Heartbreaker (The Warriors) (11 page)

"Your faith in people amazes me some of the time."

"Why? I’ve always believed in the strength of the human spirit. I guess it’s kind of a religion with me. In your case, it wasn’t so much my having faith as it was reminding you to look inward and trust yourself."

"You make it sound so simple, but we both know it wasn’t and still isn’t."

"At the risk of repeating a time–worn cliché, nothing worth achieving is simple," Bliss remarked. "You just needed the right tools and a friend with the personality of a drill sergeant."

He laughed at that. She savored the low, rumbling sound, and she realized just how easily she could become accustomed to having Micah in her life.

"You’re not like any drill sergeant I’ve ever met."

"That’ll be our secret." Humor edged into her voice before she could stop it.

"This is the first time you’ve really let your guard down with me. Why?"

Torn between blurting out the truth or indulging in some form of subterfuge that might protect her, she glanced up at him. After a long moment, she exhaled softly. "Honestly?"

He nodded. "Honestly."

"You were right before. I’m attracted to you." She saw him flinch as though she’d struck him, but she forged ahead anyway. "I knew I couldn’t risk letting my feelings get in the way of what you needed to accomplish during your stay at Rowland House. It would have softened my attitude and clouded my judgment, and I wouldn’t have pushed you as hard as you needed to be pushed, especially at the beginning. I also didn’t want to get involved in a casual affair. You have a life to go back to, and I’ve already told you how I feel about being used as a sexual safety net. That kind of relationship is too painful when it’s over."

"Are you always this honest?" he asked quietly.

She sighed. She knew her candor often made most people, especially men, think she was terribly naïve. "Yes, although not everyone appreciates it."

"I’d forgotten that there were women like you in the world."

Fools?
she almost asked, but she managed not to make a complete idiot of herself. Instead, she settled for a neutral, "Oh?"

"That’s why there hasn’t been a woman in my life for a long time."

"Oh."

"I’m starting to hear an echo."

She poked him in the ribs, and then had trouble bringing her hand back to her lap where it belonged. Just the thought of exploring his body with her fingertips, and then following the same path with a string of hot, open–mouthed kisses, seduced both her imagination and her senses. "Be nice," she chided.

"Talk to me about London."

"Why?"

"I want to remember you."

"I’ve already told you there isn’t much to remember."

"Don’t hedge. You don’t have to protect yourself or hide from me." Micah tucked her even closer, his arm snugging her against him so that she felt forged to him. "There was a time when I first got here that I would have used any weapon you provided as a means of hurting you, but I don’t feel that way any longer."

Bliss understood his meaning. She had provoked him during their earlier days together in order to penetrate his self–pity. At the time she’d suspected he would enjoy exacting a large penance from her, but she believed him now when he said he no longer felt that way.

"You were very kind to me in London."

"Don’t kid yourself, Bliss. We both know I’m not a kind man. I’ve made it this far by being a manipulative, bullheaded son of a…"

"You saved my life," she said in a rush. "One minute I was standing in a dress shop near a train station a few blocks from Harrods, and in the next I was buried under rubble, surrounded by dead and dying people, and a fire blazed all around me. I expected to die, but I didn’t… because of you. I thought you were a living, breathing miracle when you pulled me out of that place and then got me to a hospital."

"Christ! The IRA terrorist bombing. That was you?"

"Yes, that was me. I didn’t think there was any point in bringing it up, though. It’s probably just as well you didn’t remember me."

He frowned. "Why?"

She nearly groaned in exasperation. "You’re actually going to make me say it, aren’t you?"

"I don’t understand."

He obviously didn’t, she realized. "I developed an instant and excruciating crush on you, and I couldn’t have been at all subtle about it. Why remind you of my previous immature behavior during your current stay?"

"I remember a big–eyed little girl who refused to speak to me. Getting you to talk was like pulling teeth. What I couldn’t get over was how brave you were for someone so young."

She smiled. "I was a mouse, and I was scared witless. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. I knew by your uniform that you were an American, so I felt safe with you."

"I rode in the ambulance to the hospital with you," he recalled. "At first I thought you were in shock, because you wouldn’t stop staring at me."

"I
was
in shock, but I was also afraid you’d disappear if I closed my eyes, and then I’d be back in that dress shop again. When I wouldn’t let go of your hand, you stayed with me while the doctor stitched up my leg. You didn’t leave the hospital until one of the nurses told you my family had been reached and would be arriving soon to take me home. Later, I wondered if you even knew Cyrus was my father."

"I didn’t, and it never came up."

"That sounds like Cyrus."

"He’s taken the concept of
privacy
to new heights."

"Or lows," she observed without malice. Cyrus was Cyrus and, short of a personality transplant, change didn’t enter into the equation.

Bliss’s smile dimmed altogether as she considered how little she’d progressed despite the passage of so many years. She loved Micah more than ever now, and she couldn’t help wondering if that meant she’d gone backward instead of forward. Arrested emotional development, she concluded.

"A lot can happen in eleven years."

"You’ve outgrown your shyness."

She shifted uncomfortably. "Not really. I’m at my best when I’m working in my studio."

"I should have remembered you."

"I wasn’t important. No more than a blip on the screen of what I gather has been a very exciting life in Naval Intelligence."

He shifted their bodies so that they wound up knee–to–knee. Bringing his hands to her face, he cupped her cheek and traced the width of her full lower lip with his thumb. She held her breath, feeling even more unsure of herself thanks to the tenderness of his touch.

"What?" she whispered.

"You’ve become very important to me, Bliss. I may not have seen your value when you were seventeen and shell–shocked in the aftermath of a terrorist bombing, but now I know your value as a woman and as an ally. Which means more to you, the past or the present?"

She studied him with the aid of the bright moonlight that splashed across his features. Although his eyes were still concealed by bandages, the angular lines of his face revealed his sincerity. Still, he posed a very real emotional threat to her. Stop acting like a coward! an inner voice exclaimed

"The present, but I’m only a temporary part of your life, Micah," she said, "just as your stay at Rowland House is temporary. You’ll get on with your life once you leave here. I know you’ll remember me this time, but I’ll just be a memory. That’s all."

"You're wrong."

"No, I don’t think… "

He placed a fingertip against her lips. "I don’t want to argue with you. Tell me about your life."

She resisted the urge to press her lips against the tip of his finger. When he lowered his hands to her shoulders, she commented, "You already know the high points. Lots of travel when I was young, good schools, interesting people coming and going, a loving mother, and an emotionally aloof father." Bliss shrugged. "My work gets most of my attention."

"You mentioned a studio? Are you a painter?"

"No. I’m a sculptor."

Oddly enough, she felt almost reassured that he hadn’t connected her to the public persona she revealed to art critics and collectors from around the world. She liked being known as Bliss Rowland, person, as opposed to Elizabeth Rowland, a sculptor of considerable international acclaim.

She finally noticed Micah’s silence, but it was the troubled expression on his face that made her ask, "Is something wrong?"

"It’s your whole world, isn’t it?"

Bliss stiffened beneath his hands. She hadn’t expected this insight, and it heightened her anxiety. "Yes, it is."

He frowned. "You sound defensive."

"It’s what I do, and I certainly don’t have to justify it."

"Does it make you happy?" he asked.

Although baffled by his motive for asking such a question, she answered, "Of course. I can’t imagine doing anything else."

"Are you hiding behind your sculpting, the same way I’ve hidden behind my career?"

"I’m not hiding," she protested. "You’re not being fair. Sculpting is a solitary endeavor."

"So is intelligence work, at least most of the time. It’s also a good way to avoid emotional involvement, especially if you do it to the exclusion of everything else."

"Isn’t that precisely what you’ve done?" she asked, determined to turn the tables on him because he was getting much too close to the truth.

"Is Cyrus the reason you wouldn’t let me make love to you?" he demanded.

She stared at him, disconcerted by his question. She felt his fingers dig into her shoulders, but she didn’t have the strength to protest his harsh grip.

"Is he, Bliss?" he asked.

"He doesn’t have a vote," she said, anger flaring inside her. "Change the subject, Micah."

"We’re both loners, aren’t we?"

She tried to shift backward, but he refused to free her. She sighed in exasperation. "Perhaps. What’s your point?"

"I tried to get you into my bed for the wrong reasons. I shouldn’t have tried to use you."

His admission surprised her. "I understood what you were doing."

"You don’t understand now, though, do you? I still want you, and even more now than I did before. That hasn’t changed. It won’t change."

She felt her heart stop beating for a couple of seconds. Loving him put her at a distinct disadvantage, and she suddenly resented him for it. "You can’t possibly know for certain what you want or need. Your life is in a state of flux. So are your emotions."

"Why did you agree to help me?" he asked.

"We’re going over old ground."

"Why, Bliss? Was it some misguided sense of obligation because of what happened in London?"

"Of course not. I’m not operating a charity here. I have a life, not to mention a demanding and rewarding career."

"Then why did you take time from your busy life for me and my problems?"

"Because… " She hesitated, unwilling to make an admission that would put her at his mercy. "… my father is your friend."

"Was it pity?"

"No!" she exclaimed, the blue of her eyes suddenly blazing with an array of emotions.

"Prove it!" He jerked her forward without warning.

Planting her open palms on his chest, Bliss stiffened her arms and caught herself before she crashed into him. He kept his hands on her shoulders, eliminating the possibility of flight.

"I don’t have to prove anything to you."

"Bliss, tell me the truth."

"What truth? Quit behaving like a jerk," she insisted, her fury with him surfacing.

"Guilty as charged."

She forced herself to try a calmer approach, even though her heart raced at a breakneck pace. "You’re an attractive man, Micah. You can have any woman you want, but I’m not on the menu and I don’t do crowds, so don’t pick me."

"I’m selective. Very selective."

"Congratulations!" she snapped.

"Tell me you don’t want me. Tell me you aren’t attracted to me any longer."

She couldn’t, so she didn’t. She glared at him instead, forgetting for a moment that he couldn’t see her facial expression. Making a last–ditch effort at the truth, Bliss humbled herself by quietly admitting, "You have the power to hurt me, Micah. I wouldn’t survive an affair with you."

He groaned, brushed aside her hands, and brought her against his muscular chest. Wrapping his arms around her, he molded her against him in such a way that she felt the force of his heartbeat against her breasts. "I wouldn’t hurt you for anything in the world. Don’t you know that yet?"

Dazed by the currents of sensations spiraling through her body, Bliss wondered if she knew anything anymore. She felt naked, despite the silk that separated their upper bodies. Her breasts ached. She also felt emotionally flayed. And she’d never felt more shaken by her desire for a man.

"Tell me how I’m supposed to survive the need I feel every time you’re within ten feet of me," he demanded. "Convince me that I’m not your charity case of the month."

She struggled, twisting and turning in his arms, but to no avail. "It’s not my job to convince you of anything. I won’t be treated this way, not by you or anyone else."

"Then let me treat you the way you deserve to be treated," he coaxed.

Micah claimed her lips, his assault on her senses tender yet insistent. Stunned by his passion, she trembled in his embrace as she sampled a foretaste of his leashed hunger. Bliss knew that no man had ever wanted her with such intense desire. Neither had any man ever made her feel so on the verge of spinning completely out of control.

Her entire body pulsed and throbbed with the need to reach fruition in his arms. Even though she longed to surrender to him, she instinctively struggled against the consuming weakness that flowed through her, beckoning her, seducing her until she couldn’t think clearly.

As Bliss circled his shoulders with her arms, she sensed the inevitability of their situation. Micah, she realized, whether by design or destiny, was on the verge of becoming the architect of her emotional downfall. Even as she silently cursed his power over her, she craved him as a lover.

"Tell me, Bliss," he urged in a low voice so filled with erotic tension that she wanted to burrow beneath his skin and stay there forever. "Tell me how I’m supposed to walk away from you."