Claiming His Runaway Bride / High-Stakes Passion. Yvonne Lindsay

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      “Luc?” Her voice was unsteady.

      “What is it? Are you feeling unwell?”

      He dropped the flute on the grass, unheeding of the liquid as it drained into the ground, and wrapped his fingers around her hand as she reached for him. He was shocked to discover her skin was cold and clammy.

      “Not unwell, exactly, just strange. Like we’ve done this before. It’s sort of like how I felt yesterday, when I remembered about the garden, but different.”

      “Tell me, what do you remember?”

      “I’m not sure exactly. I…I think we’d been swimming, yes, the water was freezing and you teased me about the goose bumps on my skin. Told me I was soft.”

      “Go on,” he coaxed. Would she remember the rest? How he’d helped her from the water hole at the edge of the glade where they were now. How he’d wrapped her in a thick fluffy towel and dried her body, chafing her skin until her circulation had returned—until the light in her eyes had changed and he’d let the towel drop to the grass at their feet and lifted her into his arms and carried her to the bed of blankets and pillows just like the one they now lay on. How he’d traced every delectable line of her body with a rosebud, a yellow one that time, teasing her to a peak of aching trembling need before bringing her to the pinnacle of satisfaction with its soft-petalled touch.

      Belinda remained silent. Her gazed locked on a faraway place. He watched the expressions flit across her face, the struggle as she fought to draw together the elusive threads that hovered on the periphery of her mind, then the change in her eyes, the blush of heat across her cheeks, down her throat.

      She’d remembered. He’d wager the deed to Tautara Estate that she remembered that day and what had happened next.

      A fine tremor ran through her body and she turned her gaze upon him.

      “It’s coming back to me, Luc. I remember that day.”

      Luc felt the warmth begin to return to her fingers, felt them shift beneath his touch. She pulled his hand toward her and drew it to her chest.

      “Can you feel my heartbeat? It’s racing a million miles a minute. Luc, can you believe it? My memory is coming back.”

      His hand flexed beneath hers, against the softness of the fine cotton of her T-shirt, against the curve of her breast. Through the lace of her bra he felt her response to the memories, to his touch.

      “Was that why you planned today like this?” she asked, leaning into the strength of his hand, allowing his palm to shape around the fullness of her breast, to feel the hardness of her nipple as it firmed and crested.

      “I had to do whatever I could to get you back. I know I’ve been telling you not to force it, but—”

      “Shh.” Belinda pressed her fingers against his lips. “Don’t say any more. It’s okay. I know what I’m remembering now isn’t everything, there are still huge gaps there. But of all the memories I’ve lost, this one is probably the most precious. I even remember how I felt that day, how excited I was that you’d taken the whole day off work to spend with me. How much fun we had in the water until I got too cold to stay in there any longer. Then you dried me off…”

      Luc nodded slowly. Would she remember what had happened next? He wasn’t disappointed.

      “You…you picked me up and brought me here, laid me down on the blankets and—” She gestured to the rose on the blankets. “You made love to me, first with the rose and then you covered me with your body.”

      Luc shifted across the distance between them, lowering her onto her back and sliding over her until her hips cradled his.

      “Like this?”

      “Yes.” She sighed. “Just like that.”

      Beneath him she flexed her hips, pushing her mound against his now-straining erection, forcing him to swallow a groan of need.

      Belinda let her eyes slide closed and shook as memories cascaded through her mind, memories and sensations that wound her body tight with need, playing like an erotic dance against the background of her consciousness. She lifted her hands to cup Luc’s face between them, to draw his mouth to hers, to take his lips and delve beyond them with her questing tongue. Another shudder shook her as his tongue grazed against hers, and she relished the taste and texture of him. Relished and, she realised with a thrill of sheer pleasure, remembered the way he made her feel. She drove her hands up into his hair, holding him to her—terrified that if she let go, or if he broke contact, the exquisitely precious memories that flooded her mind would become as ephemeral as the gentle breeze that caressed their bodies.

      Sunlight dappled against her closed lids, sending a kaleidoscope of sensuous rich reds to imprint on her retinas. Luc shifted slightly, and she moaned with pleasure as his lips trailed along her jaw, to her earlobe where he took the unadorned piece of flesh between his teeth, letting them graze softly over the surface. Then his tongue dipped into the hollow behind her ear, and her nerves jumped with pleasure.

      For everything she’d forgotten it was clear he remembered it all. Remembered every tiny part of her that could send pleasure cascading through her body.

      “Luc.” His name was a sigh across her lips as his hands pushed up under her T-shirt, skimming the surface of her skin with a gentleness she wanted to drive to the next level. She didn’t want gentle from him, not now. Not when her memory burned with the remembrance of the first time they’d made love here in this enchanted glade. Where he’d driven her body to heights she’d never dreamed possible, leaving her spent and weak in his arms before doing it all over again.

      She shifted slightly as he clenched the fabric of her top in fisted hands, dragging the material up her torso and over her head, dropping it somewhere. She was beyond caring as the soft breeze stroked her skin.

      “Open your eyes,” his voice commanded, thick with the desire she felt surging through him like the inexorable journey of the river beside them.

      She forced her heavy lids open, met his green-eyed gaze and felt the instant buzz of connection she now knew had been missing in the past twenty-four hours.

      “You’re mine. All mine.” The words ground past his lips and she nodded.

      “All yours,” she whispered as he bent his head to her breasts, his teeth pulling aside the lacy cup of her bra and exposing her aching nipple to the caress of his tongue, the rasp of his teeth. A spear of pleasure shot straight to her core, and she clenched her inner muscles reflexively against the sensation, the movement setting up a ripple of smaller bursts of pleasure to thrill through her body.

      Now she understood why those words had given her that shocking sense of déjà vu this morning. Why it had left her feeling as if she was a boat adrift from its moorings. He’d uttered the same words to her only months ago as he’d worshipped her body on these very blankets. But she no longer felt as if she was adrift. No, she was where she belonged, with the man to whom she belonged. Their reunion felt right on every level, and while she wanted him to hasten, to race her to the completion she knew lay on the periphery of his touch, she also wanted to savour every exquisite second.

      She traced the shape of his head with her hands, stroked the cords of his neck, gripped the hard-muscled strength of his shoulders.

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