Sarah's Seduction (Men of August 2)

CHAPTER TWELVE

He caught her at the door that led from the carport into the house. Half inside it, breathing harshly from an anger she couldn’t understand or define, she lashed out at him in fury as his arm wrapped around her waist, bringing her to a halt just inside the kitchen.

“Stop it, Sarah.” His voice was tight, but incredibly gentle as he avoided her hands as she slapped at him, pinning them to her waist as he pushed her into the house, and kicked the door closed.

“Let me go, damn you.” She was crying. She hated crying.

She knew she was weak, knew she needed him, had wanted him for too damned long. It was the height of insanity to need a man so desperately. Especially this man.

“I can’t let you go, Sarah.” He turned her in his arms, holding her close, pinning her against the door as she struggled against him. “Stop fighting me, darlin’. We can’t get through this if you refuse to talk to me.”

“I can’t do this.” Her hands gripped the front of his shirt, her face pressing into his chest as she fought for breath. “Oh God, Brock. I can’t do this. You don’t understand.”

She couldn’t fight the passion, the need. The terrible overwhelming fear that she would do anything this man asked of her.

“Shh, Sarah-love.” He kissed the top of her head, his hands running over her back in slow, even strokes. “It’s okay.”

“I’m sorry.” She trembled against him, feeling his erection against her stomach, achingly aware of the big, powerful body that controlled hers so easily. “I shouldn’t have said that. I shouldn’t have started this.”

“If you hadn’t, I would have,” he sighed roughly. “Don’t you know how bad I’ve wanted you? Dammit, Sarah, the taste and feel of you tortured me for years. Remembering it, needing more.”

She shivered at the harsh sound of his voice. Tortured, needy, tormented by the same desires that had haunted her through so many lonely, aching nights.

“You married Mark to hide from me.” He pulled her head back, staring down at her, his gaze accusing. “You ran from me, Sarah, and you hid from me. We could have worked through this. You could have given me a chance.”

“Worked through it?” She questioned him in bemusement. “You wanted me to fuck your brothers. You didn’t want me, you wanted a toy.”

She still remembered the look on Sam’s face as he stood in the connecting doorway. Dark, his eyes filled with lust, with need as he watched his brother between her thighs, listened to the sounds of Brock licking at her hungrily.

“I wanted you,” he growled, his hands clenching in her hair. “All of you, Sarah. Every damned hot, wet inch of that pretty body, I wanted. You were mine. Mine. And you ran from me.”

Panic was welling inside her. She could feel tension thickening the air, and in his eyes, in his avoidance of the subject, she read the truth.

“It’s true,” she whispered, fighting for breath. “That’s what you would have done. You would have tried to share me. I was eighteen years old Brock. I loved you. I loved you until I wanted to die, and you let another man watch—” She shook her head, her body shuddering with reaction, with needs and desires and emotions she could no longer hide, even from herself.

“Sarah.” His voice was achingly tender, but his eyes flared hot and wild at her words. “You have to let me explain.”

She swallowed hard, fighting the fear and her nerves, not to mention the tight knot of panic forming in her throat. She shook her head. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t want an explanation. How could he ever make any of it acceptable?

“Marly,” she whispered the name of the woman gossipmongers talked about the most. “She’s the reason the three of you don’t do that together anymore, with other women. What your ranch hands say is true? You share her?”

She watched his eyes, saw them darken as his hips pressed against her in an involuntary thrust. She didn’t scream, she couldn’t. She didn’t rage, she didn’t fight. She rested her head on his chest and she let her tears fall. She had waited all this time, fought the need for so long. How was she supposed to walk away now?

“It’s not like that,” he finally whispered, his voice dark and quiet. “It’s not the way you’re thinking, Sarah.”

“It doesn’t matter.” She pushed out of his arms, surprised that he let her go, and turned and walked through the kitchen and into her living room.

She walked to the wide, bay window that looked out over the prettily landscaped yard. Colorful summer blooms were everywhere, birds and butterflies and even a squirrel or two played through the yard. Brock followed her, but she knew he would. She shivered with reaction. She had promised herself six years ago that she would never let this happen. Never give him a chance to destroy her again. And yet here he was, doing exactly what she had married Mark to avoid.

“I want you to leave.” She fought to swallow past the lump of pain threatening to strangle her. “This won’t work.”

She watched the bleak anger that twisted his face. So much pain. How could he be hurting so badly, so terribly that it seemed like an aura around him?

“I won’t l

eave, Sarah. I won’t let you go now.” He stood behind her, staring at her through the reflection of the glass. “You have to at least give me the chance to explain.”

“How could you ever justify watching another man touch me?” She turned to him, frowning, fighting past the betraying quiver of lust, to the betrayal the thought brought her. Sure, she could fantasize as well as other women, but it didn’t change the fact that he could not share her and still care for her.