Explosive Attraction

by LENA DIAZ,

  The odds of someone else being in the house besides him and Darby had just gone down close to zero, but he still wasn’t taking any chances. He held his gun down to his side and stood to the right of the bathroom door.

  “Darby, it’s Rafe. Open the door.”

  Nothing, just the sound of water running.

  “Darby, I’m coming in.” Still nothing. Rafe tried the knob. It wasn’t locked. He slowly turned it, then shoved the door open and ran inside.

  He shined his light around the room. Clear. No one hiding, ready to jump out at him. The only place left was the shower.

  He hurried over and yanked open the shower curtain.

  Darby was curled up in the tub, her eyes wide and glassy.

  Rafe cursed and set his gun and flashlight on the bathroom counter. He shut off the water and crouched by the tub.

  “Darby? Can you hear me?” He smoothed her wet, dripping hair back from her face, but she didn’t even flinch at his touch. She stared into space, just like she had back at the hospital. What the hell had happened to her to make her this scared of dark, enclosed spaces?

  He stood and reached for his gun. He shoved it into his holster, then grabbed the towel off the rack and tucked it in around Darby. He scooped her out of the tub and cradled her against his chest, grabbed the flashlight and carried Darby into the bedroom.

  He put the flashlight on the nightstand with the light shining up at the ceiling and tried to put Darby in the chair next to the bed, but she made a tiny whimper and clung to him. The lost, terrified look in her unfocused eyes had him stiffening with rage. He suddenly wanted to find whoever had hurt her in her past and tear them limb from limb.

  With Darby clinging to him, he made a quick decision. To hell with being a gentleman and preserving her modesty. She was scared and shivering. He was going to hold her and keep her warm, and try to make her feel safe. She could yell at him later for what he was about to do.

  He held her with his left arm, and used his right arm to put his gun on the nightstand. He raked the covers back on the bed, sat, turned and stretched out with her beside him, facing him. He pulled the covers up over both of them. The room was still dark, but with the flashlight on, there was enough light that he could see her. He stared into her vacant eyes, waiting for her to come back to him.

  He used the end of the towel to gently blot her hair. Minutes dragged by. The storm continued to boom overhead. Lightning flashed against the windows.

  Even with the rain cooling everything outside, with the power out and the air conditioner off, the room began to heat up. Rafe threw the comforter off them and covered Darby’s naked body with the towel.

  Soon he was easing away from her, pulling his shirt up over his head. He shucked off his jeans, and would have taken off his underwear, too, except that he didn’t want to shock Darby when she came out of her trance.

  He wished he’d spoken to the psychiatrist at the hospital. Rafe had no idea what to do for Darby, other than hold her.

  He knew the exact moment she “woke up.” Her eyes widened and she drew in a shocked gasp as her gaze fell to his naked chest. Then she looked down at her towel, and Rafe could see the memory of what had happened coming back. Her hands flew up, covering her face. “I can’t believe I zoned out like that again. I can’t imagine what you must think of me.”

  He gently but firmly forced her hands back down, holding them, until she quit trying to tug them away. “What I think is that something terrible happened to you to make you scared of dark, tight places. That’s not your fault, and doesn’t make me think any less of you.”

  She drew in a shaky breath. “Thank you. And...thank you for...rescuing me from the shower.” She gave him a wobbly smile.

  “How much do you remember?”

  Her gaze dropped from his and she chewed her bottom lip. “Everything. I always do. Later. Once I... Once I’m myself again. But...during...it’s like I’m frozen, paralyzed, unable to move, or even really think.”

  “This has happened before, even before the hospital?”

  She nodded. “And before you ask, yes, I’ve had therapy. Years of therapy. It’s why I became a therapist myself, so I could help others the way someone once helped me.”

  “Looks to me like whoever ‘helped’ you didn’t finish the job.”

  She tried to yank her hands back. He let her have one of them, but he kept her right hand anchored securely in his left, entwining his fingers with hers and resting their joined hands on the mattress between them.

  “What happened to you?” He rubbed his thumb in slow circles back and forth across her knuckles and waited.

  Finally, she swallowed, and met his gaze again. “I was seven, on summer break from school. My mom and dad took us kids to my grandma’s for a visit. She lived in an old farmhouse outside of town, on farmland that wasn’t farmed anymore. There were run-down chicken coops and barns, trees to climb. Paradise for five young kids. When the weekend was over, everyone else went home, but I stayed. Grandma had always favored me, the oldest grandchild. She wanted me to visit a little longer. Mom and Dad were supposed to pick me up the next day.”

  She shuddered and closed her eyes. Rafe released her hand and ran his fingers through her hair, feathering it back from her face.

  “Go on,” he urged.

  “My parents didn’t come back for me the next day. Or the day after that. They didn’t call, either. I was getting bored. Granny didn’t do a lot besides watch TV. So I went outside to play. I followed a trail into the woods, found an old shack out there, played house. I...was walking in the clearing beside the shack and I found this old, abandoned well. I was leaning over the edge, looking down, when...”

  Rafe kept stroking her hair, waiting, giving her the time she needed.

  “I fell,” Darby continued. She squeezed her eyes shut. “It was so dark. The water was cold, ankle deep. And there were rats...and bugs...and I screamed, and screamed, and...” She swallowed again, making a whimpering sound in her throat. “But no one came for me. No one came. No one answered my cries.”

  She opened her eyes, and the bleak look had Rafe’s heart aching in his chest.

  “I climbed out of that well all by myself. No one ever came for me. They abandoned me. It took me three days of trying to climb out, but I did it. I don’t remember what happened after that. I just... I don’t remember anything until months later.”

  “Did you ever find out what happened?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Your grandmother must have been worried sick. She must have searched everywhere for you. She—”

  Darby shook her head. “I never saw my grandmother again after that. I don’t know what she did, or didn’t do. Everyone pretended nothing had happened. My brothers and sisters gave me strange looks, tiptoed around me. Mom and Dad never spoke about it, either.” She shuddered. “I left the day I turned eighteen. And I’ve never been back.”

  Rafe stroked her upper arm. Something about her story sounded familiar, as if he’d heard it before. “When did all this happen?”

  The corner of her mouth quirked up and some of the sadness left her eyes. “Are you trying to find out how old I am?”

  He responded to the playfulness in her tone. “Caught me.”

  “I’m thirty-three.”

  That meant her accident was about twenty-six years ago. He would have probably been in fourth grade. Had he read something, seen something on the news about what happened? Why did it sound so familiar? Maybe he’d call Buresh about it, see if he could dig something up.

  “What about you?” Darby asked. “You can’t ask a woman her age and not give quid pro quo.”

  The fear in her eyes had completely faded. Some of the pressure in Rafe’s chest faded as well, and relief took its place. “Do you want that in people years, or guy years?”

  “Guy years?”

  “My sisters insist men mature much slower than women. According to them, I’m about twenty-six—no longer the partying frat
boy, but not long enough out in the real world yet to attain real maturity. Apparently I need some gray running through my hair to be considered mature.”

  Darby smiled, and this time the smile made it all the way to her eyes. “I think I’d like your sisters very much. So what does that make you in people years?”

  Rafe was about to respond when the lights kicked on in the bathroom, and the air conditioner turned on, sending welcome cooling air washing over his skin. He glanced toward the window, watching for lightning, listening for thunder. “Looks like the storm ended.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  Something in her voice made his breath catch. She was looking at him differently than she had before, reminding him of the way she’d felt in his arms when they’d shared that heated kiss in his car earlier today.

  When he’d found her in the bathtub, her naked state hadn’t even registered in his brain. All he’d wanted to do was get her warm and dry, and bring her back from the dark place where her mind had gone.

  Now all he could think about was the nearly naked woman next to him, and that he was almost as naked as her. He needed to get out of this bed and out of this room before he did something they’d both regret.

  He pulled back and reached for his jeans on the floor.

  Darby’s hand on his back froze him in place.

  “Rafe, don’t go.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Darby held her breath, waiting to see what Rafe would do. She wasn’t normally bold, and she was shocked at herself for taking the risk that he would turn her down. If he did, she thought she might die of embarrassment.

  He turned slightly, looking at her over his shoulder. “If I stay, I’m going to—”

  She sat up and worked the towel off her body. She threw it on the floor and lay back on the pillows, open to his gaze. “I want you to stay...and everything that goes with that.”

  His eyes widened and dipped to her breasts. And suddenly she was in his arms. But instead of pressing his lips to hers in a fevered kiss like he’d done in the car, he grasped her shoulders and pulled her close until her breasts pressed against his chest. He looked deep into her eyes, and slowly, as if to give her a chance to stop him, lowered his mouth to hers.

  Stopping him was the last thing she wanted to do. If the killer came crashing through the door right now, waving a shotgun, she still didn’t think she’d stop Rafe from kissing her. She wanted this, wanted him, desperately.

  His lips touched hers, like a match to dry tinder. She moaned and tried to get closer, sliding her hands up the contours of his chest, wrapping her hands behind his neck. He tightened his arms, crushing her against him. When he stroked her lower lip with his tongue, she opened her mouth for him, and nearly collapsed from pleasure when he worked his magic on her.

  He devoured her mouth, his warm hands stroking over her skin, cupping her breasts. Her lower belly tightened, and she dropped her hands to his waist.

  Darby had never been so free with her hands. She was practically a virgin, having only had sex once, and then only because she was drunk and in college, and very, very stupid. Nothing in her past had prepared her for the feelings flooding through her now.

  She was hot, everywhere. Her breasts tightened almost painfully, and every little brush of Rafe’s hands across her sent little zings of pleasure shooting straight to her belly.

  He broke their kiss, his chest heaving as he struggled to draw a breath. “If you want me to stop, tell me now,” he whispered, his voice ragged.

  “Don’t stop.” She pressed a kiss to the base of his neck.

  He groaned again and gave her another kiss before pulling back and looking into her eyes.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve made love.” He pushed her hair back from her face. “I don’t know how long I can last—the first time.”

  She swallowed at the implied promise of more than one time. “Then I guess we’ll have to keep doing this until we get it right.”

  He kissed the breath right out of her. Then he was filling her, stretching her, pulling her nerves taut with pleasure.

  His every movement was a sensual wave of push and pull, hard and fast, driving her higher and higher on that tightrope until her nerves tightened and exploded into a dizzying wave of pleasure that had her calling out his name. Two quick thrusts and he joined her, falling with her back to the safety net beneath them.

  * * *

  “MORNING.”

  Darby’s eyes flew open at the sound of a deep, masculine voice next to her ear. Rafe was standing beside the bed, leaning over her, wearing a T-shirt tucked into his jeans. He pressed a kiss against her lips before she could turn away.

  She pushed at his shoulders, shoving him back. “Need to brush my teeth.” She covered her mouth with her hand.

  Rafe laughed and moved back to lean against the wall beside the bathroom doorway. “Fair enough. I’ll just stand here and enjoy the view.”

  View? Darby glanced down, and let out a shriek. She was completely naked, and the sun was shining through the blinds, leaving nothing to the imagination. She grabbed the sheet from the foot of the bed and yanked it up to cover herself.

  “Such a shame to cover up all that luscious skin. I especially love it when you get embarrassed. Your blush goes from your neck all the way down to your—”

  “Get out of here,” she said.

  “I’m going to enjoy working that shyness out of you.” He grinned and turned to leave.

  Darby’s mouth fell open when she saw the words on the back of his T-shirt—I’m a bomb tech. If you see me running, try to keep up. She shook her head. What was it with cops and dark humor?

  She hopped from the bed and ran into the bathroom to take a shower.

  * * *

  BREAKFAST, OF A SORTS, was waiting for her when she came downstairs.

  Rafe was sitting on a bar stool at the butcher-block countertop that separated the kitchen from the main room. A pile of cereal bars was strewn across the wooden surface. Two bottles of water sat beside the mountain of food. He waved his hand. “Whichever family member uses the cabin last is supposed to stock non-perishable food for the next person, and keep the freezer stocked. Apparently one of my sisters was the last one here because there’s nothing in the freezer and we’re stuck with a stash of extremely healthy and bland breakfast bars to choose from.”

  “What makes you think it wasn’t one of your brothers who left these bars?”

  He gave her a droll look. “We eat real food, not woman food.”

  “Woman food?”

  He waved his hand at the countertop. “Low fat, low taste, high fiber.”

  “It’s good for you.” She grabbed one of the bars and peeled the foil open. “What do you normally eat for breakfast?”

  “Anything I can fry in a pan.”

  She shook her head and took a bite of her cereal bar. Rafe seemed different this morning. Happy, less serious, more approachable. Did that mean he would answer her questions? There was so much she wanted to know about him, but one thing in particular.

  She finished her cereal bar, then rested her chin in her palms while she watched him. “Why do you let Jake believe you cheated on your wife when she’s the one who did the cheating?”

  Rafe choked on his water. He set the bottle down and coughed several times. He turned watery eyes on her. “What makes you think she cheated on me? I thought you believed Jake’s version.”

  “Not anymore. You’ve risked your life time and again for me, even when you didn’t like me. There’s no way you would hurt someone you loved by breaking sacred vows. Besides, it’s obvious you knew who Clive McHenry was. And you admitted it had nothing to do with work. The only remaining conclusion is that it was personal. I figure you hired McHenry to see if your wife was cheating on you. So, again, why haven’t you told Jake you’re innocent?”

  The carefree look on his face disappeared and his brows drew down. He took a long drink from his bottle of water.

  Darby re
gretted that she’d destroyed his earlier light mood, but after last night, she knew what she wanted. She wanted Rafe. Not just for one wonderful night in a secluded cabin. She wanted more. She wanted a relationship. And to do that, she needed to understand him, to get to know him better. She didn’t want a lie standing between them.

  “Why haven’t you told him?” she repeated.

  “You don’t give up, do you?” He set the bottle down on the counter, a bit more forcefully than was warranted. “Bobby Ellington—the reporter we saw at the station—he snooped just enough to figure out that McHenry had evidence about an affair. Ellington assumed I was the one cheating, and that’s the story he ran in the paper.”

  Darby gasped. “That’s terrible. Wait, are you saying you didn’t dispute the story? You let it stand? That’s why Jake thinks you’re the bad guy?”

  “The only way to make the paper run a correction would have been to prove them wrong, to show them the report....” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “I would have had to show them the pictures to force them to print a retraction. What would be the point? Shelby was Jake’s only family. He can survive losing my friendship a lot better than having his precious sister knocked off her pedestal. He would have hated me even more if I’d tarnished her memory in any way.”

  “You’re wrong. Shelby wasn’t his only family. You’re his family, too. You said the two of you grew up best friends. I’ll bet it’s eating him up to think you hurt his sister. That’s why he’s so angry. Not just because he thinks you cheated, but because you two were best friends. He feels you betrayed that friendship. If you tell him the truth—”

  He held up his hand to stop what she was about to say. “Spare me the therapist mumbo jumbo. I don’t believe in it.”

  Darby fisted her hands in frustration. “What do you have against therapists? Or is it really just me?”