by Leanne Banks
“I thought it was time. Hoped things might be different. They weren’t.” She rolled her eyes. “Can’t believe the timing for that insulin reaction. Couldn’t have been worse.”
Troy tugged his slide loose and pulled open his collar. “Gotta tell you, Sin, it scared me.”
She frowned. “I’m sorry I got you involved in all this. You can drop me off and go try to forget about it.”
“Yeah. Right,” he said, as if he had no intention of doing any such thing.
“Really. Once I eat—”
“Forget it, Sin. I’m not going anywhere until I’m sure you’re okay. You can’t tell me you weren’t a little scared, yourself.”
“A little,” she admitted. “But panic is one of the symptoms. I was prepared because both the doctor and my dietician had drilled me on what to do in case of an insulin reaction. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d eaten, but I was too upset about seeing my father to eat.”
Troy pulled the car to a stop in front of her house. “Then let’s take care of that first.”
He walked her to the front door, then urged her into a chair next to the table.
“This isn’t necessary,” Sin began, standing. “I can do—”
“Sit down.” He pulled two microwave meals out of the freezer. “Pick one.”
Senada pointed her finger at one and glared at him. “You know, I really don’t like bossy men. I never have. It’s part of the reason I don’t get along with my father.”
Troy tossed the meal in the microwave and punched in the time. He turned back to her with a determined smile. “Just think of me as the exception to the rule.” Within a few short minutes, the timer dinged, and Troy brought her the meal with a sugar-free drink. Her emotional state made her want to toss it, but she forced herself to take small bites.
“You want to talk about any of this?” Troy asked.
“Not really.” She put another bite in her mouth.
“How long have you known you had diabetes?”
Reluctant to answer because she knew it would reveal too much, she hesitated, then shrugged. “Since right before I left Chattanooga.”
She braced herself for a barrage of questions and accusations, but Troy just studied her silently and nodded. He extended his hand to her forehead as if he intended to stroke back her hair, but apparently thought better of it. “Finish your meal. I’ll go run your bath water.”
She stared after him. “How did you know I wanted a bath?”
“My sister, Carly, taught me a few things, and one of them is a woman’s belief in the power of a bath,” he said over his shoulder as he kept walking toward the bathroom. Senada finished the rest of her food and tried to block out all her feelings about her father. The pain and joy she’d experienced upon seeing him. The secret hope that finally everything could be right between them. The terrible disappointment that came from seeing that they still operated under the same old communication guidelines. Wild assumptions and no trust.
Just the sound of the running water was soothing to her, an invitation to wash away all her hurt and confusion. She kicked off her shoes and walked to the bathroom.
Troy leaned against the doorway and gave a half grin. “Need some help?” he asked lightly.
Despite the fact that she was tired and emotionally used up, the offer made her stomach dip. No clever comments came to mind, so Senada did something unusual. She was completely honest. She stepped closer to him and looked into his face. “You’re a very kind man, Troy. I don’t understand why you put up with me.” She pressed her mouth to his and gently rubbed back and forth, wanting to absorb something from him, wanting to give at the same time.
Her breath grew short, and she pulled back. “I don’t know why you put up with me,” she whispered. “But I’m really glad you did tonight.” She licked her lips, and the taste of him teased her senses. “Thanks.”
When she closed the door behind her, Troy licked his own lips and groaned. Loosening a few more buttons on his shirt, he walked to the living room and tried not to picture Sin, wet and nude, in that bathtub. He flicked on the TV and channel surfed until he found a ballgame. After forty minutes passed with no sign of Sin, however, he started to wonder.
He went to the hallway and stared at the closed door for a long moment. “Hey, Sin, you okay in there?”
He heard a little splash. “Yeah,” she called back. “I must have fallen asleep.”
“Good idea,” he said with a chuckle. “Except your bed might be a better place for it.”
She made an unintelligible grumbly noise.
“You need a robe or anything?”
“No. It’s on the door.”
He heard some more splashing followed by curses. Biting his tongue to keep from checking on her again, he leaned against the wall and waited. More splashing and more curses. She let out a groan of frustration.
“Troy,” she finally called.
“Yes.” He moved to stand directly outside the door.
“I’m having a little problem.”
“Yes?”
“Standing.” She hesitated. “My legs have turned to spaghetti.”
He squeezed the bridge of his nose. His brothers would find this situation enormously funny. He wished he did. “You want me to help you get out?”
She waited a long moment. “Yes, please,” she said in a low voice.
“Okay,” he muttered, and braced himself. Somebody somewhere was going to pay big for this. He pushed open the door, expecting to find her trying to cover herself with her arms or a washcloth or the shower curtain.
No such luck. Her skin was rich, creamy and tan, and he could see all of it. From her flushed cheeks, past her vulnerable throat and delicate shoulders, to her full breasts, inviting hips and shapely thighs all the way to her painted toenails, the sight of her, naked and accessible, could have brought him to his knees. Her eyes were smoky and heavy-lidded as if she were aroused, but Troy knew she was just completely and totally exhausted.
Of its own volition, his gaze dipped to her wet breasts and dusky rose erect nipples. A dozen unfulfilled fantasies scorched his mind. He mentally swore and ignored the beads of perspiration forming on his forehead.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll get you a towel.” He snatched the pink terry bath sheet from the rack and draped it over his shoulder. He thought about throwing it over her now, but he’d just end up drenching it. “I’ll, uh, put my hands under your arms.”
She lifted her hands.
Troy’s heart stopped. Such a simple gesture, but it exhibited something Sin rarely, if ever, gave. Trust.
He sucked in a deep breath, put his hands under her arms and started to lift her. She was deadweight. “It’s okay if you want to push up with your legs a little.”
“I’m trying.” She made a sound of frustration and splashed. She slipped, he held tight, she reached desperately for his shoulders. Then she was out of the tub, and her naked slippery body was pressed tortuously against his.
Troy stopped. He couldn’t ignore the sensation of her nipples scoring his chest. His shirt and pants were instantly moistened by her. Troy couldn’t help thinking how hot and wet she’d be, and how easy it would be to touch her, how easy it would be to slip inside her and lose himself.
He ground his teeth together.
“Sorry,” she murmured. “Guess I’m a little slippery.”
“I’ll say,” he muttered. “Let’s get this towel around you.” He tried to shift so that he could wrap it around her, as much for his sanity as for her comfort. He shifted again, and she wiggled against him, her breasts abrading his wet shirt, her lower body against his crotch.
Troy swore. “Forget it,” he said, and swung her into his arms. The position put her breasts about six inches from his mouth, but he wasn’t going to think about that, he told himself. Not in the seconds it would take to carry Sin to her bedroom.
“Sorry,” she said again as he stomped toward her bed.
“It’s okay,” he lie
d. “I’m glad I can help.” Certain his hands were going to permanently attach themselves to her skin, he tumbled her on the bed more quickly than he’d planned and put the towel over her.
He turned away and willed his body not to shudder in arousal. “Which drawer?” he asked in a voice curt to his own ears.
“Drawer?” she echoed.
“Which drawer is your nightgown in?”
A long silence followed. “I, uh, don’t really have to have a nightgown. I don’t always wear—”
Troy shook his head. “Wear one tonight.” When she didn’t answer, he looked over his shoulder. “I’m staying.”
She looked dismayed. “That’s not necessary. I’ll be—”
“I’m staying. Which drawer?”
Senada sighed. “Lord, you’re bossy. Third one on the left.”
Troy immediately pulled out the drawer and sank his hands into a plethora of silk and satin. Why didn’t somebody just shoot him? What did you expert, bonehead? he asked himself. Cotton and flannel?
He grabbed a pink silky something with straps and slung it in her direction. “Here. Want something to drink?”
“Some water would be nice.”
Troy walked to the kitchen, poured Sin a glass of water and just stood there and watched the water pour from the faucet.
He was hot, bothered and hard with no sign of release or relief in the long night ahead.
Cool water. Cool, mind-clearing, soothing water.
Troy stuck his head under the faucet.
Chapter Eight
Troy walked back into her room. “Sin,” he began, then stopped when he saw that she was asleep.
A dry chuckle rumbled from his throat. The woman clearly didn’t like to be told what to do. She was beneath the covers, her face as innocent as an angel’s, as trusting as a child’s. Her body, however, would tempt Saint Peter. And Troy was certain her body was presently nude, because the rose-colored scrap of silk lay on top of the covers.
He sighed and took a sip of the water, then placed it on the bedside stand. He looked at Sin and felt a tugging sensation. Asleep, with her guard down and her sharp weaponry of wit put away, she was more accessible. Her defenses weren’t fifteen feet high. He wondered how long the walls stayed down when she woke up. He wondered what it would be like to be with Sin when all her walls were down. He wondered what it would take for her to let a man near her without her defenses firmly in place.
He wondered how he was going to walk away now that he knew some of her secrets.
Shaking his head, he scooped up her rose-colored lingerie and carried it with him as he strolled toward her bedroom window. She was technically fine, he told himself. Most men would consider their duty done. He should be able to go.
No way in hell, he thought. Especially after he’d watched her deal with both her father and the insulin reaction. Her skin had turned so pale, and she’d been so close to passing out, she’d nearly scared the spit out of him.
Rustling the silky nightgown between his fingers, he decided he would leave as soon as she woke in the morning. Her perfume taunted his nostrils, and he looked at the feminine garment in his hand. He wondered when she’d last worn it. He wondered who had taken it off.
Swearing, he looked at the moon for answers and knew he’d find none. But it was deep in the night, and Troy would stay and do what he should. He’d done it before, just never with a woman who turned him on his ear. He’d done it for his sister, Carly, for his brothers and his new sisters-in-law, even once for his nephew, Luke, when the little boy was sick with an earache and Troy’s brother was out of town.
He leaned against the window, knowing he would change positions many times before dawn. Troy settled in for a night watch. This time, he watched Sin as she slept.
Senada saw her mother in the casket, so beautiful but forever still, and she felt the unbearable pain again. “Mama, please don’t go! Please.” She shook her head at the woman, who tried to calm her. “No. She mustn’t go. I can’t let her leave!”
Grief and fear twisted inside her. Tears burned her eyes. She blinked, and it was no longer her mother in the beautiful casket. It was Senada. “No!” she screamed.
“You’re dreaming,” she distantly heard the male voice. “Wake up,” he said again, and she felt a firm shake.
Sin opened her tear-moistened eyes and stared straight into Troy’s concerned gaze. Realization flooded her. Relief followed. Sweet relief and a comfort that had been sorely missing from her life. She felt something strange and new, couldn’t label it for the long moment that his gaze held hers.
Trust, a faint voice echoed through her. Senada went still. Trust? She trusted Troy Pendleton.
She was insane.
Uncertainty made her heart skip. Not Troy, she told herself. “Ohhhh.” She covered her face with her hand. “Sorry I screamed,” she muttered for what felt like the tenth time.
“No need,” he said, and offered her a glass of water. Senada drained the glass.
“Bad dream about your mother?”
She nodded, pulling the sheet up around her shoulders. “She died when I was twelve.” She hesitated for a moment, then finished with a shrug. “Complications of diabetes.”
He nodded slowly in comprehension. “Tough age to lose a parent.”
“You would know,” she said, recalling how the Pendletons had lost both their parents within a few years of each other.
“My mom died when I was eight. I was a little older than twelve when my father passed away.”
“My father abandoned my mother the year before she died. He couldn’t handle her illness,” she blurted out, though she wasn’t sure why.
“And that’s why you two don’t get along real well,” he said, adjusting her pillow. “You hate his guts for that, don’t you?”
She opened her mouth to protest but couldn’t. “In a way, I guess I have. I’ve never forgiven him for not being there when she needed him.”
“His not being there put a lot more of the burden on you, didn’t it?”
She shook her head. “That wasn’t the point. She needed him.”
“There’s more to it than that,” he said. “I don’t know all the psychobabble, but Carly’s always talking about how we need to be aware that our communication patterns are affected by our upbringing, and that children who lose their parents are angry about a lot of things. They’re angry because they’ve been abandoned, and they’re angry because they feel like their childhood has been stolen.”
Senada just stared at him. Troy Pendleton, Mr. Insensitivity, had just nailed feelings she’d always kept secret. She was caught between resentment and admiration for his perceptiveness.
He tucked a finger under her chin. “Tell the truth. What did you do that last year your mother was alive?”
Sin looked away from him. Even in the darkness, they were too intense, too probing. “I went to school every day,” she said, remembering those days when the sun had never seemed to shine, when she’d never felt like smiling. “I played with a friend every once in a while,” she continued, trying to add a note of normalcy when there’d been none.
“How often?” he asked.
She shot him an impatient glance and sat up, grasping the sheet just before it fell below her breasts. “Okay. Not very often. I fixed dinner, did the laundry and sat on the bed with her every night. She was too weak to do anything else.”
“This is probably gonna tick you off, but did you ever go for counseling?”
“Not until it was too la—” Senada broke off. “Years later when I got in a little trouble in high school, my father made me go see a psychologist. I didn’t want to be there,” she said, looking back at him. “So it wasn’t a successful experience.”
“Trouble in high school?” he asked, lifting a dark brow.
Senada smiled. “You don’t sound surprised. What kind of trouble are you expecting me to say?” She leaned forward. “Mooning the principal? I never got caught at that. Making out under the b
leachers while I skipped Spanish? Never got caught at that either.”
She watched the reluctant flame flicker to life in his eyes and felt a decadent thrill. The sensation was a nice diversion, but she should throw him out of her house, certainly off her bed. Her gaze dropped to his open shirt, revealing his bare muscular chest, and she withheld a sigh.
“You know, Sin, you make a man wonder just what it takes to catch you.”
The thrill bucked through her again, stronger this time. “But that’s part of the fun, Troy, tagging, holding, but never quite catching.”
Tempted and wanting to tempt, she leaned closer until her lips were a breath away from his. “Wanna have a little fun?”
He took the dare and her mouth in a searing kiss. “No,” he said. “I wanna have a lot of fun. But you’re in no shape for—”
Senada let the sheet drop from her breasts.
Troy’s gaze fell to her bare torso.
Sin smiled. “You were complaining about my shape.”
Troy dragged his gaze back to her eyes and shot her a dark look. “I wasn’t complaining.”
“That’s nice.”
He studied her thoughtfully. “What do you want, Sin? A diversion? A little vacation from your pain? Escape from reality?”
She sucked in a quick breath. Her bravado disappeared. His words made her feel unbearably exposed, worse than naked. She drew back. “Forget it. Just forget it. I shouldn’t have—”
He wrapped his hand around her wrist. “Just answer the question, Sin. What do you want?”
Her heart hurt as it pounded in her chest. “I want to forget,” she whispered. “Just for a little while. I want to forget.”
He shook his head slightly, his violet eyes full of compassion and something deeper, something she’d never seen in a man’s eyes before.
“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmured, pulling her into his arms.
Senada fought tears. No one had ever called her sweetheart. Her breasts brushed his chest at the same moment his mouth took hers, and lightning mixed with tenderness. The combination was irresistible.
She stretched her hands around his shoulders and sighed into his mouth. Trust flowed through her again. Troy would make her forget, if only for a little while.