She kept her back to him as she opened two beers. “You wouldnt have gotten in this time if I hadnt been wigged.”
“Despite that lack of welcome, I like it. Suits you, Stretch. And because it does, I dont suppose youd consider bunking at Flynns for the next little while. I can take my stuff over to Brads and hang there if thats a factor.”
She turned back slowly. “Are you being accommodating because I was hysterical?”
“Im being accommodating because I want you to feel safe. To be safe.”
“No need to put yourself out.”
“I care about you.” He shifted, blocking her exit before she could move past him. There was a quick flash of rage over his face, almost as quickly banked.
Where had that been hiding? she wondered. And how did he tuck it away again?
“I care, Dana. Just for a minute, one damn minute, set aside the way things ended up. We cared about each other, and if youd feel safer at Flynns, Ill get out of your way.”
“All the way back to New York?”
His mouth thinned as he took one of the bottles out of her hands. “No.”
Maybe it was unfair to poke and prod at him. But what the hell did she care about fair when it came to Jordan? “I wouldnt feel safer at Flynns—with or without you around. In spite of my condition when you knocked on the door, I can take care of myself. I did take care of myself. I got out of it without your help. And nobody, not you, not that bastard Kane, is going to run me out of my own apartment.”
“Well.” He took a sip of beer. “”I see youve moved to the pissed-off stage of tonights entertainment.“
“I dont like being manipulated. He used my own thoughts against me, and youre using old feelings. We cared about each other?” she shot out. “Maybe we did, but remember, thats past tense. If you want to be such a nice guy and get out of my way, then get out of it now. Youre crowding me.”
“Ive got things to say to you, and if Ive got to block you in to get you to hear them, then thats the way it is. I didnt know you loved me. I dont know what it would have changed, I just know it wouldve changed… something. Just like I know I wasnt ready for it. I wasnt smart enough or steady enough.”
“You were smart and steady enough to do what you wanted.”
“Thats exactly right.” With his eyes locked on hers, he nodded. “I was self-absorbed, broody, and restless. What the hell did you want with me, anyway?”
“You idiot.” Because shed lost her taste for it, she set the beer aside. “Youve just described the sort of guy every girl falls for at least once. Then you add those whiffs of recklessness, the brain, the looks, and the chemistry, and I didnt have a chance. How can you make a living writing about people when you dont understand half of them?”
When she tried to push past him, he took her arm. The look she sent him could have melted steel. “Buy a clue, Hawke. I said girls fall for once. Girls generally evolve into smart and steady women who put away the childish things like self-absorbed assholes.”
“Thats good. I prefer women.” He put his beer on the counter. “Ive always preferred you.”
“Do you think that makes my heart gopitty -pat?”
“Not yours, Stretch. But this might.”
He caught her face in his free hand, allowed himself the perverse pleasure of seeing her fury leap out of her eyes, then covered her mouth with his.
Thank God, he thought, thank God she was angry enough that he could do what he hadnt been able to do when she was pale and shaken.
Thered never been a taste hed craved the way he craved Danas. He had never understood it. And never worried that he should. It simply was. She might rake him to the bone for it, but he had a point to prove. To both of them.
He wasnt gentle. Shed never seemed to expect or need gentleness from him. He simply pressed her back to the wall and took.
Heat flooded her, as enervating and nearly as terrifying as the cold shed experienced earlier. There was no point in lying to herself, she wanted to feel this involved again, this aware of self, this needy.
But lying to him was a different matter entirely, so she shoved at him, struggled with herself, and refused to yield to either.
He laid a hand on her heart, and with his mouth only a breath from hers now, stared into her eyes. “Yeah. That got it going.”
“Get this. Its not going to happen. Its never going to happen again.” “Somebody once said, „Whats past is prologue.”
“Shakespeare, you ignorant jerk. The Tempest .”