She awoke with the sense that something had shifted in the atmosphere. Not an anxiety attack, she concluded. Just a feeling that things had changed somewhere in her condo.
Intruder? The thought iced her nerves. Then she remembered that Cabot was in the guest bedroom. No one would get past him. She was not alone tonight.
She pushed aside the covers, got to her feet and reached for her glasses. True, Cabot was nearby, but for her own peace of mind she needed to check the lock on the front door and make sure the balcony slider was secure.
She pulled on her robe and picked up the heavy-duty flashlight she kept beside the bed.
Barefoot, she opened the door and padded out into the hall. She didn’t keep the flashlight close at hand because she was afraid of the dark. It was all about one of the basic principles of her personal self-defense program: Anything can be used as a weapon. The flashlight doubled as a very solid club. It had an additional advantage: the average intruder would not automatically view it as a threat. Flashlights looked so normal.
At the end of the short hall, the glow of a computer screen bathed the living room in an eerie light. She relaxed immediately. Cabot was awake and working. That explained the shift in the atmosphere.
She stopped worrying about the locks and continued down the hall. Cabot, dressed in his trousers and a gray T-shirt, was sitting at the dining counter. He looked up, his expression concerned but not alarmed.
“Anxiety attack?” he asked matter-of-factly.
“Nope. Oddly enough.” She smiled. “I take it you got your one thirty a.m. wake-up call?”
“Yeah, sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you. I was just rummaging around in some of the old files, killing time until I was ready to go back to sleep.”
“I’m going to make a cup of herbal tea. Want some?”
“Sure.”
She went into the kitchen. “Do you think we’ll be getting up at this hour of the night for the rest of our lives?”
“I have no idea. But I have to tell you that it’s nice to know I’m not alone. One thirty in the morning is a very weird time of night. Things feel different at this hour.”
She reached up into the cupboard for the box of tea. “Tell me about it.”
“Do you think you might want to kiss me again?”
Startled, she fumbled the box of tea. It tumbled to the counter. Little packets spilled out. She turned quickly and stared at Cabot. He stood in the entrance to the kitchen, watching her intently, as if the answer to his question was of vital importance.
She took a breath. “Only if you think you might want to kiss me.”
He moved toward her in his easy, gliding way and stopped directly in front of her.
“I do,” he said. “I want to kiss you so badly it hurts.”
She did not know whether to laugh or groan. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
She put her arms around his neck. “Okay, that may not have come out quite the way you intended, but I think I get the picture.”
“Good, because I don’t think I’ve got any more words. Not right now.”
He used both hands to take off her glasses. He set them aside on the counter and slowly, deliberately wrapped his arms around her. His mouth came down on hers in a searing kiss that electrified all of her senses.
She abandoned herself to the delicious rush of the embrace. Whatever was happening between them might not last forever, but it was very real at that moment and that was all that mattered.
His hands closed around her waist and then moved higher, stopping just beneath her breasts.
“I want you,” he said, his voice thickening. “I need to know you want me, too.”
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I want you, Cabot Sutter.”
“Tonight.”
“Tonight,” she agreed.
He lifted her off her feet, turned and started toward her bedroom. She gripped his shoulders, bracing herself.
“Just so you know,” she said, “I need to be on top.”
In the shadows his smile was very sexy and very, very male.
“That,” he said, “can be arranged.”
He got her into the bedroom and stood her on her feet beside the bed. She thought fleetingly of the bottle of antianxiety meds in the bathroom cabinet and then forgot about them. She wouldn’t need them tonight.
Very gently, Cabot peeled off her robe. Then he picked her up in his arms and dropped her lightly onto the tumbled sheets. She sat up immediately, crossed her legs and watched him strip off his trousers, briefs and T-shirt. His strong, sleek shoulders and back were silhouetted against the glow of the city lights.
When he turned slightly to climb into bed, she saw his fierce erection. Okay, he definitely wanted her, at least for tonight.
Automatically she ran a check on her senses, waiting for the rush of dark, disturbing energy to uncoil within her. But all she felt in that moment was a dizzying anticipation. This man understood her. He didn’t think she suffered from bad nerves. He didn’t think she was weird because she woke up in the middle of the night and ran through a series of self-defense exercises. He didn’t care about her past in a cult.
Before she could jinx the moment with any more internal dialogue, he was lowering himself beside her. She did have a brief moment of doubt then. He was the take-charge type and she could feel waves of desire emanating from him. If he didn’t understand that she was serious about being on top – if, in the heat of the moment, he tried to take control —
But Cabot made no attempt to cage her beneath him. He rolled onto his back and gathered her against his side, letting her choose the position that she wanted.
She levered herself up on one elbow, leaned over and kissed him. He cradled her head in one powerful hand and responded with a sensual hunger that thrilled her. He groaned with a mix of pleasure and need, but he did not lose control.
Emboldened by the fact that she was not showing any signs of flipping the panic switch, she flattened her palm on his bare chest, savoring the feel of his heated skin and the hard muscle underneath. Slowly she moved her lips from his mouth to his throat. Her fingers explored him. When she reached the thick, rigid length of him, she felt him tense. But he did not attempt to force her to hurry things along.
He moved his free hand slowly up her leg, slipping under the edge of the nightgown. He gripped her bare thigh. For the first time she felt a flicker of tension. Her hand stilled on his lower body.
He immediately released her thigh and let his fingers drift slowly over the curve of her hip and up to her waist.
“You feel so good,” he said, his voice very dark, almost smoldering. “Perfect.”
Definitely not perfect, she thought. Any other woman who found herself in bed with this man would be thrilled. And she was thrilled. But some part of her was also scared, waiting for the anxiety monster to leap out of the dark cave where it hid and destroy the moment.
Don’t think about it, she told herself. Focus.
But the more she tried not to think about it, the more she could not stop thinking about it.
Anger at her own inability to relax and enjoy the pleasure that Cabot was offering surged through her. Dismayed, she scrambled on top of him, straddling him in an effort to force her senses to ignite.
Cabot responded with enthusiasm.
“Oh, yeah.”
He gripped her hips and helped her position herself. But she was suddenly very dry, and when she tried to impale herself on his thick erection, he abruptly tightened his hold, stopping her.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You need a little time.”
She sank her nails into his shoulders. “No, damn it. I’m going to do this.”
“Hush, it’s all right. This isn’t like going to the dentist. You don’t have to do this.”
“Oh, crap.” She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears. “Shit.”
He eased her off of his still-hard body. “Go take the meds.”
She knelt beside him in the tangled sheets, pulled her nightgown down around herself and tried to analyze her emotions.
“I’m not having a panic attack,” she said. “I’m just disgusted with myself because I was so afraid of having an attack that I couldn’t relax.”
“I get it.” He sat up beside her. “Like I said, it’s okay.”
He leaned forward and brushed his mouth lightly across hers. It was a comforting kiss, a kiss of deep understanding, not an attempt to seduce her.
She was suddenly torn between tears and hysterical giggles.
“A trip to the dentist?” she managed, her voice shaking a little. “Really, that was the best analogy you could come up with?”
He sat back and gave her a wry smile. “Sorry, but it was the first one that came to mind. I’ll try to have something more romantic ready next time.”
“Next time?” She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She dashed away her tears with the back of her hand. “You really want to go through this again?”
“Are you kidding? I haven’t gotten this close to having sex in months. Of course I want to do it again.”
She glared. “Now you’re teasing me.”
“I am,” he agreed. “But it also happens to be the truth.” He pushed aside the covers and sat up on the side of the bed. “What do you say we both try to get some sleep?”
“All right.” It wasn’t as if there were a lot of other options, she thought wistfully, not now that she had totally killed the mood.
He leaned down, brushed his mouth lightly across hers, and then he was gone.
She listened intently as he went down the hall. He opened his bedroom door but he did not close it again. If she woke up on the wings of another panic attack, he would hear her. He would probably come to check up on her, make sure she took her meds.
But he would not judge her. He knew where she was coming from.