Claire’s touch, the softness of her voice after so many months without both had been like a lifeline being thrown to a drowning man. So, he’d snatched it, held on to it with both fists. Kissing her hadn’t been an option. Suddenly it had been as necessary to him as taking his next breath. And without considering the consequences, he had given in to his own selfish needs.

      “We’re married?”

      Her question yanked Matt from his self-recriminations. “Yeah,” he replied, frowning. He didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that she was having trouble remembering things. Probably some kind of memory loss because of that blow to her head. What he didn’t know was how extensive that memory loss was or how much he should tell her. If she didn’t remember him and their marriage, she evidently didn’t remember that they were separated, either. Should he tell her? he wondered, reluctant to reveal that piece of news when beneath her confusion a trace of desire still lingered in her eyes. Selfish bastard that he was, he decided to say nothing. He would rather cope with her confusion and anxiety than have Claire revert to the polite civility she’d treated him with since their split.

      “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice fragile. She rubbed at the spot between her brows again. “Things are a bit fuzzy. And I…I seem to be having a little trouble remembering things.”

      “It’s all right,” Matt soothed, hating that she felt the need to apologize to him when he was the one who had failed her. But then, Claire had always been quick to assume responsibility when things went wrong. While, in truth, the fault had never been hers. No, the fault lay with the heartless woman who had abandoned a battered little girl in a hurricane twenty-five years ago. The fault lay with the legal system that had failed that little girl. And the fault lay with him—for not recognizing how deeply Claire’s insecurities ran. For not considering that his attempt to find answers for her about the past would only open old wounds and be interpreted as his dissatisfaction with her as his wife. The fault was most assuredly his for not realizing that his actions would lead Claire to believe that he was one more person to whom she had given her heart only to be rejected.

      “I’m sure everything will come back to me in a minute. I mean, a woman just doesn’t forget her husband,” she said, the lighthearted remark at odds with the distress etched on her face.

      Matt gave her what he hoped passed as a reassuring grin. “I think forgetting a husband is a forgivable offense,” he told her, wanting to ease her anxiety. “Especially if the woman doing the forgetting has a concussion and an egg-size lump on her head that needed stitches.”

      She lifted a hand to the bandage. “I have stitches?”

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