Listening to it, Sam said softly and with a catch in her voice, “It’s meant so much to him—finding Matt. Both of his brothers. I can’t even—”
“Yeah,” said Alex, and cleared her throat. “I can imagine. Too bad he didn’t find him before—” She stopped, appalled, but Sam finished it for her and didn’t seem to find it terrible.
“Before his accident, you mean. Yeah. You know, I think Pearse believes if he’d been around it wouldn’t have happened.”
Alex smiled crookedly. “He’s not the only one who’s played the ‘what if’ game.” She shrugged. “It happened. Can’t be undone.” It is what it is, Alex.
There was a pause. Then Sam said, “You and Matt were close, though, right? Before he got hurt?”
“Close?” The question surprised her, not the asking of it, but because she realized she didn’t know the answer. Close. Were we close, Mattie? We were together a lot…worked together…played together…slept together…talked…quarreled…laughed…made love. But were we close? I don’t even know what that means. She gave a one-shoulder shrug. “Yeah, I guess. If you mean, were we sleeping together.” Then, as realization collided with guilt, she threw Sam a look and added defensively, “Look, it’s not like I abandoned him, okay? I visited him as often as I could while he was in rehab. He’s the one who abandoned me.”
Sam said quickly, “I didn’t mean it like that,” but Alex held up a hand as if to stop a flood of accusing words.
She said in a choking voice, “You don’t know what it was like, okay? I was there. I saw him fall. I thought he’d died, I really did.” She paced a few steps, then back, arms wrapped around the pain inside her, pain she’d thought she’d put behind her. Hoped I had.
“But he didn’t.”
“No. No—but in a way, he did. Or…something did.”
“Your feelings for him?”
“No. No.” She stared at the other woman as shock lanced through her, then sank back onto a boulder and brushed a furious hand across her nose. “No, but…the life I’d always thought we’d have together,” she said thickly. “I never thought that would end.”
Sam leaned against the rock beside her and looked at her along one shoulder. “Did it have to?”
Because her eyes were filling with tears, Alex did the only thing she could: looked away, looked at the sky, the mountains, the river. “I don’t know.” Her voice ripped raggedly through her throat. “I know I was so mad at him I could have killed him myself.” She gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “Does that make sense? I mean, it’s not like he wanted to get hurt, right? So then, I was mad at myself for thinking that. Oh hell, I was just…so angry. I wanted to scream at someone. Hit somebody.” She shook her head and her voice betrayed her by becoming an airless squeak. “I missed him so much I thought I’d die. And when he told me he wasn’t coming back, that he’d decided to stay down there in L.A. and it would be better if we—” She clamped a hand over her mouth and drew a shuddering breath.
Bluntly, without the gentleness and sympathy Alex was sure would have been her undoing, Sam said, “Did you tell him how you felt?”
Alex shook her head, not yet willing to risk actual speech.
“Why not?”
Alex shot her a hot, angry look. “I don’t know—pride, maybe?”
“How about fear?”
“Fear!” Alex opened her mouth to deny it, then hesitated. “I don’t know. I know I really hate needing anyone. It makes me feel…”
“Vulnerable?” Sam was smiling.
“Weak,” Alex countered firmly.
“How about…human?”
Alex gave a bark of laughter—pure self-defense. After a moment she cut her eyes at the other woman over one shoulder. “Okay, don’t think I don’t know what you guys are up to.”
Unrepentant, Sam grinned. “Is it working?”
For a moment longer Alex tried to keep up the banter, smile back. Keep it light. But her emotions were too close to the surface. Before she could stop it a wave of frightening longing swept over her. Horrified, she felt her face crumple, its expressions no longer hers to control. Appalled at her own vulnerability, she looked down at her shoes and whispered, “Do you really think it could?”
“Why not? If the feelings are still there…”
“Yeah, well, I guess that’s the big question, isn’t it?”
“Is it?” Sam seemed surprised. “For you, or for him?”
Alex couldn’t answer. Safety doors came clanging down inside her head, shutting out the question, cutting off the voice she could still hear echoing faintly in her memory. Do you love me, Alex?
But Sam was waiting, and so after a moment she shrugged and said testily, “How would I know how he feels?”
Unperturbed, Sam said in pushy Southern, “Well, sweetie pie, don’t you think you should find out?”
“Yeah, how?” Alex demanded, pushing back. “Seduce him?”
“Well, why not?”
Alex glared at her for a long moment while the self-sufficient loner inside her arm-wrestled with the pathetic weakling that secretly longed to confide in this woman. Giving up the battle, she drew a shaky breath. “Yeah, and what happens then? I mean, how do I know…” She halted and glared at the distant trees.
“Ah,” said Sam, nodding. “You mean…”
“Yeah. I mean, how embarrassing would it be if…” She stopped again. Coughed. Made some sort of vague gesture. Then laughed and put a hand up to cover her eyes. “I looked it up—would you believe it? On the Internet. At first.” She jerked her hand away and threw Sam a defiant look. “Well, hell, neither one of us seemed to be able to bring up the subject during rehab, and I was curious. Wouldn’t you be?”
“Oh, yeah,” said Sam. “And?”
Alex hitched a shoulder and watched the toe of her shoe dig at the hard-packed dirt. “It seems to pretty much depend on the person—the location of the injury, stuff like that,” she said with studied diffidence. “Basically, it’s mostly doable, with patience and—and I quote—‘an understanding partner.’”
“So…?”
“That’s just it,” Alex said carefully, hoping the anguish she felt inside wouldn’t come through in her voice. Confiding was one thing; stripping naked was another. “I don’t know if I’m the understanding type.”
And Sam said—gently, this time, “Oh, hon’. If you care enough, you will be.”
“I just wanted to hug her,” Sam told her husband. “I wanted to, so bad.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t.”
“Yeah, well, in case you haven’t noticed, Alex Penny isn’t exactly the hugging type.”
It was evening, past sundown but not yet dusk, and Sam was feeling a wee bit grumpy. Dinner had been another amazing feast—she didn’t know how they managed it under such primitive conditions, she really didn’t. At the moment, she felt entirely too full and too tired out from the day’s adventures to move, much less go rambling through the rocks in yet another ploy designed by Cory to leave his brother alone with Alex. A ploy she was beginning to think might be a lost cause.
She’d said as much to Cory, who’d then asked why she felt that way. So she’d related most of her conversation with Alex, which, she admitted, had left her feeling sad.
“I think she loves him, I truly do, Pearse. But she’s got some serious abandonment issues. I don’t know if—”
“‘Abandonment issues’?” Cory smiled and slipped his arm around her waist and pulled her snug against him. “That’s something we know a thing or two about. And we managed to get together in spite of them.”
For a moment Sam allowed her head to nestle in the comfortable hollow of her husband’s shoulder. Just for a moment. Straightening, she said, “Yeah, but we didn’t have the disability thing to deal with, either. I mean, think about it. They have to figure everything out all over again. Like, back to square one, really.”
“Figure ‘everything’ out? You mean, the sex thing, don’t you?” She heard the smile in his
voice even before she felt the warmth of his lips against her hair. “I wouldn’t worry too much about that. Those things have a way of working themselves out. Where there’s a will…”
“Assuming there is a will.”
“Hmm,” Cory murmured. And after a moment, “I guess you didn’t notice the way she was looking at him.”
She craned to look at him. “Yeah? How?”
He grinned. “Like a hungry wolf.”
“When? Today?”
“This afternoon. When we were going through the rapids.”
“Oh, well. I might have been a little busy right then. You know…trying to keep from getting pitched into the river? Again…”
He laughed and pulled her back against him. “Well, let’s just say she couldn’t take her eyes off him. Watching him wield that paddle…”
“Hmm…well, I have to admit, Pearse, your brother does have an amazin’ body. Those shoulders…” Her voice dwindled to nothing as her husband’s fingers worked their magic over her shoulders. She chuckled low in her throat and slipped her arms around his waist. “Darn it, I really do wish we hadn’t had to leave those tents behind.”
“Hmm…why’s that?”
“Because, honey-bunch…Alex and Matt aren’t the only ones who could do with a little privacy.”
He laughed softly and let her go. Then he bent down and gathered up his bedroll and tucked it under his arm, smiled at her and held out his hand. Her heart skittered like a teenager’s as she took it. Smiling back at him, she walked beside him into the deepening dusk.
Matt watched his brother go off hand in hand with his wife, and only realized he was smiling when Alex looked over at him and said bluntly, “You know what they’re trying to do, right?”
His grin slipped away. “They’re not exactly being subtle.”
He worked in silence for a moment, once again occupying himself by clearing away the remains of dinner and setting up for breakfast, while questions chased themselves in circles in his mind. He paused, then threw them at her all at once, so he wouldn’t lose his nerve. “Is it so terrible an idea, Alex? Being with me? Do you find me that repulsive?”
Oddly, she didn’t seem surprised he’d asked. She went sort of still for a moment, then shook her head, not looking at him. “What scares me is that I don’t.”
His heart began a slow, heavy thumping he could almost hear. “I’m not sure I know what to say to that.” He paused, and the smile found its way back. “Fact is, you always were a puzzle to me.”
“I’m not that complicated,” she muttered, keeping her face turned away from him.
He gave a wheel a shove, edging closer to her. “Yeah, you are. Plus, you don’t let on how you feel. And I’ve never been much good at reading minds.” He rubbed the back of his neck as he added wryly, “The only time I ever knew how you felt is when I was touching you.”
She threw him an arrogant look he remembered well. “Ha—you only thought you knew.”
“Maybe.” But then she shivered. He saw it…felt it. And entered a zone of certainty and confidence he hadn’t felt in a long time. “You cold?” he asked softly, knowing she wasn’t.
Hugging herself, she glared at him in annoyance and shook her head. He touched the wheels again and brought himself closer, close enough to reach out and take her hand. It felt so familiar to him, and yet…not. It seemed smaller than he remembered. More vulnerable. Maybe because she wasn’t resisting?
He turned her hand over, and with his other hand gently uncurled her fingers to expose her palm. Ran a fingertip over the bumps and ridges of calluses…then the softer, smoother hollow in its center. Her fingers curled involuntarily, and he looked up at her. Her cheeks looked moist and flushed, though her chin still had that defiant tilt.
“Okay,” she demanded in a raspy voice that made a shiver crawl over his own skin, “what am I thinking now, smart-ass?”
“Oh, too easy.” He laughed, and lifted her hand slowly to his mouth. He brushed the warm damp palm with his lips, smiling at her with his eyes as he murmured, “You’re thinking, ‘What is this guy doing? Promising something he can’t deliver?’” He saw and felt her flinch. Laughing, he tightened his hold on her hand to keep her from pulling it away. “Oops, right on the money, huh?” She didn’t reply, and he swiveled his chair just enough and tugged her toward him.
“Wait—what are you doing?” The fear in her voice as he guided her into his lap made his chest clench.
“Relax, darlin’, I just want to show you something.” He moved her hand to his shoulder…watched her eyes while he took her other hand and placed it against his chest. He held his breath and felt his heart thumping against her hand. After a moment he let the breath out and said softly, “There…you see? Muscle and bone. I haven’t changed that much. I still—” He paused, and the pressure in his chest reminded him he’d forgotten to take another breath. He hitched about half of one in and finished it. “I still like to be touched.”
Chapter 7
Her hands were small and strong, the way he remembered. Just as he remembered. They began to move on his shoulders…his chest, stroking him, dipping under the fabric of his T-shirt to touch his skin. And it felt so good he wanted to cry or laugh out loud with sheer joy, because it had been so long since he’d been touched that way.
He felt a compulsion to close his eyes, the better to savor the sensation of her wicked little fingers working magic on his skin, but he didn’t; having lost a good part of one sense, he wanted to make the most of the ones he did have. With all his senses at full alert, he listened to her quickened breathing, inhaled the scent of her hair and breath, touched her hair and then her face, and watched her intently even though he couldn’t really see her eyes in the growing dusk. He watched them anyway, and imagined he saw them darken, first with confusion, then with desire she couldn’t stop or deny.
Her hands slid to his neck and then upward to his head, cradling it between them as her fingers threaded through his hair and rasped against his scalp. Shivers enveloped him. He cupped the side of her face in his hand…then abruptly ripped off his glove and gently stroked her hair back and filled his hand with the silken thickness of her braid. As she dipped her head closer to him, just for a moment the firelight splashed across her face and he saw her eyes were closed, and droplets of moisture in her lashes caught the light like tiny jewels. His heart ached with tenderness, and he murmured her name, but only in his mind.
He didn’t kiss her then. He wasn’t sure why—he wanted to, more than he wanted his next breath. Maybe he wanted it too much, and knew it was something not to be rushed. Whatever the reason, something inside him held back. Not yet…not yet. The words whispered warnings in his mind.
He slipped his hands down her back but didn’t use them to compel her closer. Instead, he moved them onto her waist, ignoring her initial gasp of protest as he lifted and turned her, rocked his chair into better alignment, then resettled her astride his lap. Now? his body and heart pleaded. But again his mind whispered, Not yet.
Between his hands her torso felt supple…vibrant. The muscles in her back were as firm as he remembered, and when he let his hands slide downward over her bottom, that was as he remembered, too. On they went, his roving hands, over her hips to her thighs, sleek and bare in the jogging shorts she’d worn that day beneath her wet suit. And her back bowed and her head dipped lower, closer to his, while her breath flowed warm over his lips. And still he didn’t claim her mouth, although he could have with no more than a deepened breath. Not yet…
Down the length of her thighs, then back up again, his hands stroked slowly, savoring the matte textures of her skin. And now, on their return journey it seemed only natural for his hands to follow the path of least resistance and slip under fabric and elastic to maintain contact with that sweet warmth. He felt her belly quiver and contract at his first touch there, and then she gave a little whimpering cry of surrender and she was the one to bring her mouth to his. And in his mind the voice whispered,
Yes.
After that, for Matt, for a time all thought ceased. He knew only feeling, the way a starving man feels such intense relief when given food, he spares no thought at all for manners or customs, flavor or substance, but simply devours all he can. He’d been hungry for her for so long. Now he could not get enough.
He didn’t even notice—not then—that she was as hungry and heedless as he. It was only unknown minutes later when they broke apart, panting, that he realized his lips were swollen and tingling and tasted of blood, and that her body was arched in a way that brought it into intimate contact with his. That his fingers were nested in her warm, moist places, and that she was rocking in sync with his gentle probing, demanding more.
With silent urgency, she twined her fingers in his hair and pressed her forehead to his while her body writhed against his hand. He turned his head and buried his face in the hollow of her neck, seeking and finding the leaping pulse there, at the same time his fingers were locating its counterpoint deep inside her body.
It came to him that she was making sounds—gasps and whimpers—sounds he’d never heard her make before, even in all the times they’d made love. He wrapped one arm around her and his hand came to cradle her head, and when her body went rigid in his arms and her breath came screaming in a high, thin cry, he held her close against him and rocked her with his own body. He felt her throb around his fingers, and gentled the runaway pulse in her neck with soothing strokes of his tongue, while something inside him leaped and surged in primitive masculine triumph. He laughed softly and deep in his throat with the sheer joy of that feeling.
A moment later, he realized, too late, that what Alex was feeling wasn’t joy, or anything close to it. She’d sagged against him, at first, breathing in irregular gulps and gasps, the way she’d always done postclimax. But now she pulled jerkily away from him, shaking, her hands fisted in the fabric of his shirt.
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