Burnt (14 page)

‘I … have to go.'

‘We need to deal with this, Bec – one way or the other,' he told her, leaving no room for argument.

His words were enough to paint the picture for her: either they picked up where they left off and hoped that this thing, whatever it was, ran its course, or they walked away from it for good. Once she would have known without the slightest hesitation which would be the smarter choice. Right now though, she wasn't sure she was willing to make the smartest decision … and that was something that was definitely not normal Rebecca Whiteman behaviour.

Over the next few days, Seb made a habit of dropping by to help with dinner. The first few times he'd arrived on the doorstep with takeaway, but on the third afternoon he turned up with a bag of groceries for a favourite meal, which he then attempted to throw together. It was only after he'd stood there looking baffled at the ingredients he'd spread out on the counter for steak Diane that he'd come clean and admitted that he didn't actually cook. Which is how Rebecca found herself elbow to elbow with him in the kitchen, cooking a meal together and feeling almost as though they were a couple of kids playing house.

Her own kids were spending the night at her parents' place. Rebecca had hesitated at her mother's request – she'd come to see the girls as her safety net against making decisions about Seb she might regret. Without them there, she no longer had an excuse. In the end she'd had little choice in the matter. The kids decided they'd spent too much time with her and that Nanna had chocolate in the pantry.

Seb hadn't reacted to the news that they'd only be cooking for themselves when he'd arrived that evening, and Rebecca hoped she hadn't sounded too apprehensive about the prospect. However, seeing as she'd dropped the carton of cream and almost burnt the steak, she was pretty sure he'd noticed that she wasn't as calm as she'd have liked him to believe.

‘That was amazing,' Seb said, pushing his plate away and leaning back in his chair.

‘Must have been my offsider.'

‘No way, it was all you, Bec.'

She summoned up a smile and reached for his plate, but his hand quickly covered hers. ‘Tell me what you want me to do, Bec,' he said quietly.

‘What I want you to do?' Images suddenly flew through her mind, making her hot and flustered.

‘What you want from me,' he explained. ‘Do you want me to stop coming around? Do you want me to be your friend? Do you want to take this further? I need to know what you want, Bec, because I don't want to get this wrong.'

The bleak expression in his troubled eyes shocked – and touched – her beyond words. He was as torn about this as she was. ‘I don't know! When you're not here, I think it's probably better to just stay away from you, but when you're here … I can't think straight.'

She watched him walk around the table to stand before her. Gently, he tugged her to her feet and slid his hands up the length of her arms slowly. Moving away, far enough to put some space between them without breaking the contact completely, he held her gaze steadily. ‘You don't need me messing your life up again, Bec. You've got two kids and a good job. Your life is nice and normal and you've got it together.'

‘How would you mess it up?'

‘Sometimes I go to work and I don't come back for three or four months – just like that, no warning and no goodbye. It's hard on a relationship.'

‘There have to be some people who manage to hold together a relationship and a career in the SAS.'

‘Not many, and usually not for long.'

A strange rebellion was beginning to build inside her. He was the one who'd brought up all this relationship stuff, persistently attacking the fragile wall she'd been trying to build around her heart since seeing him again and now that he'd managed to make a crack in it, he was retreating like a frightened rabbit. Well, it wasn't going to work – he'd put her through hell these last few weeks, and it had only been her will power that had kept things strictly platonic since his return.

‘You do realise you're trying to talk yourself out of this, don't you?' she pointed out dryly.

‘Yeah, I know.' He sounded resigned to the fact. ‘I told ya you had me messed up.'

She
had
him
messed up? ‘I spent the last eleven years with a man telling me what I can and can't do. I'm not going to let that happen again.'

‘I'm not telling you what to do. I'm just giving you all the facts. We have to work this out, one way or the other.'

‘But the way you're talking now, you're telling me something can't work without giving me a choice.'

‘Because I want to spare you any more hurt.' He sounded almost indignant.

‘Well, maybe I don't want to be spared. Maybe I want to make my own decisions.'

‘That's just plain stupid.'

Rebecca pushed against his wide chest and took a step back. ‘Stupid?'

‘You're being unreasonable.'

‘And you're being a jerk.'

‘What?'

‘Look here, Mr Bloody-know-it-all. I make my own decisions now, and if I want to get involved with you, I damn well will. I don't need you telling me I can't!'

‘Are you even listening to what you're saying?' he asked, a small uncertain chuckle escaping as he stared at her with his hands on his lean hips.

‘You want me, and I want you. If you deny that, you're lying,' she challenged. ‘At least be man enough to admit it.'

She saw him puff up, affronted by her questioning his manhood, and she hid a smile. Testosterone and alpha males; it never failed.

‘Fine, okay? I admit it. I want you, Bec – I've never stopped bloody wanting you, but it's not going to make any difference. In the end I'm still going to leave and you're going to be hurt. I don't want to be responsible for that again.'

‘Well, it's too late. I'm already involved with you. You think walking back into my life hasn't affected me? It might be different if things had ended the way they were supposed to end back then, but they didn't, and you know it. Maybe that's why we have this problem now.'

‘Are you talking about all that new-age, touchy-feely crap, like
closure
?'

‘Actually, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Maybe this time when you have to leave, we can make sure we end it the right way. Then maybe we'll both finally be able to put aside this thing between us once and for all.'

He eyed her cautiously for a few moments, before shaking his head slowly. ‘I don't think it works that way, Bec.'

Rebecca shrugged. ‘The way you did it last time sure as hell didn't work.'

They stared at each other silently, weighing up their choices. Rebecca knew, no matter what happened now, she was going to get hurt when he left again anyway. She'd never stopped loving him. They might be older, but deep down, she knew they were still the same two people – and hearts never forget.

‘This is a big mistake.'

Rebecca gave a sad smile. ‘Story of my life.'

‘There won't be a happily ever after in this one, Bec. I'm telling you this up front. You'd better be prepared for it.'

‘I never picked you for a pessimist, Seb,' she answered softly.

‘I'm a realist. There's a difference.'

His expression turned wary as she took a step closer and rose on her tiptoes to kiss him gently. ‘Good, because this is real. Man up and deal with it.'

A flare of desire lit his dark eyes, his breath warm on her face as she held his gaze steadily. No matter what happened now, she had at least been in control of a small part of this. The knowledge gave her back the self-confidence he'd partly destroyed by ending their relationship without giving her a choice.

‘This is a bad idea,' he growled against her face softly.

‘No, standing around in the kitchen is a bad idea,' she said with a raised eyebrow. ‘This is a better idea.' She slid her hands up his chest and along his neck to tangle in the few short inches of dark brown hair on his head, as she reached up to kiss him.

He didn't protest after that; she figured he'd done all he could, and realised she wasn't going to support his last-ditch attempt to stop this going any further. He withdrew her arms from his neck, moving her backwards until she felt the hallway wall behind her. Pinning her arms above her head with one big hand, he used the other to cup her face. His eyes were dark and heavy and sent her heart rate tripping over itself in excitement.

‘There's no going back after this, you know that, right?'

‘I know.'

‘I tried to stay away, Bec, but I'll be damned if I could make myself listen to common sense. You scramble every good intention I come up with.'

‘For a quiet guy, you sure do talk too much,' she teased.

He didn't give her time to enjoy the point she'd just scored, melting her with a kiss that sent her temperature soaring.

As clothing peeled off and skin touched skin, the last of the teasing was wiped from her mind. Memories flooded her; she ran her hands up and across the skin on his back, now so broad and strong, so different to the boy she remembered. His shoulders were wide and she felt him tremble slightly as her fingers ran lightly along his shoulders and into his hair, pulling him closer to her as their kisses became urgent, hungry and impatient for more.

Gently, Seb lowered her to the bed, following her down, his mouth never breaking contact with hers. His hands framed her face, holding her as he kissed her deeply, and the tenderness of the action brought tears to her eyes.

As his hands brushed the side of her face, he lifted his head and stared down at the tears spilling over his fingers.

‘Bec?'

She swallowed and shook her head slightly, trying to smile to reassure him. ‘I'm fine.'

‘You don't look fine. Tell me,' he demanded softly, his gaze so damn sincere that it only made more tears fall.

‘I don't know why I'm crying,' she finally managed, feeling stupid that she was ruining this perfect moment.

‘Is it too soon?'

Too soon? Was he serious? She'd been waiting eighteen bloody years! ‘I didn't realise how much I'd missed … this. It's like nothing has changed – but it has. We're different, but I still feel like it was only yesterday we were together. I've missed you so much.' She stroked his cheek and gazed into his startled expression. Oh god, why hadn't she just kept her mouth shut? He wasn't interested in sappy memories. She squeezed her eyes closed tightly and tried to turn her face away from him, but he held her firmly.

‘Open your eyes,' he whispered.

Slowly she followed his instructions, and her breath caught as she felt his fingers tracing her jawline and down the column of her neck. Gone was the startled, deer-in-the-headlights look of a moment ago, replaced by a slow simmering desire. ‘I need you to look at me, Bec. I want you to see
me
loving you. No one else,' he said with a surge of possessiveness that sent a shot of white-hot desire through her body.

As Seb kissed his way across her rib cage, she felt him brush against the stretch marks on the side of her stomach. Immediately her hands went to cover them but he gently pushed them aside, looking down at her with heart-melting sincerity.

‘I want to see all of you, Bec. The way you've seen me.'

‘They aren't scars like yours. They're stretch marks,' she protested, embarrassed by her less-than-perfect body.

‘They're scars as real as any of mine and you earned every one of them.' He gently eased away her hands and traced the silver lines that fanned out across her stomach and hip. When he bent and lightly kissed them, a sharp knife of desire sliced through her and a moan escaped her lips.

‘You don't need to hide any part of yourself from me, Bec. You're perfect just the way you are.'

His kisses and clever hands sent her closer and closer to that brink of insanity where nothing else mattered, nothing else existed but the ecstasy of unadulterated pleasure. Heat, sweat and the sound of breaths against warm, salt-tinged skin filled the quiet hours. Deep moans blended in a tangle of sheets and limbs and sighs.

Somehow Seb managed to turn even a mere kiss into something potent and breathtaking and, at times, even more intimate than their lovemaking had been. Rebecca found herself bared before him in so many ways throughout the night; it was one thing to share her body with him, but another entirely to immerse herself in the way he took his time kissing her, looking deep into her eyes and making her see what he saw. She was overwhelmed by his intensity and felt as though he could see right into her very soul. He shook her to the core.

Time and time again he took her over the brink and back again, and in between there were long moments of simply holding one another. She smiled as she thought about how far they'd both come as lovers. Whoever said maturity would always win over youthful inexperience obviously had Seb in mind. They'd thought they were pretty hot stuff way back then, but Sebastian Taylor, the man, had come a long way from the shy, gentle lover he'd been at eighteen.

The man certainly had skills.

‘You planning on being home for dinner tonight?'

Seb glanced up at his father as he kicked off his boots at the bottom of the verandah steps. ‘Yeah. Is that going to be a problem?'

‘No, just wondering, so I can get something out of the freezer. You've been spending a fair bit of time in town lately … How
is
Rebecca?'

‘She's fine.' Seb really didn't want to discuss this new development with anyone, especially when he wasn't even sure how to explain it himself. Ever since he'd discovered the rip in the tent, he'd made a point of being around a lot in case there were any more incidents, but so far there was no sign of any further trouble. He'd noticed the nuisance phone calls seemed to have stopped as well. If he were being completely honest with himself, he'd have to admit he was using the protector excuse to legitimise the increasing amount of time he was spending with Bec and the kids; it helped defend his actions to the little voice in his head that kept warning him he was getting in too deep.