that was shocking in its delicacy, a delicious, sensitive caress of lips upon lips that washed through her, drove all thought away.
Her eyelids lifted because she needed to look into his eyes. Stacie found something within the dark orbs to which she could cling, and so she did. He kissed her truly then, covered her mouth with his, and she sighed within herself as she took that kiss and gave it back.
Firm lips on hers, giving with sensuality, sipping at her lips as though he couldn’t get enough of the taste of her. Her hands rose to his chest and lay flat against firm muscles as though, if she let her fingertips spread against him in this way, she could absorb more of him through that delicate touch.
Stacie didn’t know why, either. She didn’t know why they’d needed to do this, let themselves do this, but it had happened anyway. And, though she shouldn’t, she let her head tip further back, gave herself more into Troy’s hold and his kiss, and his mouth closed over hers once again.
CHAPTER FIVE
STACIE melted into Troy’s arms and his touch and his kiss with so much giving that Troy struggled not to sweep her up against his chest and …
What? Carry her to her bed inside her home and make love to her through the night? It was exactly what he wanted. To want was one thing, but it also felt like what he needed—and how could that be, when Troy had made his choices? When he controlled his life and his decisions and he’d already decided that showing any interest in Stacie could only end badly?
He didn’t want to hurt her, and if he had no desire to lock in to any kind of meaningful relationship he would hurt her. He had to stop this, now, before it went any further.
Troy was a man of discipline. That discipline had saved his life and kept his team in one piece more times than he could count. And yet right now, even as he warned himself to stop, he drew Stacie closer and wrapped his arms even more snugly around her as he kissed her again, tasted her again. He felt as thoughg he needed that taste, needed to know every nuance of kissing her.
She brought out odd, untapped feelings in him that he didn’t understand, that seemed to bypass all of his usual outlook and attitude. As he held her, he wanted to be reverent, to cherish what he held as a precious gift. New, intimidating and completely unanticipated, these concepts swelled inside him.
There’d been Linda. He’d cared for her as much as he was capable of doing. She had reciprocated those feelings to a similar degree. But theirs had been a tough, goals-focused relationship. Perfect to him, because she would not have welcomed the gentle things he couldn’t give—that his mother had lamented the lack of as she’d tried to place her emotional baggage, her dissatisfaction with her marriage and her life, onto Troy.
His mum was probably still dissatisfied while she and his father roved all over Australia, part of the grey army living the retirement ‘dream’.
Not your problem, Rushton. It never was.
As for all those tender feelings, was he saying he could give them now?
The question confronted him enough that he shoved it away, rejected it. He knew he couldn’t give those things. He didn’t have them inside him; he didn’t even have what he’d given to Linda any more. He had lost his career and had to rebuild, and lost a part of himself physically as well. Troy hated the limitations that put on him.
And, if he was honest, he hated the loss of relationship and identity that he’d found in the army, a place where his lack of soft side had been a trait of value.
Was he having an identity crisis now? Was that responsible for these strange thoughts and things that seemed a lot like soft feelings as he held Stacie in his arms?
‘What are we doing, Troy?’ Stacie whispered the words against his lips.
What indeed? His hands were in her hair, sifting the soft tresses through his fingers.
‘We’re stealing a moment, and that moment is more than we should have taken.’ He’d meant the words to be practical, to help back the situation off and give them both the chance to walk away without needing to make too much of it. For all he knew, Stacie hadn’t and wasn’t making too much of it.
But his voice was too deep. He released those straight brown tresses too slowly. His hands came to rest too gently, caressing the curves where her arms and shoulders met.
Stacie drew back at the same time he did. Her lips left his and her hands slid from his chest and down his forearms. Also slowly. Also … reluctantly.
Did she find it as difficult to let go as he did? To let her hands fully drop away, as Troy struggled to make his hands release her?
‘I’m sorry, Stacie.’ He didn’t want to apologise for a kiss that had been an unexpected intimacy but he had to.
‘Troy, you’re right. We shouldn’t have done that.’ She took a step back, away from him, away from what they’d just shared. A confusion of thought clouded her gaze as she, too, said what she felt had to be said. ‘I can’t—I made the choice to be alone. I’m not looking for a relationship. Not now. Not ever.’
‘Why not? Who hurt you?’
‘It’s not like that.’ Swift words, spoken in denial as she’d done once before.
She went on. ‘My single future is important to me. The last thing—’
‘The last thing we should be doing is kissing each other when neither of us is prepared to pursue where that might lead us.’ Troy’s tone should have been stronger, more believable. When he spoke again, he made sure that it was. ‘You’re right. I’ve made the same choice you have when it comes to relationships.’
Perhaps if he said it aloud it would help him to cement that thought inside him where it should stay. ‘I don’t want a relationship. I don’t have the emotional …’
How could he explain the reasons? He didn’t want to expose his lack to her. Why did that bother him so much with Stacie? ‘I shouldn’t have let that kiss happen when I knew where I stood with … romance and so on.’ Troy settled for those words.
‘Then we’ll just forget it, Troy.’ She drew a breath and schooled her expression into an outward appearance of calm. ‘I’m sure that’ll be best for both of us.’
‘What made you choose to be …?’ Alone? What had made her decide that she didn’t want to invest in a relationship?
‘It was a broken relationship.’ The words were tight. ‘Thanks for driving me home.’ She rushed on. ‘I’ll contact roadside assistance tomorrow morning and get things sorted out with my car.’
In her back yard, her dog let out a woof of sound. A higher-pitched yip accompanied it. Stacie turned her head in that direction before she met Troy’s glance again. ‘I need to go in, feed Fang and Houdini and do some things. Time’s getting on, and I have a lot of work planned for this weekend.’
Work, not play. Troy had the same kind of weekend planned. It was what he should have stuck to in his thinking tonight, too. ‘Good night, Stacie. I appreciated the work outing as a chance to get to know people a bit better. I’ve got enough of a grip on all of them now.’
The subtext was that they
