The moment they kissed, it was like two halves of a whole finally coming together. Like rain falling on a parched terrain to make it finally flourish again.
They
needed
one another to be complete.
God help her, she
needed
him.
Even though she knew she was going to regret this, knew that she should have remained strong and vigilant, she also knew that this was what she had been craving ever since she’d stood on the hill, keeping well out of sight, watching Hawk’s car on the road that led away from town—away from
her—
grow smaller and smaller on the horizon.
She’d missed him since that moment, and if that was weak, well, so be it. She’d never claimed to be an invincible warrior.
Even though the tiny shred of common sense she still possessed told her to end this, to pull away, Carly couldn’t help praying that this kiss would go on forever. Praying that he wouldn’t abruptly pull back, look at her with perhaps a small trace of smugness and say something to the effect that he’d known all along that she still wanted him.
Because she did.
And this proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt. When it came to Hawk, she had no defenses, no resolve. No shame.
It was a terrible thing for Hawk to realize that after ten years of strict self-discipline that he couldn’t even think straight.
Hell, he couldn’t think at all.
Not a single thought that rose in his mind lived to see completion. Only broken fragments seemed to exist in his brain, and he swept those away, because they got in his way, got in the way of his being able to just savor this moment.
And if for some reason she was playing him for a fool, well then, he’d deal with that later. Right now, all he wanted to do was to fill his hands, his senses, his very
soul
with her. With the taste and feel of her.
With the very sound of her breathing, excitement radiating within each breath.
He was vaguely aware that they’d started out fully dressed, and then somewhere along the line, they weren’t anymore. Whether she’d undressed him or he her—or they’d undressed one another or just themselves—none of that left an impression or even fleetingly registered in his memory bank.
None of that mattered.
What mattered, what left its indelible mark, was making love with her. What mattered was giving himself up to the heat, the passion, the demands that all but raged within him.
He couldn’t get enough of her, but he kept trying.
He’d missed her, he admitted to himself, missed her the way he would have missed the very air had it been taken away from him.
Because in a way, it had.
Until this very moment.
Each soft curve that he touched, every pliant inch of skin he kissed brought back memories. Memories that had gone a long way in sustaining him.
And yet, somehow it almost felt as if this was the very first time he’d had her. He couldn’t make sense of it, and he stopped trying. Stopped doing everything except enjoy her the way he’d yearned to for so long.
The very first time they had ever made love, they’d been in her father’s barn, up in the hayloft. It was close to midnight, and moonlight had streamed in through the cracks in the uneven shutters, highlighting her face, adding to the glow that radiated from her.
Though each time they made love together had been special, he never forgot that first time. Never forgot the sense of awe that had pulsed through him. Making love with Carly, he’d felt as if he’d captured a sunbeam in his hands.
That wondrous sense of “something special” hadn’t faded. If anything, it felt as if it had been utterly underscored.
His heart racing in his chest, he kissed Carly over and over again, fanning flames that were, even now, already over the top. Flames that threatened to incinerate them both and reduce them to a single fused, burnt, shriveled crisp.
Ten minutes, Carly realized somewhere at the height of her surrender, ten minutes was all it had taken. Ten minutes from the time Hawk had knocked on her door until she was here like this with him, her body nude and wanting.
Aching.
All it had taken was ten minutes to make her abandon her charade and silently own up to how much she still wanted him.
How much she still yearned for him.
On the floor, with nothing between them but red-hot desire, Carly immersed herself in the sensuality of the world that had temporarily opened up for her. There was almost a frantic sense of urgency to avail herself of all this.
Instinctively she knew that soon, very soon, everything would recede, and she would go back to doing what she had to. Back to being the responsible one. The only one who could rescue her sister from a life of servitude and hell—if not worse.
But for now, for this moment frozen in time, she was just Carly Finn, madly, hopelessly and eternally in love with Hawk Bledsoe, and nothing and no one else mattered outside of this.
Outside of the two of them.
Her body primed, her pulses visibly throbbing, Carly arched beneath him, silently making him aware that she was ready.
More than ready.
Ready for their union. A union of the body and the soul.
She wondered if he knew that she was his for all eternity. That she was wedded to him until all time ceased, even though words to that effect had never been said over them.
No priest, no minister or justice of the peace could have cemented their union more indelibly.
She was married to him and always would be, no matter what separate directions their two paths in life would ultimately take them. She knew that now.
Once more sealing his mouth to hers, he wove his fingers through hers, and then Hawk thrust himself into her. He was home. It was completed. Their union was reinforced.
And then, after a heartbeat had passed, they began to move in unison, melting into the same dance that they had discovered up in that hayloft so long ago.
The languid tempo stepped up, growing more demanding and urgent with each passing second until the final crescendo found them, sending them crashing over the edge still clinging on to one another, holding on for support, for love.
Slowly, his heartbeat began to slow down until it finally reached a rate that didn’t threaten to match the speed of light. And as it slowed, his breathing returned to normal.
Hawk became aware that he held her to him with one arm wrapped around her, while with his other hand, he gently, slowly, stroked her hair. The ends of it were splayed out along his chest, her head cradled against his rigid pectorals. He could feel her heartbeat mingling with his. Or maybe the two had merged into one.
He found the latter thought comforting.
It was as if the past ten years had never happened. As if his heart hadn’t been ripped apart by the callous words she’d uttered.
Words he no longer believed to have been true.
For some reason, she’d lied to him to make him leave town. Why didn’t seem important, at least not right now.
It took Hawk more than a couple of minutes to find enough breath to enable him to speak.
The words left his lips slowly, as if languidly coasting on a spring breeze that had yet to come. “Nice to know some things haven’t changed.”
“What do you mean?”
Too tired to lift her head, Carly asked the question with her cheek still pressed against his chest, unaware that her warm breath was tantalizing his skin with each word she uttered.
“I think that’s rather obvious,” Hawk answered with a soft laugh. Then because her silence made him think that perhaps it wasn’t so obvious to her after all, he said, “You can still reduce me to a palpitating mass of desires, needs and emotions faster than a speeding bullet. I find that pretty impressive.”
This time Carly raised her head to look at him. The admission he’d just made left him momentarily vulnerable, exposed, and she knew he was aware of that. If she said something flippant, she’d be protecting herself, but it was a safe bet that it would also succeed in making him pull back, away from her.
Because he was vulnerable, she didn’t want to hurt him, didn’t want to make him feel that he was the only one in this relationship who felt that way. The only one who was exposed.
So she smiled at him, allowing the sentiment she felt to reach her eyes as she said, “Right back at you, Hawk.” And then she took a breath before adding, “But this really doesn’t change anything.”
He wasn’t so sure about that, but he knew better than to say so at a time like this. “We’ll talk.” The word “later” was an unspoken given.
Before she could even think to challenge his assumption, Hawk surprised her by shifting. With his hands on her waist, he deftly moved her so that she was now over him.
It was hard to carry on any sort of a serious argument with their more than warm bodies pressed against one another like this.
She let him win the round.
For now.
Because in doing so, she won, as well.
And winning, as they said, was everything. As long as it was with Hawk.
Chapter 8
S
o much for staying strong,
Carly upbraided herself as she slowly descended back to reality and the demands of the world around her.
Now what?
Although she was incredibly aware of the man lying beside her, that didn’t change the situation. They couldn’t actually progress anywhere from here. The earth might have stood still and caught on fire when they made love just now, but that didn’t block out the years gone by or even start a new chapter in their lives.
What had just transpired between them, she supposed, could be thought of as an aberration at best. A single aberration.
“So,” she finally said, unable to take the silence anymore, “same time, same place ten years from now?” She was doing her damndest to sound chipper and not like a woman who expected promises.
Hawk turned to look at her. “Don’t,” he chided. His face appeared as if it was carved out of stone.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t do that.”
Same old Hawk, she thought. No one could ever accuse this man of running off at the mouth. There were times when he doled out words as if each one came from a rare collection.
“Don’t do what?” Carly pressed a little more sharply.
“Don’t be flippant.”
Well, she couldn’t deny she was guilty of that, but it wasn’t because she was being cynical. She was just behaving the way she thought he’d want her to. Like the women he was probably accustomed to encountering—both in and out of bed.
“Okay,” she said gamely, “what would you like me to be?”
His eyes held hers for a moment before he said, “Honest.”
Was he accusing her of lying? About what? He couldn’t possibly be referring to their last conversation ten years ago, so what was he talking about?
“I’m always honest,” she fired back defensively, then prayed he wouldn’t delve too deeply in order to point out the contradiction.
The expression on his face when she said that told her that he knew better—or that he thought he did.
But he didn’t take her to task for the lie she’d just uttered or challenge the words she’d told him ten years ago that had sent him packing and on his way—the words she’d used to tell him that she didn’t love him. He knew Carly well enough to know that she could have never made love with him, especially like that, if love wasn’t at least a factor.
“Carly, I want you to tell me the truth,” he began.
Carly headed him off, teasingly saying the words that she’d heard many a man wanted to have the woman he’d just bedded say. “Yes, the earth moved.”
Hawk didn’t laugh the way she’d hoped he would. His subject was too serious for him to laugh.
“That’s not what I’m asking you,” he replied evenly.
Nerves began to dance throughout her body again. Hawk had always seen right through her, except for that one time. Her words had hurt him too much for him to see beyond the pain, to guess why she was saying what she had.
But now he seemed deadly serious, and his eyes felt as if they were boring into her very soul, lifting words, reading thoughts.
Wanting to momentarily escape, she started to rise. Before she could stand up, his fingers tightened around her wrist.
She wasn’t going anywhere.
“I thought you had murders to investigate,” Carly reminded him.
That was the whole point, didn’t she see that? “I do, and I don’t want you to wind up joining that unholy number.”
Was it that he actually cared about her, or that she represented extra paperwork?
Don’t get carried away, remember? No future, you know that.
She waved away his voiced concern. “I’m fine. In case you weren’t paying attention, I’m alive and well.”
“I was paying very close attention,” he assured her. “And for the record, I want to keep you that way—‘alive and well.’”