The Harder They Fall

by Jill Shalvis

  “You’re not hurting one little bit, are you?”

  “No. Not really,” she murmured, hugging him close. His arms tightened imperceptibly.

  “You’re crazy, you know that?” he demanded in a low whisper. “And you’re slowly driving me into that same state.”

  “I gave you an out,” she whispered. “I told you to stay out of my life, but you didn’t listen.”

  “I’m going to live to regret that decision, believe me. But later, not now.” His head dipped down, a fraction of an inch from her lips, and her heart started beating hard and fast in anticipation.

  “Just a date,” she said softly. “It’s just one little date.” But oh, she wanted so much, much more. “You can handle that, can’t you?”

  His lips met hers in answer.

  “Mew.”

  She’d forgotten Duff. Pulling back with dismay, Trisha glanced upward at a second, more pitiful cry. “Oh, no, Duff. I’m sorry, boy. Come down here.”

  Hunter rose spryly and shook his head as the badly frightened cat backed higher up the tree. “He’s not coming down, Trisha. He’s really scared.”

  Trisha had gotten Duff the day she moved into her apartment. They were a team, a family, and she had to get him down safely. “Then I’ll have to go get him,” she declared, reaching her arms up for the lowest branch of the towering oak tree.

  “You can’t do that.”

  In exasperation, she turned to Hunter, who stared at her with a mixture of pique and sympathy. “Why not?”

  “Because you’re still wearing Rollerblades.”

  That was easily fixed, and she bent to unlace them, but he pulled her back up. “No way. You’ll likely kill yourself on my property. Come on now, move.” He set her aside and reached for the branch.

  “You’re going to get him?” she asked.

  “Yes.” With weary resignation, he shoved up the sleeves of his shirt. He hauled himself up that first branch with a lithe ease that startled her. Before her eyes, he nimbly climbed the tree, reaching Duff in less than a minute.

  It took a great deal of balance, and more than a few muttered curses when a frightened Duff lashed out with razor-sharp claws, but Hunter finally managed to coax the cat into his arms and down the tree.

  Trisha grabbed Duff, hugging and kissing the humiliated cat before letting him go. She raised shiny, grateful eyes to Hunter, looking so lovely, his breath caught.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly, beaming.

  She still wore her helmet and pads, though she’d removed her skates. When he thought about her crash into the tree, and how serious it could have been, his heart rate sped up. Or maybe it raced in reaction to the way she was looking at him.

  Heat filled her gaze as he watched, and again his heart reacted. Definitely the way she looked at him, he decided. Which didn’t make it any easier to accept. He didn’t want to be affected by this woman.

  He could control this. He didn’t have to feel this way.

  Oh, sure. And he didn’t need air to stay alive either. “Promise me you aren’t going to ride hell-bent for leather down that driveway again.”

  “At least not until I learn how to brake,” she said solemnly, lifting her hand in promise as she looked at him. Then she gasped. “You’re hurt. Oh, I’m sorry.” She grabbed his arm and carefully pushed up the sleeve, which had fallen over several nasty, bleeding cuts.

  Her hair fell over him, smelling clean and flowery. Her warm breath tickled his skin. Her concerned murmur made him feel more wanted and cared for than he’d felt in a long time. He was falling for her, he realized, quite hopelessly. And right then and there he knew he had to get away, now, before things got any further out of control.

  Trisha lifted her head and smiled gently at him.

  Run, he thought. Run now.

  “Come inside,” she said. “Let’s clean these up.”

  Before his brain could protest, his feet had taken over, following Trisha up the stairs.

  There were more than just a few cuts, Hunter realized as Trisha led him down the hallway of her apartment. Each of them had made itself known by the time she’d sat him down in her bathroom and pulled out a first-aid kit.

  As she dabbed antiseptic on his arm, carefully watching his face for any sign of pain, she asked, “You okay?”

  “It’s just a few cat scratches, Trisha. I’ll live.” But the ones on his chest, the ones she hadn’t yet discovered, were burning like wildfire. “I’ll just go downstairs and shower and change,” he said casually, but she put a hand to his searing chest to stop him.

  He couldn’t control his wince.

  “Wait a minute.” She reached for the buttons on his shirt.

  Grabbing her fingers, he said, “I’m fine. Let me just—”

  “Hunter,” she said quietly, moving from his side to stand between his outstretched legs. “The blood is starting to seep through your shirt—oh, Hunter,” she breathed, gingerly pulling the material sticking to his skin. She leaned close and peered down his shirt.

  Her wild hair dusted his face, the scent of her teased his nostrils. She stood between his tensed thighs. Seemingly of their own volition, his hands came up to bracket her hips. At the unexpected contact she started, and stared at him, mouth open slightly as if she could hardly breathe.

  “Duff got you good,” she whispered unsteadily.

  “Trisha,” he said, just as unevenly, “let me up.” He’d clean himself up in his own place, knowing if he let her touch him, he’d lose his already very tenuous grip on his control.

  Just a date, he reminded himself. One little date.

  But her nimble fingers again reached for the buttons on his shirt, releasing them one at a time. When she freed the last one, she spread the material wide, exposing the expanse of his chest to her gaze.

  She drew a sharp breath.

  In spite of the considerable discomfort of four bright, deep gouges running from collarbone to belly button, his body tightened uncontrollably. The air around them hummed with the charge of sexual excitement.

  “Oh, my,” she whispered, not looking at the scratches, but at him. Her breath quickened.

  And his body tightened further, making his trousers damned uncomfortable. “Nothing you haven’t seen before,” he tried to quip, but his throat was suddenly parched, and his voice croaked.

  “It was dark last time.” She laid a hand on him, a warm, caressing hand, and his fingers convulsed on her hips. “Hunter, you’re so beautiful.”

  He let out a sound, half laugh, half groan, then hissed when she swiped at the nasty scratches with the antiseptic. “That hurt worse than the damn thing did in the first place.”

  “I’m sorry.” She pushed his shirt the rest of the way off his shoulders and continued to minister to him. “Hunter, about tonight—” She stopped and moistened her lips.

  “What about it?”

  “I ... don’t want it to be just a date.”

  “What do you want it to be?”

  “More.” Everything she felt swam in those eyes and quite suddenly, his heart skipped a beat. “So much more,” she whispered.

  Something close to panic overwhelmed him. He’d been down this road before, with women much more suited to him than the almost desperately wild Trisha Malloy. “I can’t.”

  “Why? I might make a mess of things sometimes, and maybe drive you crazy once in a while, but I’d never demand things from you like your family does, I promise.”

  God, he didn’t want to hurt her. But better now than later. “I’ve told you, it’s not you. It’s me. I—”

  “If it’s fear of getting hurt,” she said in a hushed voice, “I’d never desert you at the altar. Or anytime, for that matter.”

  “I ... just can’t.”

  She glanced down at his lap. Confusion clouded her eyes as she obviously wondered why he couldn’t, when his body seemed so willing. “It’s not me you want?”

  Unwanted tenderness washed over him. “It’s not that simple, Trisha.�
��

  “Yes, it is. You either want me or you don’t.”

  “You can see that I do,” he said tightly.

  “No,” she denied. “I can see that you’re hard, impressively so, by the way, but I don’t know that it’s for me.”

  He didn’t want it to be for her. God, he didn’t. The last thing he needed right now was to be betrayed by his own raging libido. “I’ve let things go on like this for too long. I should have said something before.”

  “About what?”

  “I should have warned you,” he said, wanting to kick himself. “Especially when we agreed to go out. But I can’t ... I don’t...” Hell. “A date is all I can offer you,” he said finally. “Anything more is out of the question.”

  “Why?”

  Again, she glanced down at his hardness, clearly confused, and he wanted to groan and laugh at the same time. She thought he was telling her he couldn’t have sex, but he was trying to tell her that a relationship was out of the question. He just didn’t want to hurt her feelings.

  “If you have problems,” she said carefully, slowly, obviously measuring each and every word. “We’ll get around it”

  “No,” he said. “We can’t.”

  Her stubborn gaze met his. “Surely you can’t think I’m out just for the physical aspect of a relationship. I’m vain, but not that vain, I hope.”

  He wanted to laugh, but this was too important. “It has nothing to do with that,” he said. “I’m—” He glanced down at his tented trousers. “I’m functioning perfectly fine.”

  “Oh.” Her cheeks flushed.

  “Tonight was a mistake,” he said gently. “I thought I could handle just the one date, but I can’t.”

  “So take two.” A sweet smile crossed her face. “Or three.”

  How was he supposed to resist her? “Trisha, this is difficult, the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, but—”

  “No.” Biting her lip, suddenly awkward, she set down the antiseptic bottle and backed away from him.

  He rose, needing to explain, but she lifted a hand to ward him off. “How dense I am,” she said with a little mirthless laugh. “You’ve been trying to explain this to me and I just keep missing the point.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “It’s my fault.”

  “Gallant to the end. Well, let me make it easier for you,” she whispered. “I’ll go. Excuse me.” She ran from the room.

  While he appreciated the great rear view of her biker shorts as she left the room—and what they covered as well—it didn’t tell him a thing about the woman. Or how badly he’d hurt her.

  Rising, he followed her into her bedroom, where she paced with nervous energy. “Trisha?”

  “I’m sorry.” She whirled to face him, her hands clasped behind her back.

  “You’ve already said that. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “No, I mean I’m sorry for this.” Before he realized what she was doing, she’d come forward, taken one of his hands in hers.

  Something clicked and cold metal hit his wrist.

  “I’m sorry,” she said once more as he stared down at his wrist in utter surprise.

  She’d handcuffed his left hand to the footboard of her bed.

  Thirteen

  “What the hell is this? A joke?” Hunter tugged at his caught wrist.

  “No joke.” Trisha rubbed nervous, damp palms down her thighs. She held up the key. “You’re really handcuffed to my bed.”

  “Why?” He stared down in amazement, using his free hand to finger the steel that held him. “These are real.”

  A laugh escaped her. Carefully, she set the key down on her dresser, out of his reach. “Quite real,” she said, looking at him. “And so are my feelings for you.”

  Oh, she had his complete attention now, and still shocked by what she’d done, he hadn’t started to get angry yet, but she knew he would long before she was done.

  But she had to tell him, had to do it now before he ran out of her life and never looked back. For as brave as this man was, he was terrified of the feelings that ran between them.

  “Trisha—”

  “I love you, Hunter Adams.”

  His eyes widened and he stepped toward her, jerking up short as the cuffs held him. “Dammit. Uncuff me, Trisha.”

  “I can’t,” she said softly. “Not until we talk.”

  “I wanted to talk last night, you wouldn’t have anything to do with it. You don’t have to cuff me for that.”

  “It’s not me I want to talk about.”

  He sank to the bed and stared at her first, then at his captive wrist. “I can’t believe this. I just can’t.”

  Heart galloping in response to what she was about to do, Trisha slowly moved closer, keeping her eyes on his. “You can’t believe a lot of things,” she said, her voice shaking a little despite her best efforts to control it. “Mostly that my feelings for you are as real as yours are for me.”

  He looked a little panicked, but she knew it wasn’t being restrained to the bed that caused it; it was her attempt to probe the feelings he’d rather keep to himself.

  “I haven’t misled you,” he said. “I’ve been as honest as I can.”

  “There’s the problem right there,” she said softly, sinking to the bed beside him. “You’re not being honest with yourself, so how can you be honest with me? You have feelings, deep feelings, though for some reason, you’d rather I think you cold.” With light fingers, she reached out and touched the bunched muscle of his chest above a particularly nasty scratch. The muscle jerked and quivered. “But you’re not cold at all,” she whispered. “And neither are you immune to me. It hurts, Hunter. It hurts to watch you deny what’s between us.”

  Anguished tension lined his face. “I hate knowing I’ve hurt you.” He tried to lift a hand to touch her, but was again thwarted by the handcuff. With a noise of frustration, he used his other hand, tracing a soft line over her cheek. “And I do ... care for you. More than anyone, but—”

  “No. No buts.” She hushed him with a finger over his lips. “Do you have any idea how wonderful it feels to hear you say you care? Even when I do things that make you nuts, like smash myself into a tree on Rollerblades, you still care.”

  “Or when you weed-whack the sprinklers into pulp?”

  She winced. “You knew about that?”

  “Trisha,” he said on a groaning laugh, lifting the cuffed hand. “What’s this about?”

  “It’s about what’s between us, and why you won’t let it be.”

  And in that instant time stood still.

  Trisha felt the heat shimmer through her. No, she thought, she couldn’t be alone in this, and she wasn’t. His hand, which had dropped to her waist, trembled. Pain swam in his emerald eyes.

  He started to draw back, but she stopped him with a touch to his face. Her eyes begged something of him, something he couldn’t, wouldn’t give. God, he needed to run, hard and fast, but the damn handcuff ... What the hell was she doing? “Trisha,” he said tightly. “Let me go.”

  Her gaze sad and solemn, she shook her head. “I love you, Hunter,” she said simply, and so sincerely he had to swallow hard.

  “Why?” he asked hoarsely, dropping his forehead to hers as emotion swamped him. “I don’t understand why.”

  “That’s easy.” Cupping his face in her hands, she made him look at her. “I love the way you care for people, even when you don’t want to.” Her voice warmed him, soothed him, even when he didn’t want it to. “I love how you take care of your family even when they don’t deserve it. I love the way you throw yourself into each and every little thing you do, whether you’re fixing my floor, or jogging, or just reading. I love to watch you concentrate, Hunter, how you furrow your brow and your green eyes go all intense. I love the way you get mad at me and keep your cool at the same time—no matter what’s happened, you’re so calm. You’d never hurt me, Hunter.”

  He closed his eyes against her dark, dreamy ones.

  “I f
eel safe with you,” she said. Her voice drifted low, sexy as she lost herself in thought. “And I love that too.

  “I love it when you kiss me. How you do it with that shattering, intense determination of yours, giving me everything you’ve got. It makes me lose myself, Hunter.”

  Now his eyes opened to see her watching him with that secret little smile that always drew a helpless smile of his own.

  Her fingers sank into his hair as she maneuvered her scarcely clad body closer, gliding against him suggestively. “Mostly,” she purred, “I love how you touch me. I love your strong, slow hands, your easy touch that makes me go wild.”

  She lightly rubbed the hard tips of her breasts over his chest.

  He groaned helplessly and her gaze sharpened, steady on his, making him realize she hadn’t been lost in thought after all. She knew exactly what she was saying and to whom.

  And given the way she nestled her hips closer to him, nudging seductively, she knew exactly what it was doing to him.

  “Please,” she whispered so lightly he had to lean close to hear. “Please.”

  The arm he had around her waist tightened. “Please, what?” he asked hoarsely.

  “Please, tell me you want me as badly as I want you.”

  He did, oh, how he did. “You can’t seduce me,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  Yeah, why the hell not? his body demanded. Beneath his hand, he felt the bare skin of her stomach, exposed between the crop top and biker shorts. It was warm, smooth, and flexed tight with need. As if she sensed his hesitation, she set her hands on his bare chest and gently, insistently, pressed him back to the bed.

  “Wait,” he gasped, struggling to remember he didn’t want this.

  “I can’t.” With hands to his shoulders, she pinned him down.

  He fell back, sprawled across the bed, his cuffed hand outstretched above his head, as Trisha crawled slowly up his body, skimming her lush curves over every inch of him. He couldn’t bite back his groan, or keep his free hand from gliding down her spine, cupping and gently squeezing her bottom, pressing her to the hot, aching part of him that begged for release.

  Trisha’s breath caught, then she smiled gently down at him, her eyes filled with such love and tenderness his throat clogged. She dipped her head, but instead of kissing him as he’d expected, she slowly trailed her lips over his jaw, his ear, down his throat to the base of his neck. Her tongue darted out and flirted with his skin.