More Than Friends (The Warriors) (6 page)

Leah nodded. "You make me feel safe." She lifted her face, the worry he saw in her eyes revealing the true depth of her vulnerability. "I really need to feel safe, Brett."

He stood and circled the foot of the bed, his thoughts in disarray as he joined her. Despite his concern that he was tempting fate, he stretched out atop the bedspread, crammed a few pillows behind his back before settling against the headboard, and then drew Leah into his arms.

When she turned into him and rested her head against his bare shoulder, his heart stuttered to a stop. It eventually began to beat again, but at a hectic pace when he felt her slender fingers sink into the thick mat of dark hair that covered his chest and belly. He responded instantly to her closeness and her touch, his nerve endings igniting, his muscles tensing beneath her fingertips, and his sex straining for release.

"Are we lovers, Brett?"

Shock pummeled his senses like a fighter gone mad in the ring.

Shifting in his arms, she peered up at him. "Are we?"

He exhaled shakily. "No, Leah."
We haven’t been for a long time, but it isn’t because I don’t want you every second of every day.

"Were we lovers at some point in the past?"

He nodded.

She sighed. "That must be why I feel as though we’ve been intimate. Why else would I feel so comfortable one minute and so aroused the next?" She freed herself from his encircling arm, shoved aside the covers, and knelt on the bed at his side. "Why else would I trust you so completely? Why do I want to make love with you every time you look at me or touch me? And why would I want you now if we aren’t lovers?" she asked, her voice rising in pitch with each subsequent question.

He seized her by the waist, dragged her into his lap, and held her despite her initial struggle. Although still grappling with her bluntness, he said, "I’m glad you trust me." He thought yet again of all the reasons why she shouldn’t. The list was as long as his arm. "But I can’t answer all these questions. It’s not the right time. You need to remember your life on your own. When you do, we’ll talk if that’s what you still want. I promise."

"Is that a polite way of telling me that I’ve just made a complete fool of myself? Damn it! You must think I’m demented." She sagged against him, arms sliding around his neck as she rested her forehead against his chin and sighed.

He embraced her, the sound of her frustrated sigh and the tension he felt in her slender limbs spiking his guilt to new heights. "I don’t think you’re anything of the kind. You’ve been through a lot during the last twelve hours, so relax and give yourself a break, why don’t you?"

She squirmed free of his encircling arms, eased backward, and wound up seated astride his hips. Brett shifted beneath her, but not quickly enough to conceal his body’s hunger for her.

"You want me," she accused. "I can feel how much you want me." She trailed her hand down across his chest, her fingertips pausing millimeters from the half–open zipper of his jeans and the hard length of flesh that spoke of need long denied.

She paused, drew in a shaky breath, and met his gaze. Those dark eyes of his reminded her of hot coals. She sank her fingers into the thatch of coarse dark hair at the base of his abdomen, her gaze remaining fixed on his strained facial features the entire time. He jerked beneath her gliding fingertips.

"You… want… me," she said a second time.

The muscles bunched in his jaw as he ground his back teeth together. After slowly counting to ten, he spoke. "You’re stating the obvious, but this isn’t the time or place, Leah." He shoved her hand aside when all he really wanted to do was flip her onto her back, plunge into her body, and succumb fully to the bliss he would find there.

"That was stupid of me," she reluctantly admitted.

"I’m trying to make allowances for you tonight, but pull another stunt like that and all bets are off."

She absently rubbed her wrist, her gaze speculative as she studied him. "You seemed surprised earlier when I told you I trusted you. Why?"

"I’m no Boy Scout. Never have been."

"And I’m too old to be a Girl Scout. So where does that leave us?"

He saw the recklessness that glinted in her eyes. This was not the Leah he remembered. Micah had warned him that she’d grown assertive and outspoken, but he hadn’t listened. He knew now that he should have.

He tugged her forward so that she rested against the hard wall of his chest. Despite the torment of having her draped across his torso, he gently stroked her back until her breathing slowed to an even pace. When she sighed, he felt the wash of her warm breath against his neck and knew she’d finally stopped fighting herself and him.

"Talk to me, please," she whispered. "Tell me about my life. I need to know about myself."

"Your thirtieth birthday was last month," he began in a steady voice despite the agony of having her molded tightly to his body. "You’re beautiful and funny and smart. Everyone loves you. You’ve got a stubborn streak ten miles wide, you’re one of the most honest women I’ve ever known, and you aren’t afraid to get your hands dirty if there’s work to be done. You’re strong and courageous in a crisis, and you’re compassionate and patient when your friends need you."

Surprise and pleasure brightened her eyes as she eased back and stared at him. "Maybe I
am
Girl Scout."

"You were." He smiled, and it lessened the fatigue that shadowed his eyes.

"I actually sound like a nice person."

"You’re more than nice. Much more," he said, his voice low and his eyes so dark that they looked black.

She sank against him once more, her breasts plumping against his hard chest, her gently rounded stomach mating with the rock solid surface of his belly, and her inner thighs like soft brackets on either side of his narrow hips. Wrapping her arms around him, she rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes.

Brett continued to run his hands up and down her narrow back. He lost track of time and the world. Focused on Leah, he felt every breath she took and heard every sigh that escaped her. She began to drift off, her shapely body going slack against him. For his part, he felt as though someone had poured hot lava over his body and set a match to his senses.

Lowering his hands once he heard the measured cadence of her deepening respiration, he cupped her hips, closed his eyes, and savored his sensual memories of this woman in his arms. The woman whose skin turned to hot satin in the throes of passion, the woman who’d always given of herself with sensual generosity and spontaneity, and the woman who had conceived a son in his bed before he’d thrown her away like a fool.

As his mind continued to produce a series of erotic images, Brett’s body tightened until he felt that so much as a glance from Leah would incinerate his soul. He inhaled, taking in the scent of her skin, and then he exhaled raggedly. He shuddered a few seconds later, aware that he couldn’t risk having her in his arms much longer. Moving carefully, he shifted her off his lap and back onto the bed.

"What’s the matter?" she asked as he settled her on her pillow and smoothed her hair away from her face.

"Nothing. Go back to sleep," he urged, his hand cradling her cheek as he leaned over her.

Her eyes fluttered closed. She turned her face to his open palm and pressed her lips to his callused skin, shocking him with the wet glide of the tip of her tongue and the imprint of her lips.

She both branded him and humbled him in that instant. Even without a single memory of her life, Leah still possessed the instinct–driven ability to express her feelings.

The dam restraining his emotions and desires crumbled under the force of her tender kiss. Desperate for the taste of her, he relinquished the control he’d always demanded of himself. He claimed her mouth. Shattering hunger and painful arousal dominated. Brett abandoned his private war of resistance and reclaimed what had been his so long ago, his lips and tongue seeking and finding the sweet, hot passion that only Leah could give him.

Her lips parted almost instantly. Her tongue darted into his mouth. She tasted like the finest wine. She gripped his shoulders, her nails scoring his flesh. He experienced nothing even close to pain. A heartbeat later, he registered the restless movement of her legs as she kicked free of the covers, drew him down beside her, and molded her body to his. He didn’t know where she stopped and he began. And, in that moment, he couldn’t have cared less.

He’d lost his mind, he realized. There was only now and Leah and his need, the latter a steady, consuming force coursing through his veins with blazing intent.

She utterly seduced him as she answered each thrust of his tongue with one of her own. He felt whole because her arms were around him, her hands frantic as she clung to him and moaned his name against his lips and into his mouth like an unending mantra of need too long unquenched. He felt loved for the first time in years, and the shock to his emotions churned like a tornado in the depths of his heart.

And then, as if turning on a dime, he felt like the worst kind of bastard on the planet, because she was vulnerable and he was on the verge of taking advantage of her. He froze, aware right down to his soul that he didn’t deserve her.

She wouldn’t want you if she remembered you
, his conscience jabbed.
She’d reject you, just as you rejected her.

Brett tore his mouth free, air raging in and out of his lungs. Leah groaned in protest, reaching out to him, blindly trying to reestablish contact. He held her away from him, head thrown back, eyes squeezed shut, and his body in agony as he tried to reclaim some fragment of his sanity.

He rolled away from her once he found the strength to move. When he finally met her stunned gaze, he saw the blush of passion that flushed her cheeks and the dazed look in her eyes that spoke of bewilderment and thwarted desire. Cursing himself, he jerked upright and sat on the edge of the bed, his hands covering his face as air gusted in and out of a body that shook and screamed with need.

He felt her fingertips glide down his spine, her touch tentative, uncertain. He flinched when she spoke his name. Brett knew if he glanced at her now, he’d find concern, not recrimination, in her expressive features.

He forced himself to his feet. He straightened slowly, still trembling as he turned to look down at her. Propped up on one arm, she stared at him. His gaze fell to the cotton t–shirt twisted about her body, and he saw the swift rise and fall of her full, hard–tipped breasts, the thin cotton that sheathed her serving as an enticement rather than a shield. He thought, too, of the pregnancy and delivery she’d faced alone, and a new, even more powerful, wave of self–loathing swept across him.

"I’m sorry," he managed in a voice that sounded like gears grinding. He headed for the bedroom door, moving swiftly and without his usual predatory grace.

"I’m not sorry, Brett," she declared in a voice far stronger than he would have ever expected. "I’m not sorry at all. We’re adults, not children. Denying the obvious seems pretty damn stupid to me. Even though I don’t understand what’s going on between us, I still trust you and feel safe with you. That’s not going to change. One thing does need to change, however, and that’s your refusal to stop fighting the feelings we apparently share." She paused briefly, a thoughtful expression on her face. "You aren’t wearing a wedding ring, but that doesn’t mean anything one way or the other in this day and age, does it?"

Still gripping the doorknob, he half turned to look at her. "I’m not married, Leah. Neither are you."

"That’s encouraging," she said, her tone tinder dry. "You care about me, don’t you, even though you don’t want to?"

"Yes, I care about you, but that’s self–indulgence on my part. We aren’t lovers. We haven’t been for a very long time. I was telling you the truth."

"Did I betray your trust?"

"Christ, no! Not ever."

"Did I walk out on you?" she pressed.

He exhaled, a sound filled with equal parts weariness and resignation. "No, you did not walk out on me."

"Did I do something you cannot forgive?"

He flinched. "No."

She sank back against the pillows. For a long moment, she busied herself with the task of arranging the covers over her slender body. After smoothing them into place with shaking fingers, she looked at him and said in an unexpectedly gentle voice, "Perhaps we should become lovers again."

"No, Leah, we shouldn’t. I don’t… you deserve better than me."

Brett walked out of the room then, slamming the door behind him and cursing himself and his self–indulgent behavior.

Leah felt a profound sense of abandonment settle over her the instant Brett slammed out of the room. Stunned by the depth of the emotional isolation his departure caused, she rolled onto her side, curled into herself, and closed her eyes.

The dull throbbing of her head eased somewhat as she slowly inhaled and exhaled to calm herself, but her measured breathing did little to assuage either the tension humming through her body or the desire that made her crave the completion that only their joined bodies could supply. She still tasted Brett on her lips, and the scent of his skin lingered in her senses. Recalling the tempered power of his embrace, Leah trembled anew.

She focused on clearing her thoughts and reclaiming her equilibrium, but she discovered that Brett was permanently etched into her sensory memory. She finally concluded that he didn’t trust himself with her. And she wondered why?

Although she lacked the safety net of actually knowing how she’d spent the previous thirty years of her life, Leah felt oddly reassured by the rainbow of emotions Brett aroused in her. She also felt curious about and compelled to explore each and every emotion, primarily because of the sense of utter rightness she’d experienced at simply being in his arms. Remembering, too, how he’d wrenched free of her, she couldn’t sideline her need to understand what had happened between them in the past, not simply the emptiness his absence now caused.

She whispered a quiet prayer that she would eventually remember all the facets of her relationship with Brett once she accessed the dark void that housed all of her memories. Despite his insistence, Leah knew in her soul that they weren’t
just friends.
She believed, instead, that they shared a history worthy of her scrutiny.