Chapter Nine

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. There Chance sat with a very seductive woman in his lap and he was telling her to be brave and courageous? Him? The guy who’d been licking his wounds for months while his brothers took up the slack?

Not any longer. Like fear, courage could be a wildfire that burst to life inside a man’s gut, compelling him to action when he’d rather sit back while others did the dirty work. The unlikely soldier in Chance’s lap had awakened someone he’d been hiding from. Himself. If Suede Tennyson, with her wild, sordid reputation could change, he could certainly get his ass back in the saddle and go active again. His heart kicked up a lively beat, and damn it. His old self emerged with its cocky swagger, ready to take on the world and Mr. York with it.

Suede lifted her chin, eyeing him as she licked her lips. “If you were me, what would you do first?” she asked, her voice timid.

The sincerity in her eyes melted his resolve. This was not what he’d expected in a diva. It threw him off balance and Chance Sinclair caved. There was life in this woman and an energy he needed as much as she did. “I’d kiss me.” He took her mouth, tenderly because of her fat lip.

Suede blocked him at first, but softened with a sigh, just enough to mold her lips to his. Yet when he pressed for more and teased the seam of her mouth with his tongue, she resisted. Saturated and content with just the feel of this woman inside his arms, he let her win this round. Chance licked his way to her earlobe instead and whispered, “’To thine own self be true’, Suede. Stop trying to please the world. Trust me, they’re not worth it.”

A tiny whine sounded deep in her throat. “You make it sound easy, but it’s not. I’ve done so many things…” Her voice trailed away, but her lashes lifted, and he was lost in the ocean of her incredible blue eyes. He’d never fallen so hard. Tears glimmered like rainfall in a tropical island forest, and, damn it. What the hell am I doing?

Chance eased back from his patient. That was all she was, not a lover and not a friend. Just a woman he’d rescued like so many others from combat zones and perilous situations. Whatever this was between them, it was downright radioactive and he needed to back off. He’d overstepped his bounds because he thought he’d recognized something of himself in her, but it wouldn’t happen again.

The drill instructor stuck forever inside his head kicked in. “The change has to come from inside. No one can want that more than you.”

“I do, but—”

“But you’re tired and sick.” He eased her off his lap and onto the mattress, covering her tempting but wounded body before he got any more bright ideas or out of control impulses. “Breakfast first, then if you’re up to it” —he quirked his head toward the open bathroom door— “maybe a shower or bath. Come on, let’s get it done.”

No response. Suede sat there with the blanket tugged up to her chin, her big blue doe-eyes glimmering. It wasn’t hard to read what was going on in her head. Rejection. Maybe even betrayal. She was right. He’d led her on, then dumped her in a sixty-second reach for what, he wasn’t sure. His natural male instinct to protect the females of his species he understood, but the fire in his gut was something else.

The second she’d come to, Suede had lit his cabin with a light no male on Earth possessed. Even near death, she was that sputtering candle glowing in a very dark room. She was ground zero, the epitome of what men lived and died for. The light in her deep blues threw him off balance as much as it grounded him. Suede was unexploded ordnance, nitroglycerine in its most volatile state, and he was that unstable environment where anything could happen. He couldn’t get caught in her frag zone. It just Would. Not. Happen.

“How’s that sound?” he asked, keeping his tone crisp and businesslike. Formal. A complete one-eighty from the passionate kiss he’d initiated that, oh yeah, like a smart woman, she’d initially resisted. But she’d wanted it, too. He damned well knew that much.

Her lashes fell. “Fine,” she murmured to the blanket.

His hard head bobbed with relief. “Yes, ma’am. Coming right up.”

The moment he lifted the lid off the tray at her bedside, ahem, his bedside, she sniffed at the breakfast aromas trapped under that aluminum dome. Her head lifted. “Bacon?”

“That’s the spirit.” Chance brandished the cloth napkin he’d stuck on the tray at the last moment on his way out of the kitchen.

“No, wait. I can scoot over to the edge…” Her long legs stretched out from under the blanket. “Ouch. Maybe not.” She tipped to the right as she smoothed a hand over her left hip. “What happened to me? Why all the bandages?”

“Like I said before, you’ve got a nasty tear on your thigh,” he reminded her. “Cream? Sugar?”

“Yes, please.” Her head bobbed as he doctored her coffee.

“And to be honest, I had to lance a swollen bruise on your butt. I’m not sure how you got that, but it was seriously infected.” He cocked his head as he handed her the mug. “Do you? Know how you received that nasty bruise?”

Her nose twitched, and for the first time, Chance noticed the red sprinkles over the creamy skin on her cheeks. Cinnamon sprinkles on sugar. Man, she was a delectable dessert from her toes to her nose. How the male mind does wander...

Suede cast him a sideways glance as her lips met the rim of the cup. She sipped, then sighed, and his heart thumped at the contentment she derived from a simple cup of coffee, Folgers at that. Yeah, I’m in trouble.

“Lionel likes to be…” She paused, but Chance caught the way her throat muscles worked extra hard to swallow that tiny sip. “He gets, umm, rough sometimes.”

“He hit you?” Chance canted his head, daring her to lie.

Suede didn’t look at him, but she nodded at her cup, her thumb tucked through the loop of the handle, her fingers clasping it firmly. The ponytail trembled. “Actually, he kicked me, but he said he was sorry and…” Again her voice faded to nothing more than a whine.

Like a damned white knight on a prancing steed, Chance caved. He dropped to one knee, needing to see her eyes. “Look at me, Suede. How long’s he been abusive?”

She met his gaze with the same indifference he’d masked his feelings with just moments before. “Always, but he won’t do that again, will he? It’s not like you care, do you?”

Chance smiled. He’d nearly forgotten. Suede Tennyson had claws. She seemed to fluctuate between sweet and sassy, but she was wrong. He did care.

“Don’t laugh at me,” she spat. “I’ve had enough assholes in my fucking life and—”

“Enough!” He cut her tirade against the entire male gender off before it got started. He’d heard it before, maybe not from her, but he doubted her variation was much different than the others. “Rule number one: We don’t swear in my house. We listen and we communicate with real words. We argue, but we keep it civil. It’s called discourse, not character assassination. Understood?”

Her brows slanted together and her lips thinned. Chance touched his index finger to the center of that mean looking line before she could retaliate. “You’re sick, Suede. I had no right taking advantage of you before, and I’m sorry I kissed you like I did. I got swept away by the moment because I do care, but this visit is temporary. Once you’re well enough to travel, you’ll be gone. You’ve got a life to get back to. You’re a celebrity.”

Her chin came up and she pitched forward, her eyes ablaze. “Why don’t you follow your own damned rules and listen? What about ‘I’m not going back’ don’t you fucking understand?”

She had him there, but that mouth. Chance wrapped his hand around her coffee mug and took it from her without breaking eye contact. Once it was safely on the nightstand, he cupped his palm to her jaw, his heart pounding like a freight train.

Like it or not, healthy or not, Suede was about to get what she had coming to her.