For a second Zafir’s mind blanked as he thought of how easily it might have been Kat who had lost her life.
Bitterly he said, ‘It sounds like the truck driver was the lucky one.’
Kat shook her head. ‘He has to live with the guilt he feels every day. He came to visit me and I’ve never seen anyone so haunted.’
Zafir was humbled by her compassion. He realised now where her new steely strength came from, and he felt something like awe. He also felt a very sharp pang at the assertion that he should have been there for her.
But he hadn’t—because he’d judged her on the basis of lurid headlines without really giving her a chance to explain her side. For the first time, Zafir felt a rush of remorse and regret. Everything had changed and yet, conversely, nothing had changed.
Kat felt so delicate and vulnerable under his hands, and yet strong. It made his blood pulse faster through his veins. Acting on pure instinct and need, Zafir spread his hands out, encompassing Kat’s leg completely. He bent forward and pressed a kiss to her knee, then lower, to the top of her shin, his hands moving down and cupping her residual limb.
He heard her sucked-in breath and a strangled-sounding, ‘What are you doing?’
He lifted his head and looked at her with explicit intention. He moved both hands up her leg at the same time, until they encircled her bare thigh. Blood thundered in his veins.
‘What do you think I’m doing, Kat? I’m finishing what we started.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
KAT COULDN’T BREATHE. Again. It was a miracle that any oxygen was reaching her brain. Somehow, from somewhere, she managed to suck in a breath. And another one. Her heart rate wouldn’t slow, though. She felt flayed alive. Raw. But deep within her core burnt a fire that not even her turmoil could quench.
She’d
expected Zafir to be long gone by now. But he wasn’t. He was kneeling at her feet, looking up at her with that molten silver gaze. It was uncompromisingly direct, leaving her nowhere to hide.
And yet her mind reeled. He’d just looked at her...touched her leg. Inspected it. Cupped it reverently. Kissed it.
Emotion threatened again. The only people who’d touched her there since the accident had been medical professionals, or herself when she’d had the nerve to, and it had taken a long time to do it without crying.
Yet Zafir had just done it, and he hadn’t looked remotely horrified or disgusted. He’d looked sad. Angry. Fierce. And there’d been something unmistakably possessive in his touch too—as if he was claiming some kind of ownership of her damaged limb. Which was obviously just a figment of her overwrought brain.
She shook her head, forcing herself to articulate her scattered thoughts. ‘You don’t mean that...’
Something struck her then, and she went cold all over. Zafir was a proud man. A very alpha man. A man full of integrity.
She recoiled back in the seat. ‘You don’t have to prove anything, Zafir. If you stand up and walk away it won’t make you less of a man.’
His hands tightened on her thigh and his eyes widened. A look of affront came over his hard-boned face. ‘First you think I’m too shallow to handle this news and now you’re accusing me of being too proud to walk away from something I don’t want to do?’
Kat swallowed. She’d never seen Zafir look more stern.
His voice resonated deep within her. ‘I would have thought that the least you know about me by now, Kat, is that I don’t ever do anything I don’t want to. I want something and I go after it. Do I need to remind you of how I went after you?’
She shook her head quickly. She did not need a reminder of that all-consuming seduction right now—her brain was addled enough as it was.
‘I am here,’ he said, ‘because I want you, Kat. I tracked you down because I couldn’t get you out of my head. Because I believe we have unfinished business. Because I believe that I won’t be able to get on with my life until I’ve tasted you again...until I’m buried so deep inside you that I might finally be able to think clearly again. What happened to you changes nothing about how much I want you.’
All Kat heard was ‘until I’m buried so deep inside you’ and her whole lower body clenched, as if it was already anticipating taking his body into hers. As if some muscle memory was already reacting just to his words.
She clamped her thighs together, trapping Zafir’s hand. His eyes flashed. He knew. He could sense her helpless response. But insecurity warred with desire. Did he really still want her?
With gentle but remorseless force, Zafir pushed her knees until they were spread apart and he was between them. Her dress was ruched up around her thighs, and if he looked he would see her very plain white panties.
As if reading her mind, his hands moved upwards, and Kat’s breathing grew ragged and fast. Within seconds he would know just how badly she ached for him. She’d be utterly exposed.
She reached down and covered his hands, stopping their progress, and shifted, sitting up straighter in the chair, trying to put some space between them. She seized on something, anything, that might restore sanity, even though the blood rushing through her body wasn’t asking for sanity at all. The opposite...
‘I haven’t been with anyone since—’ She stopped. She’d been about to say since you, but she didn’t want Zafir to know that. It would mean too much. She hoped he’d assume she’d meant to say since the accident.