LITMIR.BIZ

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tempting to make up some excuse like she’d been confused, hadn’t realized what she was doing. But that was a lie, and she knew it. She’d known. And she’d wanted. Badly. That was the problem. Being with Dylan went against everything she believed in, violated the life she’d built. And still, she’d given herself to him.

      Still, she’d given.

      Never again, she’d promised herself on the cold, slick drive down the mountain. Never, never again would she let herself give in to the kind of desire that burned everything in its path. Passion was intoxicating, but it never, never lasted.

      Believing otherwise only led to pain.

      She had to focus on Lance now, couldn’t let her irrational reaction to Dylan blur her focus all over again.

      “Thirsty?” he asked.

      She blinked. “What?”

      “Good old-fashioned H₂O,” he said, offering her the plastic bottle from his cup holder. “It’s nothing fancy and a little warm now, but it’s better than you passing out on me.”

      She stared at his big, scarred hand, but rather than seeing those capable fingers wrapped around clear plastic, she saw them closed around her wrist. She’d felt the strength of his grip, but an unmistakable tenderness, as well.

      It had been the tenderness that made her lash out.

      Now she forced herself to look from the hand that could play her body like a song, to the hard line of his mouth and those eyes so deep and dark. And for a shattering moment, she didn’t see the uncompromising man who wanted to know if she’d killed the cousin who shared his last name but not his life.

      She saw what she’d remembered on the mountain, the reckless boy he’d been, the one who’d coaxed her from her safe little world and made her want to be a little bad. Daring. To take chances she’d never even considered. And from that mirage came the crazy desire to lean closer and soak up the warmth of his body, to feel his arms close around her and hear his rough-hewn voice promise everything would be okay.

      But that was impossible, and she knew it.

      With Dylan St. Croix, nothing was ever okay.

      “No, thanks,” she said, reaching for the door. “I don’t need you charging in and playing hero.” She’d learned the hard way that leaning on Dylan St. Croix was like leaning on a volcano ready to blow. And if she forgot, she had only to drive thirty minutes south of town, where two cold tombstones stood in silent reminder. “I can take care of myself.”

      Curling her fingers around the handle, she pulled.

      But the door didn’t budge.

      “This isn’t a game,” came Dylan’s dangerously quiet voice from behind her. He reached across the passenger’s seat and pulled her hand from the door. “And I’m sure as hell not doing this for fun.”

      “Then let me go.”

      “I can’t.”

      She turned to face him. Only inches separated them, making her painfully aware of the whiskers shadowing the uncompromising line of his mouth. “Yes, you can.”

      “Lance is dead, Bethany, and you’re just barely hanging on. Queen Cutthroat was ready to crucify you. What kind of man would I be if I just melted into the shadows?”

      The breath stalled in her throat. His words were soft, silky, but the warning rang clear. She sat there crowded against the seat, stunned, struggling to breathe without drawing the drugging scent of sandalwood and clove deep within her. Not only was he still holding her hand, but his body was pressed to hers, seemingly absorbing every heartbeat, every breath.

      “It’s a little late,” she said slowly, deliberately, “to pretend you care what anyone else thinks about you.”

      The light in his eyes went dark. “I’ll say it one more time.” He let go of her hand, but didn’t ease away. “I don’t do games. I don’t do hero. And I sure as hell don’t pretend. That was always your specialty.”

      The pain was swift and immediate, driving home the truth. Dylan St. Croix had a penchant for streaking into her life like a shooting star, big and blazing and beautiful, but he’d never really known her. Never understood her. Never loved her. He’d just wanted her. In his arms and in his bed, but not in his heart.

      “No,” she said, hoping he couldn’t hear the ragged edge to her breathing. “You just blaze along seeing how many applecarts you can knock over.”

      He didn’t retreat as she’d hoped, didn’t pull back to his side of the car. “Sometimes that’s the only way to separate the good fruit from the bad.”

      “And what am I?” she asked before she could stop herself.

      “It’s not for me to decide.”

      “Then why won’t you let me go?”

      His lips thinned. “I’ve already told you, Bethany, I’m not into standing on the sidelines and watching someone get raked over the coals. Not even you. I’m not that cold.”

      There was a rough edge to his voice, a hoarseness that hadn’t been there before. “I never thought you were cold.”

      “What about Lance?” he asked, leaning closer. “Did you think he was cold?”

      The urge to pull away engulfed her, but with her back against the locked door, she had nowhere to go. Instead, she reached for the blanket of numbness.

      “I don’t want to talk about Lance.”

      Dylan lifted a hand to her face, violating the space she’d put between them by skimming his index finger beneath her eyes. “You haven’t cried.”

      She swallowed against the tightness in her throat. No way would she tell him she was all cried out, that before that ill-fated night on the mountain, the last tear had spilled from her eyes the night before she married Lance, when she’d awoken with the remembered touch of Dylan’s hands on her body.

      “Crying doesn’t help, Dylan. Crying doesn’t change a damn thing.” She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting Dylan to see truths she couldn’t hide. Not even from herself.

      She realized her mistake too late. A woman should never close her eyes on Dylan St. Croix. Never turn her back to him. Never give him an advantage to press. Because he would.

      Dylan St. Croix never turned down the killing blow.

      Out of the darkness his mouth came down on hers, and just like that explosive, snowbound night in the cabin, the bottom fell out from her world.

      Chapter 3

      She could retreat from the world, build ice palaces where no one could touch her, hurt her, but by God, Dylan refused to let her slip away from him. Not again. Pretenses made him crazy. Lies destroyed.

      Sex, Dylan. It was just sex. Nothing more, nothing less.

      The words tore in from the past, dark. Tortured. After all this time, he still didn’t know if she’d spoken the truth when she’d told him she loved him, or when she’d told him she didn’t.

      And he knew if Bethany had her way, he never would.

      He felt her stiffen beneath his hands, his mouth, heard the sharp intake of breath. But she didn’t lift a hand to his face like she’d done that night in the mountains, didn’t sigh, didn’t open for him.

      Frustration twisted with something darker, something he’d tried to destroy, but that had lain dormant instead. He’d hoped to slice through the remote facade she wore like a tight-fitting bodysuit, to see if he could still reach her or if after that night she’d traveled so far away, sewn herself up so tightly, that she was beyond even his touch.

      He might as well have lifted a goblet of arsenic to his own mouth and drunk greedily.

      Bethany

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