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His lips were as sensual and insistent as they had been years before, and she was just as lost to him now. In the warm interior of his office, a decade had melted away.
Don’t do this, Bliss. Don’t let him use you aga
in!
But she couldn’t stop herself.
His mouth moved over hers with a wild abandon that touched the deepest part of her. Within a heartbeat her traitorous body began to respond, and desire, hot and long slumbering, awoke with a vengeance. She could hardly breathe, her knees threatened to buckle and her mouth opened willingly under the sweet, gentle pressure of his tongue.
Somewhere in the back of her mind she knew she was making a horrid, life-altering mistake, but she didn’t care. For the moment, she only wanted to close her eyes and drown in the seductive whirlpool of his taste, his smell, his touch.
With a moan, she started to wind her arms around his neck. Then, as his fingers toyed with the hem of her T-shirt, she realized that she was falling into the same precarious trap that had snared her ten years earlier.
He used you before.
He’ll use you again.
He never loved you and never will.
“I—I can’t,” she managed. “W-we shouldn’t… Oh, Lord, this—this isn’t a good idea,” she whispered, lifting her head and feeling dizzy. Her eyelids were at half-mast, her blood flowing like lava.
“I know.” He kissed her—a soft, teasing brush of his lips over hers.
She melted deep inside. “I don’t think—”
Another featherlight kiss to the corner of her mouth. “Don’t think.”
Sweet heaven, how she wanted him. Her legs turned wobbly. “Listen, Mason, please, I can’t do this.” Forcing the unwanted words over her tongue, she pushed him away with all her strength. She was breathing hard, her chest rising and falling with each breath, her anger pulsing in her ears. “What we had was over a long time ago. I thought you understood that a few minutes ago, but if you missed the message, let me give it to you loud and clear, okay?” Somehow she found the strength to say what her heart so vehemently denied. “I don’t believe in reliving the past.”
“How about changing the future?”
Her heart stopped for a crazy minute and in her mind’s silly eye, she saw herself walking down an aisle in a white dress, swearing to love him for the rest of her life, becoming his wife and bearing his children. Mason’s babies. A part of her heart shredded when she remembered he already had a child, one who had nothing to do with her. Tears touched the back of her eyelids and she said dully, “We have no future.” And that was the simple truth. They both knew it. “Look, don’t…don’t you have an oil well to drill, or some tractors to sell, or some livestock to brand?”
A slow, sexy smile spread across his face. “I was just about to call it a day.” Reaching behind her head, he snapped off the lights. “Maybe you and I should have dinner or drinks,” he suggested, and a part of her longed to be with him, to forgive him, to be confident enough to make love to him without the need to think of becoming his wife.
“I—I don’t think that would be such a good idea.”
“Scared?” he taunted, and a spark of amusement flared in his eyes.
“No way.”
“Then why not go out with me?”
Because I can’t take a chance. I don’t want to get hurt, and I can’t trust myself when I’m around you! “I…I have plans.” Even to her own ears, her excuse sounded feeble. “With Dad.”
He hesitated, his silence accusing her of the lie. His jaw slid to one side. “Then I’ll take a rain check.”
“Fine. Right.”
“I’m serious, Bliss. Anytime you want to see me, drop by.” Amber eyes held hers for a second. “You know where I live.”
“Yes. At Tiffany’s.”
He nodded and touched her lightly on the arm. “Anytime.” A tremor stole through her at the thought of being alone with him at his place. He opened the door and she walked through with as much dignity as she could muster, but all the way down the stairs to the first floor, she felt her lips tingle where Mason had kissed her and her cheeks, where the stubble of his beard had nibbed against her skin, were slightly tender. Oh, Lord, what was she getting herself into? She shoved open the front door and heard Mason’s keys jangling in the lock but she didn’t wait for him to follow her.
Quickly, she hurried outside to the sidewalk. The flow of traffic was lazy in the late afternoon and in the town square across the street, women pushed baby buggies or watched their children play on equipment in the park. She thought she spied Tiffany Santini pushing her daughter on a swing, and again her heart twisted at the thought of children.
Tiffany threw her head back and laughed as the imp in the swing said something she found hilarious. Tiffany’s black hair gleamed in the sunlight, and mother and daughter seemed carefree and incredibly happy.
