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He sucked in his breath, then moved with lightning speed. Shoving her shoulders to the ground, he pinned her against the dry grass. His blue eyes flamed jealously as he straddled her. “How good?” he repeated. “Tell me about your relationship with John.”
“Get off me, Denver,” she said through clenched teeth, ignoring the warmth charging through her veins—the dizziness in her head. She couldn’t feel like this, with him, not now. He’d insulted her so horridly, and yet a coiling desire deep within warned her that all too soon she’d lose her will and body to him again. All he had to do was kiss her—show her some trace of tenderness.
“I asked a question.”
Was it her imagination, or was he rubbing suggestively against her, his taut jeans shifting slowly over her abdomen? He was on his knees, his weight evenly distributed so that he didn’t rest on her, and yet she couldn’t move. He placed the flat of one hand between her breasts, on the V of flesh exposed by the open collar of her blouse. His fingers spread lazily over her skin, grazing her bra. She began to ache inside and wanted to move with him. But she couldn’t let him win, not this way.
Closing her eyes, she wounded him the only way she could. “John was the best.”
Denver froze. He tried to tell himself that she was baiting him, but his fists balled and he saw red. Looking down at her, he shuddered. He wanted her as violently as ever, more with each passing day. He’d followed her to the creek with the express purpose of laying his cards on the table, telling her that he couldn’t get her out of his mind, admitting that each and every moment without her had been torture. Just the night before he had opened the door to her room, had seen the moonlight playing on her rumpled hair, turning the blond streaks to silver, had watched in fascination as she’d groaned and turned over, her face innocent and unwary.
He’d used every bit of his energy to walk quickly back down the hall and stand for twenty minutes under the sharp needles of a cold shower.
Now, his legs holding her prisoner, her body warm against his thighs, his cheek still smarting, he shuddered, fighting the urge to undress her, make love to her—and suffer the consequences if she scorned him. Slowly he withdrew his hand.
Tessa willed her eyes open. Staring up at him, she caught a glimmer of pain in his eyes—or was it only her imagination? His face was in shadow and she tried to convince herself that he appeared sinister. But she knew better. Deep in her heart, she believed there was still some tenderness in Denver McLean. Buried beneath a charred layer of cynicism, this was the same man she’d loved with every breath in her body.
“Is this why you came out here, Denver?” she asked, her voice hoarse. “To prove that you’re stronger than I am, to show me that you could have your way with me if you wanted to? To humiliate me?”
“What do you think?” he asked, but all the sarcasm had left his voice, and his jaw slackened.
“I hope to God that you didn’t follow me to degrade me. I hope there’s some shred of decency left in you.”
He laughed hollowly. “Not much.” But he swung his leg off of her and stretched out beside her on the grass.
She didn’t move away. She didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking she was afraid of him. “That was a childish thing to do.”
“And this wasn’t?” he asked, rubbing the red mark on the side of his chin.
She sighed. “You deserved it.”
“So did you.”
“It wasn’t the same thing. I just reacted.”
“So did I.”
“You tried to frighten me,” she said. “But it didn’t work. I’m not afraid of you, Denver, and you can growl and bluster and try to humiliate me all you want. I still won’t be afraid of you!”
With a groan, he rolled onto his back and stared at the sky. The first winking stars blinked high in the heavens. “I don’t want you to be afraid of me, Tessa,” he conceded.
“You have a strange way of showing it.”
Closing his eyes, he whispered, “I wasn’t even going to come back, you know. John’s attorney talked me into it.” He shifted his gaze back to her face. “Then I thought I’d show up here, stay a couple of days and take off for L.A. again.”
Tessa’s heart began to pound so loudly it drowned the tiny gurgle of water in the stream. “And now?”
“God only knows,” he muttered, staring at her as if he were memorizing her every feature. “Why aren’t you afraid of me?”
“Because I know you, Denver.”
“I’ve changed.”
“Not as much as you’d like me to believe.”
He eyed her skeptically, one dark brow arched.
“Okay, you’ve changed a lot,” she admitted, “but basically you’re the same man you were that afternoon on the ridge.”
