That was crazy. If he’d wanted to do some other woman as beautiful and desirable as Quinn was handsome and desirable, thrash around in bed with her all night long, Darcy couldn’t care less. She wouldn’t blame him at all. You got happiness where you could.
For good measure she even made herself picture it. Troy all over some wildly hot female, like…Candy’s model-gorgeous best friend, Abigail. Perfect.
The image stabbed like a knife slipped between her ribs.
Aw, hell.
Troy stopped pacing, stood on the other side of the room, hands on his hips. “Why Quinn?”
“He was there. He was willing.”
Troy snorted. “Unlike me.”
“You…” Darcy closed her eyes, prayed for guidance, not to hurt him, but to get out of this intact. “You were too intense.”
“Really.” Troy moved back across the room toward her, speaking more quietly. “Too intense for what?”
“For me to keep seeing you.”
“Because…”
“Because I’m not interested in starting a—”
“Relationship, so you said.” He pushed impatiently at his hair, which fell back over his forehead. “The thing that interests me is that I went back over the night we had together, and I’m willing to bet everything I own that I said nothing about starting a relationship. I gave you no reason to think I was into anything but your incredible body and what it could do with mine. My email through Milwaukeedates only said I wanted to see you again. I don’t think that’s up there with asking for commitment on the first date.”
Darcy could only stare, brain whirling. Why had she assumed? He’d said something that night, hadn’t he? About her being his girlfriend? About the two of them long-term? Objected to her conditions of anonymity?
She couldn’t come up with anything. But he had to have. Because otherwise…
“I’m thinking the idea of our starting a relationship had to have come from you.” The silence in the room when he paused felt oppressive; she wanted to stand up and yell, or hurl her glass against his wall so it shattered. “Which means, Darcy, the fear came from your own feelings for me. For what we could have together.”
She put her wine down, stood. “I should go.”
“Ah.” He grinned, but not with pleasure. “Too close to the mark?”
She took a few steps toward his front door. “I don’t think—”
“Running away again, Darcy? Is that your answer to everything that touches you?”
She whirled on him. “You have no idea.”
“Tell me and I will have an idea.” His jaw set, his eyes were blazing; she had to hold herself back from sparking passion between them again. “Tell me everything and I’ll understand completely. Until then I’m just thinking you’re one closed off woman hiding a terrified little girl, not grown-up enough to give herself over to passion as intense as what we shared.”
Darcy started to shake. She’d never felt this combination of fear and rage and desire so intensely in her life. She’d never felt anything as intensely in her life as what she felt around Troy. And yes, that made her want to run.
“I can tell you that I’ve had quite a few women in my life. Most of them were bad relationships, some were decent, but none started out with even half the power of what we shared. And I want to know what that is.”
“It’s called lust.”
“Really.” He was close now, standing in front of her, making her lift her chin to meet his eyes. “Lust, and that’s it.”
“Yes.” Her voice gave her away again. “Male-female attraction, pheromones, electricity, whatever, but nothing—”
He launched a solid right-on-target attack on her lips that made her burn for him all the way down, then fight instinctively for her pride and her control and her sanity, setting herself against his hard chest, trying to budge the iron of his arms holding her at the same time she responded to his kisses with all the passion she couldn’t seem to control around him.
Troy didn’t give, didn’t acknowledge her weak struggle, but pushed until her back hit the wall and he pressed his body against her, the hard bulge in his jeans finding her softness unerringly, making her burn hotter still.