LITMIR.BIZ

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      “No, I don’t guess you do.” Disgusted, he hauled open the door again. “Somebody give me a damn cigarette,” he shouted. But as there was no one brave enough to approach, he ended up slamming the door again.

      Regan watched, quietly fascinated, while he paced and swore. His shirt was shoved up to the elbows, a tool belt was slung at his hips like a holster. He’d wrapped a bandanna around his forehead to catch the sweat. He looked, she thought, like a bandit who would just as soon kill as steal.

      And it was certainly ridiculous to be aroused.

      “I could make coffee,” she began, then let out a breath at the razor-edged look he shot her. “Maybe not. Rafe—”

      “Just shut up.”

      Her back jammed straight as a poker. “I don’t care to be spoken to that way.”

      “Get used to it. I’ve held back long enough with you.”

      “Held back?” Her eyes went wide. If he hadn’t looked like a maniac, she might have laughed. “You’ve been holding back? I’d like to see what you consider cutting loose.”

      “You’re about to.” He gnawed off the words like stringy meat from a bone. “You’re ticked off that I left? Well, now you’re going to be treated to what would have happened if I’d stayed.”

      “Don’t you touch me.” Her arms shot up, hands fisted like those of a boxer ready to spar. “Don’t you dare.”

      Eyes simmering, he closed a hand over her fist and used his leverage to push her back to the door. “Same goes, darling. I gave you a chance to walk, you didn’t take it.”

      “Don’t call me darling in that tone of voice.”

      The way his lips peeled back, she wouldn’t have been surprised to see fangs. “God, you’re a piece of work.” He tossed her hand down and walked away, because it was safer for both of them. “You want to know why I left. That’s the big, burning question, isn’t it? That’s what had you coming over here? Coming to me?”

      “Yes.”

      “But you didn’t come to me this morning when he threatened you. You didn’t come to me when he hurt you.” And that, Rafe thought, however it devastated him, was that.

      “I had to tell Devin,” she began.

      “Yeah. You had to tell Devin.” Bitterly calm now, he turned back. “You know what I heard in that nice and detailed statement you made, Regan? Dolin came into your place this morning, just like I thought he would.”

      “And I handled it,” she countered. “Just like I told you I would.”

      “Sure, you’re great at handling things. He threatened you. He scared you.”

      “Yes, all right, he scared me.” And she was scared now, too, she realized, of where this was leading. “That’s why I called Devin.”

      “But not me. You went down to Devin’s office, filed your charges.”

      “Yes, of course. I wanted Joe arrested.”

      “Nice and tidy. Then you went grocery shopping.”

      “I…” She linked her hands together, pulled them apart. “I thought—I knew Cassie was going to be upset, and I wanted… I just thought if I fixed a meal it would make us both feel better.”

      “And in all that time, going to Devin’s, to the market, walking there and back, you never stopped to call me. It never even occurred to you, did it?”

      “I was—” She opened her mouth, closed it again. “All right, yes. It was my first reaction, but I calmed down and decided against it.”

      “You calmed down?”

      “Yes, I realized it was my problem, and my responsibility to handle it.”

      Her simple honesty sliced through him like a blade. He could almost see himself split in half, one part rage, one part misery. “And after he had you, after he had his hands on you, and hurt you, tried to—”

      He couldn’t say it. If he did, he’d fall to pieces.

      “You didn’t think to call me then, either. I only heard it from Shane because he was in with Devin when the call came through, and he figured I’d be interested.”

      Somehow, she realized, she had hurt him. She’d never meant to. Hadn’t known he could be hurt. “Rafe, I wasn’t thinking at all.” She started forward, stopped, knowing it would do no good to go farther. “I was numb. By the time I could really think again, I was in Devin’s office. It all happened so fast,” she said hurriedly, desperate now to make him see. To understand. “And part of the time it seemed as if I wasn’t really there at all.”

      “You were handling it.”

      “I had to. It wouldn’t have done any good to fall apart.”

      “You’re real good at keeping yourself together.” He walked over, picked up the hammer. “All by yourself.”

      “I have to be. I expect myself to be, because—”

      “You don’t want to be like your mother,” he finished for her.

      It sounded so callous, and so foolish. “All right, yes, that’s partially true. It’s important for me to be a certain way, but that really doesn’t apply to this. If I didn’t call you, it was only because…”

      “You didn’t need me.” His eyes were level, and no longer hot. He had very little heat left inside him. “You don’t need me.”

      A new kind of panic was twisting through her. “That’s not true.”

      “Oh, the sex is great.” He smiled then, coolly, humorlessly. “That’s a need we handle together real well. It’s my problem that I let it get personal. I won’t make the mistake again.”

      “It’s not about sex.”

      “Sure it is.” He plucked a nail out of his pouch, set it in place. “It’s been about sex right from the get-go. That’s all we’ve got. It’s plenty.” He rammed the nail home. “You know where to find me when you’ve got the itch.”

      The blood drained from her cheeks and froze around her heart. “That’s a horrible thing to say.”

      “Your rules, darling. Why complicate a good thing, right?”

      “I don’t want things to be this way between us, Rafe.”

      “Well, now I do. Take it or leave it.” He rammed another nail into wood. She wasn’t going to get the chance to hurt him again, he told himself. No woman hurt him like this.

      She opened her mouth, primed to tell him she’d leave it. Leave him. And couldn’t. Tears burned in her eyes, in her throat. Could there have been a worse possible time, she wondered, for her to realize she was in love with him?

      “Is that the way you really feel?”

      “I try to say what I mean, too.”

      Unwilling to humiliate herself, she swallowed the tears. “And all this is because you’re angry about what happened. About how I dealt with it.”

      “Let’s just say it made everything clear. You don’t want to clutter up your life, right?”

      “No, I—”

      “Hell, neither do I. Call it ego— I’ve got one. I didn’t like you running to my brother instead of me. Like you said, I’ve got it out of my system. We can just go back to the way things were. The way things are.”

      She hadn’t realized how much she could prefer that lethal temper over this calculated disinterest. “I’m not sure that’s possible. I can’t give you an answer right at the moment.”

      “You

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