Darkness (30 page)

Following his gaze, she saw to her dismay that the lamplight had caught the fine tracery of scars that covered her forearm like a spiderweb and turned them silver.

They were why the extra set of clothes in her backpack had included a white turtleneck instead of a tee and why she almost never wore short-sleeved or sleeveless shirts anymore.

With the help of skin grafts, the scars had shrunk and faded until they were no longer disfiguring, until they were no more than pale, hair-thin lines crisscrossing her right arm, but they were there: a permanent reminder.

Like she needed one. Like she would ever, could ever, forget.

“Those are burns,” Cal said, and ran a gentle forefinger over her scars. Her eyes flew to his. She would have been sucking in air except that what felt like the weight of the whole world had just dropped on her chest, making it impossible for her to breathe at all. “How’d you get them, honey?”

Chapter Twenty-Three

T
here it was again, that generic “honey” that she didn’t like, only now it didn’t sound generic at all. It sounded almost impossibly tender and like he meant it just for her.

Gina couldn’t say a word, couldn’t move. She felt as if she’d been paralyzed. Steeling herself against the memories of how she’d gotten the scars, she found herself unable to pull her gaze from his. The gold flecks in his eyes seemed to glitter as he looked at her. His lashes were short and thick and as black as his hair, she noted abstractedly. The fine grid of lines around his eyes caught her attention: they were deeper than she’d ever seen them. From concern for her, she thought.

“The plane crash that killed your husband.” Cal’s voice seemed to come to her from across a great distance. “Were you in it, too?”

Pain slammed her. If she wasn’t careful, she thought, she would slide right off the chair into a little puddle on the stone floor.

I’m stronger than that
.

Gritting her teeth, she jerked her arm free and at last managed to breathe.

“Why would you think that?” Her tone was wintry, hostile—but her voice was hoarse.

He made a sound that could have been a laugh, only there was no amusement in it.

“For one thing, I’ve seen scars like those before. You were showered with burning airplane fuel, weren’t you?”

The words couldn’t have hurt more if they’d been blows. The memories pounded in harder. Pushing her chair away from the table, Gina started to stand up, meaning to walk away, to put distance between them, to go as far from the source of the pain as she could—only she was suddenly too dizzy, and too sick to her stomach, to stand up.

Before she could get herself together enough to escape, he came around the table and crouched in front of her.

He looked as big and immovable as a mountain, she thought resentfully. The sheer mass of him hunkered down in front of her was enough to keep her from standing up and walking away even if she had been able to move, which at the moment she could not. Their eyes were nearly on a level. His were dark and grave. When he reached out to take her hand—she only realized that it had gone ice cold when she felt the warmth of his long fingers curling around hers—she gave him a look of total antipathy as she tried unsuccessfully to tug it free.

“ ‘Either we’re in this together, or we’re not,’ ” he quoted her words back at her. “Tell me what happened.”

She glared at him. Stupid to be angry at him, she knew, but she suddenly was, because he was dredging up what it had cost her a lot to bury and hurting her in the process. Under the circumstances, though, she knew his question wasn’t out of line. She should tell him. She knew she should. Her answer affected both of them. He needed to understand about planes—about how she felt about planes, about flying. He’d seen her scars now. He’d guessed the cause. All she needed to give him was the barest outline and he would know why stealing a plane and flying it out of there was not going to work for her.

But the memories were sharp as knives, shredding her composure.

She only realized that she was gripping his hand so hard that her nails were digging into his palm when his thumb stroked soothingly over the back of her hand. The gentle caress caused her fingers to relax a little.

“Gina,” he prompted. His eyes held hers. “Tell me.”

The steadiness of his gaze steadied her in turn.
Bare bones,
she thought,
I can do.
Wetting her lips, taking a breath, she kept her eyes fastened to his as if they were a lifeline.

“I was the only one who survived.” She did her best to speak normally, but still the words emerged as scarcely more than a croak. “My husband. My father. My sister. All died.”

His face tightened. “Ah, Jesus,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

She nodded, unable to say anything more because her throat had closed up. Pain welled inside her as the memories ripped free of their moorings and she saw it again, all of it, in a terrifying flash that lasted no longer than a split second. She held on to his hand like she never meant to let go as the fear and grief and horror washed over her in a giant wave and then receded, leaving her cold and shaking in its wake.

He glanced down at their joined hands, then raised them to his mouth and pressed his lips to the back of her hand. His lips on her skin felt warm. Possessive. As if they belonged there.

Heat surged through her as his mouth shifted to kiss each one of her fingers in turn. Glorious, life-giving heat.

He’s a gorgeous guy, she thought with a surprising degree of detachment as she watched his black head bent over her hand while he pressed his lips to each of her fingers. The feel of his mouth on her skin made her body tighten with awareness. Hard-eyed, hard-bodied, handsome, aggressively male: what woman wouldn’t want a man like that?

More than that, he was someone she’d learned she could count on. Someone who’d become surprisingly important to her.

“It’s okay,” he said, lowering their hands to look at her. “That’s all I needed to know. You don’t have to tell me any more.”

She nodded and exhaled. He didn’t let go of her hand. She didn’t try to pull away. Instead, she entwined her fingers with his and held on.

“I can’t really—talk about it.” Her voice was ragged. “But I’m glad you know.”

“Yeah, me too.”

She smiled at him a little unsteadily. Her heartbeat accelerated as she met his eyes. They flamed at her. Other than that, his face was impossible to read.

But she could see the tension in the set of his broad shoulders and the hardness of his jaw. She could read it, just like she could read what was in his eyes.

He wanted her. She had no doubt about that whatsoever. But she’d told him no before, and it was clear that he wouldn’t cross that line.

In her book, whatever else he’d done, that made him a good guy.

The chemistry between them was off the charts. She could feel it sizzling in the air. It was there in the heat of their linked hands, in the intensity of their locked gazes. The blistering kisses they’d shared were permanently branded in her memory. Her body was aware of his like a flower is aware of the sun.

Here, she realized with a blinding flash of insight, was the key to the prison she’d been locked in. She might die tomorrow. Was she really going to let the poor maimed thing her life had become be the last chapter of her existence? He wanted her. Well, she wanted him, too—badly. There was no logical reason why she shouldn’t take what she wanted. She didn’t have to worry about getting pregnant: she had long-term protection from that. And if they weren’t together permanently, so what? There was nothing wrong with being together for right now. She could have a relationship with a man with forever potential later. Forget getting involved with him: that didn’t have to happen. To put it in his terms, they could simply get it on. This thing with Cal would be her very own red-hot love affair, an icebreaker to catapult her back into the sexual arena. When this nightmare was over, if they survived and parted, maybe she’d be on her way to being free to live her life again.

The prospect intrigued her.

The thought of sleeping with Cal dazzled her. It made her heart start to pound.

Tightening her grip on his hand, she leaned forward and pressed her mouth to his. She kissed him softly, provocatively, sliding a hand behind his head, her lips molding to the warm firmness of his as if she would memorize the shape and taste of them. Her pulse began to race. Her body began to quicken. She touched her tongue to the crease between his lips, slid it that first little bit into his mouth, found the tip of his tongue. His mouth was scalding hot. The wave of heat that swept over her made her stomach quiver.

He made a slight, harsh sound against her lips. Then his tongue was in her mouth and he was kissing her fiercely, taking control, his mouth slanting across hers, his lips hard and demanding. She closed her eyes and kissed him back, wanting him so much that she was on fire with it. Her pulse hammered and her body burned and her toes curled in her boots.

His arm came around her waist and he stood up, pulling her up with him, pulling her tight against his body. When they were both on their feet he stopped kissing her and lifted his head. Dizzy with wanting him, she opened her eyes and looked up at him. She was plastered against him, her arms around his neck, her head thrown back so that she had a perfect view of his hard, handsome face. His arms were locked around her waist and he looked down at her with passion blazing from his eyes, but she thought she detected a hint of wariness in the set of his mouth.

“You want to tell me what this is?” There was a hint of wariness, too, in his husky question.

“Make love to me.” Her voice was throaty, breathless. She felt hot all over, as if flames were licking at her skin. Maybe from the heat of his body pressed so closely against hers; more likely from the intensity of her own desire. He’d been able to read her from the first. Now his eyes darkened as they absorbed the sultry promise in hers.

For a moment they simply stared at each other while the air around them turned to steam. His jaw clenched as his eyes slid over her face. When they met hers again, what she read in them sent an electric charge through her body.

The raw carnality smoldering back at her from his eyes took her breath away.

Her heart lurched. Her body went up in flames.

Without a word he started to kiss her again, deep, hot kisses that made her dizzy, that made her tighten her arms around his neck and go up on tiptoe and kiss him back with increasing abandon. She pressed her body against his, reveling in the feel of him against her, in the hardness of his muscles, in the sheer size of him, in his strength. She felt the rigidity of his erection between them and her body clenched fiercely in response. His big hand slid down to cup her bottom and press her closer yet, and the rock-hardness of him against her sent long tremors of arousal coursing through her.

He kissed her cheek, her ear, slid his mouth down the side of her neck while she shivered and quaked and clung and pressed hot little kisses along his bristly jawline. Dying to touch him, she stroked both hands down his wide chest to circle his waist and delve beneath his shirt, sliding up over his bare back. She was entranced by the hot sleekness of his skin and the steely muscles beneath it.

His head lifted at the feel of her hands on his back, and he made a sound under his breath that was almost a growl.

Gina opened her eyes to find that he was looking down at her, his eyes black as coal and glittering with passion.

“You sure you want to do this?” His voice was hoarse.

She loved that he cared enough about her to check with her one more time. She loved how tall he was, and how strong, and how totally male. She loved the iron bands of his arms around her, the solid muscles of his chest against her breasts, the powerful length of his legs against the slenderness of hers. She loved the way his back felt under her hands. He was hard with wanting her, and huge with wanting her, and she loved that, too. She could feel the size and shape and urgency of his erection pressing against her, and knowing how turned on he was turned her on even more. She was breathing way too fast, her heart was pounding way too hard, and she was all soft and shivery inside.

And she loved every bit of it. She loved the way she felt. She loved the way her body throbbed and burned. She was, as she had suspected, hungry for sex. But not just sex, she discovered: what she was really hungry for was sex with him.

“I’m sure,” she answered in a voice she didn’t even recognize, and reached up to kiss him again.

His jaw went hard and his eyes leaped at her just before her lips found his. Kissing her back like he could never get enough of her mouth, he picked her up, carried her over to their makeshift bed, and put her down on it.

He was still kissing her as he came down beside her, but then his mouth pulled free of hers. She made a wordless sound of protest and opened her eyes. Her breathing was fast, irregular. The flickering lamplight lent his face a fierce masculine beauty, and the hot blaze of passion in his eyes set her on fire. Her hands were deep under his shirt by that time, stroking over the flexing muscles of his back, pressing into the flat planes of his shoulder blades, following the smooth indentation of his spine. As he moved they slid down to his waist, where they lingered on the honed muscles there, and her mouth slid down to kiss the sturdy column of his neck. His skin was hot and sandpapery with whiskers and tasted faintly of salt, and she loved the feel of it beneath her lips and the taste of it on her tongue. He sat up to pull his shirt over his head and she found herself completely dislodged. Breathing unevenly, awash in the most delicious sensations imaginable, Gina leaned back on her elbows to look at him.

He was so very big, with hard, solid muscle everywhere she looked. His broad linebacker’s shoulders and wide chest tapered down to a flat stomach and lean hips. The wedge of black hair on his chest was blatantly male. He was mouthwateringly gorgeous, and just the sight of him made her so hot that she felt as if she were melting inside.