Even now the effects of being so close to him in the car were making themselves felt. The unwelcome prickle of awareness that sent a buzz of warmth along her skin and a pulse quickening through her heart. One gasp of air and she could breathe him in. The spicy masculine scent that had been as familiar to her as her own perfume. She could almost taste the mint of his toothpaste. Feel the grit of his stubble on her skin as he kissed her.Ravishedher like some marauding medieval knight.
That was him: medieval. Dangerous, merciless, and utterly unforgiving. Maybe a little primitive in his emotions, but also sexy as hell in a fiercely masculine way.
Humiliated, she wanted to turn away. But she couldn’t.Because in that moment of awareness, she could see that he felt it, too. That the draw was just as powerful and overwhelming for him. It had always been like that between them—passion that was every bit as fierce, explosive, and dangerous as he was, coming out of nowhere to hit her with the force of a... hurricane.
She could also see that he didn’t like it any better than she did.
But he was going to act on it.
His hand slipped around to grip the back of her neck and pull her toward him. Every hair prickled, and she shuddered at the rough but achingly familiar feel of his workingman hand on her skin. How could she remember after so long? How could her body flood and pulse with yearning with one touch?
Three years of hatred—of telling herself she was over him—dissolved in an instant.
But only for an instant. When his mouth dipped to hers, when he was only seconds away from touching his lips to hers, the memories returned. The pain of heartbreak. The feeling that she would never know another moment of happiness. The deep depression of losing a child, nearly dying, and having the man she’d given her heart to turn to her not with compassion and love but with cruelty and abandonment.
She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t let Hurricane Colt back into her life.
“No!” She put her hand on his chest and pushed him— or herself—away. “I’m engaged to someone else, for God’s sake!”
She didn’t know whether she was reminding him or herself. She hadn’t thought of Percy until that moment. It was self-preservation and not her fiancé that had kept her from falling into her ex-husband’s arms again.
What that said, she didn’t want to think about right now.
He smirked as if the rejection didn’t mean anything to him—which it probably didn’t. She wasn’t fool enough to think this was about anything other than physical attraction for him. He saw opportunity and homed in for the kill. Just like any predator.
But he wouldn’t just let it go. “Still like slumming it, eh, Kiki?”
The nickname was like a jolt of pain applied directly under her skin. She hated that he would use it now—like this. When he was being cruel, not holding her in his arms as if he would love her forever.
“Not anymore,” she said softly. “I outgrew mean and ugly.” She looked back up into those razor-sharp eyes that could be so blind. “Right after you left me in the hospital to mourn the death of our daughter alone.”
He barely flinched. But she could see the tiny lines of witness around his mouth as his jaw tensed. “How do you know it was a girl? You were only a few months pregnant.”
She hadn’t meant to say “daughter.” She didn’t owe him the explanation that he’d never asked for. He’d just assumed the worst and reacted in his scorched-earth way, which left no room for mistakes or regrets.
She looked away, staring out the car window at the circular flagstone driveway of Blairhaven. She wanted to lie, knowing it would be easier. But maybe her ex-husband deserved to suffer a few pangs of regret. “I was almost five months pregnant.”
When his eyes flickered, she knew he’d done the math. Scott had been in Hawaii during that time, and Colt had been with her in DC.
He might have paled a little. It was hard to tell in the car. “The nurse said you were only a few months along.”
“I have no idea what the nurse said, but if you had asked me or the doctor rather than storming in there, threatening to kill Scott, you would have seen that I was in mynineteenth week.” She already regretted saying anything. She didn’t want to talk about this now. Ever. “Can we go now?”
“God, Kate... I...”
The buzz of her cellphone cut off whatever he was going to say. She reached down to pull it out of her bag. Seeing the “unknown caller” on the screen, she felt a wave of relief.
Not only did she want to talk to him, but Scott’s was exactly the calming voice she needed to hear right now. She opened the car door and got out as she answered, closing it behind her to prevent Colt from overhearing anything.
But she wasn’t outside for long. The call was short and sweet.
“I’m here,” Scott said. “How soon can I see you?”
He was here? Kate’s excitement to see him in person was only tempered by the information she would have to impart. “Give me an hour. Tell me where you are.”
Thankfully, Colt didn’t argue when she got back in the car and told him that something had come up at work and she needed to get to Langley. He tried to bring up her pregnancy again, but she cut him off. “What does it matter, Colt? It’s dead and buried.”
Just like the child he’d never wanted.
