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Their hearts raced; their breathing was ragged, frantic.
Nothing existed outside the place they’d found for this one fragile moment. There was no danger; there was no anger or pain, confusion or impending heartache. There was nothing but the two of them, the pleasure that had bound them, and the certainty that, like an addiction, the need to touch, to taste, to hold each other again would be one for which denial would not be an option.
* * *
Finding the strength to pull themselves from the bench and dress took a while. As Eve pulled the thin silken camisole shell over her head and adjusted the thin straps over her shoulders, she looked up at Brogan.
Securing the dark leather of the belt at his hips, he hadn’t yet straightened his hair. The coarse, red-gold strands had fallen over his forehead and now lay disheveled around his head.
Scratching at his chest, he leaned down, snagged his shirt from the rug that lay over the stones, and pulled it over his arms. As he began securing the buttons, his gaze lifted as though drawn by the thought that suddenly seared her mind.
“What?” he asked absently, snagging his sneakers and untying them before propping himself against the heavy support column and pulling them over his feet.
“You didn’t use a condom,” she stated, watching him closely.
He paused for a moment before resuming with his shoes. Pulling the other one on, he tied them quickly before straightening and staring back at her.
“No, I didn’t,” he admitted—a little too calmly to suit her.
“You didn’t pull out either. ”
His fingers raked through his hair, pushing it back, if not neatly, then at least into some kind of order.
“I know,” he admitted again.
She stared back at him, feeling a sudden disquiet begin to settle around her. “Why?”
He sighed heavily. “Because whatever’s going to happen began last night. The condom split, and before I could think to pull free, I was already spilling inside you. This morning isn’t going to make a difference. ”
“You didn’t tell me this morning,” she stated, wondering why.
His jaw clenched brutally, a sudden feeling that he was pushing back something angry and bitter filling her senses.
“I was waiting to make certain it would be too late to use the morning-after pill,” he finally snapped, his eyes turning a dark gray as he glared back at her. “I don’t believe in it, Eve. ”
She looked away, frowning heavily.
She couldn’t believe he had just said that. She couldn’t believe he would even suspect she would do something so horrible. That she would abort her baby, just get rid of it as though it were trash. Damn, he sure did have a hell of an opinion of her, didn’t he?
What hurt more, though, was the fact that he seemed to think it was okay to make that decision for her. That he thought she would be so easy to control and to maneuver.
He may not have lied to her, but what he had done was by far much worse: He had tried to take her free will, her right to a choice away from her.
“What?” he growled.
She rose from the bench, smoothed her skirt, then stared back at him painfully. “At what point, Brogan, did you begin to believe that you were entitled to make any decisions for me? Let alone one so important?”
Didn’t he know her any better than that?
There had been a few moments over the years when she had sworn she had known what he was going to do or say, or what his opinion would be even before he voiced it. Yet after all this time, he believed he needed to hide something so important from her rather than trusting her?
“When the decision involves me or mine, then I have some say in it,” he growled.
She laughed, a mirthless, angry sound that she didn’t bother to hide.
“No, Brogan, you only have the right to discuss it, and you just made damned certain you no longer have even that right. ”
She moved from the grotto, aware of him following behind her, silent, a dark shadow keeping pace with her as she moved quickly back to the house.
