He turned from his own dark reflection in the window to find Katie standing in the doorway to the central room, wearing her wrinkled red pajamas and a pair of fat wool socks, blinking against the bright overhead kitchen light.
A slow warmth spread through him, just to see her standing there. It was that feeling of well-being and contented relief a man gets when he comes in from the cold and finds a cheery fire waiting—that feeling multiplied about a thousand times.
Damn, she looked good, all squinty-eyed with a sleep mark on her soft cheek and her dark hair a tangled halo all around her sweet face. Had there ever been a woman so outright adorable? Not in his experience, and that had been varied, if not especially meaningful.
She stuck out a hand in the direction of the book that lay open on the table in front of him. “Still on chapter three, I’ll bet.”
He glanced down at the book in question, then back up at her, an ironic smile twisting his lips. “Page sixty-seven, to be exact.”
She wrapped her arms around herself. Her soft mouth was pursed tight. “Look. Mind if I sit down?”
The set of her mouth, the determined look in her eyes, her defensive posture—they all told him more than he wanted to know.
No doubt about it. Katie had questions.
Which meant he would have to try to answer them honestly, but without ever telling her the whole truth.
Things got ugly when a man had too much to hide. He probably should have known that when he started this whole charade. Hell. He had known it. And he’d been willing to live with the ugliness.
Then.
He gave her an elaborately casual shrug and closed the book. “Sure. Take a seat.”
She marched over, yanked out the chair opposite him, and plunked herself down into it, unwrapping her arms from around herself and folding her hands in her lap.
“Okay…” He drew the word out, eyeing her sideways. “What’s up?”
She craned around to get a look at the kitchen clock. When she faced him again, she replied, “Well, you are. It’s three-fifteen in the morning and you’re just sitting here, staring out the window.”
He lounged back in his chair, displaying an ease he didn’t feel. “And this is a problem for you?”
“No. No, of course not.” She huffed out a frus-trated-sounding breath. “You can sit here all night if you want. What’s bothering me is…” She ran out of steam, sucked in another big breath, and started again. “Look. I spent most of last night staying out of your way, and you spent most of it avoiding looking, talking or getting too close to me. I just, well, I’d like that to stop and I came out here to ask you what I could do to make that happen.”
Her distress was palpable. He hated to see her so miserable, and he hated worst of all that he was the cause of her unhappiness.
But what the hell did he have to tell her?
Half-truths.
And when half-truths failed him, outright lies.
He wanted out of this—out of this damned museum, away from the reality that he was using her.
He didn’t want to use her anymore. It had been a bad idea from the first and he wanted to walk away from it.
But there was no walking away now. The damage was done. She cared for him. When it all went down, she would be hurt, and hurt bad. There was no getting away from that now.
Even if he gave up his original plan to see that Caleb Douglas paid—which he wasn’t about to do—he would still end up hurting her. It was simply too late to walk away and leave her untouched.
Untouched.
An interesting word choice given the plain fact that all he wanted to do was reach out.
And touch…
“Justin,” she prompted, when he went too long without answering her. “Did you hear one thing I said to you?” A deep frown creased her brow.
He resisted the powerful urge to rise, to go to her, to smooth that frown away. “I heard you. Every word. Go on.”
“Ahem. Well. The truth is I know very well why I stayed out of your way—because it seemed to me that you were avoiding me. Were you?”
“Yeah.” What else was there to say? “I was.”
“Why?”
Why? He should have known that one was coming. What to say now? How to weasel out of this one…
And then, out of nowhere, the exact right words seemed to well up of their own accord. “Because I want you. Because I want to be with you. And because it scares the hell out of me, that I do—and how much I do.”
The words took form and he let them out and…
Damned if they weren’t the absolute truth. More truth than he wanted to face himself, let alone share with her.
But he had shared them.
What did that mean?
Where was he headed with this?
Hell if he even knew.
Her soft face had gone softer still, all the worried tension melting out of it. Her eyes shone and her pursed-up mouth had relaxed to its usual sweet fullness. “Oh, Justin…” She lifted a hand from her lap and stretched it across the table to him. “Come on. Take a chance. Take a chance on me.”
And before he could think twice, he was leaning toward her, reaching right back. Their hands met and heat shot up his arm, broke into a million swift, burning arrows that splintered off in all directions, hitting every nerve in his body at once.
All he could say was one word: her name. “Katie.”
And then, as one, they stood. They stepped around the barrier of the table and there was a moment—painful and electric—when he almost managed to make himself let go, almost stepped back, almost told her, Katie, I can’t. Can’t touch you, can’t hold you…
But the pull was too strong. It wouldn’t be denied.
He gathered her in and she landed against him, soft and warm and so willing, smelling of shampoo and sweetness, naked beneath the fuzzy red flannel.
“Katie.” He buried his face in her fragrant hair. “Katie.”
She nuzzled his chest, pressed her lips there, sent a warm, thrilling breath through the wool of the old sweater. The warmth spread, borne on that breath, a caress of hope and life itself. He held her tighter.
And she turned her head, pressing her mouth to his neck, a velvety pressure. Her lips opened slightly. He felt the wet brush of her tongue.
He
