He let the kiss go on, too, drawing her close to his body, cupping the back of her head with one hand while the other slid to the small of her back and urged her even closer to his hips. Just like that he was hard and hot and eager to be inside her body, wanting to fill her, needing to lose himself in her, needing to silence the voices in his head … voices of guilt and anger, failure and shame….

But then Morgan ended the kiss and lifting her head she looked up into his eyes, her blue eyes wet, her black lashes matted. “I’m not right in the head.” Her voice quavered. She tried to smile even as tears shimmered in her eyes. “I’m crazy.”

“You’re not crazy.”

She nodded, and her lower lip quivered. “That’s why you couldn’t find me after I left you. I had a nervous breakdown. My family had me hospitalized.”

Drakon flinched and stepped backward. “Why are you saying this?”

“It’s what happened. I left you and I fell apart. I couldn’t stop crying, and I couldn’t eat, and I couldn’t sleep, and everybody said it was this or that, but I just missed you. I wanted you.”

“So why didn’t you come back?”

“They wouldn’t let me.”

Drakon’s gut churned, and his hands clenched involuntarily at his side. “Who wouldn’t let you?”

“The doctors. The hospital. My family. They made me stay there at McLean. It’s a … mental … hospital.”

“I know what McLean is.” Drakon looked at her in barely masked horror. “I don’t understand, Morgan. You were there … why?”

“Because I was crazy.”

“You weren’t crazy!”

“They said I was.” She walked away from him, moving around his room, which had been their room on their honeymoon. She touched an end table, and the foot of the bed, and then the chaise in the corner before she turned to look at him. “And I did feel crazy … but I kept thinking if I could just get to you, I’d feel better.”

“So why didn’t you come home to me?”

“I couldn’t.” She struggled to smile, but failed. “I couldn’t get to you, couldn’t call you or write to you. They wouldn’t let me do anything until I calmed down and did all the therapy and the counseling sessions—”

“What do you mean, they wouldn’t let you out? Didn’t you check yourself in?”

She shook her head, and sat down on the chaise, smoothing her skirt over her knees. “No. My parents did. My mother did. My dad approved, but it was Mother who insisted. She said you would never want me back the way I was.” Morgan looked up at him, eyes bright, above the pallor of her cheeks. “So I went through the treatment, but it didn’t help. It didn’t work. They wanted me to say I could live without you, and I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

Her slim shoulders lifted and fell. “Because I couldn’t.”