Who Do You Trust?

by Melissa James

  “In my room,” she whispered, then blinked, as if thinking, What am I saying? But she didn’t retract it—and hope soared inside him. He wanted her so much he was in pain.

  Would she come silently to him in the night, bring him to her bed? Or take his hand and lead him out to make love in a warm summer night, in a paddock lit with a million stars?

  “Silly Mummy,” Jenny giggled. “Why would he put the iron in your room? It wouldn’t fit in with the bed there!”

  He watched Lissa shake herself. “Oh. Of course. Silly me.” Dull color replaced the sweet, sensual flush of moments before. She clapped her hands, reverting to the in-control mother. “Go in and get ready kids, or we’ll be late for our pizza.”

  “Yeah! Pizza!” All three bolted to their rooms.

  She turned to him, with the first genuine smile she’d given him all day. “We have a spare room. It’s next to mine. I’m in Mum and Dad’s old room. Yours is my old room. You remember. Take your bags and change in there. You’ll stay with us until you fix up the Taggart place, of course. It’s unlivable as it is now.”

  Better and better…this couldn’t have been more perfect if he’d scripted it himself. Lissa had just said far more than her simple words. By letting him stay—by giving him her old room—she’d given him a message. She was willing to offer him a second chance to be trusted. She’d give his idea a twice-over before she threw him out.

  And maybe, just maybe, she wanted him to stay near her.

  “Thanks, Lissa.” He started to move past her, but paused to gently brush his mouth on her cheek.

  She almost stumbled back, as she had after he kissed her—no, mauled her— the kitchen. “Good old reliable me.” She flashed him a wobbly grin.

  He knew that look, that gorgeous, wonderful, green-light look of feminine desire and uncertainty; uncertain of what, he could also read in her eyes. Gently he lifted her chin. “You know, magazines and books say men find unpredictable women a real turn-on. Maybe I’m a freak of nature, but the woman who’s always turned me on is beautiful in her serenity. I like knowing she’s there when I need her. I love that she doesn’t put on an act to be interesting. She’s herself, and happy to be. She’s so naturally sexy I can hardly breathe when I’m around her.” He placed her hand over his thundering heart. “This is what reliable does to me, when you’re the one who’s reliable. Is that a good enough definition for you, Lissa?”

  She couldn’t look up, but her fiery cheeks and trembling lashes told him all he needed to know. “Mitch, I…I need time. I can’t believe what you’re saying—that you want me,” she whispered in an almost despairing tone.

  His heart soared, for the despair came from Lissa’s waging an inner battle against her demons. Within a day he was winning the fight for her body and heart against her old friends of pride and fear. “I’m not going anywhere.” Ever.

  “Thank you.” Suddenly she wrapped an arm around his neck, her gaze lifted, showing him the aching depths in her sweet gray eyes, her mouth parted, wet and glistening, matching his hunger with her own. “Mitch, I need time, not gentleness. I need to know this is real.” She muttered, almost to herself, “I need to feel alive again….”

  He pulled her up hard against him and put them both out of their misery with another deep, hot kiss, all but exploding in the fire bursting to life between them. Hands and lips and tongues, meeting, mating, eagerly seeking more. Finding his sun-kissed wet skin, fresh and bare, she roamed with hands and mouth, making the softest of low purring growls in her throat with every touch, every taste of him. She kept pushing closer and closer, rubbing, touching, tasting, clearly reveling in his aroused state. He was too—in the tautness of her nipples, the way she caressed her most intimate self on him.

  Beautiful, so beautiful. Loving Lissa was hotter, sweeter, richer than any fantasy he’d ever had—it was like discovering rum-laced mocha chocolate after a lifetime of making do with cheap instant coffee. The warm silkiness of her skin…the fire in her touch, in her eyes, in her kiss. The luscious sexuality wrapping itself all around and between them like a living entity only added to the sweet splendor of being with her, touching her. Let this be the start of forever….

  “Mitch,” she mumbled through kisses on his shoulder. “Don’t sleep in the spare room. Make love to me tonight.”

  “Are you sure?” he murmured urgently, caressing one small, perfect breast—fulfilling a seventeen-year fantasy and more than halfway to exploding with the potency of one touch.

  Looking up at him, her lips swollen, her delicate body all flushed, she answered, “More than sure.” She glanced down to where his hand cradled her breast, and drew a ragged breath. “I need to know you don’t have hidden agendas. I don’t want to play Carol in any Brady Bunch fantasy. I have to knowme—not someone for your kids or the family you never had.”

  If she’d dumped a bucket of ice water over him she couldn’t have killed his desire more effectively. He gawked at her. “Where the hell did you get that crazy idea from?”

  She shrugged. “It’d be a normal thing for a guy to want who grew up the way you did, Mitch. You’ve never had a family, so you want one now, and I’m convenient. You know me, and you know the kids love me. And it’s normal and healthy for you to want a mother for your kids after all they went through with Kerin.” Her sudden tension, the shuttered look in her eyes, told him her inner self screamed against the lies she uttered. She didn’t want anything to do with his so-called normal desires.

  Whatever it was she was hiding from him, he had a hell of a lot to prove to her yet; his words, his kisses hadn’t penetrated beyond the outer shell of her shattered self-esteem.

  What the hell had Tim done to her?

  “Can you doubt right now how much I want you?” He moved over her, letting his hardness speak for itself. “Does it feel like I’m playing Mike to your Carol?”

  “Prove it,” she muttered fiercely.

  The fiery sexuality in her challenge hit him hard and fast, smashing all his good intentions. He growled in her ear, “Baby, if you don’t control this, I’ll prove it all right. Because I’m about to lose control. Big-time. So either we hold this off until tonight, or I hitch up this pretty dress of yours and give you all the proof you need. And I swear to God I won’t last longer than three seconds, I’m so damn close. And not for any woman—for you. Only you, with your sweet body and mouth made for sin.”

  She leaned on his chest, breathing in high, tattered gasps. Apparently, she believed that much—at least for now. “I wish we could,” she whispered so low he could barely hear her. Then she whirled away, walking with an unsteady gait to the house.

  “Lissa?”

  She looked over her shoulder; her eyes smoldered with need so raw, heat so intense it made him ache all over again, burning alive in the fire erupting beneath the calm surface of her. “Prove it—and not just with pretty words or a few kisses.” She drew a deep, shaking breath. “I want us to be lovers—constant lovers—for six months, maybe a year, before I’ll tell you whether or not I’ll marry you. I can’t—I won’t give you any more than that. Not now. Maybe not ever.”

  He dropped the towel at the same time his jaw hit the ground. “What the hell is this—”

  But she’d already run into the house.

  Slowly, he picked up his towel, rubbing his body by reflex, though it had already been dried by the sun and Lissa’s eager hands. Hands he wanted to bear his rings. A life he wanted to share, a body he did not just want to have fun with.

  What was going on here? Why on earth did his traditional Lissa want to shack up with him? Was she trying to tell him she wanted him but didn’t need him in her life beyond sex?

  Anguish tore and clawed at his gut, hurt his very soul…all he’d ever known or thought, every certainty he had, blown away with the blasting force of a few words. An offer that probably figured as most men’s fantasies come to life left only a bitter taste in his mouth.

  There was no way he could leave it like th
is, or accept it.

  What Lissa demanded went against everything he’d ever wanted or dreamed of—and ran counter to her own intrinsic nature. Something had hurt her so badly—damn, he wanted to kill Tim for whatever it was he’d done to her—that she was fighting herself, all she’d once believed in, to have him prove his need for her.

  But he had a card to play—one fabulous ace. He could turn the sweet unexpectedness of Lissa’s hot sexuality back on her….

  If she wants me she’s gonna have to come get me—on my terms.

  He only hoped like crazy he could hold off his own desperate need to make love to her until he knew the secrets hiding behind the barriers in her pretty, suffering eyes.

  “Reliable,” huh?

  She’d done it! Even now, she could hardly believe she’d said it. She’d given her demands without negotiation. She’d thrown down her gauntlet, shown Mitch in unmistakable terms that she was not the old Lissa Miller—the innocent, vulnerable, gullible, available girl he’d known. She was a woman now, with a woman’s emotions and needs, and she wasn’t ashamed to tell him.

  Okay, maybe embarrassed, but not ashamed. She had no need to be. She’d put up with far less than second best once, and she’d never do that again—especially not with Mitch. Second best with Mitch would only pave the highway to hell. She wanted to be so much more to him than a convenient wife and mother.

  After Tim left, a few men had showed interest in her, but none of them had remotely appealed to her or begun to patch the deep, dark abyss in her self-confidence from Tim’s desertion…from the life she’d shared with Tim, long before he left. Starting with their honeymoon…she shuddered with the force of memory of those two horrible weeks.

  No! She didn’t want to remember. All she wanted was to forget—as Tim obviously had. Apart from the money he scrupulously paid every month for Jenny’s welfare, he’d put away all thoughts of their disastrous marriage and reverted without any trouble to being her best mate and helper. As if nothing had ever happened to interrupt their twenty-year friendship.

  It wasn’t going to happen with Mitch. She’d be damned if it would! If he ever walked, it would be because she wanted out. And he wouldn’t forget her—she’d make sure of it. He’d wake up nights with sweat pouring down his face and body, dreaming of what it had been like for them, craving more—

  She felt a slow smile curve her mouth…hmmm. Made for sin. Oh, if only she could do it, make him want her so badly she could—

  The doorbell rang. She moved to answer it, knowing the kids wouldn’t bother and Mitch was probably still reeling in shock from her ultimatum. She grinned wider. She liked that idea.

  She opened the door to a man with plain brown hair, a quiet manner, a common gray suit and strangely anonymous dark glasses. “Melissa Carroll? We need to talk. Privately.”

  A quarter of an hour later she shut the door on her unexpected visitor, blinked and checked her watch. Five o’clock. She’d opened the door at nineteen minutes to five, thinking she had some measure of control over her world….

  Now she knew it for the lie it was. Everything she once thought she knew was upside-down; everything had changed. Sick, shivering, scared to her marrow, she had no choice but to go on with this miserable charade with Mitch. Even if the man in gray who’d come to the door hadn’t demanded her total cooperation, and that she keep Mitch in the dark, she would have gone through with it for Matt and Luke’s sake. They’d been through enough tragedy in their short lives without knowing that their beloved father, far from being an honorable squadron leader in the Air Force, a hero from East Timor and Bosnia, was nothing more than a—dear God, she couldn’t even think the words. Oh, that poor little girl….

  Damn you, Mitch! Damn you!

  Fool! Why did she ever think she could trust him? Why did she ever kid herself into believing he’d ever really want her?

  “Da-ad! C’mon, Dad, we’ll be late!”

  Despite feeling as if he’d been hit by a truck by Lissa’s ultimatum, Mitch grinned. Matt had bounced back from his momentary bout of insecurity, already taking him for granted again—just as a kid should. “Coming!” He emerged from the room to find his sons bouncing with eagerness outside his door.

  Luke immediately grabbed his hand, his eyes still dancing with shadows. Mitch swung him onto his hip. “Still here, kiddo. I promised, didn’t I?”

  Luke’s whole body relaxed; he smiled and nodded. Matt, with an empathetic look on his face, also hugged his brother, in the total understanding that comes with being an identical twin. They might be as different as a kangaroo and a koala, but their bond was unbreakable, their empathy beyond what even the most loving father could relate to; he was just glad they had it. And it was proven again. Luke flushed, knowing he’d acted like a little kid—and Matt immediately said, “Cut out the girl stuff, Dad. I’m hungry!”

  “Me, too!” Luke wriggled off his hip and bolted toward Mitch’s car, parked out the front. “C’mon, Jen, stop puttin’ girly ribbons in your hair. We wanna eat!”

  “Yeah!” With one of the despised ribbons floating from her hair, Jenny tore out the door without so much as a glance at him. He chuckled as the kids fought over who had to sit in the middle. Oh, Matt and Luke were part of a secure family all right.

  At that moment Lissa emerged from her room next to his. He felt her presence, though she didn’t speak. He slowly turned to her, wondering what she’d say next to stun him—

  He almost reeled back in shock at the sigh

  She was trembling, wraithlike in sudden ethereal paleness. Her eyes, dark and blank with horror, looked at him as if she’d thought he’d sprouted horns in the last half hour. He didn’t need Matt and Luke’s silent form of communication to tell him something was wrong—very wrong. Something connected to him.

  “Lissa?” He started toward her. “What is it?”

  She cringed. Oh, dear God, Lissa literally cringed from him. “We’ll be late for the dinner reservation. We’d better go,” she whispered, as if she couldn’t speak any louder.

  If he weren’t so damn scared he’d laugh in her face at the pitiful excuse. They’d be almost the only people at Bob’s on a Wednesday night, and she knew it.

  “The kids are hungry.” She spoke as if the fact was something profound. Her eyes couldn’t meet his. Her hands twisted around each other, and she bit the inside of her cheek—classic signs with Lissa that she wanted to bolt.

  From him? Simple fear upgraded to sheer terror. “Lissa, you look like a ghost. Are you sick? Let me help you.” In a lightning move, he grabbed her hands before she backed off again.

  She worried her cheek even more but left her hands passively in his. “I’m fine. It…it’s the heat, and the garden’s worrying me. If I don’t harvest enough to sell at the country market at Bathurst, I’ll fall behind in my mortgage on the farm—”

  “I’ll help you. I can harvest fruit and vegetables as easily as you, Lissa. And if we’re late, we can use my courier plane to fly them to Bathurst to make the market.”

  “All right. Thank you.” She looked down and away.

  If anything, the acceptance of his offer made her tense even more. Her sweet spunk of this afternoon was gone, vanished like the Phantom down his tunnels. Her hands were so cold he wanted to shiver…and he wondered when she’d tell him the truth. Or if she would at all.

  He chaffed her hands, trying to inject his warmth into them. “Lissa, can’t you trust me enough to tell me what’s upset you?” he asked softly, wishing, hoping to reach her shielded heart. Her eyes lifted to his for a brief moment, flashing with hot resentment, a fury he’d never seen in her, even after he’d proposed today. Then, as swift as flight, it was gone and so was she, retreating inside herself. The vivid, passionate woman who entranced him half an hour ago was encased again in delicate ice, frozen in time—lovely and pure, cold and lifeless as the ship’s figurehead he’d likened her to before. Lost in the mists of time, with no one to sail or steer her back to port. A dead woman s
till breathing. “Maybe I’m hungry, too. We should go.”

  He couldn’t leave it like this, even though he knew he was digging a deeper hole for himself. He loved her too much to leave her suffering. “If it’s money you’re worried about, baby, don’t. If you marry me you’ll never have to worry about anything again.” He clicked his tongue savagely. “Oh, damn. I know I put that badly, but I want to take care of you for the rest of our lives.” He lifted one hand after the other to his mouth, warming her with his inner heat. Loving her like crazy. Wanting her to belong to him, with him, forever. Yes, damn it, wanting the family he’d never had…but only with her. “Marry me, Lissa.”

  There was a long, dreadful silence before she spoke. “Is that what you want, Mitch?” Her voice was trembling so badly he had to strain to hear her. “You really want that?”

  “Yes,” he answered without a second’s hesitation. “I’d marry you today if I could.”

  Lissa shuddered. Oh, God, she shuddered—and it wasn’t in passion or joy. “All right,” she murmured. “Whenever you want.”

  He had his answer—she’d marry him—but her dull, lifeless tone ripped him apart from the inside. She didn’t want it; she didn’t want him. It half killed him to put the words together, but he managed it, for her sake. “Lissa, if you don’t want this—if you don’t want to marry me—”

  Absolute, unbelievable terror flashed in her eyes for a second, long enough to drain her face to pasty white. Her eyes skittered around the room, as if seeking something out. “No, no—of course I want it. I said so, didn’t I?” Her eyes returned to his face, filled with pleading anguish. “Please, Mitch…”