Kiss in the Dark (14 page)

Her eyes drifted open and saved him from himself. She gazed at him, the
blur of longing and desire piercing as
mortally as
the arrow with which Artemis killed Orion.
Something inside him stirred. Something ancient. Something more
powerful than
common sense or self-
preservation.

Need. Need stirred inside him. And only one woman had ever truly satisfied the thirst. He lifted a hand to the side of her face and cupped the curve of her cheek, stroked her soft skin.

Her eyes grew softer, her lids heavier.

The need that had been liquid hardened, and he lowered his face toward hers.

Something hot and fierce and wild flashed in her gaze. He felt her tense, but couldn’t stop her from rolling away.
He stared at her rigid back and shoulders, trying like hell
to destroy the urge to pull her to him, show her she didn’t
need to be afraid.

“Don’t
turn away from me, Bethany.”

A deep breath shuddered out of her, but she said nothing, just stared over the crater, the gorgeous body that had been soft and sinuous moments before, now unyielding.

“Bethany?”

“Why are you doing this?” she asked, turning to look at him. An unexpected
note of frustration tightened her
words. “Why can’t you leave well enough alone?”

Because he was a fool in every sense of the
word. “Old
habits die hard,” he said by way of answer, knowing that was no answer at all.

“Dylan—”

“Sh-h-h,”
he soothed, reaching out to feather the ends of her hair. He saw the alarm
flare into her eyes, the way
her body
braced itself for battle. He saw, and he hated.
“It’s just you and me now, sweetheart.
You don’t need to
pretend anymore.”

Her gaze met his. “Who says I’m pretending?”

“Your eyes.”

Just like that she shuttered the naked longing away, securing it behind the wall of indifference she’d fashioned to an art form.

“You’re wrong,” she rasped, but didn’t pull away. Though she lay on her side, he could see her standing tall. “You don’t know me as well as
you
think you do. Maybe
you were right earlier. Maybe I
was
trying to kill you. Maybe I killed Lance.”

Through the darkness, he tried not to smile. The bravado
in her voice replaced frustration
with admiration. He knew what she was doing. He saw the barrier she was trying to
erect as plainly as though she’d slapped bricks and mortar between them.

Selecting a hammer, Dylan began to
chip away. He
lifted his hand to her face, gently stroked. “Why would you want to kill me?”

Her lips twitched. “Where do I start?”

“Not everything has to start,” he whispered, as always speaking on one level, communicating on another. “Some things just are.”

“And some things just end,” she
countered, but didn’t
pull away.

“It’s a chance I have to take.”

Her eyes met his. “Still the tough guy, aren’t you?”

He slid his thumb toward her lower lip. So full. So soft. “You’d be surprised.”

“Oh?”

He watched the way she watched him, the defiance and challenge and curiosity. The courage. She talked a good game, but she wasn’t turning from him. Nothing was stopping her from surging to her feet and marching back to the Bronco. Nothing stopped her from putting an end to this before they reached the point of no return.

The knowledge speared through him, and just like that, his body hardened. God help him,
despite everything, the
pain of the past and the lies of the present, the uncertainty of the
future, he wanted her. To hold her and taste her, to
be inside her
once again. To feel her skin welcome him,
her thighs bracket him. Even if she killed him in the process. Which she very likely would. Maybe not physically, but a man
needed more than a
body to live. A man needed a heart and a soul. A man needed passion.

Those Bethany could shred in a heartbeat.

“You won’t kill me,”
he said,
fingering
her mouth. His words were purposefully silky. “I won’t let you.”

“How are you going to stop me?” she asked with a strained bravado he had to admire.

“Like this,”
he said, and lowered his mouth to hers.

Chapter 9

«
^
»

N
othing prepared her. She saw his eyes glaze over too
late, the hum in her blood drowning out common sense. A protest leapt through her, but before she could voice it, Dylan put his mouth to hers and laid siege to her soul. He leaned over her, his big body blanketing out the chill of the night, his warm hand settling against the side of her face in a feathery caress.

The stream of longing caught her by surprise. Thick
and
heady, the dangerous desire welled up from deep inside and pulsed to every nerve ending. Her heart strummed low and hard, pounding a rhythm as old and provocative as time itself.

He changed the angle of the kiss, deepened it, tentative exploration giving way to a full-scale invasion.
His
whiskers scratched the side of her face, soft as she remembered.

Tendrils of heat licked hotter. She’d forgotten how quickly a flash fire could consume everything in its path.

The feel of his mouth against hers seared the walls she’d tacked up between them. What her mind had struggled to
forget, her body remembered. But this was no teenage boy’s kiss, no fumbling in the dark. This was a man’s kiss, full
and deep and demanding. Just like that night in the cabin.

She lifted a hand to cup his cheek, holding him as he was holding her. He was almost on top of her now, big, warm, solid, leg to leg, hip to hip. Desire to desire.

Stop,
shouted the voice of self-preservation, but desire hummed louder. Since the moment she’d seen Dylan standing by the pool and looking at her with those scorched-earth eyes of his, a battle had raged deep within her. He’d looked tall and strong, enduring, and for a dangerous moment, the desire to feel his arms close around her had overridden all else. To pretend for just a heartbeat, to dream. To return to the oblivion of the night they created a child.

But remembering was dangerous, because remembering made her forget. Remembering made her careless. Remembering made her wonder. What if she and Dylan had shared
more time together before life exploded around them? What if he hadn’t stormed out of the cabin? What
if
she hadn’t run
after
him? What
if
there’d never been an ambush? What if the baby had lived? What
if
her father hadn’t been called home because his daughter was in the
hospital? What
if his twin-engine hadn’t crashed?

Pain sliced in from the past.
She cried out, stiffening beneath
Dylan as though she lay on needles, not a soft
blanket.

Immediately, he pulled back. “Bethany?”

Her chest tightened. Who was this man, she wondered inanely. Who was this devastating man looking at her with gentleness in eyes that usually blazed with fire and passion. His hands were big and hard and capable of violence, she knew that, but the way he reverently skimmed his fingers along the line of her cheek reminded her of an artist putting finishing touches on a priceless glass
figurine. He softly
stroked the side of her face, easing the hair behind her ear.

She stiffened, knowing what he must see, not just in
her
eyes, but where her cheekbone gave way to hairline. Lance had wanted her to have the nasty scar removed, but somehow, that had seemed wrong to Beth. Not just weak, but dangerous. If she removed the reminder, she might forget the lesson.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

There was a shattered tenderness in
Dylan’s gaze, and it burned. “I’m not
going to hurt you, sweetheart.”

“So ugly…” she murmured.

“No,” he said with absolute conviction. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”

The words touched deep, caressing that dark, lonely place she’d tried to wall away.
With
his hand, he continued to stroke the side of her face, gently skimming along the faded line.
With his body,
all tense and leaning over hers, he kept the cold night at bay. And with his eyes, dark and brimming with a ferocity she couldn’t begin to fight, he reached clear down into her soul.

With incredible finesse, the years between them dimmed, dissolved, the pain of betrayal fading into
nothingness, hard-learned lessons dissolving into red-hot desire.

“Kiss me,” she whispered. “Kiss me like you mean
it.” Like
he had that night in the cabin, when he’d put his
mouth to hers
and reminded her of sensations she’d tried
to forget.

He needed no more invitation than that. He lowered his face to hers, but she put a hand to the back of his head and sped up the process. Their mouths met somewhere in the middle.

Sensation whirred through her. Aside from that one desperate night, years had passed since she’d been touched like this, kissed, possessed.

“Bethany,” he whispered, his mouth sliding from hers to skim her jawbone, nibble at her ear. “You’re killing me…”

She arched beneath him, giving him better access to her
neck. She loved the feel of his lips skimming the tender flesh there, his tongue teasing. Her nipples tightened and tingled, begged. The ache between her legs liquefied.

“Dylan…”

“Sh-h-h.”
His mouth returned to hers and sensation ex
ploded anew. Need blurred everything. Coherent thought scattered. Mouths worshipped. Hands explored. Bodies
slid. Legs tangled. She shifted beneath him, allowing him to settle between her thighs. She felt him straining there,
felt the heat, the strength.

And she longed to feel it deeper. The need was acute,
the desire overwhelming.

“Dylan,” she whispered. “Touch me.”
Something deep and dark and primal tore from his throat. He kept his mouth to hers though, communicating
with his body not his voice. He deepened the kiss, making
love to her
with his mouth as thoroughly as he’d once
loved her with his body. She felt him slide a hand to her waist, where he quickly worked his way under her shirt.

Deep inside she started to soar as his warm fingers and palm slid along her the flesh of her stomach. Her breasts
tingled, ached. Longed.

But they were also denied. He stretched his hand over her stomach, spanning from below her bra to above her
panty line.
There he cupped, cradled.

It was shockingly intimate.

“Higher,” she urged, and against her open mouth, she would have sworn he laughed. But he also obliged her. His hand slid to her chest, where he unfastened the front
clasp of her bra. And then his fingertips were skimming around her nipples, softly, excruciatingly softly, little circles, feather soft touches.

The cry ripping from her throat barely sounded human. She couldn’t stand it, the measured, teasing torture. The anticipation. “Please…” she whispered.

And he did. His forefinger
and thumb converged over
the tip of her nipple, rolling it into a tight bud and shooting tingles of desire to every corner of her body.

She didn’t know who started to rock first. She might have lifted her hips, or he may have started grinding his.
Maybe it happened simultaneously. She only knew that they moved together, hunger a fever in her blood.

“Bethany,” he murmured, his fingers still playing with her nipple. He slid his other hand inside her pants and panties, easing his forefinger into the wetness between them. Then he groaned. “I never thought this would happen again,” he murmured, then slipped inside.

Beth cried out. Her interior muscles clenched and convulsed around him. The desire to feel him fully penetrate her knocked the breath from her lungs … and the haze from
her heart.

Dylan lay on top of her. She had her legs wrapped around his. His erection pressed into her; he had a finger stroking deep inside her. Her whole body was trembling and alive and on fire. Hungering. She wanted to let go of everything and step off the edge of the world once again, and just let herself fall.

And fall.

And fall.

But there was no such thing as an eternal free fall. Sooner or later, she had to crash back to earth.

Reality chose that moment to surface, reinforcements of preservation and memory spilling in from all directions. Beth abruptly pulled away, shocked.
That was the danger
of Dylan St. Croix, she knew.
With him, she forgot every
thing she knew about caution and preservation.
With him,
she remembered only the glory of feeling and savoring.

“Bethany?”

She looked at him stretched out inches away, and felt her heart shatter. “I can’t do this,” she whispered.

Something flickered in his eyes. Something hot. “What’s wrong?”

Everything, she
thought desperately. Everything. She
was a prime suspect in a murder she hadn’t committed, and she was carrying the child of a man she’d hoped to never see again. But here she was, as passion-drunk as her mother, about to surrender herself, her soul, to the man who was like her own personal albatross.

And her body didn’t give a damn. It strummed and begged…

“This is wrong,” she said, struggling to close the
door
deep inside, the door his kiss lulled open. Behind it burned the desire and intensity and recklessness he stirred within her, the out-of-control emotions that resulted in so much devastation. The miscarriage. Her father’s death. “This isn’t what I want.”

The lines of his face, lines that had blurred with passion and desire only moments before, hardened. “You mean it’s not what you want to want.”

The disappointment in his voice, the scorn, the truth, scraped. She pushed up
into a sitting position and wrapped her arms around her legs.

“Take me back to the cabin.”
She couldn’t stay here
with
him, not alone like
this on a blanket beneath the stars, where the embers of faded dreams echoed on the breeze.
“Please.”

* * *

Frustration tore through Dylan. She sat only a few feet away, but the wall between them jutted up to the night sky, thick and strong and as impenetrable as ever. He drank in the way the gauzy light of the moon played with the ends of hair his hands had tangled, her swollen lips and fathomless eyes, and cursed himself a fool of the worst kind. Clothes sex.
With Bethany.
He couldn’t believe
it.
A few minutes longer and he would have done something he hadn’t done since he was fifteen years old.

What the hell was he thinking?

He wasn’t.
That was
the problem. He knew better than to touch her with his hands, much less his mouth. She’d always been his one weakness, able to make him forget truths he needed to remember. He didn’t fit into her neat, orderly world, and she didn’t belong in his. She couldn’t abide the way Dylan muddied the waters of her life. And even though he knew with a few skillful touches he could
turn
her body liquid and wanting
all
over again, he also
knew she’d never let him touch her heart.

With any other woman, that truth wouldn’t matter. Sex
was sex, and sex was great. Why tangle it with emotion? He could have her willing and beneath him and put out this dangerous fire between them, once and for all.

But this was Bethany, the only person who’d ever made him wish he was a different man. A
better
man. A man who could live in an ice palace without destroying the beauty.

“I was wrong,” he ground out. “Maybe you will kill me, after all.”

She watched him with those wary, exotic eyes of hers. “You mean like I killed Lance?”
she asked quietly.

He stood and extended a hand. “I’m not scared of fire pokers.”

She looked at his outstretched arm, his palm open, then straight into his eyes. “What are you scared of?”

His smile was tight. “A smart man learns to never reveal his weakness.”

A shadow crossed her face. “So does a smart woman,” she said, standing on her own. She stood there a moment, a lone woman with the cool breeze caressing her soft brown hair, the moon’s light kissing the flawless skin of her face. Stars lit the night. The crater gaped behind her. Deep. Dark.

And for the first time,
Dylan realized just what a steep
fall awaited.

“Come on,” he said, taking the fine-boned hand she’d
denied him. Her skin was alarmingly cold, prompting him
to curl his fingers around hers. He wasn’t at all surprised
she didn’t return the gesture.