A Rare Chance (18 page)

“Because you can't control me and you know it. And you know you don't want to. You don't want a man you can control any more than I want a woman I can control.”

He caught her by the wrist and pulled her onto him, hooking one arm around the small of her back as she balanced on his thighs. She could have jumped up and grabbed her mineral water and thrown him out. But she didn't.

He hadn't thought she would.

She slipped her arms over his shoulders, not clasping her hands together but letting them dangle. Her eyes were very close to his, dark, unreadable. He thought of the things they'd seen, so different from his world.

“Okay, I'm scared,” she said, and her mouth found his.

She drew herself closer, and he could feel her soft breasts against his chest as his mouth opened to the heat of her tongue, to the heat it spread through him. His arousal was instant, forceful. Sitting on his thighs as she was, there was no way she could miss it. He dropped his hands to her waist. She eased her legs around so that she was straddling him, increasing, if possible, the extent of his arousal. He slipped his hands under her boxing shirt, easing his palms along her smooth, bare skin until he found her sports bra. Using his thumbs, he teased her hard nipples through the thin, stretchy fabric.

“How scared?” he asked.

She smiled into his mouth. “Real scared.”

Slowly, with his gaze on hers, he slipped his fingers beneath the sports bra and pushed it up, freeing her breasts. He cupped them with his palms. Watched her eyes darken with a desire matched by his own.

He lowered his head and took one nipple between his lips, tasting, licking, until she moaned aloud. She dug her fingers into his shoulders. He paused only for an instant before taking the other nipple. Everything about her—the taste of her, the feel of her, the
reality
of her—heightened his arousal. He was throbbing, aching. Not for anyone else, he realized. Just her.

“Let me love you,” he murmured, peeling off her flannel shirt, then easing her shirt and bra the rest of the way off.

Her upper body entirely naked, he gazed at her without touching her. Her nipples were tight, pink buds, her breathing hard as she met his eyes. “I'd like that,” she said.

He trailed his fingertips up her abdomen, his motion deliberate, tantalizingly slow. “You're beautiful,” he said at last.

She brought one hand down his arm and swept her fingertips across the bulge in his jeans. She found the zipper.

Then she stopped.

She looked at him. Her mouth was swollen with her own arousal, with the effects of their kiss. She licked her lower lip. Watching her, he thought he'd explode.

“I can't,” she said.

He bit off a curse. Then sighed. And nodded. And finally said, “I know.”

“It's not because I don't want to or because I'm scared—at least of you. I'm not.”

With one hand he scooped her shirt off the floor. “You don't owe me an explanation, Gabriella.”

She nodded, but added in a low voice, “I guess I'm scared of myself. I'm not good at one-night stands, and that's what this could be. We both know that. Not because we want it to be, at least right now, but…” She sighed, visibly annoyed with herself. “Oh, hell, I'm not making any sense. The point is, I know and you know that I haven't told you the truth about my jaunt out to Logan this afternoon. That's not a very good circumstance under which to jump into bed with you.”

He gave her a curious look. “I thought the circumstance had more to do with certain physical and emotional needs.”

“Well, it did have to do with that too, but you know what I mean.” She gave him a calculated, fetching, utterly irresistible smile. “I'm being honorable.”

He growled—there was no other word to describe the sound that came from deep inside him—and thrust her shirt at her. “Seeing how you're being so honorable, would you mind taking your hand off my zipper?”

She snatched it back as if she'd just realized she had hold of a hot poker.

“Oh,” she said, and blushed.

Which was when he dumped her off his lap.

“You, Gabriella Starr, are a witch. A lying, conniving witch.”

She tried to look innocent. “I am not.”

“You don't blush. You
never
blush. I don't care if you had me in your hand, you wouldn't blush.”

“Are you implying I'm some kind of loose woman?”

“No, I'm
saying
you don't blush. Honor my ass. When you flicked those fingers of yours across my jeans, you realized there'd be no getting rid of me tonight if you went any further. You couldn't trust yourself to throw me out. And
something
—some little warning bell in the back of your mind—went off and told you to get rid of me now while you had the presence of mind to do it.”

She pulled on her shirt, her hair going static as she threw back her shoulders, facing him. “I'm perfectly capable of controlling my libido.”

“Something you just demonstrated so ably by stopping when you did.
That
I'm not arguing. No, Gabby,” he said, stepping toward her, “you knew you couldn't risk having me spend the night.”

She snorted. “What a fantasy!”

“Are you expecting someone? Hiding someone? Are you worried I'd find something? Some clue about what you were doing at Logan earlier today?”

She was marching back through the living room to her entry. He followed at his own pace. Let her sweat. He knew damned well he was right. She unlatched locks with furious speed and tore open the door.

“Good night, Cam.”

He grinned at her. “Cutting your losses, eh?”

“No, I'm throwing you out.”

“Just admit I've got you.”

“I'll admit,” she said, “that I was a damned fool for trying to be honest with you.”

He laughed. He couldn't help himself.

She glared at him. “What if I accused you of attempting to seduce me so you could search my apartment?”

“I'd understand your reasoning and try to earn your trust.”

Now
she
laughed, openly incredulous.

He had, he thought, sounded a bit lame. “Well, I sure as hell wouldn't toss you out on your ear.”

“Not until you'd succeeded in seducing me, anyway,” she muttered, then added some vague and arguably not inaccurate generalization about men being that way. She opened the door wider, definitely one to go toe to toe with crocodiles and such. “Now—again—good night.”

Cam touched a stray hair along her cheek. “When we do make love, Gabriella, no warning bells will go off in the back of your mind. You won't be scared of yourself or me, and you won't be holding back.”

“
If
we make love, you mean.”

“No, I mean
when.
” He kissed her lightly. “Good night, Gabriella.”

She gave him a faltering smile. “I have no regrets. I want you to know that.”

“About going as far as we did or about not going further?”

The smile blossomed. “Either way,” she said, and shoved him out the door.

When he got out in the hall, he waited until he'd heard each of her locks click into place as fast as was humanly possible. It wasn't stopping him from pushing his way back inside that had her hurrying. It was stopping herself from dragging him back in.

And he'd have gone, he thought. Without hesitation, he'd have gone.

“And not just because you want to know what she's hiding,” he muttered to himself. “You're not that big a bastard.”

But it didn't please him and his sense of honor that the thought was there. Now he'd have to find another way to find out what Gabriella didn't want him to see, hear, find, or be around for—or a way to get her, finally, to trust him.

 

Darrow avoided Joshua Reading until morning. They met in the huge living room of Joshua's sprawling duplex on the Boston waterfront. A wall of windows looked out on the water. The place was professionally decorated with lots of modern art and sleek lines and whites. Joshua was dressed for work, in a custom-tailored, conservatively stylish gray suit that made him seem even more rich and handsome than he was. But there were dark circles under his eyes and a grayish cast to his skin that spoke of a sleepless night and deep worries.

“There's no sign of her,” Darrow said impassively.

“Son of a bitch.”

Joshua turned from the white marble fireplace and balled his hands into fists, the tendons visibly tense. He inhaled through his nostrils as if to will himself to stay under control. But he looked ready to throw up. Darrow didn't know whether it was fear or anger or some sick mixture of the two. He'd driven down to town that morning after his own harrowing night. Lizzie gone, Gabriella Starr not talking, Cam Yeager on the scent. Plenty to think about.

“Don't stand around here, goddamnit,” Joshua ground out. “Go find her!”

Darrow didn't move. “Tough to know where to look.”

Joshua smirked. “Try Gabriella Starr. That bitch knows something. Count on it.”

It was indeed, Darrow thought, a safe bet that Gabriella knew something. But he had no intention of sharing his suspicions or even the facts with Joshua Reading. Joshua would no doubt love to know about his visit last night with Gabriella Starr and Cam Yeager. Yeager was a loose cannon. Darrow had no idea how far his ex-partner would go this time to keep him on the straight and narrow.

Keep him? Darrow grunted to himself. He'd already stepped into the abyss. There was no pulling himself back up.

Best to concentrate on keeping things from spinning too far out of his control. If he needed to, he'd wring what she knew about Lizzie Fairfax and her whereabouts out of her pal, Ms. Gabriella Starr. Then he'd decide what to do with the information he got. Giving it to Joshua Reading was only one option.

What interested Darrow at the moment was Joshua's increasingly volatile and even irrational reaction to Gabriella. Just thinking about her and her influence over her best friend and his older brother could throw Joshua into a tailspin of anger, frustration, paranoia. His initial distrust and fear of her was rapidly turning into hatred. But he would never let her know—or even Titus. He was adept at presenting what he wanted other people to see of him. He had no center, no core.

It made staying ahead of him a challenge.

“I'll handle Gabriella Starr,” Darrow said calmly. He eyed Joshua closely, trying to read him. Even when he was raging, Joshua Reading was difficult to read and therefore potentially dangerous. “You haven't done anything to Lizzie, have you?”

Joshua lunged forward, instantly wild and furious, his hands tightened into fists. “What the hell kind of question is that?”

Darrow shrugged. “You know.”

“The
hell
I do! I'm worried about her, goddamnit. She's my fiancée—I love her.”

Right, Darrow thought. “You two have a rough sex life. It's none of my business, but if something happened—”

Joshua started to take a swing at Darrow, then apparently thought better of it and backed off, still fuming. “You're over the line, Darrow. Way over the line.”

“Just asking questions. All you have to do is answer them.”

“I did
nothing
to Lizzie.” His voice was hoarse with tension and anger. “
Nothing.
Whatever sick idea you have of the physical side of our relationship is off base.”

“I heard you,” Darrow said calmly.

“You didn't see us. You weren't in the same room. You don't know what went on. I would never—” He coughed, as if choking on emotion. “My God, how dare you even
think
I could hurt Lizzie!”

Because you're one kinky bastard,
Darrow thought. He made no claim to purity himself, but he sure as hell wasn't kinky. Maybe Lizzie had come out of denial over what was going on between her and Reading and had hit the road. In which case Darrow didn't know if he wanted to look too hard for her.

But there was something about Joshua's reaction to her absence without leave that Darrow found curious, even disturbing. He couldn't put his finger on it, except to say that Joshua seemed, underneath his rage, actually terrified, more so than the situation warranted, in Darrow's judgment. This wasn't just about power and control and a fiancée who'd snuck off. Joshua Reading was
scared.

Darrow swore silently, suddenly getting it. Christ, he'd been thick-headed. He gave Reading a cold look. “She has something she could use against you?”

His shoulders slumped. He averted his eyes, his fists unballing. “She could. She kept a journal. She—she made things up about us.”