Releasing a long slow sigh of relief, she felt compelled to tell him, “You’re only the second man I’ve ever had sex with.”
Reaching out, he combed his fingers through her hair. “I’ve lost count of the number of women I’ve slept with.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better or less cheap.”
She heard him swallow.
“You’re the first one I’ve ever invited back.”
Three things occurred to her: that she felt special, that she was sad for him, and that he might not be the healthiest of men based on his promiscuity.
“Last night”—she tried to remember—“you used a condom.”
“Yes. You can rest easy. I don’t have any diseases. I’m particular about the women I keep company with.”
“Not too particular if you only see them once.”
She could see his smile in the moonlight, and it occurred to her that his room might not warrant curtains after all.
“Not jealous, are you?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
Jealous wasn’t the right word. She was disappointed. She didn’t want to think that if she hadn’t shown up tonight, he would have settled for someone else—or that during either night, he’d settled for her.
“Have you ever been married?” she asked.
“Nope.”
“Been engaged?”
“Nope.”
“Been serious—”
“Nope. Seventeen to go.”
“Excuse me?”
“I thought we were playing twenty questions here. You really wasted the first three. Since I admitted you’ve been the only one I’ve invited back, those three questions you asked should have been a given.”
“I didn’t think you were truly serious when you said—”
“I was.” He kissed her brow, her nose, her chin.
“Why aren’t you angry that I said no after getting as far as we did? Most men would think I was a tease—”
“Most men didn’t spend last night with you.”
“Meaning?”
“I realized too late that maybe I shouldn’t have spent last night with you. Since you were willing to come back here tonight, I was hoping maybe I’d misjudged. But I’m glad I didn’t.”
“I didn’t think any man was glad when he didn’t get sex.”
“Didn’t say I was glad that I’m not getting sex. Simply glad that I hadn’t misjudged you. I want you,” he said quietly, “but the next time, I don’t want there to be any ghosts in this bed with us. I didn’t know you weren’t with me last night until you called out another man’s name. I’m not sure you’re a hundred percent with me tonight. That hurts.”
Her stomach knotted up, her heart fluttered just below her throat. She hadn’t realized she’d actually called out for Steve. How unfair to this man that she had. How incredible that he was with her now. “I want to be.”
“But you’re not.”
“Not a hundred percent, no.” She tilted her face toward him. “It’s not so much because of Steve, though. It’s more because I don’t know you very well. And yet, I’m terribly attracted to you.”
He trailed his fingers along her cheek. “Same goes.”
“You are a smooth talker,” she said, with teasing in her voice.
He laughed, a deep rumble that shook the bed slightly. Turning her hand until her palm was pressed against his chest instead of her own, she felt the laugher travel through him. The sensation filled her with joy. She didn’t think he laughed often, but she liked the sound of it.
“I’m not much for smooth talkin’,” he said, “but my words are always honest.”
“So what do we do about this attraction?” she asked.
“For right now, you probably get dressed and I take you home.”
“You don’t have to take me, I have my car,” she reminded him.
“I know, but I’ll follow to make sure you get there all right.”
She liked that idea, that he was willing to see her safely home. He rolled away from her.
“Want me to get your clothes?” he asked.
“No, I’ll get them.”
“Feel free to turn on the lights.”
“No, thanks.”
“I’ll be down in a couple of minutes,” he said as though he understood that she wanted to get dressed with some measure of privacy.
She found her bra hanging over the banister, her shirt on the floor. As she slipped into her shirt and stuffed her bra into her jeans pocket, she walked to the window. Through the trees, she could see moonlight reflected off the lake. She shouldn’t have come here tonight, and yet she was glad she had.
She knew Hunter a little better, and she’d reaffirmed that sex wasn’t something she could take lightly—even if she had last night. Why had it been so easy to fall in love at fourteen? On second thought, at fourteen, everything had been easy—except math.
She crossed her arms over her chest. Now she weighed every decision she made, determined possible consequences, and worried that she was making a wrong choice. Where was the fun in that?
She turned at the sound of approaching footsteps. He’d obviously opted to find a shirt upstairs instead of waiting to retrieve the one that had been lying on the floor beside hers, the one she’d folded and set on the couch.
“It’s not too late to change your mind,” he said with a quick nod toward the stairs. “About staying.”
It was tempting. He was tempting. But staying was a short-term solution to her long-time problem.
She crossed over to him, raised up on her toes, wound her arms around his neck, scraped her fingers up into his hair, and kissed him—deeply, thoroughly. With only a hint of passion. She didn’t want to start a seduction, but neither did she want him to think that she wasn’t grateful for the evening he’d given her. Leaning back, she stroked her fingers along the side of his face. “Thank you for tonight. But it’s best if I don’t stay.”
He kept his promise and followed her home. To her surprise, he got out of his jeep and walked her up the steps of the porch, as though tonight had been a planned date.
They stood beneath the porch light that her father had left on, and she found it strange that she thought this was the most uncomfortable part of the evening. She wondered how he would end it. With a caress, a kiss—
“Good night,” he finally said.
He began to walk off.
“Hunter?”
He stopped and looked back over his shoulder.
“Do you fish?” she asked quickly, before her courage deserted her.
“What?”
“My dad has a pond that he keeps stocked with fish. Now that you know the way, I thought tomorrow, maybe you’d like to come out here, have a picnic, fish—”
“What time?”
“Noon?”
He returned to her and gave her a soul-searing, heart-melting kiss that made her debate the wisdom of not spending the night with him.
But the truth was that even as his kiss stole her breath, it couldn’t pilfer her thoughts, and she knew she needed more than kisses, she needed an opportunity for a relationship to grow. He eased back, rubbed his thumb over her damp, swollen lips, and quietly said, “Tomorrow.”
Then he was gone, into the darkness, as though he’d never been there.
Chapter 7
The sound of unexpected gunfire reverberated around him. The air echoed the screams of frantic men, and even in the darkness, he could clearly envision the face—always the same face hidden beneath a layer of grime, eyes noticeably visible, as the soldier tried to appear brave, even as he knew death was approaching.
Another crack of weapons fire had Hunter bolting upright in bed, his body bathed in sweat, the damp sheets pooled around his waist. Breathing harshly, he sought to calm his erratic heart.
Heavy storm clouds prevented the moonlight and distant starlight from spilling in through the windows. What did it say about a man and his phobias when he couldn’t sleep in
absolute darkness? Perhaps that he’d already done it one time too many.
He had nothing to fear in the darkness. As a man, he knew that. As a boy, he’d been terrified of the darkness that engulfed him whenever his father shoved him in the closet and closed the door—as though he were tired of having to deal with his child. Out of sight, out of mind. Whenever one of his father’s moods hit, the nearest closet sufficed: the one in the hallway, the one in Hunter’s bedroom, the one in his parents’ bedroom. The last was the worst, because of the sounds he’d hear: his father’s fist laying into his mother, her cries, the squeaking bedsprings. And he could do nothing to stop his father from hurting his mother.
But the noise had never been as bad as the silence. It had arrived abruptly one night. His mother’s screams had simply stopped. The eerie quiet had terrified him. And then he’d heard his father crying.
That night a policeman had opened the closet door. It wasn’t until Hunter was much older that he’d come to understand the truth: his parents were drug addicts, drug dealers. And in a drug-induced rage, his father had killed his mother.
Hunter had been passed from one foster home to another. Until he was seventeen. Then he’d enlisted in the Army. He’d been a good soldier, followed orders. Then the CIA had recruited him.
His missions varied. Because of his dark coloring, he was often sent to infiltrate terrorist cells. Gather what information he could. Sometimes he and his team members were sent to neutralize a threat—in any way necessary. Under the cover of darkness, while most people slept, they slipped in, they carried out their mission, they slipped out. They generated no headlines. They were never interviewed. Their existence had been whispered about, but never confirmed until the escalating war on terrorism forced the CIA to reveal that it had been rebuilding a paramilitary network of spies.
Hunter thought of himself as more of a soldier than a spy.
He untangled the sheet from around his legs, threw it back, climbed out of bed, and walked to the window. Lightning flashed. The volley of thunder soon following reminded him of his dream, was probably responsible for the nightmare returning after so many months in hiding. One failed mission that had resulted in his capture. And he couldn’t let go of it.
Raising his arms and bracing them on either side of the window, he dropped his head, his chin almost touching his chest, each breath he took echoing loudly around him. He shouldn’t have brought the woman home, but having done so, he should have buried himself so deeply within her that he could forget the unpleasant side of his profession. The part no one ever talked about.
Serena Hamilton. She’d been responsible for releasing the nightmares as well. She’d given him her name, and in so doing, she’d unleashed the demons.
He told himself it was simply coincidence. She’d called out for Steve in the throes of passion. Her last name was Hamilton. Once he’d met a Steve Hamilton. A young kid taking on a man’s job. Not that Hunter had been that much older.
“You ever been to Austin, man?”
“No.”
“I grew up near there. It’s paradise. I used to work at this bar. Best margaritas. Man, I could sure use one right now.”
The mission to rescue the Badger—Hunter’s code name because of his ability to burrow his way into enemy strongholds—had been rapidly going south. He’d been captured ten days earlier, his mission compromised when another agent had sold information to a foreign government. Hunter’s captors hadn’t been merciful. He’d expected to die in that dark cell, had actually prayed for death—and he wasn’t a praying man.
Instead a rescue operation had been ordered. The men knew nothing about him except for his code name. They somehow managed to get him out of his cell, but it didn’t appear that any of them were going to get out of the complex.
Coincidence. Her husband couldn’t have been that Hamilton, the young team member who’d been shot, the man left in Hunter’s care because Hunter was too weak from his ordeal to aid in the reconnaissance while the others rapidly scouted out the escape route.
“Matches…pocket,” the man had rasped.
Hunter had found a matchbook. Hamilton had closed his hand around it and whispered, “Paradise.”
It wasn’t until days later that Hunter had discovered the matchbook in his own pocket. For the Paradise Lounge. Not a single match missing. He couldn’t figure out why it had been so important to the young man. Unless it was the date written within a heart on the inside cover.
Six years had passed since that horrendous night. That was too much time for Serena to still be mourning, to be calling out for her husband while in another’s bed. The names might be the same. But the men couldn’t be.
Because if they were, then it would mean that Serena had loved her husband more than Hunter thought it humanly possible to love anyone.
He couldn’t chance it, couldn’t risk seeing her again—no matter how much he wanted to. No, she’d get the message when he didn’t show up for the picnic tomorrow. She’d understand then that she was nothing more than a one-night stand. That he’d changed his mind.
Better to cause her a little disappointment now than to have her learn the truth. She’d slept with the man who was responsible for her husband’s death.
Chapter 8
“Mom, do you think Grandpa is going to get rid of his horses, too?”
“Not for a while, sweetie.” Inside the barn, Serena tugged on the cinch before patting the mare’s withers. The pond was at the edge of the property, and while the terrain was bumpy, it wasn’t impossible for a truck to traverse. Still, she preferred riding a horse. Riker did as well, so it worked out for both of them.
“He got rid of the cows,” Riker pointed out.
“I know.” She gave him a brave smile, trying not to let him see all the doubts surfacing because it was two o’clock and Hunter had yet to show. She didn’t want to acknowledge the possibility that if she wasn’t putting out, then he’d decided he wasn’t putting in an appearance.
She wanted their time together to mean more to him than sex. An idiotic, unrealistic notion when the whole basis of their relationship was a chemical reaction that resulted in a firestorm sparked by little more than a look followed by a touch. She’d tossed and turned all night because she hadn’t given in, hadn’t accepted the physical release her body knew he could have provided.
As a result, she was grumpy, tense, and in need of a man. Desperately in need of a man. Damn him for resurrecting all the sexual desires she thought she’d buried. She felt as though they’d been hovering near the surface waiting for a chance to escape, and Hunter Fletcher had granted them freedom.
Now that they were free, they wanted to make up for lost time, which caused her to run hot one minute, lukewarm the next, but never cold. Every part of her body seemed to be vying for attention. She didn’t think her nipples had relaxed since Hunter had kissed her good night. It was irritating. She was irritated. Why hadn’t he returned as he’d promised he would?
Today she sharply felt what she hadn’t yesterday: cheap. She fluctuated between devastation and burning anger. She thought about his final kiss. Had she detected remorse in it, regret, apology? A good-bye instead of a good night?
She felt foolish. Foolish for going to the bar that first time, more foolish for returning a second time. Foolish for being grateful she’d had another evening with him. Foolish for inviting him to come out here. Foolish for obviously being more interested in him than he was in her.
She’d actually been humming in the kitchen while she’d prepared the picnic. Now she was hungry, Riker was hungry. She had a headache hovering because she’d expected to eat long before now. She was tired and ill-tempered and had decided she wasn’t cut out for nightlife.
She needed to meet a single father at a PTA meeting. Someone who went to bed shortly after his children did. Not someone who partied until the bars closed. She was too old for this. And just as quickly as that thought came, the realization followed that she was really too young to b
e thinking she was too old.
She wanted to retreat to the comfort of her bed. But she’d promised Riker a picnic and a fishing trip. She never went back on her word…unlike some people who would remain nameless. She wished she had remained nameless as well.
Names exchanged had obviously shifted the relationship, scared him off. That surprised her. He didn’t strike her as a man who frightened easily, even though he’d admitted to being scared. But then he’d also admitted that he wasn’t interested in a relationship. Had he been serious when he’d said that he’d never shown interest in a woman twice?
Was he like the lightning that had come with the storm in the early hours of the morning? Only striking once, but leaving destruction in its wake?
She’d never before experienced the sting of rejection. She wondered how women managed to keep dating when relationships didn’t work out.
She’d punched Hunter’s phone number out four times already—all but the last number. She couldn’t make herself press that final digit, the one that would complete the call and cause the phone to ring at his end.
Her calling him spoke of a desperation that she didn’t want to acknowledge—not even to herself. Besides, relationships consisted of more than just the physical aspects, and while he might excel in that area, he left a lot to be desired in other areas.
He wasn’t dependable. He made appointments and didn’t keep them. He was—
“Mom, who are you talking to?”
She jerked her attention back to Riker. “What?”
“I keep hearing you cursing, like maybe you’re mad. Did I do something?”
This time she gave him an honest, open smile and ruffled his blond hair. “Oh, no, sweetie. You didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just running things through my mind. Are you ready to go?”
“I’ve been ready forever.”
Hardly forever, although in his young mind it probably felt that they’d been waiting that long.
While Riker grabbed the reins to his horse, she took the reins to hers and turned toward the open doorway. Clad in jeans and a plain gray work shirt, a man stood just inside the doorway. She hadn’t heard his arrival, and she was irritated at the gladness that his presence caused to sweep through her when only moments before she’d been absolutely furious with him.
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