Free A Man Like Morgan Kane by Beverly Barton Page A

her.
    She backed away from him. "They missed you, you know? They would have welcomed you home with open arms if you'd come home." And I would have, too. I would have forgiven you anything, if you'd come back to me.
    "They didn't need me. They had Amery. Apparently he became the son they'd always wanted." Morgan came toward her, backing her up against the wall. "It didn't take Amery long, did it, to step in and take over everything that had been mine?" He lowered his head until his lips almost touched hers. "Did you love him, Beth … the way you said you loved me? Did you shatter into a thousand pieces when he gave you pleasure? Did you—"
    She shoved against his rock-hard chest, but he didn't budge. "My marriage to Amery is none of your business. And you have no right to question me about it. You left me and never once looked back." And I died a thousand deaths knowing that you didn't love me, that I was carrying your child and another man would be her father.
    "And if I had looked back, what would I have seen?" Flanking her shoulders with his outstretched arms, he laid his palms against the wall on either side of her head. "I'd have seen you, the girl who swore she loved me, married to my cousin."
    Bethanylaughed, the sound edged with mockery. "You say that as if you would have cared. Don't try to play the injured party. You left me, remember? 'I've got to get away and find a life for myself,' you told me. 'If I stay here, they'll smother me. They'll turn me into someone I don't want to be. It's not that I don't care about you, Beth. I do. It's just that you're a part of their world—'"
    "You remember word for word what I said to you the night I left." Lifting his hands off the wall, he pulled away from her and stepped back. "You did love me, didn't you, Beth? Then why did you marry Amery?"
    She glared at him, her hazel eyes suddenly wide open and glimmering. "Yes, I loved you." She laughed again, then bit down on her bottom lip as she shook her head. "I loved you with all my foolish young heart. But that was sixteen years ago. We're two different people now. We've lived separate lives. And just because you were my first love and my first lover, doesn't mean you can walk back into my life and think we can pick up where we left off."
    "Is that what you think I want to do?" he asked.
    "Isn't it?" She moved toward him, bringing her body within inches of his. "Isn't that why you're dredging up the past, why you're pretending that it bothers you that I married Amery? Do you think that if we talk about the good old days when we were young lovers, all that sizzling passion between us will ignite again?"
    "I don't know, Beth, what do you think?"
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    Standing on tiptoe, she draped her arms around his neck and pressed her body intimately against his.
    Closing her eyes, she clung to him as she covered his lips with hers. His sex hardened instantly. Moaning deep in her throat,Bethanythrust her tongue inside his mouth. She gripped his shoulders when he cupped her buttocks and lifted her up and into his throbbing arousal.
    As quickly as she had instigated the kiss, she ended it. Lifting her head, she stared into his smoldering blue-gray eyes. "We both needed to know, didn't we?" she asked breathlessly. "It was best to go ahead and find out, to get it out of the way."
    Dammit, he cursed silently. The kiss had been some sort of test, a gauge to check their passion. Well, she'd found out what she wanted to know, hadn't she? He still wanted her as much as he ever had. And she still wanted him.
    "So now that we know we still want each other, where do we go from here?" he asked.
    "We don't go anywhere," she told him. "When I was a teenager, I confused passion with love. I thought that because you wanted me, because we both exploded like Fourth of July fireworks every time we had sex, it meant that you loved me. I'm not that silly, naive girl. I know that people can