For a minute he just stared at her. When he let her go, she sank back against her pillows. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
“Of course you didn’t.” She laid her arm over her eyes. “You don’t know much about me except that I drive you crazy, I play my radio too loud, and I won’t move out of your house.”
“And you rearranged my bumper.”
Her lips twitched, but when she lowered her arm to look at him, her eyes remained suspiciously bright. “That too.”
Guilt twisted at him, so did something much more potent, something he couldn’t name. “Trisha -”
“No,” she said quickly, propping herself against her headboard. “Don’t say anything else. I want you to go now.”
He’d judged her, quickly and harshly. But it didn’t erase his worry for her. “Are you all right?”
“For a drunkard, you mean?” Her smile seemed forced. “Of course. How much trouble can I get into in the middle of the night?” At his raised brow, she rolled her eyes. “You’d better forget that question. Just go. Please.”
He started to object, but what right did he have? Reluctantly, he rose, walked to the door.
“Hunter?”
“Yes?” In the dark room, he turned back to her.
“Did you race up here to rescue me, or your house?”
“You,” he said without hesitation.
The light in the hallway highlighted the features of her face and he caught her small smile. “You even look like a hero, standing there like that, half-dressed.” Her voice went husky. “You didn’t put on shoes… or a shirt.”
He felt more than saw her gaze run over the length of him, and his body responded so quickly, he felt dizzy. “I was afraid for you.”
Some of the tension left her. “It’s nice to know that. I’m sorry I woke you.”
He nodded, turned to go, needing to get out.
“I didn’t drink that whole bottle of wine,” she whispered as he stepped out of the room.
Unquestioningly believing her, he closed his eyes and went still. Self-disgust filled him.
“The rest spilled in the tub,” she explained quietly. “It’s why I got out – well…” she added wryly, “that and the fact that since I hadn’t eaten, and I never drink, it went straight to my head.”
Why did being wrong have to hurt so badly? he wondered. And why did it have to be so hard to apologize? Or was it just this woman, and the fact that he had to work so hard to resist her?
“Are you ever going to try again, Hunter?” she ventured quietly. “Try again to trust a woman?”
“No.” But he moved back into her room, again coming close to her bed. “I judged you,” he said softly. “And it was wrong. I’m very sorry, Trisha.”
Lifting a shoulder, she shrugged lightly, as if to say, Don’t worry about it. You do it all the time.
It made him feel sick.
She was used to being harshly judged, and from the snippet of the dream he’d heard, he knew that went back several years. His heart twisted. No one deserved that, least of all this woman who wouldn’t purposely harm a fly. “It matters,” he said in a low voice. “It matters a lot, and I won’t do it again.”
“That’s some promise.”
She doubted his ability to keep it, and he couldn’t blame her. “I mean it.”
“Nothing’s changed, Hunter. I’m still going to annoy you at every turn.”
“You don’t.”
“Don’t lie. Please, don’t lie.”
“You don’t,” he insisted, not surprised to find that he spoke the utter truth. “What annoys me is the way I react to you, when I don’t want to. And it’s not a matter of trusting you, Trisha. I just don’t like to lose control, and I always seem to around you.” There, he’d said it. He’d been brutally honest, as was his custom. Even though he knew, despite their assertions of the contrary, that women didn’t really want honesty.
But he kept forgetting that Trisha Malloy was unlike any other woman he’d ever met.
“You resist it too much,” she said. “Why can’t you just go with it?”
Because it would terrify him. All his life he’d failed in relationships. This time would be no different. He could provide well, as in the case of his family, but he didn’t seem to have much else that interested a woman for long. “Because there’s no point.”
Though he couldn’t see her exact expression, he sensed her immediate withdrawal. “Of course there’s not,” she said softly. “Because there could never be a future with a woman like me. Not for a man like you. Is that it, Dr. Adams?”
“No, that’s not it.” His hands fisted at his sides as he dropped his head between his shoulders and studied his bare feet. He didn’t understand what Trisha did to him, why she affected him so.
Women were like his projects – they came into his life for a short period of time, he enjoyed them, they left his life. On to the next project. Rarely did he look back. He’d certainly never gone back.
An uneasy feeling stirred inside him. Trisha was different, startlingly so. She didn’t seem to fit into any area of his neat, meticulously planned life. In fact, she regularly destroyed any sort of structure he had, sometimes with just a look.
As she was doing now.
Even in the dark, he could sense her swirling emotions. And he knew with every fiber of his being, she wanted him to kiss her into oblivion again, every bit as badly as he wanted to. But he couldn’t, not yet. “It has nothing to do with who you are, or what you do, Trisha.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s me,” he admitted tightly. “It’s the man I am, it’s what I do.”
“That makes no sense,” she said, twisting her hands in the sheet and pulling it up to her chin. “What’s so wrong with the man you are that you can’t let yourself enjoy a…”
She trailed off and he smiled grimly. “Enjoy a what? What exactly is this between us?”
Mute, she stared at him.
“See?” he pressed, giving in to the urge to be close and sinking to her bed to sit at her hip. “Even you know better.” He reached for her hands. “This thing between us has a life of its own.”
It’s uncontrollable, Trisha thought. And it scares us equally. Me, because eventually he’ll walk away, and him, because he’s afraid he won’t be able to.
But she wanted him, had to have him. And she knew how badly he wanted her. Dressed as he was, in just lightweight sweatpants and nothing else, there was little he could hide from her. He was magnificent, she thought, with his vital and able body so nearly bare for her to see. It made her ache, the rippled strength, the easy, graceful way of moving he had. The hard planes of his chest, the flat belly, his long, powerful legs, the unmistakable and impressive hardness between them. Desire slammed into her just from looking at him.
He made her feel needy and strong at the same time, and she’d never in her life felt that way. Nor had she ever wanted anyone quite as desperately as she wanted him.
Well, she’d just have to make sure she didn’t restrain him in any way, make sure he felt he could just turn it off at any time. Though it would hurt, it was the only way to play this, or she’d lose him. “Haven’t you ever had an affair before, Hunter?”
He looked startled. “I – uh…”
With a little laugh, she squeezed his hands. “It’s a simple question. Yes or no?”
“Yes,” he said through his teeth.
“Then what’s the problem? Are you telling me you analyzed each one so carefully beforehand? Worried and fretted about its demise before it even got started?”
“Yes.” But his lips curved. “See? We’re too different.” His eyes deepened, darkened, and he leaned closer. “Send me away, Trisha.”
“No,” she whispered, pulling her hands from his and wrapping her arms around his neck. “No,” she said again. “Not tonight.” And she kissed him.