As if she could make him forget everything he’d ever thought was important in his life if he only gave her the chance. The thought was more frightening than he could have imagined.
And something else besides that he didn’t care to examine in that moment.
Suddenly he didn’t want to talk any more. He just wanted to act. Reaching out, he slid his hand behind her head and pulled her easily to him, his lips brushing over hers for a fraction of a second before he tilted his head and claimed her mouth with his.
* * *
Hayden was kissing her. Again. And it was even better than all the memories she’d been replaying in her head these last couple of weeks.
He was unrushed. Unhurried. Tasting her and sampling her, as if he’d never done so before. They said you could never experience a second first kiss, and yet this felt crazily close.
It was like he was pouring more into that kiss than she’d known before. More of himself. Telling her things with every scrape of his tongue, every slick move of his lips. Hot and demanding. Only she was afraid to believe them, in case she was reading too much into the unspoken words.
So, instead, she just gave herself up to the kiss. Submitting to the sensation of his calloused thumb pad against her cheek and indulging in the magic as if it was a spell from which she never wanted to be released.
She had no idea when she moved, or even that she had, only that suddenly she found herself against him, wrapped in his arms with his chest hard against hers. He kissed her over and over, his hands cupping her jaw, his fingertips gliding softly down her neck, as if he couldn’t get enough of her.
As if she was the most precious, beautiful thing he’d ever held. And then he kissed her some more, licking his way over her lips and kissing a path down the line of her neck. Heat bloomed right through Bridget, as her skin seemed to grow taut over her body in some kind of visceral response. Like her insides were liquefying and he was turning her core molten. She was sure that if he hadn’t been holding her so tightly, she would have fallen in a puddle, right there on the hard ground.
As it was, she was helpless to control the greedy little sounds that kept escaping from her. She couldn’t stop her mind from spinning in some dizzying, glorious, calamitous waltz that could only end with her either soaring to vertiginous heights or crashing agonisingly on the ground.
He moved his hand lower, his palm raking over her tee, making her skin prickle with the need to feel his touch. Lower still, until suddenly he was covering her breast with his palm, his thumb grazing over the tight bud. All she could do was arch into it as a kind of jagged wildness ripped through her, leaving her wanting more. So much more.
Vaguely she heard the alarm bell in her head, warning her that if she didn’t stop now she wasn’t going to be able to and for a split second she froze.
Hayden pulled back instantly.
‘Hayd...’ she whispered, the loss of contact leaving her feeling bereft.
‘No.’ His voice was ragged, like glass. ‘You were right to stop. That should never have happened.’
‘Not here anyway,’ she managed weakly.
‘Not anywhere,’ he corrected, and she hated the grimness in his tone.
Hated that he regretted the kiss they’d shared. Because as much as she knew they couldn’t have continued, she couldn’t quite bring herself to wish it hadn’t happened.
She wanted to tell him that, but the moment was gone. Lost forever. And as he stood up, hauling her to her feet beside him and settling her before taking a clear step away, she knew that there was no trying to reclaim it.
Her heart was beating hard and fast in her chest. The simple truth was that Hayden had convinced himself a long time ago that he didn’t want a woman in his life, and if he was ever going to change his mind then he needed to come to it in his own time.
On the other hand—she vacillated as she so often did when it came to this man—it was worth remembering that just because he’d confided in her about his childhood, it didn’t necessarily follow that she was the woman he would ultimately want.
If anything, it was possibly somewhat arrogant of her to believe that she held an allure for him that no other woman who had gone before her had held. And yet...the flame of hope flickered in her chest.
‘I should go back to my hut,’ she murmured eventually, trying to eradicate the shake from her tone.
Pretending that it wasn’t a fight to keep her distance from him.
‘You should.’ His voice was clipped, and still she didn’t think she was imagining that undercurrent.
‘I’ll see you in the morning,’ she added softly.
He dipped his head once in silent affirmation, but she knew instinctively that he wouldn’t be in camp when she woke. Maybe he would drive to the site of another potential borehole, or perhaps he would head off to conduct more ground surveys of the area. Either way, he would be putting a bit of distance between the two of them.
And as much as Bridget told herself that was a good move—a wise decision, given that that ever-shifting line in the sand—she couldn’t help feeling that Hayden was fighting her for all the wrong reasons.
That maybe he was trying a bit too hard to tell her that she didn’t mean anything to him.