studied her downcast face. “As soon as the stitches came out, I invited Anita out to the game farm and sent you home to DC.”
She bit her lip. “Yes.”
He closed his eye, anguish in his whole body as he recalled that act of cruelty. “I didn’t even thank you, for what you did. I wanted to die when they told me I’d lost an eye, that I might go blind. You made me want to live.”
She didn’t say anything, but her posture was eloquent.
He swayed a little. She caught him as he reeled.
“I’m drunk, Tat,” he managed with a breathy laugh.
“You don’t do this much.”
“Only rarely,” he agreed as she helped him toward the bed. “I don’t like being out of control.”
“You never did.”
He eased down onto the bed, shoes and all. He looked up at her quietly. “Help me undress. I can’t sleep in my clothes.”
She stared at him while the soft plea made her flush.
He held out a big hand. “Come on, chicken,” he said with a faint smile. “Tat, I’m drunk,” he reminded her when she hesitated. “I can’t get hard. If I can’t get hard, I’m no threat.”
The flush got deeper.
He laughed huskily. “And all these years, I thought you’d had one man after another,” he said. His face twisted. “Damn me for what I did to you!”
She didn’t understand the anger. She didn’t understand his change of attitude. She didn’t really trust it, either.
“Don’t,” he said, seeing the debate going on in her mind. He shifted and winced. “Help me, Tat. I just want to sleep.”
She moved closer to the bed. Hesitantly, she pulled off his shoes, and then his socks. He had beautiful feet, for a man.
He sat up. She dropped down onto the bed beside him, still wary. He pulled her hands to the buttons of his shirt. He stared into her wide eyes. “Take it off,” he whispered, his voice like deep, soft velvet.
She felt her heart run wild. It had been years since she’d been this close to him, since he’d wanted her this close.
“Come on,” he whispered again, coaxing her fingers to the first button while his mouth hovered just above her eyes.
The tone, the proximity, got to her. She worked buttons out of buttonholes, noting the thick hair that covered his bronzed chest as she pushed the shirt back over his broad shoulders. There was a raised place just to the left of his breastbone, where he’d been shot when he lost his eye. It was hardly noticeable now.
He felt his body going taut as the shirt fell off. Her eyes were so expressive. She loved looking at him. He loved letting her. He was getting aroused, despite his protests to the contrary. So many years. A lifetime.
“You can...do the rest, I’m sure,” she said, and tried to get up.
“No, I can’t.” He smoothed her cold hands to his belt. “Help me, Tat,” he whispered.
He lay back down. When he did that, she relaxed, just a little.
She managed a shaky smile. “I’ve never undressed anybody except myself,” she blurted out.
She unfastened the belt and pulled it out of the loops, noting the expensive leather it was made of as she dropped it into the chair beside the bed. She hesitated.
He pulled her hands to the fastening of his slacks. “I can’t sleep in my best clothes,” he said gently. “Keep going.”
“Rourke...”
“Shhh,” he coaxed. His hands smoothed hers down on the fastenings. “Just a little more. That’s it. Now put your hands under the waistbands and pull. That’s all you have to do.”
His voice was seducing her. She shouldn’t. She should get up and run. She was embarrassed and nervous. Her hands were shaking.
“You can’t be...that drunk,” she began.
“Hold on to that,” he said softly, and he lifted his hips and pushed both waistbands down.
She was looking at him without realizing what she was seeing for several shocked seconds. During them, he slid out of his slacks and boxer shorts and lay back down on the bed, his eyes on her wide-eyed, shocked face as she looked and looked.
He laughed with pure delight. He was aroused. Very aroused, despite the liquor. Her eyes were enhancing what was already a magnificent hunger. He shifted on the clean sheets and groaned softly.
“I’ve dreamed of this,” he whispered huskily. “Of letting you look at me like this, feeling your eyes on me.”
She was too shocked to reply or even to try to leave.
“Tat, at your age, you’ve surely seen photographs of men like this, even if you haven’t seen the real thing,” he chided.
“Well...yes,” she said in a choked tone.
“But...?”
“None...none of them looked like...like that,” she whispered, fascinated. “You’re...you’re beautiful,” she blurted out.
His face changed. He shifted again on the sheets and shivered.
“I should... I should...go,” she choked.
One long arm snaked gently around her waist and pulled her across him and down on the bed beside him.
He wasn’t aggressive. He didn’t demand. He unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it aside. His fingers went to the front catch of the lacy little bra and unfastened it. He moved it away and looked at her beautiful, pink-tipped breasts, the crowns hard.
“You were beautiful at seventeen like this,” he said quietly. “But you’re more beautiful now.”
She couldn’t even manage words. Her heart was beating her to death.
“What...are you going to do?” she asked with helpless apprehension, because she knew that she couldn’t stop him, didn’t want to stop him. She was almost shivering with a hunger that had eight years of abstinence behind it.
“I’d very much like to put my mouth on your breast and suckle you until I made you come,” he whispered. “The way I did when you were seventeen. Remember, Tat?” His voice was soft and sensual as he looked at her bare breasts. “You were shocked at first, and after you went over the edge you cried. I kissed you and moved on top of you. I had your lacy little panties halfway down your legs and my pants unzipped. And we heard footsteps.”
She was trembling. “Yes.”
“I hurt like hell. I never thought I could stop, even then.” He drew in a long, unsteady breath. “I lived on that night for years.”
