by Rachel Lee
But it wasn’t long before that caring yielded to something more basic. He didn’t know who did it first, but their tongues met, engaging in an ancient dance. And with that shift, the hunger in him changed, too. His loins throbbed with long-denied needs, and the warning voice in his head yelled at him to stop.
But he couldn’t stop. He needed this. He needed her, because somehow, in some way, she offered an absolution he couldn’t find elsewhere.
She tore her mouth away, gasping for breath, but offered not a bit of resistance when he swooped in again for another kiss. He felt her melt against him, and almost before he knew what he was doing, his hand found her breast. Oh, man, she felt perfect against his palm, and he wanted to rip away the fabric that prevented him from feeling her skin. He found the strength, from somewhere, to keep his touch gentle when everything inside him screamed for him to just mount her now, to bury himself in the beauty and forgetfulness her body offered.
A small moan escaped her, and he felt her arch up against his hand, seeking more. Even through the thick fabric of the sweatshirt he could feel her nipple harden, just as he was hardening, and a flash of pure triumph ripped through him.
She wanted him, too. Every bit as much.
And all rational thought was fast flying out of his head, leaving him a prisoner of need.
His hand slipped up under the shirt, pushing it out of the way. More. He needed more, and he needed it now.
But just as he tore his mouth from hers and moved to take her exposed nipple into his mouth, she gasped and cried out.
Reality came back in one crashing instant. What the hell was he doing?
He lifted his head and looked into her frightened face. “Kay?” He struggled to regain his footing. “Did I hurt you.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, and huge tears began to fall. “I want…oh, God, I’m sorry.” She struggled to pull the shirt down.
He helped, and when she wiggled as if to escape, he quickly helped her by shifting her to the far end of the couch. “Kay?”
“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice breaking. “I’m sorry!” Then she turned her face against the back of the couch, and wracking sobs shook her.
What had he done? He didn’t know. But the only thing he could think of to do for her now was to move away, to go sit in his own chair and give her space.
She cried for a while, and he just sat helplessly watching, figuring that even a hug might be taken amiss right now. He couldn’t offer any solace at all, and that made him crazy.
“I’m sorry,” he said, when her sobs began to ease. “I’m always doing that.”
“Doing what?” she asked brokenly, her voice muffled against the back of the couch.
“Hurting you. I always hurt people.” And he was damned if he knew how to fix it when he did.
“It wasn’t you.”
“What?” He was sure he’d misunderstood her.
She turned then, groaning a bit as she twisted until she faced him. “It wasn’t you,” she said in a tear-thickened voice. “Clint, don’t blame yourself. It was me. Me!”
“You? You didn’t do anything. I did.”
“No, you don’t get it. I wanted you to kiss me. But I can’t. I can’t.”
He was beginning to get it, and blackness seeped into the edges of his mind. “Why?”
“Because…” She gasped, almost a sob, and closed her eyes. “He raped me.”
That did it. Clint rose, shoved his feet into his boots and then stepped outside into the bitter cold without even a jacket. He needed that cold, because right now his hands itched, absolutely itched, to wrap themselves around Kevin’s throat. Or smash something. As if they had a mind of their own.
He couldn’t let Kay see this. He couldn’t risk expressing his rage to her. He didn’t want to see her shrink from him again. He didn’t think he could bear it.
But the urge to kill had never been stronger, and he had to walk it off. Rage clouded the mind, deadened the senses, and he couldn’t afford that for Kay’s sake, if nothing else.
He walked all the way around the cabin four or five times, not counting, fighting down the man he no longer wanted to be. The man he might have to become again to save Kay.
He looked up at the heavens, sending a blast of rage upward. What had that chaplain said to him? Oh, yeah, God has broad shoulders, and a curse can be a prayer, too. Yeah. Sure.
Except a lot of the time he didn’t think God was listening. Nor should he, when you came right down to it. No reason to listen to Clint Ardmore, human monster. Probably already damned for eternity.
But what about Kay? he asked silently. What about Kay? She didn’t deserve this.
A gust of wind blew snow into his face. No answer at all. But it reminded him that he was getting perilously close to hypothermia, and nice as it might be to just lie down in the snow and kiss off all the pain, he couldn’t do that.
Not now. That woman inside was depending on him.
He took a couple of deep breaths, realizing that the rage was subsiding. He forced himself to let go of the last of his tension, as well.
Certain now of his self-control, he headed back inside. He kicked off his boots, his eyes seeking Kay. She was sitting stiffly on the couch and didn’t even look around.
Oh, this was not good.
“Kay?”
“What?”
“Are you okay?”
“Whatever would make you think that?” she asked, her voice brittle.
Ah, hell. “What did I do now?”
“How could you have done anything? You were outside.”
He wasn’t buying it. In stocking feet he padded over and sat on the coffee table facing her. Some instinct told him that he needed to be close to her right now.
“Talk,” he said.
“What’s there to talk about?”
“Look, I’d tell you I’m sorry I kissed you, but I’d be lying. What I’m sorry about is what happened to you. And I feel so damn helpless. I can’t fix it, Kay.”
“Why would you think I expect you to fix anything?”
She wasn’t looking at him, and little flags were be ginning to pop up in his head. He knew a lot of psychology, and he began to suspect something.
“Do you think,” he said slowly, “that I walked out of here because I was disgusted with you?”
“Of course you did! Don’t bother trying to lie to me. I know what I am. Damaged goods. I can’t even…I can’t even…” Her voice broke, and she looked away. “I am so disgusting.”
“Disgusting? That’s the last thing you are. Do you want to know why I walked out of here? The real reason?”
She darted a look at him, then averted her gaze again.
“The real reason I walked out of here was that the monster inside me was getting loose. I wanted to kill someone. I wanted to kill Kevin. I did not, absolutely did not, walk out because I was disgusted with you. There is not one disgusting thing about you.”
“Yes, there is,” she said, her voice small.
“Why? Because you were raped? Like that was a choice you made? That dirt is all on Kevin, not on you. Even if life had forced you to stand on a street corner and turn twenty-dollar tricks, you wouldn’t be disgusting. And there’s most definitely not anything disgusting about you because you were raped.”
She was silent so long that he began to fear he’d hurt her again. But then, still in a small voice, she said, “I think I’m worth more than twenty.”
He almost chuckled in his relief, but caught himself, knowing it could well be exactly the wrong response. “More like a grand, maybe.”
She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “There was a time I would have priced myself considerably higher.”
“Well, I would, too, but I figured you’d think I was exaggerating.”
Slowly she turned her head to look at him. A slight smile flitted over her mouth, but then the haunted expression returned. “I’m not worth anything right now.”
“Why in the worl
d would you think that?” But he suspected.
“Because I…can’t. I wanted you to kiss me, and then I froze. I panicked. I’m…broken.”
He sought words carefully. “Life breaks us all in one way or another. But if we try, we can put the pieces back together. It takes time. And we won’t be exactly the same person we used to be. But we are whole again.”
“Is that what you’ve done? Put yourself back together?”
“In my own rather crude way, yes. Still not done with the reconstruction, but working on it.”
“With plenty of defensive walls.”
He nodded, admitting it.
“I don’t seem to be able to build those very well.”
“I don’t advise it, actually. Right now it doesn’t seem to be working too well for me.”
“What do you mean?”
But that was one question he wasn’t prepared to answer, either to her or to himself. Because he didn’t know what to make of all the fault lines that had begun cracking open inside him since this woman had come into his life. He didn’t know if they would remain, or what his interior landscape might look like once the earthquake was over. Best to just remain silent.
She waited, then let it go. Unlike a lot of women he’d known, she didn’t seem to feel a need to peck him open like a juicy seed until she knew every little nook and cranny inside him. He appreciated that, especially since he had some ugly nooks.
“I’m sorry,” she said after a while. “I’ve barged into your hermitage, busted your solitude and created one emotional upheaval after another.”
“Call it fresh air.”
Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
He gave her a wry, pained smile. “Sometimes even hermits need to deal with something besides the cobwebs inside their own heads.”
“Oh.”
He could see that turning around in her head; then a cute, almost impish, smile appeared. “So I’m a feather duster?”
“Big-time, lady,” he said. And finally he let a laugh emerge. “One really big feather duster.”
He had to give it to her, she bounced back fast. He could see her muscles uncoiling, even as life began to return to her face.
That didn’t mean the problems were over. By no means. Snakes had a way of going into hiding, then pop ping up again at unexpected moments. But Kay apparently had a resilient nature, and he liked that.
There might be some lessons there for him to learn, too.
Because, he finally admitted to himself, he was getting just a bit weary of nursing his own psyche.
The day remained sunny, the wind steadily growing calmer. Perfect conditions for Kevin, Clint thought as he walked from window to window. As the sun heated the snow on the roof, a few icicles began to grow around the eaves. Good. The more of them the better. If they grew big enough, they would become deadly. Handy weapons, and a bar to invasion.
He heard a clatter from the kitchen, and went there to find Kay struggling to pull out pots.
“Let me help with that,” he said instantly. “What do you want to do?”
“Cook. I’m going to go crazy sitting on that couch worrying and thinking. I need to be busy, and you said you liked my chowder.”
He should have thought of that. “The chowder was great.”
“I think I saw a chicken in your refrigerator.”
“Yeah, sometimes I actually cook myself.”
She gave him a small smile. “Do you mind if I do?”
“Not a bit. I’ll help, if you want.” He pulled the chicken out and put it on a plate on the counter. “Kinda hard to wash it, though,” he remarked. “No power, no running water, remember?”
“Oh, I forgot about that.” She stared at the chicken, frowning faintly.
“Well, if we don’t get power back soon, it’ll spoil. I don’t know how well the stuff in the fridge is keeping cool. So let’s risk it. We just need to rinse it as best we can and then make sure it’s fully cooked.” He paused. “In fact, I probably ought to take what I can and put it in a snow bank to preserve it.”
She touched the chicken. “It still feels pretty cold.”
“But sooner or later, opening the fridge is going to warm it up too much.” He sighed. “For a self-sufficient type, I’m standing here wondering why I never bought that generator I’ve been looking at for the last two years.”
“We all have questions like that to ask ourselves.”
“I suppose.” He helped her wash the chicken by pouring water over it from the huge pot of water that still sat on the stove.
“Any lemons?” she asked him.
“As a matter of fact…” He opened his pantry, asking, “How many?”
“At least two.”
She thanked him as she accepted them and placed them on the counter. “Pepper?”
He opened another cupboard and handed her the peppermill. “Salt?”
She nodded and took that, too. “Roasting pan?”
He dug that out of the back of another cupboard.
She regarded him. “Do you put everything away?”
“Why?” The question surprised him.
“Because I usually leave salt and pepper on my counter in easy reach.”
“Oh.” He shrugged. “Training. Stow everything.”
“Navy?”
“Marines.”
“Ah.”
“But if you want, I can start leaving things out.”
She gave him a humorous little smile. “And drive yourself crazy? I don’t think so. I’ll adapt.” Her smile faded, and she bit her lip. “I guess I won’t be here that long, anyway.”
He didn’t know how to answer that. If he agreed, she might think he was in a hurry to get rid of her again. And even if part of him thought that would be best for both of them, he didn’t want to make her feel that way. If he disagreed, he might make her think she would never be able to get on with her own life. Lose-lose, he thought.
She turned back to the chicken, rubbing it with olive oil she’d found herself, sprinkling it inside with salt and pepper, then squeezing the lemons over the skin. To his surprise, she shoved the two halved and squeezed lemons into the cavity instead of tossing them.
“What’s this?” he asked. “I’ve never seen anyone do that before.”
“Lemon chicken,” she offered. “I hope you like it.”
“Sounds good.” He didn’t mind acting as if he were inexperienced in the kitchen if it made her feel good about what she was doing.
A sprinkle of salt on the outside of the chicken and then she placed it in the roasting pan. “All ready,” she announced. “Thirty minutes at four-twenty-five, then fifty-five minutes at three-seventy-five.”
He turned on the oven for her, letting it preheat. “Anything else?”
“Depends on what you want with it. I usually make this with yellow rice.”
“Hey, I have that.” He went back to the pantry and brought out a bag. “Too bad we can’t use my rice cooker.”
“You have a rice cooker?”
“I eat a lot of rice. Leftover habit from my time abroad.”
She looked at him again, her eyes full of questions. He gave her credit for not asking them. “It’ll cook well enough on the stove top,” she said finally. “I don’t have a rice cooker at…my place.”
He noted she resisted the easy and obvious choice of the word home. That opened one of the cracks a little wider. This woman, he thought, didn’t really have a home. Probably hadn’t felt she had one for years. Maybe for a brief time with Kevin she had thought she was making one, but along with all the other things he’d done to her, the bastard had probably succeeded in making home a dirty word.
He stopped himself cold. He couldn’t afford these thoughts. He sought his way back to safer ground. “I couldn’t exist without one. It lets me make perfect rice without paying attention, and I tend to get distracted when I’m working.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything. Well, what was there to say?
“Anything else you need?”
“Not just yet. Vegetables later, if you have any.”
“I’ve got a load of them in the freezer out in the garage. Probably most anything you could want.”
“Then when it’s time, we’ll decide.” Then she asked, “Am I keeping you from working?”
The answer was simple, though far from complete. “No power, no computer. So I get a holiday.” But he also knew he couldn’t keep on standing here and talking to her. Talking was dangerous. It created bonds. It might even reveal too many things he didn’t want to reveal. But she’d expressed boredom, and he felt obligated to keep her occupied in some way. Occupied enough that she wouldn’t notice his prowling as the evening grew closer.
“Listen,” he said, “you like to read, right?”
“I love it.”
“Then I’ve got something to show you.”
Violating all his personal rules of privacy, he led her down the hallway and opened the door to his office. Ceiling-to-floor bookcases lined the walls, like battlements around his desk and computer. “If you see something you want and can’t reach it, call me. I’ll get it down for you.”
“Thank you!” She looked genuinely pleased and excited. “I love books. I always wished I could have a library.”
“Well, it’s not exactly that big.” But still way more than she could have when she was always being forced to move. He waved to the left. “Fiction on that side, nonfiction on the other. Most of it’s in alphabetical order by author name, if you want to look for something in particular. Otherwise, happy browsing.”
He left her then, needing to escape. Needing to get away from whatever it was in this woman that kept calling to him. Needing to get away from watching her explore the inner sanctum where he had never allowed anyone before.
Some might think that odd, but he knew better. Looking at a man’s library was like looking into his soul. If she realized that, she could learn a lot about him from browsing those shelves.
And he couldn’t imagine why in the hell he’d given her the opportunity.
She heard Clint go into the kitchen and slip the chicken into the oven. Since he had a windup timer on his counter, she assumed he set that, too. Browsing the books totally absorbed her. She found it difficult to imagine actually being able to own so many books. Even if she could have afforded to buy so many to begin with, she would have had to leave them behind every time she had to run. And that would have hurt.
