Chapter Thirteen
It was nothing short of a miracle that Darcy made it into the bedroom on her rubber legs without getting a face full of hardwood. As she sat on the edge of the bed, sporadic zings and aftershocks continued to have their way with her. Wonderful, intense aftershocks, like a hot spring had bubbled to life inside of her, spilling out volumes of pleasure she wouldn’t soon forget.
The day without Micah had been agonizing. Darcy had paced, attempted and failed to read a book, paced some more, all while imagining Micah out there dealing with his psychological torture alone. Or worse, fallen down somewhere with his head cracked open on a rock.
It was all she could do to keep herself from throwing her arms around him when he came home. Only steadfast control kept the tears from leaking out with the force of her relief. She should have known who would come back—the playboy with his smooth moves instead of the real man she’d glimpsed only briefly during their time together.
How could she have done that with him? Forgotten everything the moment he confessed his belief that nobody gave a shit about him, gotten lost in need that overrode all reason? This was what she’d feared all along. Her emotions were getting tangled up in him, and she’d just crossed an unforgiveable line with the subject of her interview.
The moments played out behind her eyes, filling her mind with truths she didn’t want to face. He’d let her see him in the grip of his ghosts for a few minutes, had accepted her comfort, and still overcame them to clean and bandage her leg. Those were profound acts, speaking to his strength of will and the character he hid from everyone.
She liked being needed as much as being taken care of, and she didn’t want to. She wasn’t that woman anymore, the one who dreamed of a white knight to protect and love her.
Maybe she’d starved herself of touch and affection for too long, and it had changed her fundamental structure. It was like fasting for ages, and then even a cracker tasted like manna from the gods. He tasted like heaven and ice cream and sex done up Micah-style, and she wanted another hit of him more than anything.
No, she didn’t want to be that person again. To hope and dream, to trust and love. That took vulnerability, and once she was open to others that way again, pain would follow. Her walls kept her safe. And lonely.
She needed a distraction to get her thoughts back on the interview.
Where was her recorder? Crap, she’d left it outside for Micah to find. The laptop. Yes, she needed to get started on Micah’s story, the most important one of her life, the ticket gaining her access to the twelfth floor and start lending her voice to the city’s most vulnerable people. Even through her confusion, Darcy knew she’d be walking a fine line to please both Sol and Micah. She wanted to impress her douche of a boss and keep her job, but not at Micah’s expense. Everything about him scared her on a primal level, but she’d never do anything to hurt him.
At the desk by the window, she poised her fingers over the keys. Her mind wanted no part of work, insisting on reliving the absolute ecstasy he’d given her only minutes ago on the kitchen counter.
He’d been so aroused, his shorts must have been cutting off his circulation. If she hadn’t been blissfully trapped in his strong arms, she might have torn his fly open and begged him to soothe the rest of her aches.
God, what was the matter with her? This was not why she’d come.
But she had come.
Spectacularly, blindingly, without any doubts or inhibitions. For the first time, she’d let go completely, and it had actually happened with another person in the room. With Dickface, only his pleasure had mattered, and he took no interest in hers.
Micah hadn’t seemed smug. It had pleased him more than her ex’s actual release had pleased him. Why? What did he want from her? Why hadn’t he taken her right there before the high had worn off?
Shit.
Had he not been with anyone since Colombia? If so, she’d been grievously insensitive with her references to his playboy past. Even before his scars isolated him from the vain crowd he once ruled over, he’d probably never been truly intimate with anyone.
An apology wouldn’t fix the line she’d blurred between them, but she needed to offer one, anyway, and go back to professional distance. Tomorrow. They needed space for tonight to cool off.
Monday morning found her dreary-eyed and dreading the conversation she needed to have with Micah. A search of the cottage didn’t turn him up, so she went out onto the upper deck above the pool as she had yesterday.
It seemed a thousand years ago.
There he was below, standing under the wide head of an outdoor shower she hadn’t noticed before. At first, she couldn’t comprehend how he stood there so calmly with no walls to obscure him from view, but being on an island meant he had no neighbors, and the trees hid him from the lake. Not that he seemed to mind flaunting himself in public.
Darcy couldn’t stop her gaze from traveling up the sculpted lines of his body. His ass flexed and moved slightly, along with his right arm. It wasn’t until she raised her gaze to his head that tilted forward, and to his other hand pressed against the tiled part of the wall in front of him, that she realized what he was doing.
Finishing what she’d started yesterday. Outside, under the sun that turned his wet hair golden and his back into a work of art. No matter how hard she tried to will her legs to take her away from the erotic vision, they wouldn’t obey her. Her breath caught when his did. Her hand had slid up between her breasts that ached, the pebbled tips reaching out for him as his hand worked harder.
Was he thinking of her? What would he have done if she’d gone down there and fallen to her knees before him? The image formed in her mind. His hungry eyes gazing down at her as she looked up and took him into her mouth, all the way in. For once, she’d rob him of his precious control, drive him out of his mind while she fulfilled the desire that had been riding them both for days.
The hand that had been propping him against the wall moved, and he clamped it over his mouth, roaring as his body rippled and seized. His hair hung in wet ribbons around the swells of his shoulders, the sunlight hitting him full on as if the universe was once again conspiring against her. It was the most mesmerizing sight she’d ever witnessed.
When his body sagged, hers did, too. Her hand shot out for balance, knocking over a wine glass that remained on the ledge—hers from last night—and it smashed against the rock below where the remains of his still lay.
He turned with a start. Their eyes met only long enough for her to read the knowing glint in his. She sped back to the patio door, almost blowing through the screen before opening it and slipping inside. Back against the wall in the kitchen, she stood there, breathing.
Dammit! How could she have just stood there, watching him? He knew it, too. And he liked it. Oh yes, he wouldn’t soon let her forget that moment.
The door opened, and she crimped her eyes shut.
“Enjoy the show?” His breath warmed her right eyelid.
She shook her head and went to the fridge. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry. I had no idea you were out there or what you were…you know…doing.”
“But you stayed and watched.”
“I didn’t mean to. I came out here this morning to apologize for sending you mixed signals, and I just did it again. Do you have ice cream or not?” A glance over the fridge door let her know he’d at least wrapped a black towel around his waist, though it hung dangerously low on his hips. A V of muscle dipped down to lower parts, and a fine line of blond hair led from his belly button downward. How would it feel against her lips?
“I tend to keep it in the freezer.” His voice had a playful edge to it now. “One door north. There’s a tub of Moose Tracks in there. The breakfast of champions.”
“Of course there is,” she muttered, only there were two tubs, not one, behind the freezer door. With one in her hand, she grabbed a spoon out of the drawer he was so kind to point out after she went looking for one in the pantry cupboard. No, she wasn’t completely off her rocker, drunk at the sight of a man’s half-naked body.
Perched on one of the island stools, she dug into her treat, studiously avoiding a glance in his direction. He plopped down beside her. Naked, save for the towel.
Jesus.
“I’m used to interviewing elderly ladies about wartime love letters and covering fundraising events for kids with cancer,” Darcy said around a mouthful of ice cream laced with tiny peanut butter cups. “I carry little pieces of them around with me afterward, like emotional slivers. Now it’s doubly worse, because not only is your story fascinating, I’m also attracted to you. How am I supposed to become a real journalist when I can’t keep myself from getting lost in the process?”
He went still for a moment, his hand flat on the counter. “Maybe that’s what makes your articles so compelling, because you become intimate with the people involved.”
Was he making fun of her? She had no courage to read his face for the answer at the moment. “It’s not just disappearing into my research that scares the hell out of me. You’re obviously fine with casual dating, but it’s either all or nothing with me. Maybe when this is all over, you can teach me how to let go of forever and be okay with for now. Until then, my unmentionables are off limits, because my heart won’t butt out and mind its own damn business.”
Dead silence fell between them. What was she expecting him to say to a woman he barely knew who was making personal confessions when all he wanted was an affair?
Imagining Sol’s face if he could see her now, she scrubbed a hand over her eyes. “God, if my boss found out about my slipup last night, he’d have a big ole I-told-you-so to throw in my face, because he assumes I’m planning to sleep with you so you’ll talk to me. That’s not what’s going on here.”
“Why do you care what your boss thinks?” Micah’s voice was too careful, which likely meant he thought that’s what she was doing, too. Goddammit. “It isn’t like he’d find out, anyway, unless you tell him.”
She studied his face that appeared serious, his winter eyes open and honest. “What do you want from me, knowing I don’t know how to do casual, and we both know whatever this is ends when we leave this island? Because I need to know.”
Thoughts passed over his face, crinkling his brow as he gathered her hands in his. “Honestly, I don’t know what this is between us.” His thumbs massaged her fingers absently as he watched them. “The truth is, I like having you here, even knowing you’re going to put my nightmares on the front page of next week’s newspaper. That doesn’t mean I can offer you more than a temporary fling. I’m not that guy.”
“Yeah, I know.” So why did the words stick in her throat? “Not that I should be looking for that guy, anyway. Man, I really know how to instill confidence in my professionalism. You must think I’m a nut.”
“I think you’re sweet, and it would be a shame if you let anyone change that about you, especially someone like me. So, let’s stop trying to put a label on this. No sex, unless you initiate it. Let’s hang out, enjoy the sunshine for the week, air out our demons for the purposes of your article on the foundation, and eat good food.”
Her cheeks rounded with a smile even though her inner cynic screamed at her that it was too good to be true. He was too good—flaws and all—to be true.
Five more days with him suddenly seemed too short a time, and wasn’t that messed up? No matter what happened between them, it would change her in some way. It had already begun.