She nodded. “I was thirsty.”
He brushed a drop of water from her lower lip with his thumb. Her
mouth tingled in response to his touch. The erotic dream echoed in her mind as she gazed up at Blake, aware that they were alone in an intimately shadowed bedroom, that he sat only inches from where she lay. That it would take only a sign from her to have him crawl in beside her.
Holding her gaze with his, he traced her jaw with his fingertips, then her chin. And then her lower lip again, which quivered beneath his touch. “How can you look so good this early in the morning?” he asked whimsically.
“I—er—” Now, how was she supposed to answer that?
“I keep telling myself,” Blake mused, “that it would be wrong of me to take advantage of you when you have no choice but to be with me, through no fault of your own. But you make it very difficult for me to keep my hands to myself, beautiful Tara McBride.”
Tara had never considered herself beautiful. Her cousin, Savannah, was the beauty of the McBride family. Their cousin Emily was pretty, in a sweet, wholesome, girl-next-door way. Tara was just...Tara. Intelligent. Competent. Attractive enough in her neat, professional manner. But beautiful? No.
But the way Blake was looking at her now, as he leaned over her, the way he touched her...he made her feel beautiful. And the sensation was a heady one.
He was the beautiful one, she couldn’t help thinking. His chest and arms were so firm, so muscled. She couldn’t resist reaching out to touch him. Her hand skimmed up his left arm to hesitate at his shoulder. He felt even better than he looked, she decided.
Blake leaned closer. “I would really like to kiss you, Tara,” he murmured.
She really wanted him to do so. But still she was afraid of getting too close. Of wanting too much. Of failing again.
She didn’t try to stop him when he brushed his lips lightly across hers. And she didn’t push him away when he kissed her again.
His lips settled firmly on hers, this kiss bolder, more peremptory than the ones that had preceded it. As if each time he kissed her, he felt that he had more right to do so. And maybe he did, she couldn’t help thinking as she responded to the kiss with less hesitation than she’d felt before.
Bracing himself on his forearms, Blake deepened the kiss, pressing her into the pillows, his body almost touching hers. Beneath the soft, thick fleece of her borrowed sweat suit, her breasts felt ultra-sensitized, aching for his touch. She could almost feel the warmth of him, and she wanted very badly to reach up and pull him down the rest of the way, until there was no distance at all remaining between them.
He murmured something into her mouth. His hand cupped her cheek, tilting her head to a new angle against the pillow. He kissed her as though he were starving for her taste.
Sliding without resistance into temptation, Tara returned the kiss with an equal fervor. Exactly the way she’d been wanting to kiss him for longer than she was ready to admit.
Her hand slid over his shoulder to stroke his back. His muscles rippled beneath her touch. He groaned, deep in his chest.
A thick ridge of scar tissue just below his left shoulder blade bunched beneath her fingertips. Blake froze suddenly, then lifted his head, breaking off the kiss.
A moment later, he was on his feet beside the bed, his hands clenched at his sides. Tara noted dazedly that his hands weren’t steady.
What had she done that had made him draw back so abruptly?
“Go back to sleep if you like,” he said gruffly, avoiding her questioning eyes. “I tend to be an early riser, anyway, and I have some things I want to do this morning.”
As if she’d be able to sleep now!
“I—” She had to clear her throat before she could complete the sentence. “I think I’d rather get up.”
Blake nodded, turned, and headed out of the room as though he was being urgently paged from somewhere else. “Help yourself to whatever you need,” he said over his shoulder. “Stephanie won’t mind.”
Stephanie.
How could Tara have forgotten about the other woman? The one in whose bed she was lying. The one in whose bed Blake had probably already lain.
Tara slid out of the bed and ran her trembling hands through her hair.
She was an idiot. No doubt about it. She was falling for a juggling P.L who didn’t seem to believe in last names, who had no permanent address, who kept clothes in the apartment of a redheaded model whose legs were “a mile longer” than Tara’s. Only a fool would let herself become too attached to a man like that.
It was only proximity, she tried to tell herself. She had no one else to turn to right now. Her dependence on him was certainly understandable, she assured herself.
And he was an exceptionally good-looking man. Intriguingly mysterious. Engagingly unpredictable. Charming. Any normal, healthy woman would find herself drawn to him under the circumstances.