Awaken to Pleasure - By Nalini Singh Page 0,18

male that it made the woman in her whimper for things she knew nothing about.

The moment stretched and she saw desire begin to warm those Italian-dark eyes. Involuntarily, fear shivered through her. His tenderness last night hadn't been enough to destroy scars she'd carried since childhood. He removed his hands, his face tensing, all angles and harsh shadows.

"If we marry, I won't force anything on you." He paused, as if making a decision. "But, I do wish for something from this marriage."

"What?" At last, she thought, a reason behind this improbable proposal.

"A baby." His eyes were fathomless. "If we can beat your fear and have sex, I don't want you using protection."

Taylorwas momentarily silenced, stunned by the request. Despite the newly awakened desire between them, why would he ask this of her, a woman who could barely allow him a kiss? Maybe he didn't understand the extent of her fear. She would marry him to keep Nick but she wouldn't trick him. He had to know that her problems ran deep.

"I may never be able to give you what you want. Are you willing to never father a child?" She had to make him understand that this wasn't something that would pass easily. It might never pass. Even if they managed to overcome her fear of intimacy, having children terrified her for a much more painful reason.

After witnessing her mother's despair, she wasn't sure if she could ever make herself that vulnerable to a man. Even a man likeJackson.

At that moment,Jacksonfelt dark, nameless emotions rock his soul.Taylorwas asking him to make a choice - her or a child. It was a choice that he'd made easily standing overBonnie's grave, but applied to this honest blue-eyed woman, it seemed terribly wrong. "You are right, I am not." The words were torn out of him. "How about we give ourselves a year? If there is no child, then we will part."

It hurt him to say that, going against all of his vows that he would not have marriage after short marriage like the rest of his family. But he'd buried one child who'd never had a chance to be born. He needed to replace that memory with one of a healthy bambino . The problem was, in his imagination, all his children hadTaylor's blue eyes. How could he possibly walk away from her if she didn't allow him to touch her?

And yet, how could he not?

Taylor's next question was subdued, as if she hadn't expected the time limit. "And Nick?"

"I think we can fix things so that Lance has no chance, even if we're not together." He looked at her and said bluntly, "Tell me the reason behind your fear of sex."

Taylorput her hands on his hard chest, dismayed at her disappointment. She should've been celebrating a husband who only wanted a child from her, not love. Or had she cherished some hidden dream of a far more romantic proposal? If she had, it had been a girlish fancy. A bargain like this was far safer.

Romance and love died but JacksonSantorini would never renege on an agreement.

"It's not you. Please know that," she said, at last.

His scowl made him look more like a mobster than ever. "Was it someone your mother brought home?"

His voice had dropped an octave into the deep and menacing range. He put his hands around her waist again, and this time the warmth and weight of them calmed her.

She swallowed. "It was a maintenance man." Her voice shook as she revealed something she'd never told any one. There was more, much more, but she didn't have the courage to tell him the whole truth at once.

"What did he do?"Jackson's voice rasped and the hands on her hips pulled her closer, as if he couldn't stop the protective movement. Shewent, glad to be near his warmth.

"I ... developed around fourteen. That was when he started staring at me. I didn't know what that look meant then, hadn't learned." It mattered thatJacksonunderstand, that he didn't look at her with those icy eyes when she couldn't respond beyond the most innocent caresses, because she cared what he thought of her. "He followed me to the laundry room. I thought he was going to fix a broken machine." Even now, she could feel her fear when she'd finally realized that he was just standing there in the corner, watching her, eyes slimy.

"When I tried to go up the stairs after I loaded the machine ... he stalked me until I