“No, it was a surprise.”
“What did he want?”
“He said he had some old things of mine that he wanted to give back.”
“Like what?”
I shook my head. I wasn’t in the mood to tell him about Aunt Gretchen’s bracelet. Certainly I wasn’t about to explain that I’d left it behind because I’d been beaten up and thrown out on the front steps of my own home. “Nothing I want,” I lied. I tugged my hand from his and removed the paper towel. The bleeding had stopped. “What did you tell Nick at the door?”
“I said if he showed up here again, I’d kick his ass.”
My eyes widened. “You didn’t really, did you?”
He looked smug. “I did.”
“You arrogant . . . Oh, I can’t believe you just took it upon yourself to . . .” I sputtered into silence, fuming.
Hardy wasn’t a bit sorry. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? Not to see him again?”
“Yes, but I don’t want you making decisions for me! I feel like I’ve spent my life surrounded by dominating men—and you’ll probably turn out to be the worst of them all.”
He had the nerve to smile at that. “You can handle me. I told you before, I’m tame.”
I gave him a dark glance. “Yeah, like a buck-strapped rodeo horse.”
Hardy’s arms went around me. He bent his head, and his low voice caressed my ear. “I guess you got your work cut out for you.”
A baffling wave of heat went through me, something rooted in excitement, too intense to name. And with that came a touch of queasiness, and I felt scared and all twisted up with desire.
“Worth a try, isn’t it?” Hardy asked.
I wasn’t entirely sure what we were talking about. “I . . . I’m not trying anything with you until you promise to stop acting so high-handed.”
He nuzzled behind my ear. “Haven . . . do you really think I’d stand aside politely while another man comes sniffing around my woman? If I let that happen, I wouldn’t be a man. And I sure as hell wouldn’t be a Texan.”
I wasn’t breathing well. “I’m not your woman, Hardy.”
Both his hands curved around my scalp, angling my face upward. His thumbs stroked over my cheeks. He gave me a look that dismantled my brain and set off an erotic flush that covered me from head to toe. “That’s something we’re going to fix.”
More arrogance, I thought dimly. But much to the shame of my politically correct self, it was a huge turn-on, sending heat mainlining through every vein. My fists clenched reflexively in his shirt.
It was a beautiful light-gray shirt that probably cost the equivalent of the average mortgage payment. And I saw my finger had left a bright red splotch of blood on it.
“Oh, no.”
“What?” Hardy looked down at my hand. “Damn, it’s bleeding again. We need to get you a Band-Aid.”
“I don’t care about my hand, it’s your shirt! I’m so sorry.”
He seemed amused by my concern. “It’s just a shirt.”
“I hope I haven’t ruined it. Maybe it’s not too late if I soak it in the sink . . .” I began on the placket of buttons, wincing at the sight of the bloodstained fabric. “It is a silk blend? Maybe I shouldn’t try to wash it.”
“Forget the shirt. Let me see your hand.”
“Is it dry-clean only? What does the tag say?”
“I never read the tag.”
“Such a man.” I undid another button . . . another. My fingers slowed, but didn’t stop.
I was undressing him.
Hardy didn’t move, just watched me, his amusement evaporating. His chest went rigid beneath the blinding-white undershirt, his breath coming faster as I made fumbling progress.
I tugged the hem of the shirt free of his jeans, the thin fabric crumpled and warm from his body.
Such a man. A good-looking, over-the-top male, trying so hard not to seem dangerous . . . he was absolutely tantalizing. My hands shook as I reached for the cuffs of his sleeves, pushing the buttons through the crisp starched layers of fabric.
Hardy remained still as I tugged the shirt from his shoulders. When the shirt reached his wrists, he moved as if he were dreaming, slowly pulling his arms from the sleeves. He tossed the garment to the floor and reached for me.
I went weak as his arms enclosed me, his mouth descending with hot, searching pressure. I reached around his back, beneath the T-shirt, finding the powerful muscles on either side of his spine.
His lips slid to my throat, exploring gently until I squirmed and arched to get closer to him. Excitement roared through me, and I stopped thinking, stopped trying to control anything.
Hardy lifted me until I was sitting on the small kitchen island, my legs dangling. I shut my eyes against the artificial glare of the overhead lights. His mouth came to mine, tender and devouring, while his hands closed over my thighs and stroked them apart. God, the way he kissed. It had never been like this with Nick, or anyone, this urgent heat that melted me at the core.
My clothes felt too tight, the halter top cinched over my breasts, and I tugged frantically at the straps to be rid of it. Hardy pushed my hands away. I felt him working at the straps, unhooking the closures at the back.
The halter top loosened and fell to my waist. My breasts felt heavy, achy, the tips turning hard as they were exposed to cool air. Hardy slid an arm behind my back to support my faltering weight. He bent over me, his mouth hot as he navigated the pale slope of my breast. His lips traveled slowly to the deep pink crest. A moan swelled in my throat as he suckled, nibbled, moving from one breast to the other. Gasping, I held his head to me, the hair like thick silk, the scent of him as fresh as vetiver.
He pulled me up, his arm amazingly strong, and he cradled my head in one hand to feed on my mouth again. His fingers clamped on a nipple still damp from his tongue.
I clutched at him, so close, needing more, just a little more . . .
He seemed to understand. Murmuring against my throat, Hardy pulled at the fastenings of my jeans, unzipped them, began to tug them down over my hips.
Then something in me snapped.
I went cold for no reason, as if I’d just been dropped into a glacier lake. I saw Nick’s face, felt Nick’s arms around me, his legs pushing between mine. There was a bolt of pain in my chest, like the beginning of a heart attack, and my gut roiled.
I came apart, crying out and shoving at him, nearly falling off the island. Hardy caught me, lowering my feet to the floor, but I was too far gone at that point, snapping at him, no get away don’t touch me don’t, and I kicked and pushed and clawed away from him like a wild thing.
I must have blanked out for a moment, because the next thing I knew, I was curled up on the sofa, and Hardy was standing over me.
“Haven, look at me,” he said, and kept repeating it until I obeyed. I saw blue eyes, not hazel. I focused on them desperately.
Hardy had draped his discarded button-down shirt over my naked chest. “Take a deep breath,” he said patiently. “I’m not going to touch you. No, sit still. Breathe.”
My stomach was cramping so painfully, I was certain I was going to throw up. But gradually the jerky breaths eased into longer ones, and the sickness faded. Hardy gave a curt nod when my breathing returned to something approaching normal. “I’ll get you some water. Where are the glasses?”
“To the right of the sink,” I croaked.
He went to the kitchen area, and I heard the tap running. While he was gone, I pulled his shirt on and wrapped it around myself. I was clumsy, trembling with aftershocks. As I realized what had just happened, how I had freaked out on him, I wanted to die. I buried my head in my arms. I had thought everything was fine. It had felt so good, but all the excitement and pleasure had turned to panic.
Something was really, really wrong with me. And I knew if I couldn’t be close to this man, now, I was never going to be close to anyone. I was never going to be okay.
Swamped in despair, I huddled in the corner of
the sofa. Hardy sat on the coffee table, facing me. Silently he gave me the glass of water. My mouth had gone as dry as dust, and I drank thirstily. But after a few swallows, the sick feeling threatened to come back, and I set the glass aside.
I forced myself to look at Hardy. He was pale under his tan, his eyes electric blue.
My mind was a complete blank. What the hell should I say to him? “I didn’t think I was going to do that,” I heard myself mumble. “I’m sorry.”
His gaze locked on me. “Haven . . . What kind of problem are we dealing with?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I REALLY DIDN’T WANT TO GET INTO THAT. I wished Hardy would go away and leave me the privacy for tears. I wanted to cry and go to sleep, and never wake up. But it was pretty clear Hardy wasn’t going anywhere until he got an explanation. And God knew I owed him one.
I gestured clumsily to a chair on the other side of the table. “If you wouldn’t mind . . . I can talk about it easier if you sit over there.”
Hardy shook his head. The only sign of emotion on his face were the twin lines notched between his brows. “I can’t,” he said in a husky voice. “I think I might know what you’re going to tell me. And I don’t want to be far away from you when you say it.”
I looked away from him, shrinking into the folds of his shirt. I could only talk in fits and starts. “What just happened was . . . Well, I behaved that way because . . . I have some leftover problems from my marriage. Because Nick was . . . abusive.”
The room was deathly quiet. I still couldn’t look at him.
“It started out in little ways,” I said, “but it got worse over time. The things he said, the demands . . . the slapping, screaming, punishing . . . I kept forgiving him, and he kept promising never to do it again . . . but he did, and it got worse, and he always blamed me for causing it. He always said it was my fault. And I believed him.”
I went on and on. I told Hardy everything. It was awful. It was a train wreck happening right in front of me and I couldn’t do anything about it, except that not only was I watching, I was also the train. I confessed things that in a saner moment I would have had dignity or sense to filter out. But there was no filter. All my defenses were down.
Hardy listened with his face averted, his profile shadowed. But his body was tense all over, the stark relief of jutting muscles in his arms and shoulders more eloquent than words.
I even told him about the last night with Nick, the rape, being thrown out, the barefoot walk to the grocery store. While I talked, I cringed at the ugliness of what I’d been through.
There was a certain relief in it though. An ease. Because I knew that with all the baggage I was unloading, any chance of a relationship with Hardy was vanishing. Syllable by syllable. No man would want to deal with this. And that was for the best, because it was obvious I wasn’t ready for a relationship anyway.
So this was goodbye.
“I didn’t mean to lead you on,” I said to Hardy. “I knew from the beginning I was playing with fire, having anything to do with you. But—” My eyes watered, and I blinked fiercely and talked in a rush. “You’re so good-looking and such a good kisser and I wanted you so much last night that I thought I could go through with it, but I’m too screwed up and I just can’t do it, I can’t.”
I fell silent then. My eyes wouldn’t stop leaking. I couldn’t think of anything else to tell Hardy, except that he could go if he wanted. But he stood and went to the fireplace and braced a hand on the mantel. He stared into the empty space. “I’m going after your ex-husband,” I heard him say softly. “And when I finish, there won’t be enough left of him to fill a fucking matchbox.”
I’d heard louder and more colorful threats, but never one delivered with a quiet sincerity that raised all the hairs on the back of my neck.
Hardy turned to look at me then. I felt myself blanch as I saw his expression. It was not the first time I’d been alone in a room with a man who had murder in his eyes. This time, thankfully, the violence wasn’t directed at me. All the same, it made me fidgety. “Nick’s not worth going to jail for,” I said.
“I don’t know about that.” Hardy stared at me for a moment, registering my uneasiness. His expression deliberately softened. “The way I was brought up, ‘he needed killing’ is an airtight legal defense.”
I almost smiled at that. I let my shoulders slump, feeling drained in the aftermath of my personal catastrophe. “But even if you did, it wouldn’t change the way I am now. I’m broken.” I blotted my eyes with a shirtsleeve. “I wish I’d slept with someone before I married Nick, because at least then I’d have some good experience with sex. As it is, though . . .”
Hardy watched me intently. “That night of the theater opening . . . you had a flashback when I was kissing you, didn’t you? That’s why you took off like a scalded cat.”
I nodded. “Something in my mind clicked, and it was like I was with Nick, and all I knew was that I had to get away or I would be hurt.”
“Was it always bad with him?”
It was mortifying, talking about my pitiful sex life. But at this point I had no pride left. “It started out okay, I guess. But the longer the marriage went on, the worse things got in the bedroom, until I was mostly just waiting for it to be over. Because I knew it didn’t matter to Nick if I was enjoying it or not. And it hurt sometimes when I was . . . you know, dry.” If a person could have died of embarrassment, I should have been laid out on a mortuary slab right then.
Hardy came to sit on the sofa beside me, laying one arm along the back of it. I flinched at his nearness, but I couldn’t look away from him. He was ridiculously virile in that damned white T-shirt, with that long body and those sun-baked muscles. Any woman would have to be out of her mind not to go to bed with him.
“I guess it’s over now,” I said bravely. “Right?”
“Is that what you want?”
My throat clenched. I shook my head.
“What do you want, Haven?”
“I want you,” I burst out, and the tears spilled over again. “But I can’t have you.”
Hardy moved closer, gripping my head in his hands, forcing me to look at him. “Haven, sweetheart . . . you’ve already got me.”
I looked at him through a hot blur. His eyes were filled with anguished concern and fury. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said. “And you’re not broken. You’re scared, like any woman would be, after what that son of a bitch did.” A pause, a curse, a deep breath. An intent stare. “Will you let me hold you now?”
Before I even realized what I was doing, I had crawled into his lap. He gathered me close, cuddling and soothing, and the comforting felt so good that I almost wished I could keep crying. I nuzzled into the fragrant skin of his neck, finding the place where the shaven bristle of his jaw began.
He turned his mouth to mine, easy and warm, and that was all it took to start me simmering again, my lips parting to welcome him.
But even as I responded to his kiss, I felt the intimate pressure of him beneath me, and I stiffened.
Hardy drew his head back, his eyes molten blue. “Is it this?” He nudged upward, the hard ridge pushing against me. “Feeling that makes you nervous?”
I squirmed and nodded, turning scarlet. But I didn’t try to move off him, just sat there quivering.
His hands traced down my shoulders and arms, caressing me through the shirt. “Should I visit the therapist with you? Would that help?”
I couldn’t believe he’d be willing to do that for me. I tried to imagine it, me and Hardy and Susan discussing my sex problems, and I shook my head. “I want to fix it now,” I said desperately. “Let’s just . . . let’s go into the bedroom and do it. No matter what I say or even if I freak out, just hold me down and keep going till it’s finished and—”
“Hell no, we’re not going to do that.” Hardy looked almost comically appalled. “You’re not a horse to be broken to saddle. You don’t need to be forced, you need—” He drew in a quick breath a
s I shifted my weight on his lap. “Honey,” he said in a strained voice, “I don’t do my best thinking when all the blood leaves my brain. So you should probably sit next to me.”
A warm pulse throbbed where we pressed, our flesh fitting exactly. I realized I wasn’t quite as nervous, now that I’d had a few moments to get used to him. I settled a little deeper on him.
Hardy closed his eyes and made a guttural sound. I saw the color heighten in his face. And I felt a rearing response in the thick pressure beneath me.
Hardy’s lashes lifted, his eyes bluer than usual against his rich rosewood tan. He glanced at the front of my shirt—his shirt—where it gaped open to reveal the space between my breasts. “Haven . . .” His voice was hoarse. “We’re not going to do anything you’re not ready for. Let’s get you dressed, and I’ll take you out to dinner. We’ll have some wine, and you can relax. We’ll figure this out later.”
But later was too late. I wanted to figure it out right then. I felt the heat coming off him, and I saw the mist of sweat on his throat, and I longed to kiss him. I wanted to give him pleasure. And please, God, I wanted at least one good memory to replace one of the bad ones.
“Hardy,” I said tentatively, “would you . . . indulge me a little?”
A smile touched his mouth. He reached out and pulled the sides of the shirt closed, and used the backs of his fingers to stroke my cheek. “A little,” he said, “or a lot. Just tell me what you want.”
“I feel like . . . if we went to the bedroom right now, and just tried some things, I . . . I could handle it as long as you took it slow.”
His hand stilled. “What if you have a flashback?”
“I don’t think it would bother me as much as it did before, because now I’ve told you everything and I know you understand what my problem is. So I would just tell you if I got afraid.”
He stared at me for a long moment. “You trust me, Haven?”
I ignored a twinge of nerves in my stomach. “Yes.”
Without another word Hardy plucked me from his lap, set me on my feet, and followed me to the bedroom.