Flashback

more than her next breath, and she wanted him to suffer for it.

Around them the steam started to rise, but instead of declaring his undying lust for her, he turned and walked back into his bedroom, vanishing from view.

Kenzie let out a breath. Weary, tired of her own smoky stench, she removed her splint and reached for the tie on her hospital gowns, then went still in surprise when Aidan reappeared.

His broad shoulders filling the doorway, his dark eyes met hers as he held out two folded towels. “You still like to use two?”

She blinked as he set them on the counter by the sink. “Yeah.” She cleared her throat. “Thanks.”

Jaw a little tight, he nodded, and very carefully didn’t come any closer.

Huh. He didn’t look that amused now. He looked, dared she think it, a little… hot.

Interesting.

He was going to give her some privacy. Privacy that, shock of all shocks, she didn’t actually want. But there he went, turning away again.

“I’ll be in the other room if you need anything,” he said. “Just call for me.”

Wow. He was being considerate, sweet and sensitive, none of the traits she would have associated with him. “You know, this would probably be a lot easier on me if you could continue to be the asshole that you once were.”

“Yeah, there’s a problem with that.”

“Which is?”

“I’m not the same guy I was then.”

She opened her mouth, not sure what she planned on saying, but it didn’t matter because he walked away, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Kenzie stared at the closed door before stripping and then getting into the shower. Once there, she hissed when the water hit her various cuts but she stood beneath the spray anyway, for a very long time, before finally soaping up. It took five shampoos to get out the smoke smell and even then she wasn’t sure she managed completely. By the time the hot water was gone, her skin was wrinkled like a prune and she smelled like Aidan. It was ridiculous but she kept lifting her arm to her nose so she could inhale the scent of him.

When she’d wrapped herself up in the towels, one on her head, one around her body, she opened the bathroom door and found Aidan sitting on the bed, his legs spread, his hands clasped between them, his face pensive. “Better?” he asked, looking for himself.

“Almost human.”

A brief smile curved his lips as he held out bandages and antiseptic cream for her injuries. “I was wondering if you planned on drowning yourself in there.”

“I’m angry and frustrated and devastated, but not stupid.”

He let out a slow nod, his gaze dropping from her face to her body, studying the towel covering her from just beneath her armpits to mid-thigh. She was gratified to see an absolute lack of humor now.

Slowly he stood up, and something surged within her. Lust, which she beat back. Triumph, which she let take over. Want me… Yeah, that worked for her, him wanting her. Because when he admitted that out loud, she was going to lift her chin, flat-out reject him and maybe feel just the tiniest bit better.

She hoped. God, she hoped. Because something had to ease this knot in her chest. Knot, hell. It was a ball, a huge ball, and it was suffocating her. If she gave too much thought to it, it swelled even bigger and threatened to overcome her.

Then he walked toward her, and she shivered in anticipation because here it came, the him wanting her portion of the evening.

But he simply held out her cell phone. “It went off again when you were in the shower. Local cell number.”

“Oh.” She flipped it open and looked at it, having no idea who would be calling her locally. Blake had been her last tie to Santa Rey. In any case, whoever it was hadn’t left a message so she set the phone down.

Aidan strode right past her, going to his dresser.

Okay, she could work with this. Maybe he was going for a condom. Which of course he wasn’t going to need-

He held up a shirt. “You still like to sleep in just a T-shirt?”

She stared at the shirt in his hand, at the hand that had once been able to make her purr. She lifted her head, met his gaze, and smiled.

He gave her a little smile in return, and it was all the more sexy because it was a little baffled, a little bowled over, as if he was surprised, pleasantly so, to find her finally smiling at him.

But she wanted more than that. Needed more than that, and she thought maybe she knew what to do.

If she dared…

But she’d always been bold, especially in front of a camera. And if she closed her eyes, she could be bold here as well.

Doing just that, she then reached up, pulling out the end of the towel from between her breasts, and let the thing drop.

It hit the floor with a soft thud.

Naked as a jay bird, she opened her eyes.

Aidan, unflappable, cool, calm as the eye-of-a-storm Aidan, had gone still as stone, his only movement his Adam’s apple when he swallowed hard.

She held out a hand for the proffered T-shirt.

He didn’t let go of it, seemingly frozen into place, as he looked her over from head to toes and back again.

She’d never thought of herself as particularly vengeful, and especially didn’t wish him harm after he’d saved her life, but he’d once been able to walk away from her without a backward glance, and that had not only broken her heart, but destroyed her confidence.

The look on his face took a good part of that remembered pain away. “Thank you,” she said, tugging on the T- shirt, practically having to pry it out of his fingers.

He didn’t say a word, he didn’t have to. The bulge behind the button fly of his jeans said it all, and with a little shimmying movement, she pulled the shirt over her head, letting it cover her body, before turning and walking out of the room, a real smile on her face for the first time since she’d heard about Blake’s death.

6

THE MOMENT HE WAS ALONE in his bedroom, Aidan let out a long, slow breath. He needed to go after Kenzie to tell her she could have his bed to sleep in, but after the past sixty seconds, he needed a moment.

Or ten.

Or maybe a cold shower.

Bending for the towel she’d dropped, he winced. Still hard as a rock, but who wouldn’t be? She had the body that most red-blooded males fantasized about-all soft, warm curves, and then there’d been her tan lines, outlining what looked like a string bikini.

God bless tan lines.

Yeah, he was going to need another moment. He calculated a few multiplication problems in his head, and then went after her. She stood in his living room with her back to him, facing the large picture window that looked out on a darkening sky. She wore the T-shirt he’d lent her, which thanks to the show she’d given him a moment ago, he now knew she had nothing on beneath it. Her shoulders were ramrod straight, her hands at her sides.

And he had no idea what she was thinking.

“I wanted to spread Blake’s ashes into the ocean,” she said softly to the window. “Off the bluffs. He would have liked that.”

He let out a low breath, knowing what was coming next, hating what was coming next.

“Only there are no ashes.”