the kitchen.
And he had told her to make herself at home.
Half an hour later, when Kylie heard the water turn off in the shower, she had bacon ready, coffee brewed, and toast buttered. Since she didn’t know how he liked his eggs, she held off on making them, but the carton sat on his counter. She wiped the counter and turned when he appeared from the other room, his hair almost black from being damp, and wearing only boxers.
She was sure her admiration was written all over her face.
“You made me breakfast?” He sounded impressed.
She forced her gaze from his rippling chest muscles to his face. “You said to make myself at home.” She pointed to the eggs. “I don’t know how you like your eggs.”
“Kylie, why are you here?” The look he gave her made it appear he’d been torturing himself trying to learn the answer.
Maybe she wasn’t the only one enduring a personal hell.
She put the washcloth on the counter and rubbed her hands down her jeans. It was time for reckoning, laying her cards on the table and seeing where it got her. No more waiting. No more praying things would work out to her advantage without her making an effort to make it happen.
“I’m afraid I left something here when I left a few months ago.”
“What was that?”
Her mouth was suddenly too dry when she lost herself in those sensual dark eyes of his. “My heart,” she whispered.
She couldn’t breathe when he simply studied her, not saying anything for a moment and not moving from where he stood damn near naked several feet away from her.
“So what will you do? Get it and leave again?”
“Well, that depends.”
“On what? Are you leaving the FBI?” He sounded incredulous, clearly understanding she could no more leave her line of work than he could his.
She shook her head, not taking her focus from him. “I came back to see you.” Her voice cracked. For whatever reasons, telling him she had a job interview would make it sound as though she was begging for his attention. If he wouldn’t come to her now, she’d taken all the steps she could to make something happen between them.
Perry walked to her and she didn’t dare move. When he was inches away, he took a slice of bacon from where it lay on a paper towel, draining. She watched him slide it into his mouth and then chew. His jaw muscles constricted. Roped muscle spreading from his shoulders flexed when he turned. But when he lifted his hand and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, she closed her eyes, afraid to breathe.
“There’s been a lot of loss in this town over the past few months,” he said, his deep baritone gentle, quiet, but still sounding distant and serious. “My nieces, who have already endured the loss of their father, went through the pain of losing friends in their classes.” He paused for a moment. “And you.”
“I know. I got an earful this morning,” she admitted, focusing on the spread of dark curls that traveled over his tanned chest. “You know I couldn’t tell them who I really was.”
“Yup.” He picked up another piece of bacon and then walked to his refrigerator.
Kylie focused on his back, deciding he’d lost a few pounds, too, over the past few months. Her attention shot to the red mark that stretched over his shoulder blade, bright and puffy and shaped like a bolt of lightning. She cleared the distance between them, touching the puffy skin and acknowledging the fresh wound.
“You’re hurt.”
Perry spun around, his eyes on fire when he grabbed her wrist, pinching her skin as he held it firmly against his heart. “I helped pull a couple out of a car that capsized in the river earlier tonight when we couldn’t reach a diver,” he explained. “The pain from it will go away before long. I’m not worried about it. What I am worried about are the girls, me, what is mine,” he said, his fierceness unleashed on her.
Kylie looked up at him, her lips parted and her breath coming hard. Emotions he’d apparently managed to keep at bay, possibly as long as she’d been gone, suddenly tumbled at her like an avalanche. And he held on to her, refusing to let go and staring down at her with a hard stare that bordered on violent.
“It hurt when you walked out of my life, hurt really fucking bad. And I knew you were leaving. But then I had to deal with the girls, who were not only recovering from the hysteria and trauma involved with a madman stalking one of them, and with girls they knew having been brutally murdered, but also with a sense of betrayal they felt from you.”
“Perry,” she breathed, knowing nothing she could say right now would take away the pain and heartache he had to deal with.
“So if you’ve come back to stay, we’ll talk. But if you’re here for a short while, only to leave to start again in another town, then there isn’t anything for us to say.” He let go of her wrist, opened the refrigerator, grabbed a beer, and walked out of the kitchen.
Hell. She didn’t know if she had come back to stay unless she knew where things were with them. He wanted it just the opposite, and she wasn’t sure how to give it to him like that.
Taking a moment, finding one of his coffee cups and pouring herself coffee, she then found a plate, poured the stack of bacon onto it, added the two slices of buttered toast, and followed him. She walked through the masculine looking living room, which appeared almost dusty from lack of use, to the den where his computer was. He sat in front of it, not looking at her, with the glow from the monitor creating a shiny texture in his hair. His bedroom door was open, the lights off in there and the lingering smell from his shower drifting toward her. It didn’t seem so long ago she had been here, although then her concerns had been so different.
Kylie placed the plate of food next to the keyboard. Then nursing her coffee, she walked around his desk to his gun case, the only item in the room that appeared dusted and well maintained. She stared at the expensive collection of weapons housed behind the glass.
“I’ve been injured, Perry,” she began, not knowing where to start in bridging the gap between them. She did know she wanted to, more than she’d wanted anything in her life; she would sweat out this conversation until they found ground to coexist on.
“I can see that,” he said, his mouth full of food. When the silence drifted between them again, he chewed and swallowed. “Thanks for making me breakfast. It is really good.”
“You’re welcome.” She didn’t turn around, unable to stare into those all-knowing eyes and say what was in her heart. “I was promised a month’s vacation after Nicaragua, but after injuring myself, I’ve now been given two months off.”
“So you’re here for two months?” Perry asked, sounding very matter-of-fact.
Kylie couldn’t turn this into a mathematical equation, giving him figures and making everything cut-and-dry. Her thigh pinched with pain when she shifted, finally facing him and balancing herself against his desk. “I don’t know how long I’m here for, Perry. It isn’t all black and white. There are gray areas. And I doubt one conversation between you and me can clear all those areas up.”
“I’m not going to endure the pain,” he said firmly.
“Relationships are about pain,” she argued, fighting not to lose her temper with his insistence they create some kind of damn contract that neither one of them would ever stray from. “They are about love and happiness, too. But I can’t promise never to hurt you any more than you could make me the same offer.”
“I would never hurt you,” he hissed.
“You’re hurting me right now,” she yelled. “You hurt me the moment I laid eyes on you when I was coming into town. And for the past two days I’ve been dying inside, desperate to know where I stood with you. But that didn’t send me running.”
She put her cup down too hard on his desk and some of it spilled onto her hand. Bringing her burnt flesh to her lips, she closed her eyes, willing herself to calm down and say what needed to be said to get them past this point. She jumped when strong arms grabbed her, pulling her from the desk.
“Sit down before you fall down,” Perry said, his bare chest brushing against her arm and then her back, as he guided her into his bedroom. “So you’re here for two months. Are you staying at that motel for two months?”
He stood in front of her and Kylie’s heart started pounding when she realized she sat on the edge of his bed. He’d moved her so quickly, obviously more in tune with her movements and how standing for long periods or
