“I don’t want your pity,” he said harshly.
“You don’t have it,” she answered back. “You have my admiration.”
“I don’t want that either. I’m no hero. I’m nothing special.”
She didn’t bother trying to argue that one. There was no point given the mood he was in. But she could show him. “What do you want from me?”
He looked at her then. His eyes swirled with emotion. “I don’t know anymore.”
She understood that too. She moved. “Then don’t answer. Don’t think about it. Just have me. Let’s just have this. Just for now.”
That was how she could handle it too. Just now.
He stared at her. She was naked, but he wasn’t looking at her body. He was narrow-eyed and staring right into her soul. And from his frown, he wasn’t liking what he was seeing.
“No?” She challenged him. “Don’t look at me then,” she said angrily. “If you don’t want to see what I can’t hide from you.” She turned her back to him. “Just feel me. Just fuck me.”
His hands swept down her sides and he turned her back to face him, pulling her into her embrace. He was so hard. And hot—angry hot. “No.”
She pushed him away. He released her so quickly she fell back, landing with a bounce on the bed. She heard him curse as she sprawled before him—a long string of verbalized frustration. She let her legs slide further apart. His curse words melted into a groan.
“Luisa.”
She didn’t answer other than to arch her back. They weren’t supposed to be sharing emotionally, only physically. She’d take this back to physical. To animal.
“Luisa.”
His hands gripped her hips hard, his fingers digging into her curves. She melted and braced at the same time. Her core heated in hungry readiness. He thrust powerfully, right to the hilt. She couldn’t contain the raw cry that ripped from her throat. His hands stopped her from being shunted across the bed. But he stopped, breathing hard, his eyes blazing like fire into hers.
“Don’t stop,” she ordered. “Don’t stop.”
She heard his breathing—deep and rasping and so close to out of control.
“Do it.” She didn’t just dare him. She demanded it. “Do it. Do me.”
He let out a feral grunt. No longer able to speak. He pumped. Pounding into her. His thighs slapping against hers. She gazed into his wild expression. Trying to absorb everything he was emanating. Such vulnerability mixed with hot emotion. She could feel him shaking.
“It doesn’t make any difference,” he muttered hoarsely. “I don’t want it to change anything.”
How could it not? “Too bad,” she said.
She wasn’t going to lie to him. Not about this.
“Don’t feel sorry for me.”
“You’re asking me not to feel anything for you?” She shook her head. “That’s impossible Hunter.”
“This wasn’t supposed to… I shouldn’t have told you.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“It doesn’t make any difference.”
She didn’t reply.
“Luisa.” His hands tightened on her hips and he stilled.
She gasped, worried he was about to leave her. “Don’t stop. Don’t pull back from me,” she begged. “Don’t hide from me.”
She wanted to see him at this most vulnerable moment. She wanted to lock that look of his into her heart and brand it into her memory.
“Then don’t hide from me either,” he growled at her.
Her breath caught in her throat. “I’m not,” she said. “Not now.”
She needed to see him unveiled. That in this one magical moment he was utterly hers. And she his. Open and loving. Living.
Everything changed. The kiss was the sweetest thing she’d ever felt in her life. For the first time in so very long, she didn’t feel like she was alone. She was utterly connected to him. They shared every breath, every heartbeat, in absolute intimacy.
He slid back inside her, groaning as he did.
“So hot,” he muttered. “So sweet.”
She licked the column of his neck. “So salty. So good.” She tasted the sweat of his straining body and knew he couldn’t hold much longer. “With me,” she panted. “Please.”
She wanted him right with her. This wasn’t a game. Not a race. Not a dare. This was just pure warmth. Pure emotion. Pure need. Down to her bones.
His jaw clenched. “Yes.”
Shuddering ecstasy tore her apart—entwining them together, not just physically, but in all those emotions she couldn’t bear to name.
“How does it keep getting better?” He groaned, his eyes closed, his forehead filmed in sweat. His chest rose and fell but she felt the laxness in his limbs. “How?”
She didn’t know. Right now she didn’t care. It just was.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
LUISA’S EYES SNAPPED open, her subconscious screaming at her to rise and think and act. With the early afternoon sun, reality had returned. What Hunter had told her this morning finally sank in. His past.
Putting that alongside her future? Her stomach churned. It was impossible. Hunter Shaw had been badly hurt and he deserved so much more than what she could ever give him. She should never have given in to her lust for him. Hadn’t she instinctively known to keep her distance? Hadn’t she tried to? This had been only going to go one way.
But he’d snuck under her guard so damn easily. She’d been lost. He was so vital, so magnetic, so vulnerable. Now she was afraid. If he’d been the tough-as-nails man that he looked, then maybe she could stay and let it run its course. But he wasn’t.
And she could never give him all that he wanted or needed and certainly not all that he deserved.
He deserved to have unconditional, unending love and a woman who’d be with him always, who’d give him children—the family he’d never had.
She couldn’t give him any of that.
So she couldn’t be selfish and greedy. She couldn’t hold him to her, when all she was going to do was hurt him.
She had only one course of action open to her—she had to walk away. Before he asked for everything she couldn’t give.
She grimaced at that bittersweet fantasy. As if he were about to? She was only his vacation fling—his relaxation after a tough caseload. Sure, he was selective, as was she, so it was a privilege to be with him. But how arrogant of her to assume that he’d want more? This was all physical. They’d barely spoken before he’d come to the island—it was only about the lust.
But if he did ask? If he chanced to care? If that fairytale fantasy happened and he did want more?
He’d suffered such betrayal and such loss and he deserved happiness and a rich fulfilling life with friends and a family.
She couldn’t have any kind of future with anyone. But definitely not him. Not when she understood the poignant subtleties of all he’d be missing out on. She wasn’t going to let him sacrifice himself. She wasn’t going to be a disappointment to him too.
The question now was how she was going to get away. Sure, she ‘should’ talk to him. But he was stro
ng and he’d fight and she couldn’t lie to him and tell him she didn’t care for him—that for her it was over. Nor could she bear to tell him the truth—about her illness, about Jack, or about her sister Ellie. Or about how she felt for him. It’d change everything.
He’d be the one with pity in his eyes and she never wanted that from him. That’s why she’d understood when he’d said that to her.
But worse, he’d be the hero for her. He’d tell her it didn’t matter, that he wanted to be with her—simply to save her from being hurt. Even if it wasn’t what he really wanted, he’d put her feelings first in that protective way of his. That was the way he was built. He put other people first so much of the time.
She couldn’t let him do that. She had to put his needs, his future first. And there was no room for her in it. Sometimes you had to be cruel to be kind—that was a cliché for a reason. She knew exactly the right—painful—thing to do.
She looked down at him spread long on the bed. He was so handsome and right now, so relaxed. It was the perfect parting image.
He was so security conscious, so hyper-alert, she was afraid he’d wake before she got away. But he was in the deepest sleep. Even with the aching apprehension of what she was doing, she felt a small lick of satisfaction, because that had been her. Because she’d loved him hard in those moments earlier today. She’d given him respite for a few hours. He was gorgeous, this battle-hardened, vulnerable man. She wanted him to find someone worthy. She wanted him to have the very best.
He didn’t deserve to be with someone as broken as her. He deserved someone who could give him everything he hadn’t had. That was never going to be her. He didn’t deserve such a garbage hand in life. Nor did she, but she was already living it. He didn’t have to join her. She didn’t have to drag him down.
Hopefully he’d had enough of chasing her. She knew he’d be furious and that should be enough to end whatever warmth he still felt for her. He wouldn’t want to hunt her any more.
But she could be polite at least. She grabbed the notepad on the table and scribbled the most inadequate note ever.