Raising the Stakes

red, and then he did what he’d dreamed of doing since the day he’d met her.

He bent his head to hers and kissed her.

CHAPTER TWELVE

SHE tasted sweeter than he could ever have imagined, and her mouth was even softer than it looked. Honey, he thought, as the blood pounded in his ears, honey and silk…and then he stopped thinking and let himself sink into the kiss.

For a moment, a heartbeat, she let him. At least, that was what he thought, that she’d wrapped her hands around his wrists to lift herself to him, that she’d tilted her head so his mouth could more readily, greedily, angle across hers…and then his brain kicked in instead of his hormones and he realized that the woman he was kissing with such hungry need was fighting for her freedom.

He took his mouth from hers, lifted his head and saw fear shining in her eyes. No. It was much more primal. It was terror, and it turned the hot rush of desire in his blood to ice.

“Dawn,” he said, but she was beyond hearing. She was making little sounds that he thought might have been words, digging her fingers into his wrists, gasping for breath as she struggled wildly against him. His first impulse was to take his hands from her face as proof he wouldn’t hurt her, but instinct told him she would run the second he let her go. The last thing he wanted to do was go after her again and bring her to earth like a hawk taking down a dove.

“Dawn,” he said softly, “baby, I’m not going to hurt you. I swear it.”

She shook her head wildly as he slid his hands to her shoulders, held her as steady as he could without using any pressure, until she stopped trying to twist away from him. Slowly her eyes cleared and focused on his. She took a breath that shuddered from her body straight through his hands and as she did, he felt a rage so razor-sharp that he understood, viscerally, what he’d never understood before, despite all his years as a defense attorney.

Sometimes the need to kill was so all-consuming that it swept aside everything a man knew of logic and law.

Harman had done this to her. Harman, her husband. He had taken this woman and ripped out her soul.

She was trembling now, breathing in quick, shallow gasps. Gray stroked his hand down her back and she stiffened but he went on doing it, gentling her with his touch and with soft whispers, words he’d have used to comfort a frightened child or an injured animal. He felt the tension start to ease from her muscles. Carefully, slowly, he drew her to him until she stood in the curve of his arm, her body just brushing his.

“Shhh,” he said. “Shhh, sweetheart, it’s all right. I won’t hurt you. Nobody will hurt you, ever again.”

A raw, primal sound burst from her throat. She sagged against him and pressed her face to his shoulder. Gray slipped his other arm around her, let out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding and buried his face in her hair as he held her in the light cradle of his arms. She shuddered, her breathing grew even, and he knew the storm was over.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “Dawn, I’m so sorry.”

She nodded. He could hear the sound of her swallowing. She put her hands against his chest and drew back. He didn’t want to let her go. He wanted to keep holding her, comforting her, but he knew that would be a mistake so he gave her some room, let go of her so she would see that he wasn’t a vicious bastard out to inflict pain.

No, he was just a hungry-for-her bastard, already wanting her in his arms again. Any other time, he would have laughed at the self-deprecating truth but right now laughter would have stuck in his throat. Instead he put a knuckle under her chin and lifted her head so her eyes met his.

“All right now?”

She nodded against his finger. Tears still glittered on her face and without thinking, he brushed his thumb gently over them. She jerked back.

“I’m sorry,” he said gently. “I never meant to hurt you. I only—”

“I don’t like to be touched.”

She said it with an iciness that was all the more meaningful, coming as it did from such a delicate-looking woman.

“I understand.”

“No.” Her voice trembled, but she didn’t. “You don’t.”

Like hell, he didn’t. He almost told her that he did, that he’d met her husband, but then she would surely turn and run. Besides, why would he admit he knew Harman? Then he’d have to tell her the rest of it, either that inane story about a music box or the blunt truth, that she might be in line for a fat inheritance. He wanted her but that didn’t mean he trusted her fully. Not yet. So he nodded in acceptance while she went on looking at him, her face pale, her eyes glittering with resolve.

“Yeah. Well, as I said, I’m sorry. What happened was…” He left the apology hanging in midair, cleared his throat and searched for something ordinary to say. `So, I guess the gas station’s closed, huh?”

That wasn’t just ordinary, it was absurd. But it was safe. Apparently she thought so, too, because she grabbed it like a lifeline.

“Yes.”

She turned away and walked toward the station and her car. He suspected she wasn’t looking at it any more clearly than he was, but that was okay with him. They both needed time to pull themselves together. Need for her still burned inside him. He’d wanted women before but not like this—and how could he want her at all, considering what he knew?

“The car just quit,” she said. “I don’t know what’s wrong with it.” She put her hand on the hood as if the answer to the question might rise up under the warmth of her palm.