AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She tried to ignore both her blush and his comment, doggedly sticking to her guns. "You're the one who investigated Dad's murder. Of course, they would watch you—"
"I would almost welcome them," he said, very gently. "I'm armed, and I'm pissed."
Yes, he was—royally pissed. Again. Or still. She stared blindly out the window.
He exited off I-10 and worked his way over to Canal Street, then down Chartres, then left on St. Louis. He hit the garage door opening, and Karen managed not to duck as he drove under the yawning door with inches to spare.
"How long are you going to pretend it didn't happen?" he asked, getting out and opening her door, then collecting her suitcase from the trunk.
She bit her lip as she preceded him up the stairs.
She felt herded, as if she had no choice but to go in the direction he had chosen. "I'm not pretending. I know very well what I did. You have a right to be angry, and I apologize. I acted like a fool, running away the way I did. I'm not used to—well, anyway, I'm sorry."
"You're not used to sleeping with a man," he finished, unlocking the door and stepping aside for her to enter. He followed, locking the door behind him and setting her suitcase down with a thud. "Now, tell me why you ran."
Uneasily, she moved away from him, embarrassed all over again. "The main reason was lack of nerve. I didn't know—I couldn't figure out why you'd done it."
For once, he looked totally flabbergasted. "What?" he asked blankly.
To give herself something to do, she began unwrapping the enormous bandages covering her hands, concentrating on making a neat roll of the gauze as she unwound it. "The least upsetting reason I could come up with was that you were just horny, and I was handy."
"You were right about the horny part." He reached for her hands and took over the job. "But I didn't use you as a substitute for my fist. I wanted you. If that was the least upsetting reason, I'm not sure I want to hear the other one."
"Other two."
"God. All right, what was the next one?"
"That you felt sorry for me."
His hands stilled at their task. Slowly, his head came up, disbelief written on his face. "You thought I kept a hard-on all night because I felt sorry for you?"
"You had been so kind," she tried to explain, feeling helplessly inadequate for the task. "I couldn't have managed without your help. But then I broke down at the funeral, and I thought you felt you couldn't leave me alone at the hotel—"
"Karen." He shook his head a little, as if trying to clear it. "That's carrying sympathy a little far, don't you think? My bed isn't a charity ward."
She bit her lip again and fell silent. He bared one of her hands, turning up her raw palm so he could inspect it. He got that grim look on his face again but took her other hand without comment and began the unwrapping process on it. "Okay, what's the third reason you thought of?"
This one was the tough one, but she owed him a full explanation. It was an effort to keep her voice even. "That first day—I knew you didn't like me. I wasn't imagining that, was I?" Despite her best try, she couldn't keep the pain from showing.
He kept his black head bent over her hand. "No," he finally said. "You didn't imagine it."
Karen swallowed, feeling her insides shred. "I didn't think so," she whispered, then said in a stronger voice, "So, anyway, the most likely reason I could think of was that you'd done it for… oh, not revenge, but as a sort of put-down."
"Use you, then kick you out?" He still wasn't looking at her, but she saw the muscle in the side of his jaw clench.
"Something like that. Because you didn't like me." She said it again, trying to impress it on herself, trying to face it head-on so she wouldn't crumple under the hurt of it.
"Not at first, no." He paused, and his big hands tenderly cradled her sore one. "Or rather, I was angry, but it didn't take me long to figure out you weren't what I'd first thought. Within an hour, actually. I began to get the idea when you almost passed out on me, but then when you watched that video and tried to act so calm, so untouched… you were falling apart, and I knew it."
"How?" she demanded, feeling a little truculent. She had tried hard to remain in control, a technique she had perfected over the years. She didn't like thinking she had been so transparent.
"You were clenching your fists so tight they were almost bloodless. You're a marshmallow, sweetie. Instead of not feeling enough, you feel too much. You try to take care of everything and everyone, and then beat yourself up when you can't do it." He slanted a glittering look at her from under his lashes. "By the way, did you get any of my messages?"
"Of course I did. 'God damn it, Karen,'" she quoted, and watched his olive skin darken as blood ran into his cheeks. She was almost glad he was embarrassed, because it balanced her own sense of vulnerability. He saw too much; she felt stripped naked, even more so than when he had actually removed her clothes. She was accustomed to shielding herself emotionally, and it knocked her off balance to realize how transparent she was to him.
"I'm sorry," he said gruffly. "I was so mad I—anyway, I left three messages yesterday."
"Oh. With everything that was happening, I didn't think to call the machine and check messages. What did you say?"
