“The urge to apologize for my father’s actions,” she murmured after a pause, studying Eric’s hand where it rested on his thigh. “And the subsequent rush of anger…wanting to defend him…wishing like crazy I could…feeling helpless because I know I can’t.”
He reached out, pulled her toward his body in a comforting gesture. Colleen recalled her earlier conversation with her mother. She glanced into Eric’s face. It was shadowed and sober-looking in the dim room.
He rubbed her shoulders with his fingers. It soothed her, his touch…reassured her. “I know that. If I didn’t always know it as well as I do right now, I’m sorry.”
“It was such a hard thing, the crash…for everyone. Everything was so raw. Emotions just get splattered everywhere in the aftermath, I guess.”
“I was so busy tallying up the things your father had stolen from me, I never really paused to think about who he really was, let alone what my life would have been like if the crash hadn’t happened.” He shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe I wouldn’t have had the drive it took to go to college and medical school if there weren’t so many barriers just taunting me to leap over them.”
Colleen smiled. “And maybe I wouldn’t have gotten married in such a rush and started a family so quickly, desperate to create my own little secure world.”
He held her stare. “Is that what you think happened?”
She sighed. “Maybe. If that was part of my motivation for an early marriage, I don’t regret it. I had a lot of good years with Darin. I have Brendan and Jenny, and who could regret that?”
He nodded in agreement. He shifted his hand, massaging her tense shoulder and neck muscles. She let her head drop onto his chest and inhaled the clean scent of his laundered shirt and the subtle spice of his cologne. Her eyelids grew heavy. It felt so good.
“When you say you miss Darin…”
“Yes?” she asked when he paused, her eyelids still closed. When he didn’t immediately respond, she opened her eyes and lifted her head from his chest.
“Forgive me for being curious,” he said.
“It’s okay,” she whispered.
“I was just wondering to what degree Darin is still with us, when I’m alone with you.”
The way he’d posed the question had caught her off guard.
“He’s not.”
She averted her gaze, a little stunned by her outburst of honesty. She realized for the first time just how true it was. When she was with Eric, she was totally absorbed by him, whether he was pricking her temper or kissing her until she couldn’t think straight. It wasn’t as if he blocked Darin out of her mind. Darin was still there, a warm, happy memory she cherished.
But it was Eric who dominated her thoughts in the present.
“I see,” Eric said slowly, although his tone made her think he really didn’t see at all but was too polite to risk treading on the delicate topic of her dead husband. It wasn’t really fair to leave him completely in the dark, always stumbling around, walking on eggshells around her, was it?
“Darin was a wonderful man. He was there for me at a time in my life when I most needed him. I’ll always be thankful for that. He’s the only man I’ve ever been with.”
Eric’s massaging fingers stilled in the crook of her neck and shoulder. She looked into his face warily. She couldn’t believe she’d just said that. It had sort of erupted out of her.
“I thought you should know,” she said lamely.
His stunned expression faded. He nodded and resumed massaging her. She curled farther into him, highly aware of his presence, his hardness, his warmth. She found herself fiddling with his silk tie. Her hand strayed to his chest. She stroked him, fascinated by the sensation of hard, corded muscle beneath his dress shirt.
“And that’s because you cared so much about him?” he asked in a tone that struck her as deliberately neutral. Or was it strained?
“Of course I cared about Darin, but I don’t know if I avoided men since he died because of that or not,” she said, feeling a little helpless because she didn’t know the answer herself. “I never cared enough for anyone else since Darin died to even think about the topic.”
“Colleen…”
“Yes?” she asked, distracted by the feeling of his muscles beneath her fingertips and the way he was staring at her mouth.
“You’re killing me. You know that, don’t you?”
“I don’t mean to.”
“I think that might be what’s killing me the most,” he growled softly before he slid his hand behind her neck and pulled her to him. His mouth covered hers. Colleen melted into his kiss. Everything about him—the feeling of his hard male body, his scent, his taste—delighted her. He knew how to kiss her just the way she liked it—firm and demanding at times, playful and teasing at others, nipping at her lips gently, making her hungry, coaxing her into becoming the aggressor.