Jill Shalvis - The Harder They Fall

“No,” she said flatly, shaking her head.

“You were,” he insisted. “You said -”

“Please. I’m fine now.”

“But -”

Again she shook her head, violently this time. Her hair flew, a strand clung to his slightly stubbled face. With a hand that trembled, she reached up and brushed it away. “Hunter.”

The way she said his name made him want to groan, want to bend and take her mouth with his, then take the rest of her as well. He could still feel the warmness of her touch on his face, and he wanted more.

“Why are you here?” she whispered.

“The smoke detector went off, and I just reacted, thinking there was a fire. I knocked – pounded – on the door, calling your name, but you sleep like the dead. And dammit, your door wasn’t locked. You’ve got to lock it, Trisha.”

“Fire,” she said, moistening her lips, her eyes never leaving his face. “I remember you saying something about fire.”

“I think the smoke from your doused candles in the bathroom set off the alarm.”

“I’m sorry it woke you.”

“Why didn’t it wake you?”

She stared at him for a minute, then flushed. “I don’t know.”

“I do,” he said quietly. “How often do you down an entire bottle of wine like that?”

“I didn’t -”

“You could have drowned in that tub,” he said swiftly, realizing just how angry he was. Dammit, didn’t she care about herself at all? Still leaning close, he took her shoulders in his hands. “And I would have found you dead.”

“No, I -”

Lifting her clear off her pillows, he pulled her upright, stared deep into her troubled, dark eyes. “Drinking is not the answer, Trisha.”

“Dammit,” she gasped, fisting her hands against him. “I know that.” Her incredibly expressive eyes filled with tears. “My parents drank themselves to death. Do you really think I could do the same?”

For a minute he just stared at her. When he let her go, she sank back against her pillows. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t.” She laid her arm over her eyes. “You don’t know much about me except that I drive you crazy, I play my radio too loud, and I won’t move out of your house.”

“And you rearranged my bumper.”

Her lips twitched, but when she lowered her arm to look at him, her eyes remained suspiciously bright. “That too.”

Guilt twisted at him, so did something much more potent, something he couldn’t name. “Trisha -”

“No,” she said quickly, propping herself against her headboard. “Don’t say anything else. I want you to go now.”

He’d judged her, quickly and harshly. But it didn’t erase his worry for her. “Are you all right?”

“For a drunkard, you mean?” Her smile seemed forced. “Of course. How much trouble can I get into in the middle of the night?” At his raised brow, she rolled her eyes. “You’d better forget that question. Just go. Please.”

He started to object, but what right did he have? Reluctantly, he rose, walked to the door.

“Hunter?”

“Yes?” In the dark room, he turned back to her.

“Did you race up here to rescue me, or your house?”

“You,” he said without hesitation.

The light in the hallway highlighted the features of her face and he caught her small smile. “You even look like a hero, standing there like that, half-dressed.” Her voice went husky. “You didn’t put on shoes… or a shirt.”

He felt more than saw her gaze run over the length of him, and his body responded so quickly, he felt dizzy. “I was afraid for you.”

Some of the tension left her. “It’s nice to know that. I’m sorry I woke you.”

He nodded, turned to go, needing to get out.

“I didn’t drink that whole bottle of wine,” she whispered as he stepped out of the room.

Unquestioningly believing her, he closed his eyes and went still. Self-disgust filled him.

“The rest spilled in the tub,” she explained quietly. “It’s why I got out – well…” she added wryly, “that and the fact that since I hadn’t eaten, and I never drink, it went straight to my head.”

Why did being wrong have to hurt so badly? he wondered. And why did it have to be so hard to apologize? Or was it just this woman, and the fact that he had to work so hard to resist her?

“Are you ever going to try again, Hunter?” she ventured quietly. “Try again to trust a woman?”

“No.” But he moved back into her room, again coming close to her bed. “I judged you,” he said softly. “And it was wrong. I’m very sorry, Trisha.”

Lifting a shoulder, she shrugged lightly, as if to say, Don’t worry about it. You do it all the time.

It made him feel sick.

She was used to being harshly judged, and from the snippet of the dream he’d heard, he knew that went back several years. His heart twisted. No one deserved that, least of all this woman who wouldn’t purposely harm a fly. “It matters,” he said in a low voice. “It matters a lot, and I won’t do it again.”

“That’s some promise.”

She doubted his ability to keep it, and he couldn’t blame her. “I mean it.”

“Nothing’s changed, Hunter. I’m still going to annoy you at every turn.”

“You don’t.”

“Don’t lie. Please, don’t lie.”

“You don’t,” he insisted, not surprised to find that he spoke the utter truth. “What annoys me is the way I react to you, when I don’t want to. And it’s not a matter of trusting you, Trisha. I just don’t like to lose control, and I always seem to around you.” There, he’d said it. He’d been brutally honest, as was his custom. Even though he knew, despite their assertions of the contrary, that women didn’t really want honesty.

But he kept forgetting that Trisha Malloy was unlike any other woman he’d ever met.

“You resist it too much,” she said. “Why can’t you just go with it?”

Because it would terrify him. All his life he’d failed in relationships. This time would be no different. He could provide well, as in the case of his family, but he didn’t seem to have much else that interested a woman for long. “Because there’s no point.”

Though he couldn’t see her exact expression, he sensed her immediate withdrawal. “Of course there’s not,” she said softly. “Because there could never be a future with a woman like me. Not for a man like you. Is that it, Dr. Adams?”

“No, that’s not it.” His hands fisted at his sides as he dropped his head between his shoulders and studied his bare feet. He didn’t understand what Trisha did to him, why she affected him so.

Women were like his projects – they came into his life for a short period of time, he enjoyed them, they left his life. On to the next project. Rarely did he look back. He’d certainly never gone back.

An uneasy feeling stirred inside him. Trisha was different, startlingly so. She didn’t seem to fit into any area of his neat, meticulously planned life. In fact, she regularly destroyed any sort of structure he had, sometimes with just a look.

As she was doing now.

Even in the dark, he could sense her swirling emotions. And he knew with every fiber of his being, she wanted him to kiss her into oblivion again, every bit as badly as he wanted to. But he couldn’t, not yet. “It has nothing to do with who you are, or what you do, Trisha.”

“Then what is it?”

“It’s me,” he admitted tightly. “It’s the man I am, it’s what I do.”

“That makes no sense,” she said, twisting her hands in the sheet and pulling it up to her chin. “What’s so wrong with the man you are that you can’t let yourself enjoy a…”

She trailed off and he smiled grimly. “Enjoy a what? What exactly is this between us?”

Mute, she stared at him.

“See?” he pressed, giving in to the urge to be close and sinking to her bed to sit at her hip. “Even you know better.” He reached for her hands. “This thing between us has a life of its own.”

It’s uncontrollable, Trisha thought. And it scares us equally. Me, because eventually he’ll walk away, and him, because he’s afraid he won’t be able to.

But she wanted him, had to have him. And she knew how badly he wanted her. Dressed as he was, in just lightweight sweatpants and nothing else, there was little he could hide from her. He was magnificent, she thought, with his vital and able body so nearly bare for her to see. It made her ache, the rippled strength, the easy, graceful way of moving he had. The hard planes of his chest, the flat belly, his long, powerful legs, the unmistakable and impressive hardness between them. Desire slammed into her just from looking at him.

He made her feel needy and strong at the same time, and she’d never in her life felt that way. Nor had she ever wanted anyone quite as desperately as she wanted him.

Well, she’d just have to make sure she didn’t restrain him in any way, make sure he felt he could just turn it off at any time. Though it would hurt, it was the only way to play this, or she’d lose him. “Haven’t you ever had an affair before, Hunter?”

He looked startled. “I – uh…”

With a little laugh, she squeezed his hands. “It’s a simple question. Yes or no?”

“Yes,” he said through his teeth.

“Then what’s the problem? Are you telling me you analyzed each one so carefully beforehand? Worried and fretted about its demise before it even got started?”

“Yes.” But his lips curved. “See? We’re too different.” His eyes deepened, darkened, and he leaned closer. “Send me away, Trisha.”

“No,” she whispered, pulling her hands from his and wrapping her arms around his neck. “No,” she said again. “Not tonight.” And she kissed him.

At the first contact of her lips on his, Hunter’s entire body stiffened with shock. She took her mouth away, trailed it over his clenched jaw. “Just go with it, Hunter,” she murmured throatily. “Let it take us.”

“For how long?” he demanded softly as his hands came up to hold her upper arms.

“Do you need a game plan?” But she sighed when he remained silent. “Of course you do. Fine,” she whispered, fighting his resistance and pressing her face into his neck to inhale his delicious male scent. “For tonight, then. Just tonight.”

“Just tonight?”

No. “Yes.” Then she held her breath, waiting. God, it would kill her in the morning, to let him go. But for all his careful plans and strategies, he was like a wild bird who couldn’t, wouldn’t, allow himself to be contained. To try to hold him would end this before they’d even started, and she had no intention of letting that happen. Not when she was this close.

Give him his freedom, she thought desperately, and he won’t run away. He wouldn’t be able to, she assured herself, because he felt this pull between them every bit as strongly as she did. “Just for tonight, Hunter. Please…” Her lips moved over his face. With her teeth, she gently pulled on his ear.

He groaned, then gently eased her back, following her down, down, down on the bed. “We shouldn’t.”

“Yes, we should,” she gasped as he let the full length of his body slide against hers.

Sinking his fingers into her hair, he stared into her eyes as if unsure what to do next.

“Kiss me, Hunter,” she whispered, arching up to him just to feel his body tighten against hers. “Just start there and see what happens.”

She didn’t know what she had expected, a slightly fumbling, unsure kiss… an awkwardness… ineptness.

She got none of those things.

Warm and tender and erotic, Hunter’s masterful lips seduced hers, kissing her with a promise of things to come, giving without reserve, in a way she was beginning to anticipate. Giving in to the impulse, she ran her hands over him, reveling in the deep, needy sound he let out.

Dragging his mouth from hers, he kissed a trail down her throat, buried his face in her neck. “Mmmm.” Warm, wet openmouthed kisses were planted in the curve of her neck, over her shoulder. “God, you smell good.”

She clutched at him, helpless to do much else as passion and desire raced through her. Her blood pounded in her veins, roared through her heart as the anticipation and hope built to an almost unbearable level.

His hands slid around her waist, so gently she melted against him. Again, his mouth captured hers, in a sweet, searing kiss that quickly escalated until they both panted breathlessly, their hands grappling as they blindly reached out to touch.

Hunter lifted his head, pierced her with eyes so painfully green she felt she could see all the way to his soul. “I don’t want you to regret this,” he said, his voice gravelly.

“I won’t.”

“Trisha -”

“I’m a big girl, Hunter, capable of knowing what’s right for me. And this is it.” But he didn’t kiss her again. Desperate, she pulled at him, but he resisted. Something wild pummeled her suddenly, a fear so great it stole her breath. He was going to leave her, just stand up and go when she needed him so fiercely she ached with it.