Full Exposure

She was miles away, years away. Kevin wanted to grab her, shake her, bring her back to him, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t do anything, so he sat. And he listened, bile churning sickly in his gut.

“I screamed too, over and over again. I kicked the door, pounded, desperate to reach Sandra. And then it was over. I felt her die. I actually felt it—a blankness in my soul where she had been. An absence. We were twins, we shared everything. Half the time I could read her mind and I know there were times when she read mine. Then suddenly that connection vanished. I was alone.”

His stomach twisted as he watched Serena relive the pain. He’d wanted to take it away from her, but instead, with a few careless words, he’d managed to hurt her all over again.

Disgust swamped him, and he sprang to his feet. Started to pace.. He’d built a sculpture for LaFleur, had taken his money. Hell, he’d even eaten at the man’s house, never knowing the kind of monster he’d been associating with.

“I couldn’t stop screaming. The other day you said you liked my voice, that it was sexy.” She shrugged, avoided his eyes. “While he was killing Sandra, I screamed so much that it broke. Changed pitch, went lower.”

She pulled the blanket more tightly around herself, took a couple of deep breaths before continuing. “Anyway, once Sandra was dead, Damien remembered me. He came back to the closet, started stabbing me. If my brother hadn’t come home when he had …” Her voice trailed off.

Chapter Five

If her brother hadn’t come home. Rage, hot and unadulterated, exploded through him, turned his spine rigid and his stomach to molten steel as the words reverberated in his head, thundering through him with every shallow breath he took. Fists clenched tightly, he closed his eyes as everything that could have happened flashed through his brain at hundreds of miles per second.

Fighting for control, it was his turn to breathe deeply, his turn to desperately fight the reactionary shaking slowly ripping him apart. Serena watched, eyes wide, as he struggled for and gained control slowly.

“How bad?” he ground out, his voice low and dangerous.

“I already told you—”

Kevin shook his head, eyes blazing. “I mean, how badly were you injured?”

She shrugged again, a gesture that was rapidly becoming a habit. “It was no big deal. A few cuts—”

“Bullshit!” He crossed to her, fury crackling with every move he made. “Don’t lie to me! How badly were you hurt?” The words were said in a furious undertone and evenly spaced for emphasis.

He grabbed her arms before he could stop himself, pulled her up on her tiptoes so that she was a little closer to his eye-level. Despite the soul-deep weariness that had plagued her from the moment she’d heard the parole board’s decision, Serena could feel her body responding to Kevin’s nearness. Her breath quickened and a startling heat sparked deep inside of her.

“Serena!” Kevin shook her gently to get her attention.

“Oh for God’s sake!” she exclaimed. “If you have to know, I was in the hospital for almost two weeks. But my recovery was so slow because I couldn’t handle Sandra’s death. It pushed me right to an edge I don’t ever want to get close to again.”

He nodded and pulled her into his chest. She didn’t know if the embrace was meant to comfort him or her, but she could feel her body relax inch by tightly wound inch as his warmth once again seeped into her.

Before she realized what she was doing, Serena had wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed herself, full-body, against him. She rested her cheek on his chest, inhaled the musky, male scent of him and felt a small bit of peace creep into her heart. Not enough to make her forget the look on Damien LaFleur’s face when his parole was announced. Not enough to make her forget her sister’s mutilated body. But enough to make the next hour seem worth living. Just enough to make her believe that tomorrow would be a little better than today.

Refusing to give herself time to think, Serena pressed an open-mouthed kiss to Kevin’s chest. She reveled in his muscles, in the careless strength that he took for granted. Her hands stroked softly over his heavily muscled back, delighting in the shiver of response she felt move through him.

She pressed closer, pushing her br**sts even more firmly against him. He drew in an audible breath and she grinned for the first time in a long time. Maybe this wasn’t the wisest move on her part, or even the best-timed one, but she wanted Kevin. She wanted to lose herself in his arms for a few blissful hours, wanted to forget the pain that waited for her with nearly every breath she took.

Her mouth skimmed, again, across his chest. She longed to touch his n**ed skin, to sink her teeth into the resilient flesh that beckoned to her with each rise and fall of his chest. The steady rhythm of his heart increased, and she placed a hand over it, relishing the power and life that flowed through him with every heartbeat. Her thumb lightly skimmed his nipple and this time she felt as well as heard his indrawn breath.

Kevin pulled away from her, his beautiful blue eyes wary. She could still see traces of rage in them and his response warmed her. He cared. He really cared about what had happened to Sandra, about what had nearly happened to her. That, more than anything else, made what was about to happen seem right.

Even though she told herself it was simply recreational sex, something to take her mind off the trials of the day, she knew better. Sex with Kevin would be a lot of things—hot, mind-blowing, explosive. But it would never be something as bland as recreational, as mild as simple feel-good sex often was. Sex with Kevin would be intense, messy, and everything she’d always dreamed making love could be. Not to mention everything that had ever frightened her about the act as well.

“What are you doing?” His voice was rusty when he spoke, dark and sensual despite his desire to keep things on an even keel.

“I thought that would be obvious.” Her voice held a teasing note that Serena almost didn’t recognize. She trailed her fingers lightly down his arms to his hands. Grasping his left hand, she brought it to her mouth and bit him in the exact place he had bitten her four days before.

His eyes darkened and his full, passionate mouth twisted with desire. “Not now, Serena. We can’t do this now.”

“Why not? I can’t think of a better time.” Her tongue licked one finger and then another, slowly, like she was savoring a particularly wonderful treat.

“You’re not thinking straight.” His voice was desperate, his eyes nearly black.

“I am thinking straight. Maybe for the first time in a long time.” She pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to his wrist, even as her lower body bumped sensuously against him.

Kevin picked her up, set her a few feet away from him, backed up even more. She was killing him, with her cat-and-the-cream grin and her mind-blowingly hot body. He could still feel every inch of her pressed against him, though almost half the room now separated them. “I don’t take advantage of women in pain,” he said aloud, though he didn’t know if he was talking to her or himself.

Her eyes narrowed and her mouth twisted into something that looked remarkably like a pout. “I’m not asking you to take advantage of me. Just to take me.”

His breath left him in a whoosh of desire and his c**k hardened painfully. So much blood had left his head he was shocked that he could remain upright. But thinking was becoming a struggle and he was determined to bring her to her senses. Before it was too late. Before he did something stupid like take her in his arms and devour every sweet, tempting inch of her.

“Serena.” He pitched his voice low, trying to be reasonable. Someone had to be the voice of reason here.

She walked toward him slowly, stalking him with every sensuous movement of her body. “Yes.”

“Four days ago we stood here and you told me that you didn’t want to make love with me, that you wouldn’t make love with me.” He was desperate, a drowning man searching for a life preserver in a tsunami.

“I was stupid.” Her brown eyes blazed. Her tongue darted out to caress her plump, pink lips. She continued to glide slowly, steadily toward him.

“No! You were right.” Was he actually backing up, running from a woman half his size? He felt the wall at his back. Nowhere left to go.

She shook her head. “I was very, very wrong.” She was next to him now, her eyes holding his enthralled.

“Serena, you can’t decide something like this now. It’s been a traumatic day. You aren’t thinking straight. Get some sleep and then we’ll talk.” No, no! His hungry body screamed at him, called him every name in the book. Take what she’s offering!

But he couldn’t. She was hurt, in pain. And he wanted more from her than one night between the sheets. Though it’d be a hell of a night.

His c**k strained with every breath he took, desperate to be inside her. But he was a man, not an animal, and he was determined to think this through rather than acting on pure instinct. He studied her, this gorgeous femme fatale who was seducing him with just her voice, just the look in her eyes. And if he hadn’t been watching her as closely as he was, he would have missed the flash of uncertainty in her eyes, the momentary shyness that she tried to hide.

“Don’t you want me?” For a moment, she sounded forlorn, lost.

Kevin’s breath came out in a rush of air and he reached for her before he could stop himself. “Of course I want you. More than I want to take my next breath.”

“Then why—?”

“I want you to be sure. You can’t be sure right now.”

“I am sure. Kevin, chase away the ghosts. Make me remember why life is worth living.”

A better man would have walked away, would have settled her in her room with a cup of tea and a good book. But Kevin had never claimed to be a particularly good man, nor a particularly wise one. And as Serena stared up at him, her gorgeous brown eyes shining, her cheeks flushed a rosy pink, her mouth a moue of discontent and need, he felt his resolve slip. He was going to make love to her. He couldn’t stop himself, though he knew it was a mistake.

He dreaded seeing her eyes in the morning, when she was once again herself. But as she reached out a hand to touch him, as her fingers blazed a path of fire down his chest and over his stomach, Kevin told himself that tomorrow was hours away.

He grabbed her hand, lifted it to his heart as he looked deep in her eyes. “Are you sure?”

“Very sure.” Her smile was sassy, victorious.

Without another word he reached down, swept her up into his arms and carried her down the hall to his bedroom.

* * *

Serena knew she was taking a risk, knew that this could be one of the worst mistakes of her life. But she couldn’t bring herself to care. She wanted Kevin, craved him with every breath she took, every unsteady beat of her heart. If it was a mistake, it was her mistake and she would live with it. It would be just one more in a long line of mistakes that continued to haunt her.

But as he lowered her feet gently to the floor, his blue eyes burned with every wicked, wonderful thing he wanted to do to her and she couldn’t believe that making love with Kevin was wrong. It might be unwise, was certainly premature, but it wasn’t a mistake. From the moment she’d first laid eyes on him, she’d known that they would end up here. Whether she had wanted to acknowledge it or not.

“Last chance?” he murmured softly, stroking her hair from her forehead in a gesture she had come to love.

“Damned straight,” she answered, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling his gorgeous mouth down to meet her own.

The moment Kevin’s warm lips touched hers, Serena’s tenuous grip on control vanished. Her hands tangled in the cool silk of his hair, holding his head to her even as his tongue gently parted her lips. But she didn’t want gentleness now, didn’t want him to hold back anything out of concern for her. She wanted Kevin, with his black moods and steamy passion, and she would have him. Tonight. Now. This instant.