long.”
“Luc? Tell me.” Belinda pushed her back against the wall behind her, certain she’d need its support.
“Belinda, the doctors said you need time. You must take things slowly.”
“How long have we been married?” she insisted, enunciating each word as clearly as she could through a mouth that felt as if it was stuffed with cotton wool.
“Just over six weeks.”
“Six weeks? But then that means…” Her voice trailed away weakly. Her legs threatened to give way on her, and she braced her hands against the solid strength of the wall behind her.
“I shouldn’t have told you.”
Luc stepped toward her, but Belinda threw up one hand in protest as he leaned forward to touch her.
“No! Don’t. I’m okay. I’ll be okay. It was just…unexpected, that’s all.”
Six weeks? That meant they’d been involved in the accident shortly after their wedding. But then why would no one give her any details about it? Why couldn’t she remember?
Luc remained silent, his eyes flicking over her, searching for proof of her affirmation that she was indeed all right. He took a step away and turned to throw open double doors that led into a sumptuous bedroom. Her eyes were inexorably drawn to the king-size pedestal bed that dominated the room, dwarfing the exquisite outlook from the French doors that lined the outside wall.
Despite the generous proportions of the room and the bank of glass that allowed the crisp sunlight to warm the air, she felt the walls close in on her as the tension between them tautened like a drawn bow. Belinda could barely tear her eyes from the expanse of fine linen, the teals and blues of the damask duvet cover mirroring the tones and textures of the water in the far distance and the flora outside. She hadn’t stopped to think about their arrangements once they arrived here. What if he expected to sleep with her?
An image imprinted in her mind of her body entwined with Luc’s. Her throat dried, making it difficult to formulate her next words.
“Is this the only bedroom?”
“Yes. When we start our family we will extend this part of the lodge. I already have the plans drawn up.”
“I would prefer to sleep somewhere else.”
“Impossible.”
“What?”
“You’re my wife. You sleep with me.”
“But—”
“Are you afraid of me, Belinda?”
Luc stepped close enough to her that she could smell the subtle tang of his cologne, the lime and spice intertwined into something that sent her pulse skittering through her veins. He lifted a hand to stroke a tendril of her hair back behind her ears. She tilted her head slightly, breaking the tenuous contact even as it began, but not soon enough to halt the heated tingle that danced across the surface of her skin.
“Afraid? No. Not at all,” she lied. Afraid? She was terrified. As far as she was aware, their acquaintance, their knowledge of each other—be it physical or mental—had started from the moment he’d walked into her hospital room only a scant few hours ago.
“Then you think I would force my attention on you?” He cupped the back of her head, stroking her hair, forcing her to meet his gaze.
“I—I don’t know,” she stammered. “I don’t know you.”
“Ah, that’s where you are wrong, my beautiful wife. You know me. Intimately.”
With that he bent down. She was momentarily aware of the almost driven expression on his face before the distance between them closed and the coolness of his firm lips captured hers. She went rigid at the contact and felt his fingers tighten imperceptibly at the nape of her neck. Her lips parted on a gasp of shock and despite her determination not to return his caress she found herself unable to halt the answer of her body to his. The pressure of his kiss firmed, demanded more, and like an automaton she gave it.
She bunched her hands into fists to stop herself from lifting her arms, from curling them around his shoulders and pressing her body against his to ease the ache that made her breasts throb with need. Luc deepened the kiss, his tongue probing past her lips to gently stroke the soft inner recess of her mouth. A spear of desire drove through her from deep within her core. She fought the near overwhelming craving to be touched by him. To be dragged from the fugue of not knowing, to full aching awareness of Luc—of his taste, of his touch.
Abruptly Luc pulled away.
“See, we’re not such strangers after all.” His eyes glittered like chips of aventurine as he pinned her with his unblinking stare. Daring her to deny the way her body had awakened in response to his kiss. “There will be no force, I can assure you.”
He limped toward the door, leaving Belinda standing there, alone.
“Where are you going?” she blurted. As unsettling as she found his presence, and her reaction to it, the prospect of being left alone was even more so. He was the only thing even vaguely familiar to her.
“Missing me already?” His lips fleetingly curved into an approximation of a smile. “I have business to attend to.”
“Business? But surely it can wait. You must be tired. You’re limping worse than before.”
As soon as the words escaped her lips she knew she’d made a mistake. Luc Tanner was not the sort of man who liked to be reminded of his all-too-human frailty.
“Why, Belinda, you sound just like a concerned wife.” He flashed her a smile that had nothing to do with humor. “My business has waited too long already. I suggest you rest until dinnertime.”
He wheeled around on his good leg and left the room, leaning heavily on the cane she instinctively knew he had come to hate with all the seething passion she sensed beneath the cool surface he projected to the world. The seething passion he’d held in check while provoking a clamour in her that she knew already only he could answer.
Who was this man who was her husband? What had drawn her to him? And what on earth about her had drawn him in return?
She pressed shaking fingers against her lips. Had their attraction been purely physical? If her incendiary reaction to his kiss had been any indicator, she could certainly have believed that. But she’d never been overtly sexual. Her relationships had always been…civilised, for want of a better word. She had the feeling that any pretension to civilised behaviour from Luc was a mask. Beneath the surface, at grassroots level, he was indomitably feral.
So what was it, then? Had she been so drawn to the wildness in him, been so desperate to escape the confines of her “safe” world? She’d worked darned hard being the perfect hostess for her father in recent years, years in which her mother’s health had steadily declined. She’d sublimated her own burgeoning career as a landscape designer, settling for the occasional showpiece job for her father’s wealthy cronies. Jobs that had left her feeling as if she’d been appeased, like a fractious child. No matter how many magazines her gardens had been featured in, her family,
