this was…not going to happen.
The blood flow finally rerouted back to his brain and cognizant thought made a comeback. With a growl of frustration he lifted his head, sucked in air.
And looked at the face he’d just ravaged.
Her lips were wet and swollen and so pretty and pink; her eyes were glazed, her lush lashes fluttering slowly as if she, too, was trying to get her bearings and figure out what had just happened.
Insanity. That’s what had happened. Some cosmic blip had flashed across his radar screen and short-circuited his brain, hot-wiring him straight into sensual overload.
He wanted nothing more than to dive back in and kiss her again, strip off her clothes, lay her down on the closest horizontal surface and take this to the next level.
And when her soft sigh and desperately whispered “Ry, please…make love to me,” drifted through his mind like a drug, he almost…almost…did it.
But this was Carrie.
Little Carrie-bear.
Trav’s kid sister.
Trav’s virgin kid sister.
The truth hit him like a bucket of ice water. This couldn’t happen. And damn if it hadn’t just almost happened in the worst—and best—possible way.
Very carefully, very deliberately, he forced himself to pull away from her, drop his hands and take a step backward.
Damning himself for his lack of control, he stared into her glazed eyes and struggled with the words to set this right.
Only, there were no words to make it right. What he’d done was inexcusable. What he’d wanted—what he still wanted—was not what she needed.
Angry with himself, even a little angry with her for not having the instincts to protect herself from the likes of him or a predator like Beldon, he made an instant decision on how this had to be handled.
It wasn’t going to be pretty. It wasn’t going to be nice. But it would be effective. And it was necessary.
Carrie swayed on her feet and might have toppled like a tower of children’s blocks if the wall at her back hadn’t steadied her.
Oh, my.
Oh my, oh my, oh my.
So that’s what all the fuss was about. That feeling of…of being lost, of being found, of discovering for the first time a yearning so strong it made her knees weak. A desire so intense it made every muscle in her body clench and melt like butter, simultaneously. Helpless longing, endless need…everything she’d been hoping to experience with Nathan.
Everything she’d always known she’d find with Ry.
Make love to me.
She’d barely thought the words and then she’d heard herself saying them out loud.
And then she’d felt him pull away.
And now…now he was glaring at her…like some brooding grizzly. Like someone who didn’t even like her, let alone want her.
The passion she’d felt in his kiss had shifted to anger. And she didn’t understand.
“Ry?”
“So…do you understand now what happens when you don’t behave yourself?”
She blinked, chilled to the bone suddenly, where only moments ago she’d felt nothing but heat. She clutched her arms around herself, his anger slicing through the last of her longing and heightening her feeling of vulnerability. “Behave myself?”
He gave her a stern stare and bent to snag his hat from the floor. “You just got a lesson, little girl…I hope you learned it well.”
“A lesson?” She didn’t understand. She didn’t understand any of this. “What…what are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about what happens when a woman teases a man beyond reason.”
He brushed some imaginary dust from the brim of his hat, then settled it jerkily on his head. “I saw the way you let Beldon kiss you in the park. I saw the way you let him put his hands all over you.”
For what felt like an eternity, all she could do was stare. She opened her mouth. Closed it. Then finally found her voice. “What does Nathan have to do with what just happened between us?”
He shook his head, then smiled…the picture of tolerant benevolence. “Sweetie…that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Nothing happened between us but a little adult-education class.”
She felt as if she’d just walked into a theater in the middle of a movie—a horror movie or a foreign movie—French with German subtitles. “Adult education?”
“Exactly. Honey, I just taught you that if that had been Beldon instead of me—someone who cares about you—you’d be flat on your back and compromised by now.”
Time stopped while her mind wrestled with his reaction and his words until finally she pulled it all together.
He hadn’t kissed her because he wanted her. He’d kissed her because he thought she needed protection from herself when it came to the opposite sex and he needed to show her the error of her ways. He’d kissed her because he thought she hadn’t behaved appropriately with Nathan and if he hadn’t intervened, she might have ended up, God forbid, compromised.
An incredulous laugh pushed out from somewhere in the vicinity of her horribly bruised pride. “Compromised? Was that really the word you used?”
She laughed again, covered her face with her hands, then on a deep breath let them drop. She glared at him. “What Victorian tome did you pull that out of?”
He actually flinched and turned a shade of red she’d never seen on him before. To cover his discomfort, he shook his finger at her. “Beldon wouldn’t have stopped like I did.”
“So…let me get this in perspective. You kissed me and backed me up against the wall to scare me straight, is that it?”
“Damn right I did. And I hope it worked. If you have an ounce of sense in you, you’ll think twice before you—”
“Before I what?” She cut him off, her anger firing with a vengeance. “Before I go out and throw myself at another man’s feet and beg him to deflower me? Now, there’s a word for you. You can probably find it right next to compromise.”
She sucked in a ragged breath. Dragged her hands through her hair. How pathetic was she? How pathetic was she to actually have thought he had kissed her because he’d wanted her? Because he’d been as excited and aroused and as in love with her as she was with him?
Well. He was right about one thing. She’d definitely learned a lesson: Trust her intellect not her heart. Her head had known weeks ago that she had to give up on him. It was her heart
