Hide and Seek - Lara Adrian Page 0,40

heard John was going to rescue her from attending her friend’s wedding alone.

John didn’t show her any mercy now, holding her in his penetrating gaze as he spoke. “I knew if I went on a date with you, even a pretend one, I was playing with fire. And then when I got to your place to pick you up... Christ, you looked so beautiful.”

Beautiful? She felt heat creep into her face at his praise. Her throat wasn’t working anymore. She went utterly still, watching his handsome face as he spoke.

“You were wearing a peach strapless dress and matching sandals. Your hair was done up all pretty. Swear to God, Lisa, you looked like an angel that night.”

She couldn’t bite back her nervous laugh. “That dress was awful. Maybe guys don’t know this, but it’s an unwritten law that bridesmaids’ dresses have to be hideous.”

“It wasn’t the dress that stopped my breath,” John said. “It was the girl wearing it. You stop my breath every time I look at you, Lisa Becker.”

Without warning or asking permission, he stepped in close and kissed her. He kissed her like he couldn’t go another second without it. As though he couldn’t get enough.

His hands came up to cradle her head as his mouth claimed hers possessively, reverently. She felt him guiding her backward and she didn’t resist. When they were both inside the room, John reached back and closed the door behind them.

His hands left searing trails everywhere he touched her, and his mouth was quickly burning up all her defenses. As wounded and scared and angry as she was with him today, she couldn’t deny—at least to herself—that she felt better in his arms than away from him.

When John drew back, his eyes hadn’t lost a bit of their solemnity. When he spoke, his voice was thick and raw. “I suck at relationships, Lisa. As a rule, I don’t do them. Never seen them end up in a good place, so I never wanted to try. You changed all that.” He stroked her cheek. Ran the pad of his thumb over her kiss-swollen lower lip. “The first day he introduced you around the base, Kyle made sure everyone knew his little sister was off limits. I tried to respect that. No man wants to violate that code. Truth is...” John exhaled an airless chuckle. “Truth is, I was already half in love with you when he insisted I take you to that wedding.”

Was he serious? She couldn’t find her breath to speak now. Joy and disbelief and confusion crashed together inside her. And as much as his admission astonished her, it also infuriated her.

“No,” she said, her scowl deepening. “No, you can’t do this, John. You can’t say that to me. I wanted to hear those words five years ago, not now. Not when we don’t know where my brother is. When we don’t know who’s been tracking me or what they want. You can’t stand here and be the man I needed you to be back then, when right now we don’t even know if either of us will survive past tomorrow or next week or next year.”

Unless he knew that answer already...

Was he baring his soul to her now because he knew something more that she didn’t?

She drew out of his arms. “Back on the mountain, you and Alec said you both had a premonition that someone was holding a gun against my head. But the man who tracked me there didn’t do that. There was no gun to my head. It didn’t happen...”

And then she knew.

A coldness crept into her, an ache started blooming in her chest. “What you and Alec saw didn’t happen then... It hasn’t happened yet.”

“No,” he said, somber with the admission. “Not yet.”

“Oh, my God.” She closed her eyes as the understanding settled on her.

“The visions don’t lie, Lisa. But they can be altered. That’s the power of precognition. And I’m not saying any of this because of what I saw. I’m telling you how I feel because I should’ve done it that first night we spent together. Or three nights ago, when you showed up on my mountain again.” He stepped closer, his hands moving gently on her face, over her hair. “I don’t want to let another night pass without letting you know what you mean to me. What you always have meant to me, if I’d been willing to admit it, even to myself.”

He framed her face with his large, careful hands, holding