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“What?”
“I asked, why didn’t you fall in love?”
I did. A long time ago. With you. And you hurt me. Oh, God, Mason, you hurt me so badly. She swallowed hard and licked lips that had become dry in a second. “I, uh, I guess I’m picky.” Dear God, was that her voice that sounded so breathless—so filled with a desperate yearning she didn’t want to name? “What—what about you?”
“I fell in love with the wrong woman.”
Terri Fremont. His ex-wife. Of course. “I see.”
“Do you?”
He was too close, way too close. She needed to escape, but her feet wouldn’t move.
“Terri and I are divorced.” His lips turned downward and a private pain pierced his eyes. “We have been for a long time. Ours wasn’t exactly a marriage to write home about.”
Her heart squeezed even though she’d told herself over and over again that she didn’t care about Mason Lafferty, that he could rot in hell, that he was a selfish bastard. “I suppose not.”
His mouth twisted and his hands, still upon her shoulders, didn’t move. “You know, I never meant to hurt you—”
Oh, no, he was going to apologize! Again! This man who could barely admit to making a mistake. Bliss couldn’t take it, didn’t want to hear anything he had to say about what had happened between them. “Don’t, Mason,” she begged, staring into eyes as gold as an October sunset. “Just don’t, okay?”
“I thought I should explain what happened.”
“I know what happened, and guess what? It doesn’t matter anymore,” she said, her tongue tripping over the untruth. “I said what I wanted to say.”
“Liar.”
“Pardon me?” she asked, inwardly telling herself it was time to leave, to get away from him.
“I think you have a lot more to say. More questions that beg to be answered.” He stepped even closer, touched the side of her face with one callused finger. Just being alone with him and breathing the same air he did caused her chest to constrict and her heart to pound in a silly, useless cadence.
“Bliss—” His hands captured her shoulders. His expression, harsh only minutes before, seemed suddenly haunted and weary. “Just…just believe that I never meant to hurt you.”
She swallowed against a sudden lump in her throat as she witnessed a ghost of pain cross his eyes.
“I am sorry,” he whispered.
“I know.” Oh, Lord, now tears were burning against her eyelids but she forced them back. She’d wasted too many tears on this man years ago. “Believe me, Mason,” she said, lying through her teeth again as anger overcame sadness, “it doesn’t matter. It wasn’t that big a deal. If you think I spent years or even months pining for you, you’re dead wrong. I went home to Seattle, pulled myself up by my bootstraps and was dating Todd Wheeler not long after you finished saying ‘I do.’ So don’t flatter yourself into thinking I cared a whit about whom you married or even when.”
She tried to pull herself from his grasp, but his fingers clamped possessively over her arms. His amber gaze—hot, wanting and intense—pinned hers. No, she thought desperately. No! No! No! This was wrong. So very wrong, and yet, despite the denials screaming through her brain, she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, could only stare at his lips—blade thin and hard. It took little effort to imagine what they would feel like against hers, how his mouth would open and his tongue would slide so easily past her own lips and teeth, searching, seeking, touching…
“If I could do things over—”
“What?” she asked, tearing her gaze from that sexy slash that was his mouth. “What are you saying, Mason? That you’d change the past? How? Sneak around so that I wouldn’t find out about Terri? Keep me from riding out to the ridge in the storm?” Make love to me like I begged you to? Oh, God. “What?”
“No, I—”
“I don’t want to hear it!” Now she sounded like a spoiled teenager, but she didn’t care. She had to find a way to break away from him, away from the sweet seduction of his touch. This was all happening way too fast and much too late. “Look, Mason, as I’ve said, it just doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Like hell.” Their gazes clashed—innocent blue and rugged gold. Like metal striking metal.
“No—Oh, Mason—”
He dragged her against him and as she gasped, his lips crashed down on hers. Urgent. Wanting.
She voiced a soft moan of protest that went unheeded.
His mouth was hard and warm and molded so effortlessly against hers. He smelled of leather and aftershave, musky and male. A part of her let go—after ten long, heart-wrenching years.
