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Her response went to his head. He was so hard, he ached from head to toe. Ached for her. For Bryn. He hadn’t been with a woman in several months…and hadn’t really noticed the omission. But now he was on fire, out of control.
As she worked at his belt and found the zipper below, her slight clumsiness tormented him. He groaned aloud when her small fingers closed around his erection and squeezed lightly. God. He was in danger of coming in her hand.
What kind of man put sexual hunger ahead of loyalty to his family? What kind of man betrayed the memory of his brother? He panted, counting backward from a hundred, anything to grab a toehold of control. In that brief instant, his ardor chilled and his stomach pitched. Bryn was either a sensual witch or a self-serving liar. And all she had to do was smile at him and he was her slave.
He lurched to his feet, sweating. She stared at him, her cheeks flushed, a dawning misery on her face. With dignity, she straightened her clothes and buttoned her blouse.
She rose with more grace than he had managed and faced him across the rumpled quilt.
He saw the muscles in her throat work as she swallowed. “There’s something you’re not telling me, Trent. Something important. Something significant. I don’t think you’re the kind of man to be deliberately cruel. Why start something with me and then back away as if I’m about to infect you? For God’s sake, Trent. What is it?”
He told her what he should have said from the beginning. The words felt like stones in his dry mouth. “On the day Mac put you on a plane to Minnesota, Jesse came to me and told me the truth. He said that you had been in his bedroom repeatedly…begging him to have sex with you to make me jealous. But he refused. He told me you probably slept with one of his friends until you were sure you were pregnant, and you planned all along to say it was Jesse’s.”
Bryn stared at him, frozen, her eyes blank with shock. She wet her lips. “That doesn’t even make sense,” she whispered.
He gazed at her bleakly. “The damned thing is, Bryn, it worked. I wanted you so much, I was sick with it. And if you had left Jesse alone, you and I might have ended up together. But you made that impossible. And then you tried to make Jesse take responsibility for another guy’s kid. You disgust me.”
She swayed, and he reached forward instinctively to catch her.
But she backed away, the look in her eyes difficult to see. He felt a lick of regret, a jolt of shame. It was partly his fault. If he had stayed away from her when she arrived in Wyoming, they could have avoided this unpleasant encounter.
She backed up again, her hand over her mouth. Suddenly, his pulse raced. She was too close to the edge of the drop-off.
“Bryn!” He reached for her again, urgently.
He was almost too late. Her foot hit the loose scree at the edge of the steep hillside, her body bowed in a vain attempt to regain her balance, and she cried out as he grabbed for her.
Four
Trent cursed. In the bare seconds it had taken him to get to her, a dozen horrific scenarios filled his brain. But thank God she hadn’t fallen. There would have been little to have stopped a precipitous descent—a small ledge here and there, a few low, scrubby bushes.
He held her tightly as sick relief flooded his chest. “You little fool. You could have killed yourself. What were you thinking?” He held her at arm’s length. Her face was white and set. He was rigid, his stomach curling. “Are you okay? Tell me, dammit.” The words came out more harshly than he had intended. She flinched, and then her expression went from vulnerable to stoic.
“I’m fine,” she said. “No problem. Let me go. Get out of my way.”
He ground his teeth. “Don’t be stupid. You’re standing on loose gravel. I’ll help you.”
“No.” A single word. Two small letters. But the vehemence behind it made him feel like dirt.
Unfortunately, this was not a situation where he was willing to put her pride first. He didn’t waste time arguing. He scooped her into his arms and took a deep breath. She went nuts, shrieking and struggling until her flailing knee nearly unmanned him.
“Bryn.” His raised voice was the same one he used to put the fear of God into his employees when necessary. “Be still, damn it. Unless you want to kill us both.”
