“It doesn’t matter to me,” she told him quietly.
“Wherever you’ve been, whatever you’ve done, it’s irrelevant. Whatever mistakes you’ve made, they’re in the past. I like who you are right now, Mish. I don’t care where you went to college, or if you dropped out of high school, or got left back in second grade. I’d love to know those things about you, sure, but only if you want to share them with me. If not, that’s okay, too.”
She slid her hand down to his, and Mish turned his arm over so that their fingers could interlock. He stared down at their two hands, knowing the inevitable. He and Becca had been barreling toward this moment from the instant he’d agreed to attend the fund-raising dinner with her. Despite everything he’d told himself, he’d known it from the start. He was here, in Becca’s room, because he couldn’t stay away.
“I don’t know many men—or women—who would’ve jumped into that river after that boy. It was dangerous as hell, and you didn’t even hesitate.”
“I’m a strong swimmer.”
“You’re a good man.”
He levelly met her gaze. “If I were a good man, I’d say good-night right now and leave.”
“I said you were good. I didn’t say you were a saint.”
She was close enough to kiss, and he knew, unless he did or said something soon, that she was going to kiss him.
“I can’t give you what you deserve,” he whispered. And then he kissed her, because he couldn’t wait for her to kiss him, not one second longer.
Her lips were as sweet as he remembered, her mouth eager, hungry. She melted against him, her arms slipping up around his neck, pulling him closer.
He’d meant to kiss her softly, sweetly. Instead he almost inhaled her, his hands sliding against the smooth fabric of her dress, against the soft warmth of her body beneath.
Her bed was three steps away. All he had to do was lift her up and…
He pulled free, breathing hard. “Becca…”
Her brown eyes held a clear echo of that powerful kiss’s molten heat. “Stay with me tonight.”
“Just tonight?” His voice sounded husky to his own ears. “Is that really what you want—a one-night stand?”
“I’m looking for a lover—and a friend—who’ll stick around only until it’s time to leave,” she admitted. “But it’s impossible to know when that time will be, especially when a relationship is just starting. Still, I would hope it wouldn’t be after only one night.”
“So you want a…relationship.”
Becca laughed at that. “You say it as if it has a capital R. As if it’s something enormous and terrifying.”
He couldn’t joke about it. “Isn’t it?”
“No! I hate to break it to you,” she said, “but we’ve already got a relationship. We’ve had one from the moment you walked onto the Lazy Eight and asked for Becca Keyes.” She shifted impatiently in his arms, tightening her grip on him, moving closer when he would have set her aside. “All I want is to change the parameters of that relationship to include long stretches of time that we can spend naked together. But that time’s not infinite. Frankly, I don’t believe in forever.”
She held his gaze as if she were trying to convince him of the truth she spoke by letting him see into her soul. “Honest, I’m not looking for true love, Mish. I promise you, when the time comes, I’ll let you walk away.” Her eyes were gentle then as she pushed his hair back from his face. “You don’t have to worry about hurting me.”
She kissed him. Softly, then harder and deeper, and he kissed her back until the room spun, until he couldn’t breathe, until he thought his heart might explode in his chest. He should make a break for the door and not stop running until he hit the other side of town. Because he could taste forever in her kiss. Despite everything she’d said, it was back there. A hint of promise that made him want…Made him want…
It couldn’t be…Was the bittersweet longing that he could practically taste his own? He nearly laughed aloud.
Wouldn’t that be the ultimate in irony? Here was this fabulous woman giving him everything he could possibly want from a lover—including the serenity of knowing she had no expectations—and he was the fool who was falling hard.
Becca broke their kiss and pulled back to gaze searchingly into his eyes. She shook her head at all the doubt and confusion he knew was swimming there.
“How can you possibly kiss me that way and still resist this?” she asked. She laughed in disbelief. “Maybe you are a saint.”
He wasn’t in love with her. He was infatuated, sure. He was wildly attracted, without a doubt. But love…? He barely knew her. No, this was about sex, about chemistry, about attraction. It had to be.
So why was he resisting?
“There’s a lot I can’t tell you, Bec,” Mish confessed, torn between wanting to open up about his inability to remember his past, and that intense conviction deep in his gut that he shouldn’t breathe a word about it to anyone. “About myself, I mean, but…I do know I’m no saint.”
“Then stay,” she whispered. “Please.” Her gaze dropped to his lips, and for a fraction of a second, time hung.
Anticipation surrounded Mish breathlessly, heart-poundingly. She’d told him she didn’t need to know more about him than she already knew. She’d told him she wasn’t looking for more than a short-term lover. She’d given him permission to keep his secrets to himself, guilt-free.
And then she leaned forward and kissed him again.
And it was all over.
Even back when he’d first walked into the inn, there had probably only been a six-percent chance that he would walk back out of this hotel before dawn. But that chance just dropped to zero.
His willpower had been completely shattered.
He wasn’t going anywhere.
Except maybe to heaven.
He pulled her hard against him, filling his hands with her softness, sliding his palms along the bare skin of her arms and back, breathing in the familiar, sweet scent of her hair as he kissed her again and again and again—deep, ravenous, soul-reaching kisses that shook him to his very core. He felt her hands at his throat, unfastening his tie, pulling it free, then worrying the buttons of his shirt.
She seemed determined to get his clothes off him, and as far as brilliant ideas went, he was right there with her, one-hundred-percent. He found the zipper at the back of her dress and unfastened it, then pulled back to yank his unbuttoned shirt free from his arms.
She gasped as her hands touched his Ace bandage. “Oh, no, I forgot all about…I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
He had to laugh. “You’re killing me,” he told her, “but not the way you mean. I’m fine.”
“Honest?”
This was one thing he could be honest about. “Yes.”
“And you’ll tell me if it hurts?”
He laughed again. “It hurts, but—”
“Not the way you mean,” she finished with him, laughing, too.
Her smile grew slightly wicked, and he watched, spellbound, as she rose to her feet and pushed the thin straps from her shoulders. Her dress fell off her in a sheet, pooling at her feet, leaving her naked save for a pair of shimmering silk panties.
She was beyond beautiful, and he reached for her, needing to touch the smoothness of her skin, the soft fullness of her perfect breasts, needing to hold her close, to feel her naked against him.
She touched him, too, with her hands, with her mouth, slowly running her fingers up his arms, across his shoulders, down the muscles of his bare chest, gently across his bruised side, driving him half-mad from the sensation.
How could something that felt so right be so wrong?
And it was wrong. Despite all that she’d told him, he knew it was wrong to make love to her without telling her the truth, without admitting that he didn’t know what that truth was. Who was he? He honestly didn’t know. Becca thought he was a good man. He strongly suspected otherwise.
Mish had reason to believe he’d don
e terrible things in his past, and here he was, right on schedule—giving in to temptation again.
Except when Becca kissed him, it didn’t feel wrong. When Becca kissed him, when she touched him, it felt right in a way he’d never experienced right before.
And dammit, he wanted more.
He pulled her down with him onto the bed, kissing her, touching her as she cradled him between her legs. He could feel her heat as she pressed herself up against his arousal, and the sensation was dizzying and so perfect, he wanted to weep.
He felt her reach between them, felt her unfasten his belt, his pants, and then she was touching him, her fingers against his skin. It felt impossibly, paralyzingly, mind-blowingly good.
This woman wasn’t looking for forever. She expected this fire they were fanning to life between them to burn hot and white, and then burn out. She had no misconceptions where this love affair was concerned, and she wouldn’t be hurt when he left. She wasn’t in love with him—at least not really. She didn’t believe in true love.
Becca tugged at his pants, and he rolled off her to help her push them down his legs. Together they pulled off his boots, took off her panties. And then, finally, they were both naked. Mish pulled her on top of him, kissing her, desperate to be inside her, surrounded by her slick heat. He could feel her against him. All he had to do was shift his hips and…
But she moved when he moved, lifting herself away from him. “Whoa,” she said, laughing. “Wait a sec—safe sex, birth control! I’ve got condoms in my bag. Don’t move, okay?”
Mish was staggered. He couldn’t have moved if he’d wanted to. A condom—he’d completely forgotten about using one. He’d been more than ready to make love to Becca, despite being totally without protection. If she hadn’t stopped him…
She pulled a foil-wrapped package from her purse, and came back to the bed, tearing it open.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice hoarse as he pushed himself up on his elbows. “It’s been a while for me, and I wasn’t thinking.”
“I hope you don’t mind wearing this,” she told him, kneeling beside him. “Because I’m afraid it’s nonnegotiable.”
“No.” He pulled her toward him, unable to keep from touching all that smooth, soft skin. “I never mind being forced to do something intelligent. I seriously don’t know how I could have—”
She smiled at him, amusement dancing in her eyes—she was so beautiful. “Considering I was trying to drive you to distraction, I can’t really complain when it worked.”
“Distraction, huh?” Her thighs were smooth against him, her breasts so soft in his hands. He bent to kiss her, to draw her into his mouth. She moaned, and just like that the pulsating fire was back, heat flickering white-hot through his veins. “I’m just glad you had a condom,” he murmured.
She handed it to him. “I always keep them on hand,” she breathed, “in case Brad Pitt comes to town.”
Mish lifted his head, and Becca laughed. “Just checking to see if you were still paying attention,” she told him. “If you want to know the truth, I bought a box because despite all my promises to be good, despite all the times you told me no, I still had designs on you.”
She’d spoken the words lightly, but he touched her face gently, his eyes almost soft beneath the heat of his desire. “I didn’t tell you no because I didn’t want you. You do know that, Becca, don’t you?”
She knew it now and she was glad—so glad—that she hadn’t given up.
She kissed him, tasting his hunger for her, feeling his need in the way that he held her, the weight of his desire.
Becca reached between them—he was taking too long—and helped him cover himself. She straddled him then, rolling him over onto his back as she kissed him, his arousal sinfully hard against her stomach.
He explored her body with his hands and mouth as if he were a starving man at a banquet, as if he would never be able to get enough of her.
It was an incredible turn-on—the way he looked at her as if she were the sexiest woman he’d ever seen, the way he touched her as if she were some kind of goddess or angel or…
“Becca,” he breathed, and she loved the way her name sounded in the midnight velvet of his voice. He reached between them to touch her intimately, lightly first, then harder. “Please, may I—”
She would have agreed to anything, promised him everything else. “Yes.”
He lifted her up then, turning them both over so that he was on top of her, his weight between her legs. She raised her hips to meet him and, oh, the look in his eyes was nearly as incredible as the sensation of him, thrust hard and deep, inside of her.
He held her gaze as he began to move, and the connection between them was so profound, her heart was completely in her throat. How could this be? This was supposed to be…well, if not casual, then at least ordinary. She hadn’t anticipated feeling as if her entire soul were exposed to the elements. She hadn’t dreamt that this man’s kisses might resurrect all of her long-buried hopes of happily-ever-after.
That was crazy. This was sex. It was great sex, but it was only sex.
But as Becca looked into the eyes of this man who was making such wonderful, exquisite love to her, she saw possibilities that made her breath catch in her throat. She saw her future stretching out before her, and for the first time since forever, her journey was not a solitary one.
She laughed aloud. They were crazy, these thoughts that were invading her.
But when Mish smiled, too—his eyes crinkling at the edges with his pleasure and joy—she knew she was in trouble.
Big trouble.
He somehow knew just how to move to please her most—long, slow strokes that stole the air from her lungs, that left her dying for more.
And when her release ripped through her, it tore her open, scorching her very soul. She closed her eyes and clung to him, feeling him explode as well.
And when he lowered his head and kissed her, she closed her eyes and let him claim her mouth as thoroughly as he’d just claimed her heart.
Chapter 9
Mish could smell the fear.
It hung, sharp and unmistakable, in the small room. He’d been trapped there for hours with the others. There were twenty-four of them—mostly women and young girls. Some had been weeping continuously. When one of them left off, another started in.
He was numb.
The man in the religious robes lay on the floor where he’d fallen, half of his head blown away, his hands outstretched, wide and reaching, surprised by his own death.
He’d died trying to negotiate the release of the women and children. But the terrorists would not negotiate. They all knew that now.
And so Mish waited. He sat with his back against the far wall, and he waited, trying not to shake. He looked at the walls, at the ceiling—anywhere but at that pool of darkening blood on the floor.
But then the door opened, and everything moved too fast. A black man, an American, scrambled up from the hostages—launching himself at the men with guns. Shots were fired as Mish lunged to his feet. The American staggered back, but not before wrenching an assault weapon from one of the terrorist’s arms.
More gunshots. The American went down hard, the weapon skittering across the floor.
Toward Mish.
He didn’t think. He reacted, picking it up, his finger squeezing the trigger before he’d even got it aimed. The force pushed the barrel up as he fired, and he fought to push it down, sweeping the entrance to the room, spraying the terrorists with bullets, splattering the back wall and doorway with their blood and brains.
Someone was screaming, the voice raw and guttural with rage, but barely loud enough to be heard over the deafening machine-gun fire.
But then it was over. The men on the floor before him were undeniably dead. He’d killed them. He stopped shooting and realized that the voice—and the rage—were his own.
The American was bleeding badly, but he grabbed another assault weapon and kicked the door shut.
<
br /> “Good job,” he told Mish through the blood that bubbled on his lips. “Way to send them straight to hell, Mish.”
Mish stared at the bodies, stared at what he’d done.
He’d killed them. God help him, he’d pointed the weapon, and taken the lives of three human beings. He may have sent them straight to hell, but what had he done to his own soul?
And he turned, because over on the other side of the room, the dead man in the robe was pushing himself up and off of the floor. The half of his face that was left was frowning, and he raised his hand, pointing accusingly at Mish. “Thou shalt not kill,” he intoned. “Thou shalt not kill.”
He took a step toward Mish, and then another step. And Mish realized with a jolt of shock that the man wore a liturgical collar, streaked bright red with blood.
And what was left of the dead man’s face might as well have been his own.
Mish sat up in bed, his heart pounding, gasping for air.
Someone stirred in the bed beside him. Becca. It was Becca. She sat up, too, hesitantly touching his back. “Mish, are you all right?”
The hotel room came into focus, dimly lit by the first light of dawn that streaked in through the tops of the heavy window curtains.
Mish fought to control his ragged breathing, fought to bring his pulse back down to normal. “Nightmare,” he managed to say.
“A bad one, huh? Want to talk about it?”
He pushed his sweat-soaked hair back from his face with hands that were still shaking. “No,” he said. “Thanks.”
She put her arms around him and lightly kissed his shoulder, and he turned toward her, grabbing her and holding her far more tightly than he had a right to, kissing her far more proprietarily than he should have. But he desperately needed grounding, desperately needed her.
“Mmm.” She smiled up at him in the slowly growing light as she ran her fingers through his hair. She didn’t seem to mind the dampness. “I’m sorry you had a nightmare, but I’m not sorry you woke me up, especially when you kiss me like that.”
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