Straight From The Heart (7 page)

Kim didn’t answer, her own hopes dashed a little.

“And I thought I wanted to be alone,” he went on, “but now I don’t know. It’s nice having company”

“I don’t like the idea of being trapped with you.”

“Not even just a little?”

His audacity was just short of self-adulation. He was teasing her, but she didn’t want to be teased. She didn’t know what she wanted, and he made her feel off-balance and testy.

“Not even a smidgeon,” she lied.

His grin grew to Cheshire cat size. He saw right through her. Kim turned away. She had to get out of here soon, or she would lose her sanity. As much as she denied it, she felt the same lifting of that weight that he did.

“How was the shower? Still warm?” she asked hopefully.

“Bearable.”

“Ice cold, huh?”

“You’d be better off to heat more water on the fire and add it to the tub.”

“Maybe I’ll do that later,” she murmured, her mind already skipping ahead. She needed something to do. If she had to sit around here with nothing to think about but him, she really would go crazy.

When he got up from the love seat and went into the kitchen, she silently eyed his progress. She heard water running, then he returned with a huge tub which he arranged on the burning logs.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Kim sputtered. “Really. I’m okay.”

“Might as well heat it up,” he answered.

His ability to just take over bugged her. Everything bugged her. Striving for neutrality, she said, “My son thinks yours is about as cool as
it gets.”

That brought a half-smile to his too sexy lips. “Jason’s a pretty good kid.”

“Pretty good? Bobby would be offended that that’s all you could say about him. Jason is ‘The Best’ and ‘The Coolest.’ Everything is a superlative when it comes to your son.”

“He just got his driver’s license, and he thinks he’s ‘The Best’ and ‘The Coolest,’” Stephen said with affection. “All he wants to do these days is run to the grocery store, so that I don’t have to.”

Kim smiled. “How thoughtful of him.”

“Yeah, isn’t it, though? It couldn’t have anything to do with the car.” His expression grew sober. “Pauleen wants him to come live with her. She wants to send him to a private school.”

“Oh.” Kim tried to read his thoughts. “So, that’s what you’re going to do?”

“Over my dead body.”

She could feel the roil of emotions just below the surface of this conversation. She understood the tension. “Your divorce wasn’t so amicable, was it?”

He hesitated, his gaze narrowing on her face as if he were considering whether to trust her or not. Kim, who’d managed for months to make him out as some kind of monster who’d tried to steal her child from her, had picked up on the vibes of his own shredded marriage. Her lips parted; she wanted to say something, an apology perhaps? But Stephen’s gaze dropped to her lips and stayed there, searing in its intensity and driving whatever she’d planned to utter right out of her head.

“I don’t want to talk about my ex-wife,” he said flatly. “We stayed together for too long, for all the wrong reasons.”

“I understand. I don’t know why I stayed with Alan. I was just too afraid, I guess, you know, to make a change even though there was nothing there. Nothing left.” Kim heard herself babbling, but couldn’t stop. Stephen was watching her in that intense way that seemed to reach down inside and yank on her emotions. “I had to get out, and I finally did, and then I was alone and it was okay. Except for Bobby. Just the two of us, you know.”

“But then Alan sued for custody,” Stephen put in when Kim suddenly stopped.

That stopped her cold. She blinked several times, unable to speak. Stephen set down his coffee cup and came to stand over her chair. He squatted down, so close she was enveloped by the clean spicy scent of his soap and the heat of his skin. “I didn’t know he hit you,” he said softly. “Betsy told me after Robert took Alan’s case.”

“He didn’t really hit me. He pushed me,” she said quickly, still too mortified over the event to talk about it openly.

“Same difference. I
 . . .
met with Robert about Alan
 . . .
” Stephen admitted.

“Robert knew, and he still represented him?”

“Robert had a client whom he couldn’t really trust. He suggested Alan give up the idea of custody. He knew he’d lose. But Alan was hell-bent on going to court.”

“I hate hearing about it,” Kim said bitterly.

“Then let’s not talk about it anymore. But for the record, Alan Harden deserves to be strung up.” Stephen was deadly serious.

Kim gazed at him, her eyes burning with unformed tears. It wasn’t meant to be an invitation. It wasn’t meant to be anything. But her expression shimmered with gratitude, and Stephen, used to a woman who drank and belittled and trampled over emotions, couldn’t resist this trusting, sincere beauty. Before Kim could respond, she was surrounded by a pair of strong, sinewy arms, her face pressed against his muscular chest, her ears deafened by the thunder beat of his heart. Her mouth opened against his skin, a whispered “thank you” in her mind. But her tongue encountered warm skin and crisp whorls of chest hair, and her brain shut down completely.

He kissed her crown. His palm caressed her face. One hand slid down her back and pulled her upward until she slid from the chair against him, and they tumbled together to the pine heartwood floor, neither conscious of anything but the feel of the other.

For Kim, it was complete abandonment, something she’d never experienced before. She went with it, letting his hands discover her, letting her own wanton fingers travel over him, pulling him tight. One moment they were talking, the next they were writhing in each other’s arms, the transition so quick that conscious thought simply couldn’t catch up.

His mouth found hers. Kim’s lips parted wantonly. His tongue discovered the warmth inside, stabbing delicately until small mewing sounds that would later bring a hot flush to her cheeks issued from inside her. Her fingers moved down the firm muscles of his back, reveling in the taut feel of sinewy flesh. The weight of his body was deliciously hard against her, and though her experience with men was limited, she reacted as if she were a slave to desire.

Their kissing grew in intensity until Kim was breathless with aching need. She wanted to be totally possessed. She wanted to block out the world and wallow in sensation. And she wanted Stephen Wright.

His hand traveled down the small of her back and over her hips. She was conscious of his heat and hardness and quickness of breath.

And then fingers slid beneath her shirt and tugged upward, and his hand covered her breast, massaging through her bra. Melting with weakness, she would have given in right then and there if a spark from the fire hadn’t popped out, live and hot, landing on Stephen’s arm.

He jerked reflexively, laughed, brushed it aside. “Damn,” he muttered, gently pushing Kim aside as he got to his feet and kicked the glowing ember back toward the hearth. Kim watched through desire-drugged eyes, but when he turned back to her, reason had returned.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered again, pulling her knees up to her chin. Stephen stretched out beside her, an open invitation.

“Why not?”

“I’ve never been with anyone but Alan.”

“Good grief, Kim. It’s high time you started living.”

She looked at him squarely. At his sexy mouth and cool green eyes and burnished muscles. “By having an affair?”

“Starting a relationship,” he amended. “I’ve been attracted to you since the moment we met,” he added softly.

She wasn’t secure enough to admit she’d felt the same way. “I don’t want to do something I’ll regret.”

“How do you know you’ll regret it?”

“Oh, believe me, I know.” Her lips twisted as her mind spun ahead to various scenarios: Stephen, telling her how wonderful she was in one breath, breaking off their relationship with another; Stephen slowly stopping calling her; Stephen, another lovely beauty on his arm, catching sight of Kim and making a point to just say hello. Men like Stephen Wright married women like Pauleen, whether they were compatible or not, but they chose unsophisticated women like Kimberly Harden for “nice” affairs.

“What’s going on in your head?” he asked, reaching forward to twist a thick strand of her blond hair around his finger.

“I don’t want to be a number.”

“A number?”

“Yeah
 . . .
just a number.”

His brow furrowed. He pulled her closer, and Kim was unable to resist. She watched his lips target hers until they were just a whisper away. Then his breath caught. “You mean a notch on a bedpost?” he asked, his voice revealing his displeasure.

Kim didn’t answer. He pulled back, waiting. She could see she’d irked him. “We live in the same town.”

“So, first I’m the evil attorney that tried to take your son, and now I’m the heartless love-’em-and-leave-’em sex fiend?”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“The hell it isn’t!” he growled.

“Okay, it is what I meant,” Kim answered recklessly. “I don’t want any of this.”

“Fine. Neither do I, anymore.” He jumped to his feet.

Kim, disconcerted, did the same. “I’m
 . . .
I’m
 . . .
” She tried to apologize and couldn’t find the words. He didn’t bother to turn around anyway, just strode furiously toward the bedroom.
Her
bedroom.

Blast the man! Somehow this was his fault. “I’m leaving,” she tossed out, following after him to make certain he heard her.

She practically slammed into him just inside the bedroom door. He was pulling a shirt over his head.

“The roads are closed,” he bit back, as if she were a complete moron.

“Maybe they’re open now. How do we know? We’re cut off from communication.”

“I wouldn’t count on the roads being passable until electricity’s restored.”

“Well, how do you know?”

“Educated guess,” he told her flatly.

It didn’t help that the jade green of his casual shirt made his eyes all the more sensual and mysterious. She tried to concentrate on his rock-hard jaw instead, and the anger that made it that way.

Just to be contrary, or because she was a glutton for punishment, Kim didn’t know which, she said breezily, “I think I’ll check it out for myself.”

“If you get stuck, don’t expect me to come after you.”

“I won’t!”

With that she sailed past him into the bedroom, threw her gear into her bag, and headed for the door. Stephen was once again standing in front of the fire when she reappeared. As she hauled her suitcase from the room he shook his head at her as if she were a naughty girl.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” he started, but that just ticked Kim off.

“Somebody has to do something,” she snapped, “and it might as well be me.”

“Then, I’m going with you.”

“I’m not helpless!”

“You’re just stubborn, then?”

She glared at him. Now, he was really irritating her. “If I wanted your help, I’d ask for it.”

“I’m coming with you,” he stated in that masculine way sure to infuriate any woman.

Since arguing with him wasn’t working, Kim simply hitched up her suitcase and headed into the rainy morning. She slogged toward her car. Stephen made one aborted attempt to take her bag from her, but when she held on with a death grip he gave up. They reached the car together, and Kim unlocked the door. By the time she managed to stow her suitcase in the backseat and had struggled behind the wheel, she was thoroughly soaked and out of breath. Apart from rain dampening his hair and shoulders, Stephen Wright looked cool, calm, and capable.