Release Party Bonus Excerpt 3--Final Remember Me Teaser

Third and final excerpt from my WIP--thanks Bellas for stopping by to take a look. Remember to leave a comment in any of today's posts to in the running for the XOXO tote a few posts down ;o)

Don't want to give too much away in this one, but I've been asked for something sexy and hot, so here' a scene lifted from the middle of the book--Alexa (Jane Doe up until this point in the book, because she's lost her memory...but now it's slowly coming back) and Robert are trying hard to resist the attarction between them, but no such luck, lol!!!

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Robert had brought her meal tray in himself. He'd kept the windows covered to shield her from the view of anyone walking down either hallway outside her corner room. There wasn't a nurse in sight.

He was protecting her, as usual.

Her angel.

Ditch him! Him and your fantasies. Let him help you eat if it makes him leave faster, then get out of here!

Alexa tried reaching for the lid covering the food, but her arm gave up about halfway to the tray. She sighed while Robert finished the job and scooped up a small bite. He held it up for her to sample.

"Shouldn't you be off daringly saving other lives or something." She willed her hand to take the fork from him and fed herself the eggs—at least, the half of them that didn't dribble onto her hospital gown.

He started to brush the mess away, smiling, then the barely-there feel of his touch feathered across her collarbone.

Her breath stalled.

The room shrunk around them. He slowly withdrew his hand, his gaze sharpening, heating, even as he shook his head in disbelief.

Had he felt the zing of energy arching between them?

Had she completely lost her mind?

But there was no stopping the wave of certainty that engulfed her. Suddenly, he stopped being a doctor acting more attentive than she had any right to expect, and she stopped being the patient pretending to need his help, to need him, when she wasn't really pretending at all.

"I..." she muttered. "I'm sorry, I..."

"No need to apologize," he said gruffly. "I..."

But he didn't seem to know what to say, either.

What's wrong with you!

Somehow between the dreams and the nightmares, the voices and the confusion, Robert had become something her mind had let itself need.

Every touch had been telling her. Every time she'd woken and been relieved to find him beside her. Now, with her amnesia no longer protecting her and him still sitting so close, his gaze drinking her in, her addled brain was determined to hang onto the dream. Her fingers were reaching to trace the stubble sprinkled along his jaw. Her body was clenching and then melting when that jaw tightened and his eyelids lowered at her touch, becoming piercing slits. Reflecting back the need racing through her.

It was the drugs. It had to be the drugs. She didn't fantasize or lose herself like this in ridiculous moments of insanity.

Only her head lifting instead, her lips hovering just below Robert's.

She had to know.

She had to have just moment with her angel that wasn't a dream, before her falling-apart life took over completely and she never saw him again.

Robert gripped her shoulders. His gaze trailed a scorching path to her mouth.

"Jane." A guttural groan followed. "I'm your doctor. I can't--"

"My name's not Jane," she reminded him. She lifted one final inch. Her lips trembled against his. She felt his body shudder. "And I want a new doctor."

"Damn." Robert's mouth took hers.

His hands slid in a too-gentle path down her shoulders. He pulled her closer. One touch of his tongue, one shared breath, and she was shaking. Then he was inching away, cursing again.

"We can't," he whispered. "You don't need more confusion on top of everything else you're dealing with. You can't even remember who you are..."

He cut another glance toward the closed door, analyzed the readings on her monitors--all in the amount of time it took her brain to convince her hand to smooth up his chest, so she could cling to his lab coat to keep him close.

Her.

Clinging!

It had to be the meds. The stupid dreams.

But it had been so long since she'd let herself need anything, want anything beyond working her way out of Dmitriy Andreev's insane world. Then saving Evie, and maybe somehow saving herself in the process. And in Robert's arms, all she'd failed out, all she still had to make right, faded. She could lie to him, lie to herself, about everything else, except how he made her feel.

"Please." She shivered at the roughness of his hands covering hers. "I don't understand it either, but your eyes... Your touch. They feel better than anything I could possibly remember. You make me feel free of all of this. Please... Please don't stop."

And he didn't.

She kissed him and forgot one more time, losing herself in her dream. He was there. He'd been there through every minute of the of the fear and the pain and darkness. And he was still standing between her and danger, even if he had no idea how much trouble she was leaving him to deal with.

His kiss filled her with the sweet need for more. Maybe even a little hope.

She clung to his shoulders. Shuddered at his taste and the simple goodness of a good man needing her back. She'd lost so much of herself, long before the amnesia. But Robert drawing her into his arms was a glimpse of what life could be like without the darkness. Something clean and simple and honest.

A life she wouldn't have to run from to keep herself and everyone else safe.