Silver Falls - Anne Stuart [81]
“That’s why you can’t afford to let them get away, just because the time isn’t right or she’s married to the wrong person. Whether it makes sense or not, whether the timing’s right or screwed all to hell, you have to grab what feels right when you can, or the chance might not come around again.”
“You’re a liar.”
“I am,” he said. “About a whole lot of things. But not about this.”
She didn’t move. If she had half a brain she’d get off the bed, fast, before he could stop her. She’d try for the door, and if he didn’t let her out she could always sit in the one straight-back chair the room boasted. Or she could sit cross-legged in a corner, as far away from him as possible.
If she had half a brain. “I’m your brother’s wife,” she said.
“You’re married to a man who kills women for pleasure. Do you think you owe him anything?”
“I don’t have any proof.”
“You don’t need proof,” he said, sitting up and swinging his legs over the side of the bed. “You know it, deep inside. He’s a sick fuck and you know it—you’ve just been afraid to look at things clearly.”
“So I’m ready now. Take me home, I’ll get Sophie and I’ll get out of town.”
“It’s too late for that. He’ll follow you. You’re safer here, where I can look out for you.” He got off the bed, moving over toward the door. He’d hooked it with the chain when they’d first come in, but now he unfastened it. “There you go. If you want to risk it, want to go back to him, then I won’t argue. Just keep Sophie away from him. You don’t have the right to risk your daughter’s life because you’re being stubborn.”
“All right.” She got off the bed and headed for the door. He didn’t move out of the way.
“I’m going back home,” she said. Because she had to. If she stayed she was going to do something really stupid, something she hadn’t done in years. She was going to sleep with the wrong man simply because she couldn’t help herself.
Hell, maybe she’d never given in to this kind of overwhelming temptation. She couldn’t even remember feeling this way. She had an iron will, and she wasn’t easily swayed. Keeping Sophie safe had precluded romantic entanglements—she didn’t want her daughter to have a series of “uncles,” never knowing who she could trust, which one was a constant.
And now, suddenly, as the worst possible time in the world, she was ready to throw everything to the wind just to have him touch her again.
She was crazy, but not that crazy. “Open the door,” she said.
He didn’t move. “You can’t go back to him. He’s too dangerous.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong. He has no reason to want to hurt me—I’m not in any particular danger. I’ll keep Sophie away until I find out the truth of what’s going on. You’re right—I can’t risk her. But he’s not going to hurt me.”
He didn’t move, looking at her out of narrowed eyes. “He knows you’re attracted to me. Don’t you think he’ll see that as the ultimate betrayal?”
“No. Because I haven’t done anything about it.”
He moved then, turning his back to her, and she expected him to unlock the door. Instead he slid the chain back in place. “Then I guess we’re going to have to do something about it.”
She felt a fluttery little leap inside. “What do you mean by that?”
He leaned back against the door, reaching out and threading his long fingers through her curly hair, cradling her skull, pulling her closer. “I mean you won’t go back to him if you’ve cheated on him. Which means you’re going to cheat on him. Right now.”
“I’m not—” His mouth silenced her. It was a full kiss, hot and hungry. When he’d kissed her before he’d been holding back—not this time. Her body slid up tight against his, and there was no chance of her not kissing him back.
He could kiss like a devil, or maybe a saint. No one had ever kissed her like that, with such single-minded dedication and intensity, and she wanted to dissolve into the kiss, just drift away on a tide of sensuality. Her eyes closed, and she felt his hands on her shirt, unfastening the buttons.
Her eyes shot open. “No.”
“Yes,” he said, pulling her shirt free from her jeans,