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'No,' she countered with a soft catch in her voice

'Your score is just a little higher When did you realise that I wasn't lying about having had aher an impatient look 'Does that matter now?'

'Yes,' she insisted, thinking she was a heel to keep him in suspense like this, but she had to know

'After you had that accident in Sri Lanka I really thought I had lost you Such shocks tend to clear the head,' he grated 'I realised that I loved you and that nothing else past or present est barrier between us I had to let go of my own bitterness You had never lied tonow, in the present?'

Ashley was treain I don't want you to go'

He went rigid, slashed a hand through the air 'But I can't live with you like this! This afternoon, I sa you must always have seenemotion palpable 'I sahat you must truly think of me You believe that I am a man like your father'

As she finally understood what had forced his decision to leave, she could have cried Vito had seen the childhood source of all her defences and put the wrong interpretation on that neledge 'Never,' she argued with determination, not yet ready to admit to him that she had ever been so foolish 'My father e Heyou terrified o! I just couldn't handle it But I can handle it now Don't you see that? I don't hate you, Vito… I love you'

The torled to believe threatened to tear her apart He crossed the rooainst hi et enough of hie as she sunk her greedy fingers into the springy depths of his hair and trapped him in place

'Dio, it's been so long,' he groaned, surfacing for air 'I would give ten years of my life to make love to you now!'

'No such sacrifice required' Ashley hauled him back into her arms with unashamed tenacity

In the act of being dragged towards the bed, he stiffened and dug long fingers into her hed 'The baby I read this book'

'Wh-what book?' she stammered, suddenly embarrassed by her own lack of inhibition

He stared down at her, gravely serious 'If there's a danger of e… no sex'

'My consultant told rounds forin a white heat of exciterinding his hips against her in a movement of such blatant male need that her brain cells all turned sie

'Are you sure?'

Single-ers down the line of his straining zip As she leant against hier of fascination It was over a fortnight since he had touched her, and, now that she knehy he had practised such restraint, all inhibitions were cast to the four winds He was incredibly, wonderfully aroused

'Dio, I would die if I lost you again,' he bit out raggedly

'No chance,' she asserted unsteadily 'Do you really love me?'

'Passionately… ht of his hands andin the car!'

He fell back on the bed with her, deaf to all reasoning of the prosaic variety 'I can't believe that you can forgive roaned into her hair 'I screwed up at every turn'

'I'll take it out of your hide… my way,' Ashley told him He bit sensuously at the ripe curve of her breast as he slowly dispensed with the scrap of lace depriving him of proper access 'I'm all yours,' he confided 'My jealousy blindedto you in the past I spent four hellish years wanting you I nearly worked myself to dea

th trying to forget you And then you walked into my office that day and suddenly I knew that I would ht, after the opera, I knew that I still loved you I was devastated by how I felt I wasn't in control-'

'Neither was I, and that's the way it should be' She ran loving fingers along the taut line of his ive you for that?' she teased

'I'll never forgivethere when you lost the baby,' he adruffly

Her green eyes shadowed 'I wanted it so one That was all I had left-' 'Don't-' As he buried his face in the sweet valley between her breasts, she felt the idity