Jessica Hart - Four Christmas Treats

Tilly gave him a cynical look. ‘You really think you can go on lying to me, don’t you? I may have been stupid enough to fall for your lies the first time round, Silas, but I’m not stupid enough to fall for them again now. You don’t love me. And as for me loving you—the man I thought I loved doesn’t exist, does he? You’ve still got the hire car here. I think the best thing you can do now is pack your things and leave. There’s nothing here for you now.’

Silas felt the shock of her rejection slicing through him, snapping the chain with which he had been leashing his own emotions. ‘Nothing? Then what exactly is this , then?’ he demanded.

He was still holding her wrist, and so he was able to catch her off balance enough to drag her into his arms and then cover the furious protest she made with the fierce heat of his mouth.

She wanted to resist him. She fought to do so. But something stronger than pride or pain was wrenching control of her responses from her, so that instead of closing into a tight, hard line against him her lips were opening under his, to return the full fury of his anguished passion. Somehow it was as though this was the only way she could show him the damage he had done—by violating the memory of what he had told her was love but what she now who knew was a lie.

This was all they had shared. Not love, not tenderness, and most certainly not the kind of almost spiritual emotional bond she had so stupidly deluded herself into thinking they had. Just this ferally savage physical need, poisoned with bitterness and deceit. Let it have its way, then; let it take her. Let it take them both and destroy itself as it did so, Tilly decided furiously.

Somehow he would break down Tilly’s anger and resistance. Somehow he would find the right way to show her that their love was strong enough to survive the damage he had inflicted on it and on her. He had to find it. Because he couldn’t endure the thought of losing her, Silas acknowledged as he tried to gentle the fierceness of his need and bring tenderness back into their intimacy.

He wanted to take Tilly and show her everything he felt—his remorse and regret, his pain and despair, his sorrow that he had hurt her and his reasons for having done so. He wanted to hold her in his arms, body to body, skin to skin, and to kiss the tears from her eyes. He wanted to beg for her forgiveness and to heal the wounds he had inflicted with the salve of his true love. He wanted to wipe away everything that had gone wrong and give them a fresh start. But most of all he wanted her to know that his love for her was hers for ever.

And this wasn’t the way to show her that, Silas warned himself as he fought against succumbing to the drug of his own need. If he took her now, like this, when she was acting out of anger and bitterness, he would be damaging them both. He knew that, and yet at the same time he ached to take the chance that somehow he could mend things between them by showing her physically how much she meant to him.

The fire was dying out of her anger now, leaving behind a void that was filling with pain. Tilly shivered in Silas’s hold.

‘Tilly…’

‘Just go, Silas. Please, just go.’

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