Texas Heroes: Volume 1 (46 page)

“I can go in my room if you’d rather be alone,” he offered.

She shook her head quickly. “That’s not necessary.” But her steps were slow as she crossed the room, settling herself on the rug in front of the fire. Her movements were careful. Brittle as though she hovered close to breaking.

Mitch tried to give her the space she obviously needed, but his book couldn’t hold his attention. When he read the same sentence four times in a row, he finally looked up, about to ask if she wanted to play cards or something.

Even from the back, he could tell that she was holding herself together by a thread. Arms wrapped around her waist, her back curled like a protective shell, she shook with silent sobs.

He should let her be, stay away from temptation.

But he could not.

Mitch abandoned his book and picked her up, settling her on his lap and wrapping his arms around her, relieved when she didn’t resist.

“I just keep thinking about what would have happened if you hadn’t been here…” She stared into the fire, tears streaming from her eyes. One small, delicate hand dashed at the tears in vain, a persistent scrubbing that couldn’t stem the tide.

She was so valiant. So small yet so strong. It hurt him to see her this devastated.

“You would have figured something out.”

Perrie shook her head. “He could have died, and it would have been my fault.” A deep shudder wracked her fragile frame, and Mitch tightened his hold on her.

For a moment, she tried to hold herself apart but then, with a broken sob, she surrendered. Turned into his chest and slid her arms around him, clutching the back of his shirt as tightly as Davey had held him when he’d reached the ledge.

It felt like heaven. Like home. Like everything he’d ever wanted. And everything he would never have.

“Perrie…” he groaned.

She lifted her head from his shoulder, her face only a breath from his own.

Within her, he saw an answering need for refuge, for sanctuary from the cold darkness. A loneliness that just might match his own. The last vestiges of his conscious mind knew that this was a bad idea. He fought to remember why.

But his damnable heart didn’t care. He’d been so long alone. So far adrift from human connection. For just one moment, he wanted to warm himself at her sweet fire.

Just one moment—was it so much to ask?

Her lake blue eyes beckoned him closer, and he could stay in the darkness no longer. He lowered his mouth to hers, aching to feed on the sweetness every cell in his body craved.

Sweetness was there, yes. A shy, soft pressure. Tentative. Almost virginal.

But how could that be? She’d been married, borne a child. Yet something about her was almost—

Frightened.

She drew back, a scant breath away. He felt her tremble, like a doe poised for flight.

Of course she was afraid of him. She could tell, somehow. Knew that he was all wrong for love.

I won’t hurt you
, he wanted to say, but he had broken that promise before. He readied himself to free her.

And then a miracle happened. Perrie drew in a deep breath and leaned into him instead, pressing her mouth to his. The innocent trust brought a tightness to his chest. He battled the urge to crush her close. To ravish. To possess.

The endless darkness inside him cried out for haste, but he beat it back. Carefully he brushed her mouth with his, wooing her gently.

Perrie’s lips parted slightly, her breath warm against his. Mitch slid one hand upward to cradle her head, almost afraid to breathe lest he frighten her away.

Then she arched against him, tasting him with one tentative sweep of her tongue.

Soul-deep craving rocked him. A shiver began deep inside him, from a place where he’d long ago buried hope.

With a white-knuckled grip on his hunger, Mitch held on tight, feeling as green and new as an untried boy. When Perrie relaxed against him, her fingers stroking his neck, her breasts pressing against his chest, something inside him unfurled. Desire, yes—so hot and dark it was all he could do not to let the beast loose.

But there was more. Her artless caresses stirred a tenderness he’d never known. He glimpsed a new world where he was a virgin himself.

Craving rocked him to the core. Sharp claws of need tore his flesh open, throat to belly. He’d been a long time without a woman’s sweet dark heat, and he could barely hold back.

But he would, somehow. This was not about his need, it was about hers. Perrie deserved a gentle hand. He would do this right or die trying.

Holding tight to the chains of his craving, Mitch lifted an unsteady hand to stroke her face while he deepened the kiss. A feather-light touch over the pale shell of her ear. A slow stroke down the delicate line of her throat.

Perrie’s head drifted back as she welcomed his touch, every stroke flaring like firelight through her body. Never had she been touched this way, as if she were precious, someone worthy of care. She longed to watch Mitch as he stroked her, wanted to see what was on his face.

But this felt so exquisite, and she was so hungry. She couldn’t take the chance that he might stop.

So she leaned back into his strong arms and welcomed his caress. Deep inside the woman who had only known sex as a power struggle she always lost, something new awoke. A molasses-thick warmth spread within her, tendrils unfurling from low in her belly. She arched her back against his arm, silently begging for his touch. Wanting to open herself up to this man, to take a chance. To see where he would lead her.

She felt the tension in him, the coiled strength, the potent male power held tightly in check—but for how long? Her breath hitched, and fear claimed her. She knew what it was to be powerless, to be used by someone stronger—and Mitch was far stronger than the man who had taught her that sex was a weapon.

Abruptly Perrie bent double, curled protectively, her back to Mitch, her fear a venom poisoning the air around them.

The big hands dropped away, setting her aside, instantly free.

And Perrie was ashamed. This was Mitch, not Simon. This was the man who had saved her child’s life, who had nursed her to health.

She swallowed hard, closed her eyes to settle before she faced him. When she did, naked devastation was on the once-harsh face staring into the fire. His powerful body tensed to rise and walk away.

She couldn’t let that happen. Not to him, not to herself. They stood at the precipice of something amazing. Something they both needed, she thought.

She placed her hand on one arm, rigid with muscle. His face closed down as she watched.

What to say? How to explain? Perrie understood intimately the treachery of words.

Instead she took action, sliding her hand up his arm to caress his hard jaw. Still tense, he cut her a wary glance.

And her woman’s heart realized that he was as afraid of her as she was of him.

It was a novel thought, so incredible as to be almost beyond conceiving. But as she pondered, something told her she was right. Mitch might be physically far stronger, but hadn’t she seen often enough that the hard shell covered a heart capable of great tenderness? Hadn’t he shown her a hundred times just how different he was from Simon?

She knew he’d been alone most of his life. Had seen his longing, the traces of a hunger he would not admit.

A hunger he’d continue to deny if she gave up here and let cowardice win. Thinking of all the ways he’d demonstrated that the hard loner was only a façade, Perrie drew on the strength that had gotten her this far—

And took a chance.

She met his gaze and refused to release it. With unsteady fingers, she reached for the top button of her peach velour shirt, easing it open.

Mitch’s hot gaze followed her hands. As she bared her body, she saw his nostrils flare, his hands clench tight. His eyes shot up to study hers. She forced herself not to look away, then slowly leaned toward him, bringing her mouth within a breath of his.

Just before their lips touched, he spoke her name, his voice as much question as moan.

She had no words, so she answered with her lips, pressing a kiss to his mouth, opening to him and touching her tongue to his lips.

Fire flashed through Mitch’s body, fire and a spark of hope. He pulled her down again, spreading her across his lap, his fingers driving into her hair as his tongue slid into the dark wine of her mouth.

Thrown from a foretaste of heaven to the empty void and back, Mitch reeled off-balance like a top skidding across a rocky floor. He grasped for the control that had saved his life, but it was lost in the bright flare of Perrie’s kiss, the fine promise of her flesh pressing against his.

The image of her pale hands working at the fabric, baring the tender valley between her breasts…

Mitch groaned and took the kiss deeper.

She responded like no woman he’d ever known. Fire tinged with innocence, heat layered with honey. She arched against him again, a soft moan against his kiss, her fingers sliding into his hair and pulling him closer still.

Mitch forgot all the reasons why this could not happen. Forgot why he should walk away. In the honeyed darkness of Perrie’s kiss, he found a dream. Tomorrow would still be tomorrow, but tonight, he needed only her, only this.

Sliding his hand up her body, he worked at her remaining buttons, baring her to the silken top beneath her shirt. Hard nipples against the soft fabric begged for his touch. Mitch tore his mouth from hers, his gaze greedily devouring the sight.

“You’re so beautiful.” He trailed his fingers over the silk, coming to rest over the lush contour of her breast.

She gasped but leaned into his touch.

Edgy, dark need sizzled down his spine. Oh, God. He wanted her so badly, wanted her fast and hard and hot. But he had to do this right.

He paused. Gathered himself. Then slowly…softly, he circled one finger, tracing her curves, nearing the hard peak of her nipple while he watched her blue eyes darken to navy smoke.

Perrie moaned, and her head fell back over his arm. She pressed her breast closer as if begging for his hand. Instead, Mitch brought her his mouth.

When the wet heat closed over her flesh, Perrie’s moan slid deep into her throat. Her hips bucked, and hunger wiped all thought from her mind. She clutched at his hair. A fever gripped her, an urgency Perrie had never before felt. She wanted to moan, to beg…though she didn’t know what to beg for.

But Mitch did.

He captured her mouth again, skimming one hand beneath her silken undershirt, his fingers gliding over skin that put the fabric to shame. Then he tore his mouth from hers while he bared her torso to his gaze.

Perrie felt just the opposite of anything she’d expected. Mitch’s hot eyes didn’t make her want to hide but instead to preen, to display, to invite not only his touch but his gaze. For a woman who had only known sex as shame and degradation, Mitch’s desire was power and healing. For the first time in her life, Perrie understood the strength of her womanhood, the electric arc between woman and man.

That arc fed a hunger she’d never realized she was capable of. She wanted to know it all, everything this man could teach her. With fingers made reckless by desire, she gripped his body and dragged him close.

The change in Perrie electrified Mitch. The bonds on his own hunger strained, the threads snapping, one by one. He had to get closer. Had to be inside her. It took everything he had not to rip the clothes from her body.

Perrie’s mouth became a weapon, nipping at his lips, suckling at his throat. With a carnal moan, she scraped her teeth down his neck, her craving pushing his beyond control.

Mitch unsnapped her jeans, stripping them away until her body was only covered with one small triangle of white cotton.

It was the cotton that stopped him, reminded him that she was fragile, never mind the heat that gripped her now. Pulling her up to sitting, Mitch grasped her shoulders with his hands, shaking her faintly as she plucked blindly at the buttons on his shirt.

“Perrie…” He forced the words. “Stop. I want you too much. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Blue eyes as deep as the sea met his, trust mingling with fire. “You won’t.”

“You don’t know that.” He had to be sure that she was aware, not simply lost in a sensual fog.

Blue eyes could crackle, he discovered. Biting back a chuckle, he heard her mutter as she worked at his buttons, yanking the tail of his shirt from the waistband of his jeans.

Then she ran her nails over his chest, driving all the air from his lungs. He strained for release from the imprisonment of denim.

Mitch clapped his hands over hers as they teased at the hair on his chest. “Wait.” His voice cracked. “I want to see your hair.”

She didn’t stop touching him, but she tossed her head and brought the golden braid sliding over one breast.

The longing to bury himself inside her battled his need to see the golden curtain from his dreams.

It took too many tries to remove the band, too many distractions from her rose-tipped breasts brushing torturously against the backs of his hands. But finally her golden mane flowed loose, as he had dreamed it.

With fingers shaking from desire, he combed through the raw honey silk, spreading the strands over her shoulders, cascading down her torso, hiding the beauty of her breasts behind a gossamer veil.

Firelight limned her frame as he slid off her panties, then urged her to straddle his lap. Mitch lifted handfuls of hair, watching them drift across her skin, teasing her breasts with the strands.

She rocked against his hardness, only his jeans keeping them apart. While his body burned, his mind etched the image to hold close, long after she was gone.

He’d never seen anything more beautiful in his life.

Perrie was glad for every minute she’d let her hair grow. Suddenly it wasn’t a routine part of her, something to be tucked away and tamed. The look in Mitch’s eyes made her feel special…beautiful, as she’d never felt before.

She let her head fall back, let herself luxuriate in Mitch teasing her skin with her hair. Arching back, she offered her body to him, glorying in her nakedness, feeling free and wild.