“I thought you’d gone to bed,” she said shakily.
Silent, Hank moved slowly toward her, watching the flare of excitement in her eyes.
“Do you know what you’re doing to me, Annie?” he murmured as his fingers caressed the curve of her jaw, then tangled in her hair. She nodded. “I want you, Annie love. Now. Tonight.”
Again she nodded and Hank felt the tension inside him shatter like the teacup. He leaned down and touched his lips to hers again, his fingers light against the pulse in her neck. It jerked convulsively, then ran wild. His own senses took off at a matching gait as his tongue invaded the sweet recesses of her mouth. He gave himself up to the kiss, exploring, tasting. Her soft cries of pleasure broke over him with the force of magnificent ocean waves.
“We’ll be good together, Annie. I promise you that.”
“I know,” she whispered against the burning column of his neck, her fingers now wound tightly in his hair.
The swell of her breasts was evident beneath that oversize shirt. At the stroking of his fingertips, the peak hardened at once. He bent to capture it in his mouth, his hand moving on, drifting lower over her flat stomach, then finding the warm mound between her thighs. She gasped as he rubbed the flat of his palm rhythmically back and forth. Her hips arched into the strokes.
He lifted his head and watched her. Her head was thrown back, leaving her neck vulnerable to his kisses. Her lips were parted as her breathing came in increasingly rapid bursts. He lifted the hem of the shirt and ran his fingers up the inside of her thigh. Her eyes widened as his hand once again touched the heat between her legs, this time with only the most delicate silk as a barrier. He could feel her moistness and it almost drove him wild. If this kept up, he would take her here and now. The heat exploding through him demanded he do just that.
Some guardian angel with a perverse sense of timing stopped him. Or perhaps it was the fleeting look of panic that he’d caught in her eyes before she’d determinedly banished it and given herself up to his loving.
He removed his hand and allowed the shirt to glide back down. It didn’t cover nearly enough of those long, slender legs.
“Hank?” she said, her expression puzzled.
He sighed heavily with regret.
“It’s okay, Annie love.” He pressed a chaste kiss to her forehead. “It’s okay.”
“But I wanted you to make love to me.”
“I know you did and God knows I wanted to.”
“Then why are you stopping?”
“Because it would be wrong. I can make you want me in your bed, but that’s not good enough for you. After what you’ve been through, you’re the kind of lady who deserves forever. I don’t believe in it.”
“I’m all grown-up, Hank. I can make my own decisions. I have no illusions anymore. There were no demands connected to this, no expectations.”
He smiled. “You may not think so now, Annie, but I guarantee you in the morning, you’d have felt differently. Neither one of us would have been able to live with the guilt.” He touched her swollen lips with the tips of his fingers and tried to ignore the hurt in her eyes. “Now go to bed, before I change my mind.”
She turned back to the sink, her shoulders tensed.
He reached out and touched her. She shuddered visibly, which made him feel like crying.
“Go, dammit,” he said, his voice gruff. “I’ll finish the dishes.”
“It’s my house,” she reminded him, with an all-too-familiar mixture of stiff-necked pride and indignation.
“Meaning?” Hank said.
A plate clattered to the floor, shattering. Ann clung to the edge of the counter so tightly, he could see the whitening of her knuckles. He bent down to pick up the shards of china as he waited for her to answer.
“Meaning you don’t give the orders. If anybody goes anywhere tonight,” she said in a tight, controlled voice, “it ought to be you.”
Grateful for the anger that was escalating by the second, he whirled her around, ready to lash out.
She lifted her chin and stared back. Defiant. Proud. Furious.
Want thundered through him. He held it at bay by sheer will.
“Fine,” he said when he could control his voice. “If that’s the way you want it, I’m out of here.”
Chapter 7
It was practically the middle of the night and he was beat, but Hank couldn’t get away from Ann’s fast enough. Gravel flew. Dust curled up behind the pickup as he bounced over the rutted driveway and sped onto U.S. 1 heading north toward home.
Toward sanity.
And, face it, toward safety.
The last bounce, which very nearly sent his head through the roof, reminded him that he’d been meaning to fill in the potholes before Ann’s car broke its axle. The fact that he was still thinking of the chores that needed to be done around her house infuriated him all over again. She was independent. She didn’t need or want him around. She’d made that plain enough when she’d kicked him out just now. She sure as hell didn’t need him making love to her, either. Why couldn’t she see that?
And why the hell couldn’t he leave well enough alone? Why had he gone and practically seduced the woman over the kitchen sink when he knew just how wrong it would be for both of them? He was no oversexed kid who didn’t know how to keep his pants on. He’d never in his life allowed things to go so far with a woman
