LITMIR.BIZ

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but he stifled the groan and held her, running his hands gently up and down over her back to comfort her.

      ‘I’m so sorry,’ he murmured, and she sniffed and her chest jerked again, but she wouldn’t let the tears fall, wouldn’t give way to them.

      Damn, she was so ridiculously brave! If only she’d cry—let it out, let him hold her while she worked through all her feelings, but she wouldn’t, and he could understand that. He wouldn’t lie and cry in her arms either. It was just all too revealing.

      ‘I knew it would happen,’ she said finally. ‘I mean, why not? Everyone else in the world seems to be pregnant.’

      Everyone but her. He knew that, knew without a shadow of a doubt that she wasn’t pregnant because she’d had a period this week. Not that it made any difference without the means to conceive, but it must just rub it in when something like this happened.

      And she’d been in a foul mood earlier in the week, distant and unapproachable, and he didn’t know if she was still angry with him about the accident or unhappy because she wasn’t pregnant again or if it was just PMT.

      In the good old days, if she’d been grumpy like this he would have made a wisecrack about her hormones. Not now. He knew better now, because PMT was an indicator of just how monumentally unsuccessful they were being in the baby department, and frankly it just wasn’t funny.

      He pressed a kiss to her hair, and she snuggled closer, letting him hold her. He wasn’t really comfortable. He should have had his leg up on a pillow, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been and for now it wasn’t his priority.

      Fran was, and he wasn’t going to do anything that might make her leave his arms. He wished he knew what to say, how to comfort her, but he didn’t, so he just held her, and after an age she fell asleep.

      It was hot—too hot to lie so close—and he shifted slightly, easing away from her and stretching his leg out, wishing he’d propped it up on the pillows first before they’d started this conversation.

      She’d rolled to her side away from him, and he shifted to face her, hunting for a better position. It wasn’t, but his good leg brushed hers, and she wriggled back towards him, seeking him out in her sleep the way she always did if things were tough.

      The way she always had, he corrected himself, and let his arm circle her waist, drawing her back more firmly against his chest. To hell with the heat. She needed him, and it was little enough to do for her.

      Even if the feel of her soft, warm body in his arms was killing him …

      Fran woke to Mike’s arm around her, his fingers curled gently around her breast, the insistent nudge of his erection against her bottom.

      Heat speared through her, flooding her with a fierce, desperate need, a hollow ache that only he could fill. It was so long since she’d felt it, felt anything at all except empty and cold. And she wanted him—wanted the old Mike, the man who laughed and chased her around until she let him catch her, who made love to her, tormenting her until she was sobbing with need, then taking her with a wild and uncontrolled passion that left her spent and boneless in his arms.

      Where was that man? Gone for ever? Or was he still here? If she only had the courage to reach out …

      ‘Mike?’ she whispered.

      For a moment he said nothing, so she almost wondered if he was asleep, but he was too still, too silent, and then he spoke, his voice gruff and low.

      ‘I’m sorry. It’s just—I’ll move.’

      ‘No!’

      The word was out before she could stop it, and he froze again. ‘Fran, please. I can’t do this. Can’t lie here night after night, wanting you like this, and—’

      ‘Wanting me?’ she breathed, stunned. Turning, she stared at him in the moonlight. ‘Do you want me? I thought you didn’t.’

      ‘Of course I want you,’ he whispered roughly. ‘I’ll always want you.’

      ‘But—you’ve been avoiding me. Going over to the farm office, telling me not to wait up, getting out of bed in the morning without waking me.’

      ‘I’ve always done that. I never wake you that early.’

      ‘Not like this, Mike. Not like this, so I thought you didn’t love me any more.’

      ‘Oh, Frankie, of course I love you.’ He sighed. ‘I just …’

      ‘Just can’t bring yourself to touch me?’ she said, her voice hollow to her ears—hollow and empty, like her heart.

      ‘No! How could you think that?’

      ‘Then why are you avoiding me?’ she wailed softly, ridiculously, all but inviting him to make love to her when she couldn’t even contemplate his intimate touch.

      He sighed again, his hand coming up, the knuckles grazing her cheek with infinite tenderness. ‘It’s not that I can’t bring myself to touch you, Fran. It’s—oh, hell, much more complicated than that.’

      ‘Then tell me! Talk to me, Mike!’

      He didn’t answer, but she could hear the cogs turning, feel the tension radiating out of him.

      ‘Mike?’

      ‘Frankie, I’m no good with words. I’m a farmer, for God’s sake. I don’t talk about my feelings.’

      ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why not? Dammit, I’m not enjoying this either, but we have to talk. Our marriage is in tatters, we’re falling apart and I’m trying here, really trying to get through to you, to sort it out, to find out if we’ve still got anything, and I can’t do that on my own! I can’t lay myself bare, wide open to you—not on my own! You have to do it too, Mike. You have to tell me how you feel. You have to share. Please …’

      Her voice cracked, and with a ragged sigh he reached out and found her hands in the darkness, gripping them so tight she nearly cried out, but she wasn’t letting go, not now, when they were so close …

      ‘It’s not that I can’t bring myself to touch you,’ he said gruffly. ‘Far from it. It’s more that—I daren’t.’

      ‘Daren’t?’ she breathed. ‘Why ever not?’

      He hesitated an age, then said, so softly she could hardly hear him, ‘In case you get pregnant.’

      She froze with shock. So she was right, she thought numbly, her eyes searching his but unable to read them in the shadows. Her voice cracking, she said desperately, ‘I knew you didn’t want a child with me—’

      ‘Oh, Frankie, no!’ He reached out, wrapped her in his arms, dragged her against his chest with a groan of protest. ‘Of course I want a child with you. But every time you’re pregnant, every time you lose it—I just can’t bear to watch you go through that, sweetheart—not again. I can’t bear watching you fall apart, seeing what I’ve done to you destroying you—’

      ‘What you’ve done?’ She pushed away, tilting her head so she could look into his eyes, her hand cradling his face. ‘Mike, don’t be silly! You’ve done nothing to me.’

      ‘Except get you pregnant with dodgy sperm.’

      ‘We don’t know that. It could be my eggs. Maybe they’re dodgy. What makes you think it’s you? There’s nothing dodgy about Sophie.’

      ‘Maybe she was a one-off. My lucky break. And anyway, you’ve been avoiding me, too,’ he added softly. ‘Sometimes, when I’ve reached the end of my tether and I really, really needed you, you’ve turned away, reading a book or going to have a bath or—I don’t know, almost anything rather than be alone with me. I’ve even wondered …’

      ‘Wondered what?’ she asked, when the silence stretched on.

      ‘If there was someone else.’

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