Scott grabbed her shoulders and for one heart-leaping, stomach-dropping moment she thought he was going tokiss her. The air between them seemed to crackle with fire.
His fingers dug into her arms, and he lifted her ever so slightly closer. Every muscle in his body was taut and he seemed pulled as tight as a bow, radiating a raw primal energy that made her knees weak and turned her insides to liquid. His angry, lust-filled eyes dropped to her mouth.
Natalie’s heart pounded, and her lips parted with a soft gasp of anticipation.
The sound seemed to startle him. Remind him. He let out a sharp curse, and instead of taking her in his arms, he set her harshly away from him.
She could practically see the blood pounding through his body. He was furious. The taut clench of his jaw made all the more ominous by the ticcing muscle below.
“Pretty damned ironic, don’t you think, with all the lies that were between us?”
He was right, and just like that Natalie felt the anger that had been lit by his suggestion that the baby wasn’t his die as quickly as it had caught fire.
She was left feeling embarrassed—maybe even ashamed—for taunting him. But he’d provoked her, damn it.
Still, the femme fatale thing wasn’t her, and she’d never played the seductress before with anyone. All she’d probably succeeded in doing was reinforcing every horrible thought he had about her.
“You’re right,” she said. “And maybe I deserve that. You have a right to be angry. But I’m not going to let you beat me up forever. I hate what I did to you, but whether you agree or not, I didn’t think I had any choice. You don’t have any idea what it is like to have someone controlling every facet of your life—how could you?Lookat you! Well, I’m not six feet three of solid muscle with good looks, wealth, and connections, nor am I a highlytrained SEAL officer with the weight of the US military behind me. I didn’t think I had anyone I could turn to and protect my family at the same time. I did the best I could with the horrible choices I had. I did everything in my power not to hurt you or put you at risk. Ilovedyou, Scott, whether you want to believe it or not.”
They stared at each other for a long moment. He didn’t say anything. Whether her words had penetrated, she didn’t know. As always his expression revealed none of his thoughts.
But enough had been said for tonight. Without another word, Natalie moved around him and headed upstairs to bed.
Eleven
Scott woke to the sound of a shattering crash above him. He jumped from the couch, grabbed the Glock 19 that he’d stashed under the cushion, and raced up the stairs, taking them two or three at a time.
Had someone broken in? Had she fallen? All kinds of horrible scenarios raced through his mind in the space of a few seconds. His adrenaline had shot from zero to a hundred. But it was the pounding in his heart that he didn’t want to think about.
“Jesus, Nat, are you o—”
He stopped midsentence and lowered the gun. The panic—for that was what he had to acknowledge it was—came crashing down. She was fine. She was bent over in the hallway picking up the small metal stepladder that he’d noticed the other night.
She glanced over at him with an apologetic wince that included a gnawing of her lower lip. A very lush, very red lower lip that was sexy as hell and made him think of all kinds of really inappropriate things. Things that wouldn’t have been inappropriate a few short months ago. Things that she’d been really good at.
Shit, blood rush.
“Sorry,” she said. “I was trying not to wake you. But I put the ladder down to lean it against the wall while I opened the window and it fell.”
Scott nodded and started to tuck the pistol into the back waistband of his shorts but realized at the same time she did—if the widening of her eyes and pink flush on her cheeks meant anything—that he wasn’t wearing his shorts. Or a shirt for that matter. Only his boxer briefs, which were tight and had space for just one gun.
A gun that was going to be primed and ready to shoot if she didn’t stop looking at him like that.
The way she’d looked at his body had always turned him on. She’d never hidden the appreciation she had for the results—in this case benefits—of his constant physical training, especially when it came to his arms and abs. She used to lie in bed curled against his chest and trace the bands of stomach muscle with her fingers, counting. Not all guys could get an eight-pack, but she’d been fascinated by his.
Fortunately, his body didn’t have time to betray him. The look in her eyes changed. She gasped and stood upright, her eyes pinned to his shoulder. “What happened?”
He glanced down, seeing the bandage stained with the now-dried blood from where the wound had opened yesterday. He’d forgotten about it and hadn’t cleaned it up.
“Nothing.”
She glanced up, mouth flat and eyes narrowed. “That isn’t nothing.” She marched over to him, closing the distance in a handful of steps. “Tell me what happened.”
“I took a bullet—”
“My God, you were shot!” Her eyes widened again and worse, she put her hands on him. One on his bare chest and the other on his arm near the bandage—which was two hands too many. His reaction was instantaneous.Every nerve ending flared and blood rushed to all corners of his body—including key extremities. “Why didn’t you say anything?” The obvious distress in her voice made his chest feel too tight. “Let me see it....”
He grabbed the hand by the wrist that started to move toward the bandage. Not because he didn’t want her to see the wound but because the feel of her hands on him was leaving very little to the imagination. “It’s fine. I just need to change the bandage.”
