“No.”
Well, that was short and direct.
She looked him square in the eyes. “How much do you plan to tell me off the record?” The man had something on his mind. That was certain.
He dropped his coat onto the chair next to the seriously lacking excuse for a minibar. “Everything.”
Surprised, she took a step in his direction. “You’re going to break the rules?”
“Yeah.”
“Is there some reason you feel compelled to do that?” She took another step; her pulse reacted to his nearness, to merely looking at him. Those broad shoulders. Lean hips. Long legs. And that face.
His shadowed jaw only made him sexier.
Hadn’t she decided that being involved with him was breaking her own number one rule?
“I don’t want to talk about it right now.” He claimed the final step between them. “I want to talk about you.” He hitched his head toward the door. “I’ve been standing out there all this time thinking about you. And what I wanted to say to you.” Sympathy flickered in his eyes. “I’m sorry about ... today.”
Oh, hell no. She didn’t want or need his sympathy. “You’re sorry?” Anger scaled her senses. “Why should you be sorry? Lex is an asshole; my past is what it is. None of that has anything to do with you.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” She planted her hands on her hips. Her personal life was none of his business. If he wanted to give her information or to have sex, fine. Otherwise, he could go.
He stared at the floor a moment, then met her eyes, his filled with more of that misplaced concern. “About what happened when you were a kid.” He exhaled a troubled breath. “Your mom. That had to be tough.”
“My mother chopped up and buried seven victims. Then she ground my father into sausage. She was nuts. They put her away. End of story.” Tension throbbed in Sarah’s veins. She never discussed her past with anyone but her shrink. This was unnecessary. A waste of time and energy.
“And you were there . . . ?”
If Conner just wouldn’t look at her that way. Maybe she could deal with this. Get past it. But those eyes ... damn those eyes. “I was there. I heard the screams, the voices. Sometimes I stumbled over body parts. Just another night in the butcher shop.”
The memories rammed against her defenses. She closed her eyes, forced them back. Still they came. She’d been terrified of the basement under the butcher shop. Blood-soaked earth. All those bones. All the rotting personal items.
Stop.
She opened her eyes and stared at the man watching her with such overwhelming compassion in those dark eyes. “I got over it.”
Silence thickened in the air.
“Did you?”
Her stomach clenched. His voice ... the way he kept looking at her ... made her want to let him hold her. To protect her. No one made her feel that way. No one. She had to get this under control. Now.
“Enough about the past, Conner.” She folded her arms over her chest, banished those weak emotions. “Brief me on the case or get in my bed, those are your options.”
The heat that flared in his eyes matched the fire that roared inside her. Disrupted her ability to breathe. Even as she ordered herself to pull it together.
“Sarah.” He lifted his hand, touched her cheek with such tenderness that the urge to cry welled.
She drew away, startled at the unexpected emotion. “Don’t even think about it. I don’t need your sympathy.”
Those eyes ... those damned dark, dark eyes. Like the night ... like a place she could fall ... and just keep falling. “Why won’t you trust me?” he urged. “Let me hold you the way I want to. The way I know you need me to.”
“I see.” Don’t give in. Be strong. “You’re going to make my ugly past all right, is that it?” No way. As if to defy her, her chest tightened. Her entire body yearned to lean into him. “I think maybe you’d better pay attention to your own screwed-up existence before you start trying to repair mine.”
“Don’t try to change the subject. Running away from your problems isn’t the answer,” he argued quietly. “You can’t hide in places like this, on cases like this.”
