“I haven’t slept with him yet. ”
“Which makes him unique,” Lara had said dryly.
She almost smiled, remembering. Jacob had been.
Not perfect. But earnest and convenient and too wrapped up in his own reactions to worry much about Lara’s.
“He’d be the one who convinced you sex was no big deal.”
Heat crawled up her face. “Wel, it wasn’t. He didn’t.
And I couldn’t. ”
She’d wanted to feel whole. Jacob had wanted to get laid. Achieving their goals had proven more awkward than painful. After the first few times, they’d improved beyond cautious acceptance on her side and a fumbling rush on his, but the sex was never great enough to inspire either of them to keep trying.
Jacob had been honest breaking up with her. “I like you, Lara, ” he’d said, his brown eyes sincere. “As a friend. But.
. ”
“He said I had too much baggage,” she told Iestyn.
“Fuck,” Iestyn said. The laughter that usual y lurked at the back of his eyes and the corners of his mouth was gone.
“I’m sorry.”
She couldn’t tel if he was expressing sympathy over Jacob’s rejection or apologizing because he basical y agreed with him.
He got up— Don’t leave me, she thought — and flipped back the covers of the other bed.
Regret stung her eyes. “Me, too.”
Sorry she had wimped out earlier and missed her chance with him. Sorry. Not that she had told him, but that it so obviously made a difference.
“Are you going to be al right?” he asked quietly.
Lara sagged. Skies, she was tired. Down-to-the-bones exhausted and sick almost to death of being defined by something that had been done to her thirteen years ago.
She would not be a victim. She didn’t want him to see her as that scared, damaged child in need of comfort.
So she straightened her spine and lifted her chin. “I’m fine,”
she said, because it was important he believed that.
That she believe it.
Iestyn lay on his back in the ratty motel room, contemplating the stains on the ceiling tiles and listening to the soft F o r g o t t e n s e a 141 sounds of Lara in the other bed. The creak of the mattress.
The rustle of sheets. The catch of her breath.
She had to be exhausted, but she was stil sleepless, stil restless, stil making him crazy.
“I can’t do this,” she’d said, a thread of panic in her voice.
So they wouldn’t.
But, God, he wished he could touch her.
Not for sex. Okay, yeah, partly for sex. Tough to pretend he didn’t want sex with his hard-on tenting the covers.
He’d never been big on cuddling. Foreplay, fine. Nonsexual contact, not so much. He had a feeling, dimmer than memory, deeper than instinct, that his ingrained dislike of casual touch was part of who he was. What he was. But he would have liked to comfort Lara. To hold her in his arms, rub her back, stroke her hair, and tel her how amazing she was.
Except she didn’t want that.
“I’m fine, ” she’d said, with a tilt to her chin that meant, Hands off, asshole.
Given time and opportunity, he could probably change her mind. But putting the moves on her now, when she’d asked him to stop, when she was alone and vulnerable.
He couldn’t do it.
She was only with him because she wanted to help.
She’d stood up for him against Axton. Axton, who had saved her, who had done what Iestyn couldn’t do, destroyed the sick son of a bitch who’d hurt her. Yet Lara had turned her back on her hero, on her people, her family, because she thought it was the right thing to do. She believed in Iestyn even before he believed in himself.
The least he could do was try not to screw her over.
He glanced toward the other bed. She lay on her side, one
arm tucked under her pil ow, her knees drawn almost to her chest. The light creeping under the bathroom door outlined the angle of her shoulder, the curve of her hip. He studied her face. Dark, winged brows, long black lashes. Her mouth like a lily at night, cool, pale, closed. He imagined warming it with his, pictured her lips flushed and open, swol en and damp from his kisses. Recal ed the mind-blowing softness of her breast in his hand, the delicate point of her nipple.
Her taste.
She shifted and sighed.
He shifted, too, reaching down to adjust himself in the dark, remembering the way she’d gasped and arched when he suckled her.
Her clear gray eyes opened, staring directly at him.
“Am I keeping you up?”
Busted.
He raised his knee so she couldn’t see his erection standing like a mast against the sheets. Not that she meant her question the way it sounded. “I’m good. Go to sleep.”
“I can’t.”
Did she have nightmares? Probably. The thought made his back teeth grind together. He unclenched his jaw, made his voice as gentle as possible. “You’ve had a stressful day.”
“It’s not that.” She flipped onto her back, making the mattress squeak. Her breasts moved in interesting ways under the T-shirt. “My hair’s wet.”
He forced his gaze back to her face. He didn’t know what to say. The Heart of Jersey wasn’t the kind of hotel that stocked hairdryers in the guest rooms.
“And now my pil ow’s wet, too.”
The complaining edge to her voice made him grin. He didn’t dare hope she was as frustrated as he was, but at least she wasn’t lying there shattered, reliving her past.
“You have two pil ows,” he pointed out.
She flounced back onto her side and fixed him with those big gray eyes. Hopeful. Expectant.
Frustration and desire churned inside him. What did she want from him? Whatever it was, he would find a way to give it to her. But he needed a freaking clue. “You want one of mine?”
She was silent so long he wondered if maybe she’d fal en asleep after al. Then, “Al right.”
He sat up, reaching behind his back for a pil ow.
But he never had a chance.
Before he could toss it to her, she climbed out of bed, al smooth bare legs and bra-less breasts, and plucked the pil ow from his hands.
“Thanks,” she said and slid into bed beside him.
12
Ev e ry m u s c l e i n I e s t y n ’ s b o d y t i g h t en e d.
“What are you doing?”
Dickhead. Like it wasn’t obvious.
Lara propped the pil ow behind her and settled against the headboard, the bounce of her breasts momentarily robbing him of breath. “I thought if I slept with you, we could both get some rest.”
Rest. Right.
The T-shirt was damp where he’d had his mouth on her.
He forced his gaze up to meet her eyes.
“You want to sleep with me,” he said. Like he needed her to draw him a diagram when his brain was already playing the movie in glorious 3D color and surround sound.
“Mm.” She tilted her head, gauging his reaction. Despite her casual tone, the pulse beneath her jaw beat like a caged bird. “That’s a euphemism.”
“It’s a mistake,” he said harshly.
She blinked. “Why?”
“Because. ” His mind blanked as his blood abandoned his head and went south. “I can’t give you what you need.”