“No? Then tell me you want me, Adam. Tell me that making love to me is more than a chore. More than just holding up your end of the bargain.” She stepped in close to him, felt the heat pouring off his body and reaching for hers. “Prove me wrong, Adam,” she taunted. “If I’m more than that to you, prove it to me.”
Seconds ticked past as she stared into his eyes. Heat flared in those dark chocolate depths and Gina almost wondered if she’d pushed him too far.
Then he grabbed her, yanked her flush against him and took her mouth with a fierce aggression that melted every bone in her body.
Looked like she’d pushed him just far enough.
* * *
Adam couldn’t breathe.
The anger that had been choking him was drowning now in a molten sea of desire. He pulled her in close, wrapped both arms around her and gave himself up to the raging need within. She opened her mouth for him and his tongue delved into her heat. He tasted and took, grabbing as much of her as he could, as if his life depended on it.
She was a contradiction in so many ways. Sweet, and yet not afraid to stand up for herself. Even to him. Sexy and warm and hot tempered, as well. She shook up his life. Brought chaos to order. Dragged strangers onto his property. Made him feel too much. Want too much.
His hands fisted in her hair and he pulled her head back, bending her back as he took all she offered. All she promised. He felt her like a drug in his system. She filled every cell. Awoke every nerve.
She was dangerous.
At that thought, he pulled himself up from the spell he was under and broke the kiss like a man surfacing for one last gasp of air before he drowned. He released her and she lurched unsteadily until she found her footing. Then she lifted one hand to her mouth and raised her glassy eyes to his.
Adam fought to bring air into straining lungs. Fought to ignore the throbbing in his groin, the near-frantic demand for release clamoring at him. When he finally felt as though he could speak again, he said only, “You’re not a chore, Gina. But you’re not permanent, either. You can’t be.”
Pain flickered in her eyes and he steeled himself against it. He wouldn’t be moved by concern for her. Would hold himself to the course he’d set when he embarked on the bargain that had shattered the peaceful solitude of his world.
“Why, Adam?” Her voice was soft and sounded as bruised as her eyes. “Why are you so determined to feel nothing? You were married before. You loved Monica.”
Ice flowed through his veins just as quickly as the fire had only moments before. “You don’t know anything about my marriage.”
He hoped she would drop it, but of course, being Gina, she didn’t.
“I know that she’s gone. I know that the pain you felt at losing your wife and son will never really go away.”
“You knownothing. “
“Then talk to me!” Her shout was loud enough to rattle the window glass in the old barn. “How can I know what you’re thinking if you won’t talk to me? Let me in, Adam.”
Shaking his head, he fought for words, and couldn’t find any. He didn’t want herin. Didn’t want this to be anything more than the impersonal bargain they’d first begun. His past was just that.His. He didn’t make decisions based on guilt or pain or any other emotion that could cloud judgment, impair thought.
Adam ran his life as he ran his portion of the King business. With calm, cool reason. Something Gina clearly was unaccustomed to.
“The pictures of your family in the hall?” She looked up at him, a silent pleading in her golden eyes. “The photos all over the house? They’re of you and your brothers. Your parents. Cousins. But—”
He knew what she was going to say and still swayed with the slap of her words.
“There are no pictures of Monica and Jeremy anywhere. Why is that, Adam?”
Steeling himself, he kept his voice steady, emotions hidden. “You’d prefer that I filled the house with photos? You think I want to look at pictures of my son and remember him dying? Does that sound like a good time to you, Gina? Because it sure as hell doesn’t to me.”
“Of course not.” She grabbed his forearm with both hands and he felt the strength of her grip, the heat of her touch right down to his bones. “But how can you just shut it all out? How can you refuse to remember your own son?”
He remembered, Adam thought as an instant image of Jeremy leaped up into his mind. Small, with blond hair like his mother and his father’s brown eyes. Smiling, always smiling, that’s how Adam remembered him. But that was private. Something he didn’t share.
Slowly he peeled her hands off his arm and took a step back from her for good measure. “Just because I don’t surround myself with physical mementos doesn’t mean I could orwould forget him. But I don’t run my life on memories, Gina. My past doesn’t infringe on my present. Or my future.” He forced himself to look at her and distance himself from the regret, the disappointment shining in her eyes. She’d known going into this that he wasn’t looking for love. If she’d allowed herself to hope for more, that wasn’t his fault, was it?
When she didn’t speak, Adam continued. “We have a business arrangement, Gina. Nothing more. Don’t expect what I can’t give and we’ll both come out of this with what we want.”
Eleven
For days, Gina wrestled with that last conversation she’d had with Adam in the barn. She kept forcing herself to remember not only the fierce fire of his kiss, but the icy shards in his eyes.
Had she been fooling herself for months? Had she really been holding on to a childish dream that had no basis in reality? Was it time to admit defeat and bundle her heart up before it could be shattered completely?
She tugged on Shadow’s reins and urged the gentle Gypsy mare down a well-worn path to the King family cemetery. As she approached, storm clouds that had been crouched at the horizon all day suddenly moved forward, sweeping across the sky like an invading army.
The temperature dropped in an instant and the sun’s light was obliterated. Grayness surrounded her and a cold wind kicked up, lifting her long braid off her shoulder, tossing it behind her back. Shadow danced uneasily beneath her as if the horse sensed the coming storm and wanted nothing more than to return to the warm comfort of the stable.
But Gina was on a mission, and wasn’t going back to the house until she’d completed it. How had Adam cut his dead family so neatly out of his life? With surgical precision, he’d sliced off that part of his past and shuttered it away completely. What kind of man could do that?