Breaking Free (20 page)

“I know.”

“He may already be paying for it. It would have to be eating at him.” How could it not? “If it’s one of them, and I find out which, he’ll pay. I promise.”

Her blue eyes settled on his face. “I know.”

He brushed her lips with his and rested his forehead against hers. He wanted to lie in bed with her and hold her and be held in return. Acknowledging those feelings brought with it a surge of pain and desire he didn’t know how to deal with.

She touched his cheek, her fingers caressing. “You don’t always have to stand alone.”

Hawk swallowed as need clamped around his throat and made it impossible for him to speak. They had both sustained emotional blows today. But was that a reason to make love?

“You’re such a temptation to me.” Her voice sounded husky and soft. She nestled closer and stood on her tiptoes to rub her cheek against his.

His heart took up a heavy rhythm and he fought the urge to cup her hips and drag her closer. So there was more there for her, too. Finding his voice he said, “Giving in to a little temptation now and then can be good for you.”

She drew a deep breath. “Can it?” Her lips brushed his jaw.

This shy, playful, kittenish thing she had going was killing him. “Yeah, it can,” he forced out between breaths. He grasped her hand and tugged her down the hall. Pausing at each switch for quick kisses, he turned the lights out.

The instant they crossed the bedroom threshold, he read Zoe’s feelings of awkwardness. Color deepened in her cheeks, and she avoided looking directly at him. When she pulled away, he thought she might beat a hasty retreat, but instead she moved to the opposite side of the bed and he realized she was removing her socks.

He shucked his t-shirt and tossed it atop the basket in the closet. As he turned, her bundled socks shot past him, ricocheted off the lid and fell into the hamper. He looked up.

Focusing on his face, Zoe stretched out on his bed; her arms bent beneath her head, leaving her midriff visible, the skin creamy and smooth. The lamp on the nightstand played upon her features etching the curve of her cheek and turning the reddish blond highlights in her hair to copper. She smiled at him. Blood rushed south, and he grew harder.

Visions of him peeling off her sweat pants and thrusting inside her played through his mind. He climbed onto the bed beside her and buried his face in the pillow with a groan. He just had to block out that smile until he knew he had himself under control.

Zoe’s hand ran over the back of his head and neck in a caress, and he turned his head to look at her. The tenderness he read in her expression intensified the ache.

“It’s been a long day,” she said.

“A week at least.”

She smiled again, then grew serious. “Our living together--it could become--awkward.”

Was she looking for an excuse to back away again? Or was she giving him an opportunity to do the same? He turned on his side to face her and tamped down the old feelings of pain and abandonment. “If you let every difficulty keep you from reaching for what you want, Zoe, you’ll never truly live.”

“I was thinking of you.” She ran her fingertips along his shoulder, her eyes tracking the movement. Her light, caressing touch raced through him to the bottoms of his feet. She focused on his face, her eyes dark, her pupils nearly swallowing the pale blue irises. Her voice sounded husky as she said, “Turn out the light.”

His heart stuttered then beat hard against his ribs. He leaned back and extinguished the bedside lamp. For a moment, the darkness was profound until his eyes adjusted to it.

She kissed him, her lips parted in invitation. All the nights he had lain awake, craving her, rolled over him like a tank. With a groan, part relief, part need, he crushed her close. Hungrily, greedily, he tasted her passion in the eager sweep of her tongue against his, and in the way she molded herself against him.

His hand shook as he ran it up beneath her t-shirt. Her skin felt like warm silk, her breast full and soft. Her nipple beaded beneath his palm and she groaned. He wished he could see her expression as he touched her. He strived to be gentle, but felt starved for her touch, for the feel of her body against his own.

He tugged her t-shirt upward and she wiggled free of it and pressed her breasts against his chest. Her bare skin brushing against his felt like heaven. When he rolled on top of her, positioning himself between her legs, she slid her hands down his back, cupped his buttocks, and rocked against his erection in a way that nearly sent him over the edge. He had to slow things down. But sweet Jesus, he didn’t want to. He slid downward, latched onto her nipple, and sucked.

Zoe’s breathing caught and she thrust her fingers into his hair. The sweet, empty ache inside her grew with every touch, every kiss, until she thought she might fly apart at any moment. She couldn’t touch him enough, couldn’t get close enough. His lips against her stomach, his breath on her skin, his tongue dipping into her navel, all had her nearly sobbing with need. When he dragged the sweat pants and panties down her legs, she couldn’t wait to be free of them.

Then he was on top of her, kissing her, trembling against her as he touched her between her legs, his fingers so wonderfully, carefully gentle. That he trembled with wanting her fired her blood and made the empty, writhing need inside her grow in intensity.

She ran her hand down his chest, over the flat muscular plane of his stomach and beneath his shorts. The size and heat of his erection was both startling and arousing. He groaned her name, his voice a low rumble against her ear that vibrated along her nerve endings and raised goose bumps on her skin.

“Come inside me,” she managed, the words a breathy, pleading whisper.

He shook free of his sweats, and leaned over her to reach in the nightstand. The wispy crackle as he tore open the condom sounded loud, underlining the huge, terrifying, wonderful step she was taking, they were taking. With his first push of entry, the sweet intimacy between them caught at Zoe’s heart and she drew him down to her, her lips seeking his. The wanting, the needing, tangled into a surge of love and desire so strong she could barely breathe. The quick burning pain of his possession seemed nothing compared to the closeness she shared with him.

“God, Zoe, tell me I’m not hurting you.” His lips skimmed her cheek, her brow, and came back to her lips.

“You’re not.” Not yet. She cut off the thought and ran her hands up and down his back urging him closer. He moved deep inside her, triggering an answering thread of renewed need. He groaned her name again, his voice ragged. His slow, gentle rocking movements quickened. She clung to him and turned her lips against his throat, tasting the heat of his skin. She lost herself in the play of his muscles beneath her hands, and the damp brush of his taut belly against hers. Her breathing grew labored as she gave herself to him, moved with him, moved against him. At the first pulsing wave of his release, pleasure erupted inside her, so sweetly satisfying, she gasped his name.

****

When his breathing had returned to normal, Hawk searched for and found Zoe’s lips. “The next time we do this the light stays on,” he said, his tone adamant as he slowly eased out of her though he was reluctant to move.

Her hands ran up and down his back in a caress. “Maybe.”

“No maybes. I want to see you when I touch you next time, Zoe.”

“Maybe we can work our way up to that, a little at a time.”

“You just trusted me enough to make love with you. How can you do that, and not trust me enough to let me see you while I’m doing it?”

“In the dark, I can be as beautiful as any other woman for you.”

Pain grabbed him by the throat. “Oh baby---” He rested his cheek against hers and swallowed against it. “You are beautiful, Zoe. Every time you walk into a room, I get hard. I’ve been going around for weeks in that condition.”

“I have too, I mean, not hard, but, you know.” Her voice was just above a whisper. Her lips parted and warm touched his shoulder.

An instant response shot through him and he turned his lips to hers. “Hold that thought. I’ll be right back.”

He eased away from her and off the bottom of the bed. Closing the bathroom door, he turned on the light and moved to the toilet to discard the condom. He froze. “Oh, shit.” A dropping sensation hit his stomach worse than a three thousand foot parachute jump. As the prophylactic hit the water, he drew several steadying breaths, a thousand thoughts and emotions bombarding him as he watched the useless thing circle the toilet bowl and disappear down the drain.

He wrapped a towel around his waist and opened the door, leaving the light on. She had gotten under the covers, and as he crossed the threshold, she drew the sheet up over her breasts. Two long steps put him at the foot of the bed. The pale light from the bathroom etched one side of her face and shoulder, leaving the rest in shadow. She looked so young, so small. Responsibility lay like a weight upon his shoulders. “We have a problem, Zoe.”

CHAPTER 14

“Are you on the pill?”

Hawk’s face was in shadow and she couldn’t read his expression, but his tone held a note of--forced calm.

“No, I’m not.”

“The condom broke, Zoe.”

She stared at him, trying to take in what he’d said. Shock hit her and her facial muscles stiffened. She struggled to control her scattered thoughts and count days. “I think it will be all right. But I guess, if we’re going to do more of this, I’d better call in the morning and see about some kind of backup birth control.”

“Jesus--” He rubbed both hands over his short hair. “I’m sorry, honey.”

She swallowed as the bathroom light played upon his long lean body, highlighting the muscles of his stomach, and the precarious grip the towel held on his hips. Even with anxiety still curling her toes, she wanted him all over again.

Completely unself-conscious, He whipped the towel free and climbed into bed. “You don’t have to worry about diseases or anything. We get checked out all the time. And I don’t take chances.” He gathered her close. “Nothing like this has ever happened before.”

“You don’t have to worry either.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

Heat flared in her face when he continued to look at her. “I just haven’t met anyone I’ve wanted to--“She searched for the right words.

Hawk had no such trouble. “Lower the barriers for?”

“I guess you could put it that way. There was only one other time.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of pressure and responsibility you just dumped on me, along with a pretty big compliment.”

She chuckled. “I’m sure you can handle it.”

“Will you tell me what the guy in college did?”

Her stomach muscles tightened. She wasn’t ready to share one of the most degrading moments of her life. “Why? There’s nothing that can be changed about it.”

“Because it’s important to the way you are with me now, Zoe.”

Surprised by his pushing for more, instead of the reverse, she remained silent. Was she ready for the emotional intimacy he was shooting for? She didn’t know. She turned on her side and guided his arm around her waist. Hawk slipped his arm beneath her neck and tucked his legs beneath hers, his body, adamantly male, molding to hers from behind. She caught her breath at the instant shock of desire that pulsed through her.

Silence settled between them. Unable to relax, she caressed his arm with her fingertips. She couldn’t share the whole terrible, embarrassing, painful story. “Once he saw my scars, he couldn’t--function.” Her voice came out just above a whisper around the knot in her throat.

His lips moved against her shoulder. “If a few scars could make such a difference in the way he felt, he didn’t deserve you, Zoe.”

“You haven’t seen them yet. You may feel the same.”

“We can find out right now,” he started to rise.

She grabbed his arm. “Not yet, Hawk.”

He subsided. “It isn’t going to happen. Trust me, Zoe.”

She drew a deep breath. She had trusted him enough to make love with him. Why couldn’t he be satisfied with that like other men would be?

“You’re not going to chicken out on our date this weekend are you?”

“No.” She’d resigned herself to his seeing everything this weekend. But, it was going to be hard. Really hard.

“It’s only two days.”

“Are you trying to pick a fight?”

“No.”

“Then, give it a rest.”

He chuckled and the sound vibrated against her back.

“All right. I’d rather make love with you than war.” His hand cupped the lower half of her abdomen and he nuzzled her neck. “It feels good to hold you like this, Zoe.”

Desire swept through her and she placed her hand over his. Her voice a husky whisper, she said,” It feels good to be held.”

She turned to face him. The pale yellow light touched the ridge of his brow, the slope of his nose, but she couldn’t see his eyes clearly, or their expression. His hand swept down her back to cup her buttocks and guide her against him. His fingers lingered on the ridge of a scar on her backside and she held her breath as he traced its rectangular shape.