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ng away with less than nothing.
Dead ends. Dark alleys. Utter and debilitating loneliness. That's what kisses had always been, been for so long that she'd forgotten until this moment that she'd ever wished for anything more. Suddenly she remembered what she'd tried so hard to forget. She remembered sitting in that horrible room, so stark and white and cold and smelling of antiseptic and Pine Sol, staring through the iron bars, wishing?Oh, Jesus, wishing she'd had even one good memory to counteract the horror, to make her believe again in white knights and happy endings___
And now, finally, here it was.
When he'd kissed her, she'd felt as if she'd finally come home, as if all the frightened searching of her life, of her heart, had been for this, for the feel of his hands on her body and his lips on hers.
Jesus, it was frightening.
"Idiot." She spat the word. Her lips trembled, her eyes ached, and the need to cry swelled in her chest like a hot, smoldering stone.
Soul mates. Lovers. The words came at her hard, knocking the breath from her lungs with their poignant intimacy.
What if, what if, what if ...
She stared back at the pond, at the man sitting hunched beside its moonlit glow. She tried to tell herself that none of it mattered. What she felt, what he felt, what they might or might not have once been to each other; none of it mattered. Nothing mattered but Kelly and getting home.
But deep down, she couldn't make herself believe it this time. Deep down, she knew that that kiss mattered. Perhaps more than any other single moment in her life.
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* * *
"Lainie?" Killian's voice floated through the darkness, reaching out to her.
"I can hear you."
"It's dangerous out there. Come on in."
She glanced back, saw him standing alongside the fire. One side of his body was splashed with golden light, the other half was sheathed in shadow. At the sight of him, so tall and broad-shouldered and strong, she felt an almost overwhelming sense of loss. She wanted to run to him and throw her arms around him and let him kiss her again.
"I think it's more dangerous with you," she said softly.
He took a step toward her. A twig snapped beneath his heel. "I won't try to kiss you again."
His quiet promise should have surprised her. She wished that it had. But instead, she'd expected it, known somehow that he didn't want to hurt her.
// only he knew how easy it was ...
She pushed tiredly to her feet. There was no point in hiding out here in the darkness. She had to face him sooner or later, had to figure out a way to wrench some honest strength from her too weak soul. They still had five days?and nights?together. She couldn't avoid him forever.
Turning, she walked back to the campsite. When she stepped into the light, Killian made a sharp sound of relief.
She glanced at him, and immediately wished that she hadn't. Nerves tightened her stomach, set off a flurry of butterflies.
"Come sit by the fire," he said, not moving toward her. "We could ... talk."
The suggestion caught her off guard. "About what?"
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He frowned, and at the movement, the shadows on his face shifted. "Does it have to be about something? Jesus, Lainie, haven't you ever just shot the shit with a man?"
"No." The single word hurt, revealed so much more than she wanted to reveal.
"Come on." He stepped backward, sat cross-legged on the ground.
She moved slowly toward him, dreading each step. The fire's heat washed through her in a shudder. About five feet from him, she sat down and drew her legs against her chest.
