“Erica?” His head finally tilted back from hers, and she thought he was releasing her. She offered a soft smile to the dark, anguished eyes above her.
His lips touched hers once, then deepened the kiss. For seconds, she was totally still. The shock seemed to stop the flow of blood in her veins. She understood that he only needed to hold someone for a moment, that he really didn’t mean anything by it. But it was not exactly that kind of a kiss. His mouth pressed harder, his hunger and urgency unmistakable, and when his hands started an exploration, so skilled, so knowing, so quickly finding the supple, smooth sides of her breasts…
She inserted her hands between them in a kind of helpless panic. Morgan pulled away immediately, stepping back from her. “You did take it wrong,” he accused her gently. “I’m sorry, Erica.”
“I…of course I didn’t,” she assured him breathlessly. There were twelve years of friendship between Kyle and Morgan… Of course she couldn’t make too much of the kiss. She could see the pulse throbbing in his throat; his breathing was strangely harsh, guttural. He had eyes as soft as midnight, full of apology, but somewhere within Erica, still, stirred that sense of seeing a predatory creature when she looked at him.
“I knew you’d understand,” he said as they made their way back to the car. Erica was shivering from the night chill and trying not to; she kept her pace brisk, afraid he would put his arm around her shoulder if she didn’t stop shivering. “For a long time now, I haven’t come just to see Kyle. It’s been because of you, Erica. You’re different from any woman I’ve ever been involved with. You listen, for one thing, and yet you never seem to judge. I’m not taking anything away from Kyle, darling. Surely you know I see you in a completely different way?”
He opened the door for her, and she slid in; a moment later, he was on the seat beside her. His words were sweet, and rationally perhaps she had understood for a long time that Morgan wanted something special from her in the way of friendship, apart from his friendship with Kyle. She was a woman who posed no threat to him, obviously. She’d never seen anything wrong with that, anything wrong with catering to his need, for that matter. But his embrace was something else. There was need and there was
“It works both ways, you know.” Morgan glanced at her with a smile that brought a handsome look to his features. “I’m ready to listen if you want a sympathetic ear, and I think you already know you can trust me.”
Erica shifted uncomfortably and managed a tentative smile for him in return. He wasn’t blind; she knew he was talking of her relationship with Kyle. “It’s Kyle who needs that ear of yours,” she temporized quietly.
“So you don’t want to talk? It’s all right, Erica. Just know that if there’s a time you need someone-for anything- I’m here. If I’m not in town, I expect you to call me. Will you do that?”
She nodded, but his eyes had returned to the road and he didn’t see the nod, so she said simply, “Yes, thank you.”
She would never call him. She could not have said why, when Morgan knew her and Kyle more intimately than anyone else. It even seemed a little crazy for a moment that she didn’t at least try to confide in him. Until a few minutes ago, she had believed Morgan cared for Kyle as a brother and for her as a sister, and that if any outsider could have helped with their marital problems it would be Morgan. For that matter, Morgan would surely understand her side better than anyone else would; hadn’t he just confessed to loving someone who hadn’t loved him in return?
But she knew she would never call, even heard the dismissive note in her voice as she thanked him. It was a closed subject, one she didn’t want brought up again. Evidently, Morgan heard the tone in her voice as well, for there was an odd sound to the gears as he careened around a corner and forced the Porsche to a burst of speed on a straightaway. They were almost home.
Chapter 10
A single lamp burned in the living room when Erica opened the front door. The clock over the refrigerator told her it was eleven; the movie had been over long before ten. She glanced around seeking Kyle, but the room was empty.
For a moment, she was grateful. Her hands were trembling as she hung up her raincoat, something she wouldn’t have wanted Kyle to see. It was stupid, really. Morgan had obviously never intended to make a pass, and the entire way home he had talked of nothing but friendship…
She wandered to the bathroom and picked up a brush. The wind had tousled her hair and turned her cheeks to coral, adding a sensual blush to her features. All she really noticed were her eyes, huge and topaz, and as skittish as those of a doe caught in a hunter’s spotlight. It was that damned lonely road. It wasn’t the embrace, but the unshakable feeling that Morgan had manipulated her onto that isolated country road.
Which was absolutely ridiculous.
Restlessly crossing her arms under her breasts, she paced the living room for a few minutes. She wanted Kyle. Her head seemed to have jammed into reverse, because she couldn’t seem to care that they had argued or that she was the one who had cut off communication; she just wanted to be with him. Her heart kept beating like a ticker tape, adrenaline pumped through her veins as if she had something to be afraid of when she knew she didn’t. She paused by the window and saw a single beacon of light from a window of the old shop.
Shivering in the damp night air, Erica nearly raced across the yard. Branches sent down a spattering of rain on her hair and cheeks, and the darkness offered a number of obstacles to stumble over. Breathlessly, she opened the door to the old shop and hurriedly made her way toward that beacon of light in the back. Ghosts were on her tail, the kind of ghosts she’d had when she was seven on a very black night, and no amount of mature self-scolding seemed to chase them away. The adrenaline pump refused to slow down until she was actually standing in the doorway looking at Kyle. As if someone had slipped her a shot of brandy, she miraculously relaxed.
Kyle was bending over the wood lathe, tiny specks of wood shooting into the air around him as he worked with a familiar tense concentration. For a moment, she leaned back against the door and simply watched, loving the look of the man. She could swear Kyle’s energy flowed into the material he worked with. A thick, short, ordinary plank was stuck on the lathe; under his fingers the shape gradually took on a purity and grace of line… The machine stopped abruptly. Kyle wiped his hands absently on his jeans, and though he couldn’t possibly have heard her, he suddenly whirled around. Those turquoise eyes she loved fastened hard on hers, wary, tense, a shock of dark hair curling onto his forehead.
“Kyle?” she started hesitantly. “If I’m interrupting you…”
He shook his head, wiping his hands with a rag. He was staring at her, taking in that slight breathlessness, that whiplash of sensual swirl to her hair, her shivering form without a coat. “I didn’t hear the car come in.”
She thought he must have. If not heard, then seen; the car lights would have shone directly in the shop’s windows above his head. “I went into the house, but when you weren’t there… If you’re in the middle of something-”
“I was in the middle of working off a hell of a lot of mental wars, sweet.” He took a breath and suddenly smiled at her, the brusque tension leaving his face. “Which I no longer seem to have, thanks to the look of you. Come on over here and check this out. In fact, you can finish it, if you want to…”
“You mean work with the lathe?” She’d never touched it before, always terrified she would destroy something he was working on.
“I know you’ve been curious. There’s no reason you can’t fool around with it any time you want to.”
“Of course there is. Look, Kyle, in the eighth grade, on the aptitude tests for mechanical ability, I scored in the third percentile.”
Chuckling, he nudged her in front of him, explaining the slow-turning wheels. His hands followed hers as she gradually began to understand the rhythm and motion of the machine, fascinated. “What is this perfectly beautiful thing we’re creating?” she asked whimsically.
He chuckled again. “One perfectly symmetrical, uniquely crafted-” his hand smoothed her hair back to get
