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“Bastard!” I screamed at him over the wind, and slapped him across the face so hard my hand went numb, but it gave me no satisfaction. “You cold-hearted monster, how dare you...how dare you ...” I didn’t know what I thought he dared, because the tears came then, as I was beating at his chest with my fists, furious, shattered. His arms came around me, stopping my useless blows, pulling me tight against his body in the pouring rain, and I only fought for a moment longer before I gave in to the tears that had finally returned.
He held me. He pulled me close, pressed my face against his shoulder and simply held me as I wept, noisy, ugly tears.
“Shhh,” he said softly in my ear as he cupped my head against him. “It’s all right.”
“It isn’t!” I sobbed. “Granda’s dead, and I loved him, and I hate you, you miserable bastard, I hate you!” My words were garbled but clear enough, but Ian kept stroking rain-soaked hair.
“Of course you do,” he murmured inconsequentially, sounding unbelievably gentle. “Just cry it out...”
“I don’t want to cry it out!” I screamed at him. “He’s dead!” But I had grown weaker, no longer able to fight him, and I was shaking with grief and despair.
He scooped me up in his arms, and I made no effort to push him away, simply letting him carry me in out of the rain, through the stable and up the steep, shadowy stairs. A moment later, he’d kicked the door open to his apartment, carrying me into the inky darkness. Another flash of lightning illuminated it for a moment, and then everything went black again.
“Shit,” he muttered. “Power’s out.”
I finally realized where I was, and I started to struggle. “Put me down!” I said furiously, the effect ruined by my tear-thickened voice.
He paid no attention to me—when had he ever—and carried me across the room in the darkness, dumping me on what had to be a sofa. I immediately struggled to get up, but he simply shoved me down again.
“You need a drink,” he said. “And I need to get out of these wet clothes. What the hell did you think you were doing, running around in a thunderstorm? Aren’t things bad enough without you getting yourself killed in the bargain?”
I barely reacted to the lack of logic in that statement—no one was going to kill me, for God’s sake. “I don’t want a drink. I just want to go home.”
“Mariposa is the only home you’ve known,” he said flatly. “You’re already here.”
“I’m not wanted here!” I said wildly. “This is no home to me...” I darted up, trying to avoid his shadowy outline as he loomed over me, only to smash my shins against a table. I cried out in pain, and immediately his arms came around me again, and before I realized what was happening, we were both on the sofa, I was sitting on his lap as he held me.
“Just cry it out,” he said in a low voice. “You’re right, I’m a heartless bastard, but I’m here for you. I know you loved him. Just cry.”
And I did. I cried for Granda, and all the years lost, I cried for my idiocy in agreeing to this stupid charade, I cried for Ian and Marcus and loving the wrong man, and then I didn’t know what I was crying for.
His long fingers wiped the tears from my face, his body was warm and solid beneath mine, and he cupped my chin, looking at me for a long unreadable moment as I snuffled and cried. And then he kissed me.
This wasn’t like the other kisses—there was no anger in it, no threat. His lips were soft, a sweet solace against the rage of my grief, and I let him kiss me, savoring it, my tears dissolving into stray hiccups as I slowly, tentatively kissed him back.
They were innocent kisses, safe kisses, comforting kisses, and when he deepened it, there was such a naturalness about it that I followed him into a world of sensation that flowed through my body, warming me in the cool night air.
He was so big, so strong, and that strength felt like safety, not a threat, as I leaned back onto the sofa cushions, beneath him as he followed me down. He was hard, and I recognized that with a kind of triumph, sliding my arms around his neck and pulling him to me, moving my hips beneath his, pressing. His hands slid down from my shoulders and cupped my hips as he thrust against me, and I made a sound of uncontrollable pleasure. This was what I wanted, this was what I needed, all the pain and lies and uncertainty wiped away in an act of blinding passion.
And then he pulled away, abruptly, pushing up. “No,” he said, his voice raw and breathless.
It was a slap in the face, a shocking blow that made me freeze in my erotic daze. “No?” I echoed in a shocked whisper. He was right, of course. This was the worst thing we could do.
He was looking down at me. It was so dark, I couldn’t be sure if he could see me, but his shoulders were tense, and emotion vibrated through him.
“Yes,” he said then, his voice sure in the darkness.
“Yes,” I said, reaching for him. “Yes.”
There was danger in the darkness, there was safety. His hands on my body were deft, stripping the clothes away from me so quickly I barely had a chance to reach for my buttons. He was in a hurry, and I thought I knew why—he didn’t want enough time to pass that he thought better of what we were doing. I heard the rasp of his zipper, and then I felt him, hard and heavy against me.
There was no question as to whether I was ready or not—I was wanting him so badly that all common sense had vanished, and I only knew that this was Ian, and he was mine.
He braced himself over me, pushing inside me, and I gasped in surprise. He was bigger than what I was used to, and in the past few months, I hadn’t been used to anything at all, and my body protested his steady invasion as I clutched at the smooth warm skin of his shoulders, biting my lips to keep from crying out.
Reaching down, he pulled my legs up around his hips as he drove home, and I made contradictory sounds of pleasure and pain, tightening my hold on his body.
“Am I hurting you?” His voice was little more than a rasp.
