The Black Sheep and the Princess (8 page)

“What did you really want, Kate?”

She looked at him for a long time, knowing she should shut this conversation down right then and there. Instead, she told him the truth. “I wanted you.” She leaned back, wishing she could put more distance between them. “There, ego satisfied now?”

He smiled, but it didn't diminish one whit the heat in his gaze. “This isn't about ego. I know you watched me. I know I might have talked my way into your fancy French panties.”

Her mouth dropped open. “How do you know what underwear I wore?”

He laughed then. “I flat out state I could have gotten into your pants anytime I wanted, and you're indignant because I know what you were wearing under those prim little designer slacks?”

Her face burned again, and she folded her arms across her chest. He was overwhelming every part of her, physically and emotionally. It was too much all at once. She wasn't prepared to handle this—or him. She should have never let him climb in her truck. Hell, she should have never let him on her property in the first place, not that he'd asked permission.

Thankfully, she could still do something about that.

Before she could open her mouth, though, Donovan reached over and fingered a loose tendril of hair that had escaped from the soft ponytail she'd put her hair in that morning.

She should swat his hand away, yet she discovered she was absolutely incapable of doing so. In fact, it took considerable will not to turn her head slightly so her cheek would brush the backs of his fingers. Honestly, she had to get him the hell out of this truck. And out of her life.

“I knew you wanted me, Kate. I might not have smiled at you, but I thought you understood the feeling was mutual,” he said, his voice an octave lower and more than a shade rougher. “With the other girls, it didn't matter if they rejected me. Or if they went running back to their rich boyfriends after tasting what I had to offer. I knew I wasn't anything more than a cheap thrill, but that didn't bother me. In fact, it sort of amused me, to know I could have them, make them come back looking for more.”

She swallowed hard when he let his blunt fingertips slide down the length of the strand of hair, then let it go. She held her breath, wondering if he was going to touch her skin, touch…anything he wanted to.

“But you,” he said, his voice so quiet now, so deep, it vibrated the air in the close confines of the truck. “I couldn't stand the thought of you looking at me like that. Thinking of me like that. With you it was different.”

“Why?” she managed in a choked whisper.

“You mattered.” He shook his head, that rueful smile flickering across his still handsome as sin features. “One of the mysteries of the universe, I guess. But I knew it when I laid eyes on you. And no one was more surprised than I was to discover that when I looked at you again, in that newspaper article, after all these years, all I've seen, all I've done…something in my gut twisted up like I was seventeen all over again.” He brushed the tips of his fingers over her lips, making her breath catch in her throat. “You always had that effect on me, Kate. I guess time and distance, and a lot of growing up, didn't change that.”

“Is—is that why you came back, then? You had some wild reaction to a picture of me, so…you came back as some sort of personal test?”

His gaze dropped to her mouth, and it was all she could do not to wet her lips.

“Maybe that's part of it. I don't know. I do know one thing, though.” He pressed his fingers beneath her chin, tilted her head slightly. And she did absolutely nothing to stop him. “I no longer seem to have any restraint around you. Or maybe it's just I see no reason to any longer. I'm not the insecure teenager I was back then, desperate for approval, terrified of rejection.”

“You were hardly that,” she murmured, surprised she could form words at all.

“I was exactly that, with those who mattered. It was a very short list. But you were on it.”

He leaned closer. She swallowed hard.

“Donovan—”

“Kick me out of the truck now, Kate.”

“I—”

“On second thought, don't. Not yet.” He tipped her chin up farther and leaned closer. “At least not until I give you a better reason to.”

E
ven as he took her mouth with his, Mac knew it was the wrong thing to do. And he didn't give a flat damn. He was finally getting a taste of Kate Sutherland. And from the moment his lips brushed hers, he knew it was going to be worth the wait.

No seventeen-year-old could have appreciated a mouth that sweet, or understood the complexity of that one tiny breath caught at the back of her throat. At thirty-five, every nuance registered.

If he'd planned this, he would have crushed his mouth to hers, overwhelmed them both right off, so neither would have a moment to think or react until it was too late, the deed finally done and out of the way, no longer taunting him with its inevitability. Then he might have had a fighting chance at focusing on the job at hand…and not the hands he wanted to put all over her.

But then there was that little hitch in her breath. And those incredibly soft lips beneath his. And just like that, the image of the always perfect princess, so cool, so collected, her superiority over him ordained from birth by the number of zeros in her stepfather's bank account alone…all of it gone, vanished. In its place burned the image of how she'd been last night. Suit rumpled, feet bare, mascara smudged. She'd been weary, stressed, her guard definitely down. What little cool she'd managed to collect had come from sheer willpower.

That one little hitch…and he'd immediately found himself gentling his kiss, soothing rather than inflaming, caretaking rather than conquering. She tasted so damn sweet. She didn't feel perfect, or poised, or like much of a princess. She felt fragile, and vulnerable, and damn if he didn't want to save her.

He kissed the corners of her lips before taking her mouth once again. He was unhurried in his exploration, reveling in the moment, knowing it could end at any time with no guarantee of a repeat performance. No matter how many years went by in between. He kissed her with a gentleness he didn't typically express, and carefully avoided examining any further why that particular side of him had surfaced now of all times. The fragility he'd sensed was probably temporary at best, no matter what his jacked-up libido wanted him to believe. But he quickly discovered kissing her like this wasn't just soothing her; it was soothing something deep inside himself, too.

When she sighed into his mouth, urging him on with a little moan deep in her throat, the part of him that was still a rock-hard teenager wanted to leap on that, leap on her, take her racing to the edge with him. But the man he'd become found a different kind of contentment skimming his fingertips over her cheeks, sliding them into the long, sleek strands of her hair, loosening her soft ponytail so he could feel that silken wave cascade over the backs of his hands, all the while taking in her breath with his own.

She was no longer some deeply closeted ghost from his childhood who needed vanquishing. She was a flesh-and-blood woman, who, in all truth, was a stranger to him. A woman whose plight should matter to him only in the strictest professional sense. She shouldn't otherwise matter to him at all.

And because he was very much afraid she still did, he broke their kiss and tipped her head back just enough so he could look into her eyes. He forced a smile and a casual tone. The haze of desire still clouding her blue eyes didn't make it any easier. “Well. That should have complicated everything.”

“It didn't?” She cleared her throat a little.

He shook his head. “Simplified a lot of things, actually.”

“Such as?” she asked, her gaze dipping from his eyes to his mouth, then back again.

His body twitched hard at that telltale slip. He had to fight not to follow its lead, and it took a lot more effort than he liked to admit. “Such as I finally realized why I came here.”

“Oh?” Her tone darkened slightly.

“I guess in some part of my admittedly murky subconscious, I thought I could finally prove—to you, to myself, to who the hell knows—that you needed me.”

She stiffened slightly and tried to pull away.

“Not like that,” he said quickly, not letting her go. “We both already agreed I could have pushed that particular boundary a long time ago.”

Her quick retreat behind cool blue eyes triggered that thing in him it had in the past. He found himself grinning in the face of her aloofness, as cocky as he'd ever been and completely unrepentant. She'd been right in there with him on that kiss. He'd be damned if he'd let her pretend otherwise. “Well, maybe it was a little about slaking that pent-up lust of youth.”

To her credit, a hint of a smile briefly curved her lips, but the light didn't reach as far as her eyes. “Glad I could help you out with that.”

He sighed inwardly, feeling a bit callow for baiting her. There was a lingering ghost or two between them, and he'd be wise to remember that. “But what I meant was, I wanted to prove that you could depend on me.” His casual smile became a tad harder to maintain. “Donny Mac's worthless son rides to the rescue of the golden princess of Lake Winnimocca or some such foolish bullshit like that.”

There was a flash of something across her face that tipped dangerously toward pity, but then she was rolling her eyes, her tone when she spoke, dust dry, and he wondered if he'd misread her. Wouldn't be the first time, it seemed.

“I'm no princess,” she assured him, “golden or otherwise.”

“I know,” he said, quite serious now. “That's what I just found out.”

Her brows furrowed slightly. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I realized why I thought I had to come back, and at the same time realized that I was wrong. I don't have anything left to prove, to you or to me.”

“Good for you.”

She sounded almost a little miffed with him, although for the life of him he couldn't have said why. “I also know that you're not whatever I might have built you up to be in my idiot teenager mind all those years ago. In fact, I don't know what or who you are. You're a complete stranger to me.”

“I always have been.”

“Exactly my point. I don't know the real you, Kate. Not then, not now. Any more than you know the real me.”

She tilted her head. “All that from a kiss, huh?”

He shouldn't touch her again, should have, in fact, moved back to his side of the truck. Instead, he slid his hands back into her hair, surprised that she let him, and brushed the pads of his thumbs across the soft center of her bottom lip. And heard that tiny catch. It did in whatever control he'd built back up. “Yeah,” he said, his voice not as strong as he'd have liked. “All that.” He was leaning back in for another taste of her before he even realized his intent.

She immediately shifted back, enough so that his mouth didn't brush hers, but not enough to completely dislodge his fingers from her hair. “You didn't ask why I let you kiss me,” she said, a little unsteadily.

“Okay. Why did you?” he said, sitting back.

There was no playful air in her tone now. She was as serious and sincere as he'd been. He appreciated that more than she could know.

“Maybe for me it was simply about slaking the lust of youth, sorting out a few old ghosts from my past.”

It shouldn't have bothered him, despite the fact that he'd teased her by saying the same. Only she wasn't teasing, and her cool assessment of what, for him, had been something of a moment of reckoning didn't sit well. “Fair enough.”

“So,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes, “now that you've gotten things figured out, does that mean you're leaving?”

She'd tried to ask it casually, as if his answer mattered little to her, but he'd been staring at her too intently to miss the telltale way her throat worked, the way her gaze darted to his mouth again. Huh. Not so cool and collected after all.

“Afraid not,” he said, cocky grin resurfacing, as he totally disregarded every single reason why he should have taken her easy out, driven straight back to the car rental counter at JFK, and booked the first flight home. He could still fix her problem, but he didn't need to personally be here to do it. Finn would pitch a fit, but, if he wanted to, he could hire someone to come up here and dig into the situation, install whatever equipment might be necessary to provide surveillance and security for the property, figure out exactly what was going on, then report back. Someone who would get to work rather than spend his time wondering when he might taste Kate's incredibly soft lips again…

He was rewarded for his complete stupidity by getting to watch her pupils dilate a little in response. And not in fear. His body charged right back into the fray with complete and utter abandon.

“Why?” she asked. “Why stay? I can handle my own problems. Like you said, you always have too many pressing cases to handle as it is.”

“I won't pretend to know anything about who you are now, or what you're about, but the one thing I do know is that you're in trouble. The kind of trouble I can help you with.”

She bristled. “Then it is still about me needing you.”

“Not like that. I think the past is finally where it belongs. But the fact still remains that you need help. And I am here. And I have the resources and time to help you out. All you have to do is let me. No strings, no games.”

“Donovan—”

“Mac,” he said automatically, despite how hearing that name on her lips moved him in ways he didn't really want to explore. Certainly not now, after declaring he was only here to help. He curled his fingers inward to keep from reaching for her again. It couldn't matter that he was diamond hard and she was right there within reach. If he really was here to simply help her out, as he claimed, then continuing anything else with her was definitely out of bounds.

Of course, he and his partners had started Trinity for the sole purpose of having the freedom to operate outside a lot of the boundaries that hamstrung most other organizations. He'd never been one to stay inside the lines much anyway.

“You'd be a fool to turn down the offer.” And he'd be a fool to expect anything more to come of this without paying a price for it later. “I may not know much about the real you, but I don't think you're a fool.”

She let out a short laugh at that. “You'd be surprised. I'm not feeling all that smart here lately.” She looked at him, studying his face, as if trying to find something there to help her make a decision. “Of all the times for you to show up.”

He couldn't help but see the faint shadows beneath her eyes, the strain tightening the skin at the corners of her mouth. She wasn't smiling, but something had softened in her voice all the same. His own smile came more naturally now. “You say that like it's a bad thing. I'm a good guy to have in your corner.”

“That may be true these days, but don't forget, even though we didn't get to know each other personally back then, I still happen to know a great deal about your youthful exploits.”

“Hey, reformed black sheep are some of the best guys around.”

“That kiss just now didn't seem all that reformed to me.”

He couldn't help it, he grinned. “Yeah, well…some things don't need reforming.”

She rolled her eyes, but at least she was smiling now.

He should have kept it light. Her walls were lowering, she was less guarded, and they were talking more easily now than they had since he'd first arrived. But when he opened his mouth, what came out was something completely serious. “I wasn't always in the right place, doing the right thing. Often times far from it. I won't apologize for that now, but I won't make excuses for it either. My less-than-picture-perfect youth wasn't laudable, but it is what shaped me into the man I am today.”

She regarded him with a half-amused smile, but also with eyes that suddenly looked way older than her years. It didn't fit with someone who had led such a privileged life, but maybe it did with the teacher who wanted to help disabled children lead an easier life. And his curiosity about her intensified.

“So what does that unreformed kiss say about the man you've become?” she asked.

“That I'm secure enough now to go after what I want.”

“Or too impatient to wait.”

He barked out a laugh. “I waited eighteen years!” He shook his head then, looked down at the hands curled into fists in his lap. They were callused and scarred, and had saved him more often than they'd gotten him into trouble. “One thing I have learned is that life is short. And tenuous at best. I used to think that with all I had to face just to get through the day growing up, nothing else could touch me. If I survived that part of my life, I was invincible. Then I spent a few years on the streets of New York and learned and saw a hundred different ways what no one should ever have to know or see, which is just how frail and destructible we all really are. No matter who we are.” He glanced over at her. “So, yeah, I can be a little impatient at times. I don't wait for things to come my way if I can do something about going out and getting them. Why waste precious time?”

“Do you always get what you go after?”

He held her gaze for a few long seconds. His smile, when it came, was slow, steady, and direct. “Most of the time.”