Body Heat (Vintage Category Romance) (10 page)

And Darian let go.

Blaire sailed backward, her fanny landing on the bed. Darian followed, his body covering hers from head to toe, pinning her against the mattress.

Immediate and intense
heat poured over her body. Tension melted from her body and she became a puddle of mush as she looked up at him. She felt her lips go slack. A slow tingle started deep in her chest and traveled to every outer extremity she had as she connected her gaze with his.

And his face softened too.
That was what frightened her. His fingertips grazed the side of her cheeks.

“
I’m sorry.”

“
What?” Her heart tripped in her chest.

Darian took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.
“For a minute ago. I’m sorry.”

“
I was being nosy.”

“
You have beautiful eyes,” he whispered.

Blaire felt those eyes widen at the turn of events.
His finger touched her nose.

“
A cute pixie nose.”

Her eyes closed as his finger trailed down her cheek.

“And lips like a luscious strawberry.”

Blaire felt her tongue involuntarily moisten her lower lip, grazing his fingertip.
She sighed and then opened her eyes, just in time to see his lips descending down to hers.

His soft beard and mustache tickled as he lightly brushed his lips over hers.
Her eyes closed again and her hands rose to his neck. Darian deepened the kiss and repositioned himself over her until his arms encircled her back and he pulled her closer. Blaire felt the world dissolve around her as she let herself melt into him, and he into her.

****

Darian felt as if he’d just been handed the keys to heaven. Blaire’s flesh in his hands, even through her clothing, felt hot and pliable. Her lips like satin; her tongue hot and moist. Tiny, so tiny and feminine against his rugged mountain man body. And good, so good….

Been too long.

He moved his right hand between them and plunged his aching fingers under the bottom edge of her sweater. Aching to touch her skin, her flesh—and much more. Blaire’s moan urged him on, his lips still wildly meshing with hers, her hands kneading the flesh around his neck, his fingers inching their way toward her breasts, throbbing for a palm full of her.

Darian
’s mind raced. Oh, how he wanted to plant himself in her, feel her satiny smoothness grip him and pull him inside. How he needed to feel a woman beneath him, writhing and clutching, tasting and licking. How he’d wanted to do that ever since she’d set one foot on his land and he’d watched her as she picked her way through the woods. He simply wanted her—wanted to release this growing, painful need inside him.

Fast and hard, wild and savage.
Over and over and over again, finally satisfying the lust, forgetting the past, letting go… Finally, after four years, getting him a prime piece of….

Darian opened his eyes as his palm found
pay dirt and his fingertips teased a firmly peaked nipple. His breathing labored, he removed his hand from her sweater and pulled away from Blaire, looking down into her passion-filled face. Her sweet, pixie face. Swollen lips. Mussed hair. Flushed cheeks. Like an innocent child….

Fuck.

He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t use her. And he certainly didn’t want to start anything he couldn’t finish. Not with any woman. Definitely not with
this
woman.

He pounded the
bed beside Blaire’s head with his fist and then broke away and jerked upward until he stood at the side of the bed.

****

Blaire lay there looking up at him, her eyes wide, confused, feeling like a rag doll flung aside without so much care. Dismissed. Limp. Lifeless. The living soul ripped from her.
How could I let this happen?

Darian simply stood
and looked down at her. Blaire felt tears stinging the backs of her eyes. And she didn’t like it. She’d be damned if he’d make her cry. The one man in all of her life that made the fire burn within her and instead of her pushing him away, he rejected her.

Leaning up on her elbows, Blaire
glared. “Why?”

He didn
’t answer, just walked away, raking fingers through his hair.

Leaping off the bed, Blaire rushed up behind him, grabbed his arm from the back, and jerked to force him to stop.
He angled back. “You’re going to talk to me!”

Steel gray eyes glared back at her.
“I don’t have to talk to anyone.”

“
Yes, you do.”

He faced her fully.
“No, I don’t.”

“
What’s wrong with me?” she shouted, almost hysterically now. “What in the hell is so damn wrong with me? Am I that disgusting?”

She tried to keep the tears from falling.
Tried to, but one escaped—and when it did, she broke her gaze and swiftly turned her back to him, simultaneously swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.

Darian sighed.
When he stepped around in front of her, she angled away. He stepped around again, catching her arms in both his hands. When she wouldn’t look at him, he tucked a finger under her chin and lifted her face to him. Their eyes met, and Blaire couldn’t stop the rest of her tears from slipping over and sliding down her cheeks with a soft sob.

His face turned from hard angles to yielding flesh as his finger gently lifted the tears off her cheeks.

“No,” he whispered. Blaire watched his lips. “You’re that beautiful.”

A huge lump formed in Blaire
’s throat. Then slowly, she began to shake her head back and forth. “Don’t lie to me,” she whispered back.

His hand cupped her cheek
, and she watched as his gaze dropped to the floor between them. “I’m not lying.”

“
Why should I believe you?”

Darian slowly shook his head.
“I don’t know. But I’m not lying. To me, you are beautiful…”

Blaire didn
’t understand. “Then why?” He brought his gaze back up to hers. “Why are you treating me like this? What do want from me, Darian? First you push me away, then you kiss me, then you push me away again. I don’t understand.” She paused for a moment and glanced off. “Then again, I guess I’ve been doing the same thing to you.”
This push-pull is driving me crazy….

He dropped his hands,
separated himself from her completely and stepped away. “I can’t get involved with you, Blaire. No matter how much I might want, I can’t.”

“
Why?”

“
I have nothing for you. Nothing to offer. I can give you one night, maybe two, and that’s it. You deserve so much more.”

Blaire
studied his face for several seconds, feeling her chest heave up and down. “What?”

He stepped across the room and stared out the window, his back to her.

“You can’t walk away very far in here, Darian. It’s always going to be right around the corner.”

She saw him flinch, but didn
’t turn.

“
What about all that talk about honesty yesterday?”

He didn
’t move. Not that she could see at least.

“
You know, I might be a lot of things, Darian MacGlenary, but at least I think I try to face my problems head on. You, on the other hand, simply hide from them. That’s evident, isn’t it?” His shoulders noticeably tightened. “Of course, it is. Why on earth would you hole yourself up in this cabin for four years? Why would you leave home on your eighteenth birthday and abandon your family for another fourteen?” His fists clenched into tight balls at his thighs.

“
And why would you run away from me?” she whispered.

He flung his body around.
Anger flashed across his face.

“
Why, Darian? Why do I frighten you so?”

“
I’m not frightened of you.”

“
Really.”

“
And I’m not running away.” His face turned red.

“
Then what is it?”

His hands were shaking at his sides.

“Is it your wife? Or is it Nicky?”

Blaire knew she
’d crossed over the line when the mass of virile male lunged forward, shaking uncontrollably. She stood her ground and he stopped dead in front of her. Thinking he might reach out and snap her small frame in two with one simple movement of his hands, Blaire, for an instance, was truly frightened. But she held firm, braced herself.

S
he watched as in a split second the anger washed out of his face leaving him pale and lifeless. He snatched a heavy jacket off a hook on the wall and his hunting rifle from beside the door, and barreled out into the chill of the morning.

As she watched him leave, Blaire felt her shoulders sag and her entire body grow limp.
“You are running, Darian MacGlenary,” she whispered. “Just from what, I don’t understand. But you are definitely running.”

****

Darian brought the telescopic sight of his rifle to his right eye and peered through it. Placing the crosshairs just so, in the center of his target, he held his breath and then squeezed the trigger. The shot rang out muffled through the snow-covered hills and valley, pierced the neck of his quarry leaving the wild turkey flopping in the snow, feathers slowly drifting to the bloodstained ground around him.

Feeling both a sensation of victory a
nd remorse at having killed—perhaps because he still was so angry—Darian wearily trudged through the several inches of snow to the turkey and stood over it. An odd sensation washed over him, as if he should thank the turkey for its sacrifice to nourish his body—as the Indians did, and possibly still do, he didn’t know. For he had learned so much these past four years living off the land. He had learned a new respect for every living thing, from a tiny plant to a flesh-eating predator. He’d learned to live as one within the ecosystem surrounding him. He’d learned to survive.

And if anything, he was that.
A survivor.

So why in the hell was one snip of a woman causing him so much
fucking hardship? And heartache? And coming dangerously close to upsetting that ecosystem? But more importantly, make him do the one thing he’d promised himself he’d never do again. Run. Yes, she was right; he was running away from her. Fast and hard.

He had wanted her.
God, how he’d wanted her. And not only to release his physical need but also to join with her and become one with her. To take her and mesh their two worlds together. To meld her into a part of his ecosystem. To love her, care for her, to respect her as part of his world.

Fantasy, it
’s all a fantasy. It wouldn’t be like that, if they were together. Things would change. And not for the better.

A
s he had looked down on her, lying there so vulnerable and soft and freely giving to him, he could only think of himself as the vilest flesh-eating predator alive, and she, the tiny wood nymph, the tender flower—so much the opposite of him.

So different.
So beautiful.

Vulnerable?

Maybe. Or was that himself?

He indeed felt the beast.
A carnivorous beast that could chew her up and spit her out, leaving her wilted and broken. He couldn’t offer her a place in his world. It wouldn’t be fair. He would have plucked the most beautiful flower known to man away from the rest of the world and hoarded her away within his pitiful existence on the mountainside—and it would be the world’s worst crime. The cruelest joke one could play on another human being. And he could not do that do her.

So he
’d forced himself away from her.
Forced
himself. For it was not willingly he left her, but with contrition—it was the only thing to be done. He couldn’t offer her what she deserved.

And he
had
run away.
Hell.
She was right. And he had been running for years. The thing was, he’d finally stopped, and he simply lacked the courage to backtrack the last eighteen years of his life to make things right again. So he was at a stalemate. He would never leave his farm, and Blaire couldn’t live with him here. So the only thing left to do was push her away.

Is it your wife?
Or is it Nicky?

Those last words
rang out through the valley, chased him ever since he left the cabin. So much so that he thought he would have to cover his ears with his gloved hands to stifle them. But he knew they weren’t coming from outside, they were coming from within.

From within his soul.

How she found out about Nicky, he didn’t know, but he might as well find out. The sooner the snow melted and the sooner Blaire Kincaid found out the truth about him the better. He didn’t know if he could stand sleeping away from her one more night. He simply didn’t know if he could do it. And when she found out the truth, when she found out that he was a murderer, he was sure she wouldn’t want anything to do with him ever again.