crept across the wood floor to the front door and flipped the deadbolt, cringing as the click echoed through the foyer. She was reaching for the doorknob when a hand clamped down firmly over her shoulder. She let out a shriek of surprise and spun around, and was greeted by the deep baritone of Connor’s laughter.
“Are you trying to scare me half to death?” she admonished.
Through the dark she could see he was grinning. “Just making sure you don’t sneak away.”
“I wasn’t sneaking,” she lied.
“Uh-huh. That would explain why you were tiptoeing down the stairs.” He took in her tennis shoes, flannel pants and University of Texas sweatshirt. “Let me guess, you were sleepwalking?”
“I couldn’t sleep. I needed some fresh air to clear my head. I was going to sit on the swing.”
He pulled the door open and held it for her. “Let’s go.”
“Alone, Connor. If I wanted company, I would have woken you.”
“You have two choices. We can sit out on the swing together, or go back to bed.”
“Can we go back to bed together?” she asked, for the mere pleasure of teasing him, because she already knew the answer was no. And of course there was always that million-to-one chance she would catch him in the right mood and he would throw her against the wall, as he’d done in the stable, and ravage her.
“In or out,” he said.
And apparently tonight wasn’t going to be the night.
She sighed and said, “Since I’m up and dressed we might as well go out there.”
They walked onto the porch and he pulled the door closed behind them, then followed her down the steps and across the yard to the swing. The air carried a deep chill and dew soaked through the canvas of her shoes. The moon hung low in the sky casting a pale, eerie light across the land.
Nita plopped down in the middle of the swing seat, so that whichever side he chose, Connor would be right next to her. She thought he might complain, instead he sat beside her—so close that their thighs were touching—and draped his arm over the back of the swing behind her shoulders. He pushed off with his foot and they swayed gently back and forth.
“Out of curiosity, how did you know I was coming out here?” she asked.
He leaned his head back and gazed up at the sky. “I heard you moving around in your room. Then I followed you downstairs.”
And here she thought she’d been so quiet. “What did you do, levitate? I didn’t even hear you.”
“Don’t feel bad. It’s what I was trained to do.”
“Did you have to kill people, too?”
Through the dark she could see him frown. “Sometimes.”
“Jake said you served in the Middle East.”
He nodded.
“Is that where you were shot?”
“Yep.”
She waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. “And you apparently don’t like to talk about it.”
The frown deepened. “The things I saw there, you wouldn’t want to know about. Things I wish even I could forget.”
He hadn’t revealed much, but she felt closer to him somehow, as if he’d exposed a part of himself no one else had ever seen. A part of her wanted to jump off the swing and do a happy dance, while another part warned her to back off. She didn’t want to care if he confided in her or not. She was getting too close.
Even when she was angry and frustrated with him, she couldn’t be near Connor without experiencing a giddy, excited sensation in her tummy. A need to touch him. To be touched. It was as intriguing as it was frustrating.
She didn’t know what it was about him that fascinated her so. She only knew that she wanted—no needed—to be near him. She wished he would just give in so their affair could run its course and she could stop feeling this way. She’d been so restless lately, so unfocussed and out of her element. It was as if her entire life was spinning out of control and he was the only thing keeping her rooted in reality. The only thing she could depend on, even if that meant depending on him to constantly avoid her advances.
And she didn’t like it one bit.
She shivered under her sweatshirt and Connor surprised her when he slipped his arm from the swing onto her shoulder.
“Cold?”
“A little. It’s chillier than I thought it would be.”
Well, this was nice. Unexpected, but nice. She inched a little closer and rested her head on his shoulder. The stubble on his chin was rough against her forehead and, Lord, did he smell good. That masculine, woodsy smell that made her want to bury her nose against his neck and sniff. Of course, she knew she couldn’t get that close to his neck without taking a nibble or two.
“I know what we could do to raise my body temperature,” she said, and heard him chuckle.
“You don’t give up easily, do you?”
“I’m not going to fall in love with you if that’s what you’re worried about. I know a lot of women say that but don’t really mean it. I’m too independent for that. I just want us to have some fun.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to, Nita. It’s too risky.”
Too risky? What was that supposed to mean? “Are you afraid I’m going to get pregnant or something? Do you think I have diseases?”
“It has nothing to do with that.”
“Is it my age? Do you think I’m too young? Too immature?”
He turned his head, brushed his lips across her hair. “Nope, you’re just right.”
She could feel how much he wanted her, could see it in his eyes every time he looked at her. Why wouldn’t he just give in to the inevitable? “Would you please explain to me exactly what the problem is? I’m getting a complex here.”
He was quiet for several minutes and she could practically feel him working it out in his head, deciding what to tell her. Finally he said, “I have a temper, Nita.”
She snorted. “Tell me something I didn’t already know. I have a temper, too. So what?”
“Sometimes I don’t have a lot of control over it. And when I get really angry, bad things happen.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Things I don’t want to talk about.”
She reached up, touched his cheek. “I’m not afraid of you, Connor.”
“You should be.” He grabbed her hand and held it, gazed down at her. “All my life, the only way I’ve been able to control my temper is to keep a tight rein on my emotions. But when I’m with you, when you touch me, I feel like I have no control at all.”
Instead of feeling fearful, a shiver of excitement raced through her. She wanted to make him lose control. Wanted to push him to feel everything he wouldn’t allow himself to feel. “It’s okay to lose control sometimes.”
The arm around her tightened. “Not for me.”
She could feel herself being pulled in emotionally, sinking too deeply into a relationship that should have been anything but. Yet she couldn’t stop it. She had to know.
“Tell me,” she said, looking up at him, disturbed by the anguish in his eyes, by the raw hurt. “Tell me what happened to make you feel this way. Why you don’t trust yourself?”
“Because I almost killed a man with my bare hands.”
Chapter