He had begun to answer her question but started at what she’d said next.
“You did?” he asked, his expression tense.
“I was up at your cabin within three hours of leaving you in the woods.”
His mouth fell open but no words came out.
“Why’d you leave, John?”
He shook his head. “I left because I wanted to see you again so much, it hurt to be there.”
“That makes absolutely no sense,” she said with compassion, stepping closer to him.
“I know it,” he mumbled, his expression tight with frustration. “I have no idea what it meant to you, being down that hole with me. I know you were scared. I know having sex with me helped you to fight your fear. I convinced myself that once your use for me was over, you’d move on. You’re a rich, beautiful, accomplished woman. You’re a famous movie star,” he said gruffly. “I’m a blind, divorced chiropractor whose closest friend is his dog and who would rather chop wood or work alone in a sculpting studio than go to a high-profile movie premiere or fancy restaurant.”
“Don’t stereotype me, John,” she said in a low, vibrating voice. “I don’t stereotype you. You taught me while we were down in that cave how foolish it would be to try to fit you into some easy category. I may be an actress, but that just means I’m an artist, just like you. I have insecurities. I have feelings. I have a heart.” She halted and inhaled when her voice broke with emotion. “You want to know what being down that hole meant to me? It meant a hell of a lot. It wasn’t just the sex that made me get through that dark night. It was you. Your strength and your compassion. I’ve never felt as close to another human being in my whole life as I did to you on that night . . . like I’d become mixed with you . . . bound to you. I know it may have seemed like impulsive, kinky sex to some people, but it didn’t to me. I gave some of myself to you that night. You gave some of yourself back. I felt it,” she whispered. “How do you think it made me feel when you just walked away after that?”
He made a low, rough sound in his throat and stepped toward her, arms outstretched. She went into his embrace, clamping her eyelids closed when emotion flooded her. He felt so hard and solid. He smelled like musk and the clean outdoors, with just a hint of citrus soap. He smelled like the woods where she grew up . . . like home.
He smelled like John.
“I’m sorry,” he muttered, bending down so that he could press his mouth near her ear. He hugged her closer to him, as if he, like her, couldn’t quite get used to the mirac
le of holding each other. “I got to thinking about what you’d said in the cave that night, about me feeling responsible for my divorce because of my perceived shortcoming as a man . . . a protector. I got to wondering if maybe I’d given up too quickly on you . . . took the coward’s way out because I didn’t want to risk the possibility of coming up short for a woman again.”
“You go so many miles down I can’t even fathom you,” she muttered. “As long as you show up, John, you’ll never, ever come up short. Not for me, you won’t.”
He pressed his mouth to her temple. “The thing of it is, honey, I want you so much, if I can’t match up to what you need, it’s going to hurt all that much more.”
She shook her head, inadvertently drying her tears on his shirt, unable to speak, her throat was so full of emotion.
“But the other thing I learned in the past week and a half,” he continued near her ear, his hoarse voice causing shivers to course through her flesh, “is that I gave up too soon. I want you so much, I’m willing to risk anything, including facing my own self-doubts, to give this a try. I came here to fight for you, Jennifer.”
She sobbed quietly into his chest, her tears those of pure happiness. “You’re not going to find much of a fight for that.”
He pressed his face against her neck and kissed her, inhaling her scent. She clamped her eyes shut, seeing him vividly in the darkness, just as he’d taught her to do. “God, you smell like a miracle,” he said, his mouth finding her ear and then tracing her jaw with firm lips.
She sent her fingers through his hair and pushed his head closer to her own. “God, you are one,” she whispered before their mouths brushed, met and clung.
• • •
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Read on for a special preview of the next novel from Bethany Kane
EXPOSED TO YOU
Available November 2012 from Heat Books
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If someone had told her when her alarm clock went off that morning that in a few hours she’d be calmly given the odds of her continued survival, Joy would have rolled her eyes and laughed her fears into the corners of her consciousness.
If someone had warned her that later that afternoon she’d be going down on a gorgeous stranger, she’d have told that person they were certifiably insane.
Wilkie shouted her name as she raced through the din of the makeup room. A photo shoot for movie posters and other promotional materials was scheduled for today. The special effects makeup department was roaring in high gear. Wilkie James looked too busy to chat, so Joy merely slowed her rapid pace. Her friend held an airbrush and was staring intently at a female’s right breast as he turned it pale green, his shaggy, dark brown hair just inches away from a nipple.