long moments, she said tentatively, “You should go home, talk to your—” She stopped there, uncertain what to call them now, the people who’d raised him and loved him.
His smile was a grim travesty of the open, cheerful, I know who I am and where I belong smile that had ticked her off all these years…and yet now, it hurt that he wasn’t the same man he’d been an hour ago. “It’s okay to call them my family. Apparently I’m still related.”
Wondering how he fit in now, she smiled back at him. “That’s good.”
“Half nephew,” he said, reading her thoughts without difficulty. “If there’s such a thing as a half nephew.”
“Well, that’s good…isn’t it? I mean, you still belong with them.” She closed her mouth, cursing her stupid tongue—and her body. His touch, the depth of his gaze on her was stirring her senses so much she couldn’t think. She’d been thrown without warning into a world where she wanted so much more than to best a man at the game he played, a world without superficial rules.
Maybe it was because Jim was incapable of playing games tonight; he was in too much pain to handle it. She had to ignore her pathetic wish that she could have been in his arms an hour before the phone call had rocked his life off its secure foundations.
“I suppose I do still belong.” He kept looking at her. His hands, at her back, moved a little. The most tentative caress she’d ever known.
She felt her breath catch again. Looking at him became dangerous, yet she couldn’t stop. What was he doing? What did he want from her: a friend to understand his pain, or a lover to help him forget for a while? The thought sent a shudder of longing through her.
Did she follow his lead, or ignore it? She didn’t know; all she knew was she couldn’t breathe again, and her gaze clung to his.
“I have to go,” he whispered, but held her still.
Without breath or balance, she nodded again, not trusting her voice. Wanting too much. Craving. She rested her hands against his chest, trying to find the strength to move.
“I want you, too, Danni,” he said quietly, giving her the words she didn’t know she was aching to hear until they came. “Right now I don’t think I’ve ever wanted a woman more. But until I know who I am, I can’t give you what you need.”
From another man, the words would have brought out her fighting spirit. She didn’t need anything from a man. She would make her way alone, and succeed.
From Jim, it was raw truth, he was hurting too much to tell her anything else.
She didn’t want to think about whether he was right or not. “So you can’t give your usual one hundred and fifty percent. Maybe it’s time someone gave to you, Haskell,” she said, hearing the huskiness of desire in her voice. “I don’t think you should go home alone.”
He tipped up her chin, his gaze searching her face, so taken aback by her words, his brows met in a frown. “Are you offering to come with me?”
Amazed that she actually was, she nodded…and made a soft, purring sound when his hand caressed her back, and the other moved beneath the sensitive skin at her chin.
He made a helpless gesture, a little shrug that conveyed his confusion. “Why?”
How to answer that, when she didn’t know herself? “I owe you for saving my butt two years ago. And I’ve been where you are, in a way,” she said, hearing the soft breathlessness thrumming through each word. “I might not be adopted, but I’ve spent my life wishing I was.” She looked up at him, half-defiant. “You know my story. I suppose everyone does. I’ve been navigating the waters of parental lies and self-delusion all my life. You can’t let them to fluff you off with their version of the story—and believe me, they’ll try. Even the best parents hate being caught out lying or being in the wrong. They should have told you years ago, and given you the chance to find your real parents.” She drew a deep breath after saying more in one go than she had for years. “You shouldn’t be left alone with this.”
“What about your job?”
She shrugged. “I quit three weeks ago. I’ve only been doing locum work until I find the right practice. So I’m free to come with you.”
“How about where you live? Laila said you signed a lease on a place in Sydney?”
She shrugged. “My stuff’s there. A week’s rent’s no big deal.” She frowned as he began to find another objection. “Look, I’ll come if you want me to. I may not be Laila,” she added tartly, “but I’m free for another week or two. I don’t see anyone else offering to be your support person.”
Why on earth am I pushing this?
As if he’d heard her thought, a brow lifted. “And…? Come on, Danni, say it.”
She bit her lip over a crazy urge to smile. She ought to have known he wasn’t going to let her leave it unsaid, or let her hide behind her sarcasm. Typical of Jim—but she knew whatever she gave to him now he’d give back tenfold, because he always did.
The thought of what he’d give her, what she’d been wanting from him from the first moment he’d touched her at graduation two years ago, made the sweet wanting bloom into a hot ache in every part of her body.
Wrong time, wrong place, probably the wrong people as well…But she didn’t care.
“And because…” She lifted her chin and said it outright, “I don’t want you to walk away again and leave whatever this is between us hanging for another two years.”
He laughed then—not with his whole heart, not as cheerful as the past—but still he’d laughed, and she’d done it for him. She felt a little glow of pride. This reaching out and doing things for people actually felt pretty good—at least, it felt good with Jim.
When he spoke, the warm laughter was still there…but so was the desire. “Spoken like the straight-from-the-hip woman you are.”
“Is that bad?” She moved her hands on his chest.
His eyes darkened. “It’s good, Danni. It’s damn good. I didn’t think you’d ever admit to it.” He pulled her closer. “Come on, little fighter. Make it real.”
Maybe he wanted her; maybe he just wanted one piece of good news tonight, or a distraction from the knock he’d suffered. Maybe he was lying to himself—but he was too honest to do that. And he’d been looking at her like that before the call.
She didn’t question why, after a lifetime of denial with men, she wanted to say this, and now; she only knew she must, or he wouldn’t kiss her. Her hands caressed up his chest to his shoulders; then, the ache of her yearning made truth imperative. She pulled at him, trying to bring him down to her. “I want you, Haskell, all right? I want to be with you.”
That gorgeous, big-as-the-Outback grin she’d always hungered to see even as she’d pretended to hate it, spread across his face. “Now say the rest of it,” he whispered, resisting her pull, forcing her out of all hiding. Making the thing between them as honest as it was inevitable.
“All right. I’ve wanted you for two years.” She sighed impatiently, tugging harder. “And waiting for you to touch me
