Darkest Before Dawn

And just as she knew that Hancock was rarely if ever uncertain about anything, she also knew that it was even more rare for him to allow anyone to see what she’d just witnessed in his eyes.

She’d gotten to him and she knew it. Was stunned by it.

Good God, was she happy about it? What the hell was wrong with her? She didn’t know this man and it was presumptuous on her part, not to mention arrogant, to think that she could discern anything about him when others certainly couldn’t.

But she was already headed down a hazardous path that gave her a euphoric rush. Alive. She felt alive. Gloriously alive when death had been a suffocating fog surrounding her at every turn.

She’d made it free. Hancock had delivered what he’d promised. Her freedom from the horrible men hunting her like ruthless predators.

“Kiss me,” she said again, her voice dropping to a husky whisper laced with need. “Just one time when we’re both perfectly aware of it happening and neither of us can claim it never happened.”

His eyes widened in quick alarm and then surprise. Both reactions were chased from his eyes as they hardened with the realization that she knew. She remembered. Perhaps she’d never forgotten at all but needed time for all the pieces to drift back together. Now that she had them all in place, she would lock that memory into her soul for all time. Savor it. One pure, sweet moment amid so much fear and chaos and torment.

He swore softly, but even as he did so he slid one knee onto the mattress and leaned his big, tightly muscled body toward hers until he hovered mere inches above her. Heat licked from his skin, warming her to the bone. She suddenly took in the huge disparity in their sizes. He was a mountain of solid steel, not a spare ounce of flesh anywhere on his body that she could discern. And she had a very vivid imagination.

But he made her feel small and fragile. Vulnerable. But not afraid. She licked her lips, suddenly realizing that perhaps she should be afraid, provoking the beast when she was completely aware and had all her senses about her. Or maybe not enough sense to resist poking the wild animal.

With a harsh groan when her tongue darted over her bottom lip, he leaned down and swept her mouth into his, hot and hungry. There was none of the almost delicate tenderness he’d maintained when he’d kissed her so reverently when he thought she was unaware of her actions or that he was kissing her.

He devoured her mouth, consumed her, tasted every part of her hungry tongue, showing her the staggering difference between a male trying to offer a woman comfort and a starving man demonstrating his ruthless dominance over her.

If it wouldn’t hurt so bad, she’d rip every bit of his clothing off and strip herself naked and throw herself at him, or rather on him. All she managed was a low moan that ended in a hum and then a breathy sigh of pleasure and sheer contentment that was quickly swallowed up and inhaled by him.

With considerable effort, he dragged his lips from hers but didn’t immediately distance himself from her. She wondered why she considered that a huge victory. He leaned his forehead into hers in a surprisingly tender gesture, his breaths blowing raggedly over her throbbing mouth.

“That was not a good idea,” he said through tightly clenched teeth. “Goddamn it, that was stupid.”

Okay, that hurt. She could admit it, and even if she couldn’t, the very real physical reaction—her flinch—would have betrayed her.

She scrambled for something—anything—to say to break the awkward silent tension that surrounded them, stretching her nerves to their breaking point.

“How soon will I be well enough to go home?” she asked anxiously.

It had the effect of a fierce blizzard. His face became shuttered, locked down as fury so cold blistered through his eyes and then blasted her, sending wave after wave of goose bumps racing across her flesh.

He abruptly rose, turning his back as if he didn’t want her to see any part of him or his reaction.

“You still have some healing to do before we can move you,” he said flatly.

And then he strode to the door, yanking it open and then slamming it behind him with enough force to knock one of the paintings on the wall askew.

CHAPTER 18

HANCOCK knew he was walking a razor’s edge in a true battle for his sanity. Worse, he was battling against what he knew must be done. The mission. The cost of completing his mission. All tied to one innocent woman with more courage and fire than he’d ever witnessed in one small female warrior.

He’d bullied her for days, ensuring that he and only he had access to the room where she was kept . . . prisoner. No way to leave the room, though as prisons went, he’d made sure it had all the comforts she could possibly need or want.

He avoided her questions. Natural questions. Questions she had the right to know the answers to. But the minute he answered them, all was lost. Because he wouldn’t lie to her. And he’d have to face her, those large trusting eyes, and watch the light shrivel to nothing but haunting resignation. And worse, betrayal. She would know that he was the very thing she’d run from and fought against, the thing she now believed she was safe from. She didn’t know—yet—that he was delivering her to the worst sort of evil, who would then hand her right back to the devil she knew.

And he couldn’t bear it. Even knowing his time was running out and that every day that passed that he didn’t tell her the truth about his intentions was simply a delaying tactic. Because he wanted those few days for her. Hell, he wanted them for himself. Just a few more hours, days, whatever he could buy when she still looked at him with trust in those warm brown eyes. With no fear or hesitancy to follow his lead.