Half Moon Hill (14 page)

“Neither,” he said quickly, and it was true. “Just what I thought. But . . . maybe finding out I was wrong about that makes you a more interesting person.”

She bit her lower lip, broke the gaze, let her eyes drift off in the distance again—toward the roses on the dresser across the room. “Last summer wasn’t the easiest time of my life. And acting confident is how I get through stuff. So maybe I was laying it on a little thick then.”

Duke knew good and well what she meant about last summer—but maybe he hadn’t thought, until this very moment, about the fact that he’d been forming his opinions of her right when she’d been going through something so weird. And maybe he shouldn’t ask, but . . . “Guess that was pretty damn strange, huh? Coming back to a place you hadn’t been since you were little? Meeting your family for the first time since then?”

When she still didn’t look at him, he decided maybe he shouldn’t have brought it up, but it was too late now.

And he’d just decided that maybe she wasn’t going to answer at all—when she did. “I can’t even describe it. In some ways, it . . . fixed a lot of things. And it certainly made me feel a lot less alone in the world. But in others, it just complicated everything. I think maybe I should have waited longer after my mother—my other mother—died before coming back here. I’m not sure I was ready to be a part of a family as big as the Romo clan.” She paused, scrunched up her nose. He thought she looked cute as hell. “But then again, I’m not sure I’ll
ever
be completely ready for that. I thought I wanted to be part of a family—and I love them all, my mom and dad, Mike and Lucky—but to go from being an only child, who had to take care of her mother a lot and be the adult in the relationship far too early, to being part of a big, complicated family who still wants you to be a little girl . . . is hard.”

Duke swallowed back the emotion he sensed welling for her inside him. Damn, he hadn’t expected that. Because he hadn’t expected Daisy to go soft on him. And maybe it was time to just shut up and quit talking—God knew the idea of kissing her some more, being inside her again, appealed. And it would probably be easier for both of them than discussing difficult things. And yet he found himself too curious to keep from asking . . . “Why’d you have to take care of your other mom?” He hesitated, almost afraid to pry. “Was she sick?”

Her eyes finally darted to his. “Lucky never told you?”

All he knew was that Lucky’s little sister had been missing since the age of five, that it had torn their family apart in some ways, and that last summer she’d suddenly shown up in Destiny, explaining to the Romo family that she’d learned the woman she’d always thought was her mother had actually abducted her. “I knew your . . . other mom died, and that she told you right before then that she’d . . . taken you from that park.” Another tidbit Lucky had shared—it had happened on a family camping trip to Bear Lake, about an hour away from Destiny. “But he never mentioned what was wrong with her, why she died so young.”

“It was cervical cancer, but I had to take care of her long before that.” She drew her eyes away again, and he could tell it pained her to talk about. Her discomfort, despite the brave way she tried to hide it, tightened his chest. “She wasn’t well. In her mind. So there was just a lot of . . . taking care of. And making excuses for. And trying to act like everything was fine when it wasn’t. So . . . I guess I was doing a lot of that last summer. Because nothing was very fine. But I didn’t know any other way to deal with it besides just taking it day by day, and pretending it was all a breeze. And occasionally having a yelling match with Mike,” she ended on a laugh.

Duke laughed along with her. Her brother Mike was an easy guy to misjudge—Duke had done that himself once upon a time, but then he’d found out what he was about to tell Anna. “Both your brothers are actually pretty damn good guys.”

She shifted her head on the pillow to meet his gaze and appeared more relaxed. “Oh, I know. Mike just wants to be the big brother I never had. Or haven’t had since I was five. Sometimes I think he wishes I was still a little girl because he missed so much of my life.”

Duke narrowed his gaze on her, glad he’d managed to turn the conversation back to something at least a little less heavy than her abduction. And for some reason, what she’d just said reminded him how lucky he was right now, and that maybe he was wasting his good fortune by talking so much. Hell, when had he become such a talker anyway?

“You’re definitely not a little girl, honey,” he told her, easing his hand down her body beneath the covers. His palm drifted lazily across one breast, then over the flat plane of her belly and lower, until his fingers dipped between her legs. The moisture he found there seemed to ripple up his arm and down through him, settling in his lower pelvis and turning him rapidly hard again.

And once more it hit him—how he’d never expected to feel this mutual heat, this shared sexual electricity, again. He’d been flirting before, casting a seductive grin when he’d said she wasn’t a little girl—but something caught fire inside him now that squelched any playfulness. It was need, thick and potent. Hunger. Urgency. And it instantly took him over.

In a flash, he was on her, towering over her, pinning her hands on either side of her head, their fingers interlocking. A short breath of passion escaped her as their eyes met and it was just like outside a little while ago—that perfect knowledge that they both felt exactly the same, that they were on fire for each other.

But then—aw hell. “Shit,” he murmured. “Condom.” His jeans were still downstairs.

She drew in her breath tightly at hearing the word.

And damn, he didn’t want to stop—he wanted her so much he felt like he was about to explode.

“I’m always careful,” he told her in a mere rasp, hoping to make her believe.

Her pretty brown eyes widened, searching his. “Always?”

“Always.”

“Me too,” she told him. But then she bit her lip, still looking wary, and he couldn’t blame her. “Do you promise?”

He nodded, because it was the truth. “I’m a lot of things, Anna, but I’m not a liar. And I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a woman as badly as I want you right now.”

She said nothing then, continuing only to gaze into his eyes—until her reply finally came, silently, as she parted her legs beneath him.

“You are under a very dangerous spell.”

Gaston Leroux,
The Phantom of the Opera

Eight

W
as she being stupid here? She didn’t know for sure, but . . . she trusted him. A revelation which somehow made it that much more powerful when he thrust back inside her, flesh to flesh, nothing between them. She squeezed his hands tighter in hers at the impact and wondered again, ever so briefly, how on earth she’d gotten here—between the sheets of her bed with Duke Dawson.

But then she quit thinking and just basked in the pleasure as he filled her with it, over and over. She cried out at each deep plunge, letting the sensations echo outward from her core. She’d missed sex, but more than that, she’d missed this connection with a man. She’d missed the rawness of it, the honesty of it, the way it put their differences on display—hard and soft, masculine and feminine. And as she’d told him, she didn’t usually have sex this quickly, so it had surprised her to discover how much she continued to feel that sense of connection with him, and how very right it seemed. Even if he was her brother’s best friend. Even if he was the wildman in the woods. But now he felt wild in a whole different way.

She didn’t know how long he moved in her, driving hard and fast, never stopping to rest—she only knew that soon thought ceased altogether and only sensation remained. She loved looking up into those piercing gray eyes, she loved the stubble on his jaw, she loved all the contours of his body against hers.

When finally his motions did slow, he released her hands from his to let his palms glide slowly, firmly down her body, over her curves in a way that echoed to her very soul. And then he kissed her, deeply. Her eyes closed and their tongues met.

And when the kiss ended a long moment later and she reopened her eyes to find his mere inches above her, meeting her gaze, she was almost shocked by the intimacy. It was something almost tangible, touchable.
How do you feel this with a guy you barely know?
And yet, there it was, nearly stealing her breath.

“Do you have any idea how damn beautiful you are?”

The words sizzled down through her. Lots of men had given her compliments—but something in Duke’s tone, or maybe it was, again, in his eyes, made her really
feel
it in a way she never had before. So much so that she actually shook her head against the pillow. And whispered, “Not until right now.”

He kissed her again and resumed those long, luscious strokes into her body. She met each one, surrendered completely to her desire for him, and soaked up all that he gave her—until a low groan left him and he bit off the words, “Aw . . . sorry, honey, can’t stop.”

And then he was coming in her, with four mighty thrusts that nailed her to the bed—and she didn’t mind at all that she hadn’t climaxed this time because she couldn’t imagine feeling any more right now than she already did.

When he collapsed gently atop her, she drank in the musky scent of him, liked having his bristly cheek nestled against hers. His voice came soft and deep in her ear. “Sorry, Daisy.”

She gave her head a short, exhausted shake. “Nothing to be sorry for,” she told him. “That was . . . amazing.”

“I like the way you think,” he murmured, a hint of humor back in his voice, though she could tell he was about to drift off into sleep. And she didn’t mind that, either, since she was, too, and she liked the idea of falling asleep together.

W
hen Anna opened her eyes, Duke was gone. She felt that almost even before she looked beside her in the bed to see that his spot had been filled by the cat. “You’re not who I was expecting,” she said. “And don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re not nearly as hot.”

Erik, curled up against the pillow next to her, let out a defensive-sounding meow.

Anna eyed the cat. “Maybe you need a girl kitty. Maybe
that’s
your problem?” Then she let out a sigh. “But I’m not getting another one of you, so you’ll just have to . . . suppress those urges. Better than I’ve managed to anyway.” She rolled her eyes, realizing it was pretty nervy of her to scold the cat for possibly wanting what she’d just had—with great gusto.

It felt empty to be left alone. To be lying naked in her bed at the dinner hour, late day sun casting shadows across the room. She knew it was the way of the world—when people had impromptu, meaningless sex, one of them often left afterward without a word and that was supposed to be okay. The other person wasn’t supposed to feel . . . deserted.

Maybe that was one reason she didn’t usually have impromptu, meaningless sex.

And it almost embarrassed her to acknowledge the truth she couldn’t deny: For her, it hadn’t been meaningless. She didn’t know him well, but you didn’t always
have
to know someone well to care about them. And now she cared about Duke Dawson. Because she’d shared something with him. Something so astonishingly intense that . . . oh no, was it possible he hadn’t felt it, too? Could that part of it have been one-sided? Ugh.

But no, it hadn’t. She knew it. Whether or not he’d felt anything emotional, he’d definitely felt the heat they shared—there was nothing one-sided about that.

And . . . when he’d said she was beautiful, well, it hadn’t been just a line—she knew that as surely as she knew the sun would set soon.

But he left.

And that’s okay.

You don’t have to get all wrapped up in this just because he made you feel special for a few minutes. You can appreciate sex for sex’s sake like all modern chicks are supposed to be able to do these days. You don’t have to be all mushy and gooey and attached to him over it.

In fact, maybe this is a good reminder that you’re getting too soft. Maybe Rachel’s right and hiding yourself away up here in this big old house isn’t healthy.

Because if this had happened to her a couple of years ago, sure, she’d still be a little bummed, feel a little deserted—but she’d be much cooler about it than she really felt right now.

Then again, maybe it was like she’d told him—maybe some of her confidence had always been an act, bravado. Even to herself—she’d pretended unerring confidence as a defense mechanism. And what was healthier—pretending to feel something you didn’t and finding some strength in that, or just letting it all go and feeling what you really felt?

She wasn’t sure.

About much of anything at the moment. But the one thing she knew for certain was that she didn’t intend to just lie here wallowing in self-pity. Life with her mother had taught her that, no matter what, you keep going. So she intended to get up, get dressed, and make herself some dinner. Then tomorrow she would start her new job at Under the Covers. And it seemed like a better time than ever to put some distance between herself and her outlaw biker in the woods—only for different reasons now.

S
he’d agreed to make her first day at the bookstore a long one, arriving at ten to train with Tessa and Amy all day. And she’d hoped Duke wouldn’t show up at the house before she left—or for all she knew he wasn’t going to show up
at all
after yesterday’s events. But it was not to be. She opened the front door to leave only to find him working on the porch steps.

Surprised to see him, she flinched.

“Morning,” he said without glancing up from his work.

“Um . . . morning,” she replied.

“The more I look at this porch, the more I can’t believe you haven’t fallen through it. I crawled underneath and propped it up with a bottle jack I found in the garage, but this front section is weak as hell.”