He grabbed her and pulled her tightly to him. “Do you know what you’re saying?”
Watery winter sunlight spilled down around them. The sea breeze ruffled their hair and sent a chill she hardly felt down Penny’s spine.
“I do. I want you, Colt. There’s no point in denying it,” she said, laying both hands flat against his chest. She felt the thundering gallop of his heart beneath her palm. “You want me, too. I know you do.”
He didn’t deny it. How could he? If anything, he held her tighter, closer, and she could feel the proof of his desire pressing into her.
“Let’s enjoy what we have while we have it,” she said.
“I can’t stay.” Colt’s eyes searched hers.
“And I can’t go.” Penny met his gaze. “But we’re both here, now.”
* * *
For the last few days, it had taken every ounce of Colt’s self-control to keep from taking Penny back to bed. He wanted her with every breath. His entire body ached with need. He walked around in a constant state of pain and discomfort. But ha**ng s*x with her again would only magnify the mistake he’d already made.
Hell, he hadn’t come back into her life to claim her—she deserved a hell of a lot better than him. He couldn’t give her what she wanted. What she needed. Stability. A husband to count on. A happy family living in her dollhouse cottage surrounded by a white picket fence. It wasn’t in him and he knew she’d never be happy with anything less. And why the hell should she have to settle for a sometimes man when she was worth so much more? She needed to find a man who would be beside her. Someone she could depend on.
Though the thought of another man touching her, claiming her as his own, raising his kids, sent jagged bolts of pure fury through Colt. But he didn’t know what the hell else he could do. If he stayed, he’d fail them. He knew it. Felt it. And that was one risk he was unwilling to take.
“Colt,” she said, fisting her hands in his T-shirt, tugging at him until he came out of his thoughts to stare into her eyes. “We have now,” she repeated. “Let’s make that enough.”
He smiled and shook his head. “You’re not an ‘enough’ kind of woman,” he told her. “Penny, you’re the all-or-nothing type.”
“Maybe I was. But people change,” she insisted.
“No, they don’t.” He lifted both hands to cup her face, loving the feel of her skin beneath his palms. Wishing things were different. “Situations change and people try to adapt. But at the heart of it, we are who we are. Always.”
“And who are you?”
“A bad risk,” he told her, his insides quaking, his voice hard.
“I’ll take my chances,” she said and went up on her toes to kiss him.
For a full second, maybe two, Colt didn’t respond. His brain was warning him to step back for her sake if not his own. To do the right thing. To make her see that nothing good could come of this.
But her mouth was insistent. Her tongue touched his lips and his body took over, shutting his brain down. Conscience took a backseat to need and he growled low in his throat as he returned her kiss, deepening it. His tongue tangled with hers. He tasted her breath, the sweetness of her, and swore when she wrapped her arms around his neck that he felt her soul sliding into his.
How the hell could he turn down what she suggested? She was willing to risk pain; how could he do any less? He was going to have her. Going to indulge in what she offered and then he would walk away as he knew he should. It was the only way to keep her safe. To keep their children safe.
She sighed and melted into him, br**sts against his chest, mouth hungrily meeting his.
The sun continued to shine down on them with warmth, not heat, and together they built a fire between them that put that pale winter sun to shame. The sound of the waves crashing into shore hammered into the silence, sounding like a ragged heartbeat. Seagulls screeched, a soft sea breeze blew and as they remained locked together on the terrace, the world slipped past in a haze of passion.
His hands roamed up and down her body, loving the feel of her curves as he continued to plunder her mouth, taking her breath, her sighs, into himself and holding them there. She moved against him and his erection throbbed painfully against the confines of his jeans. He had to have her. There was no time for niceties. No time for subtle seduction. This was lust, pure and simple and demanding.
Breaking the kiss, he bent, swept her up into his arms and headed for the house.
“You can’t carry me,” she complained.
“Looks like I can,” he said and never broke stride.
“God, this is romantic.”
He laughed, glanced into her shining eyes and said, “Glad you think so. I think it’s expedient.”
“That, too.” She lifted one hand to cup his face, then let it drop so she could slide one hand across his muscular chest.
Even through the fabric of his T-shirt, Colt felt the heat of her touch right down to his bones. His mind was racing, his body was on hyperdrive and all he could think was bed. Had to get to the closest bed.
He headed for the master bedroom and didn’t stop until he’d dropped her onto the mattress. Here, the walls were glass, affording a wide, uninterrupted view of the sea. At night, he could lower electric shades that would give him privacy, but here on the bluff, they weren’t really necessary. No one could see into his room unless they were in a helicopter with a pair of binoculars.
And he was suddenly grateful for that privacy. He didn’t want her in darkness. He wanted her in the sunlight. He wanted to feast on the sight of Penny, to burn her image into his brain so that when he was out of her life completely, he would be able to remember this day. This moment.
Nine
She stared up at him and Colt felt as if he could drown in the green of her eyes. Her dark red hair spilled across the white pillowcase and looked like spun silk. When she sat up, he pulled her to him for another hungry kiss. When he broke it, gulping for air like a dying man, he muttered, “Clothes. Off. Now.”
“Yes.” Quickly, she stripped out of her clothes and lay back across the bed, arms high over her head, back arched as if offering herself to him.
His mouth went dry. He undressed faster than he ever had before. In seconds, they were tangled together on the cool, crisp sheets. Rolling together across the wide mattress, their legs entwined, flesh met flesh. Hands explored. Mouths fused. Heartbeats hammered in tandem.
Sunlight flashed in and out from behind thick gray clouds scuttling across the sky. The French doors to the patio stood open and a cool, soft wind blew into the room, caressing heated skin.