Midnight Hero - By Diana Duncan Page 0,99
The chair? Every exhausted, aching cell in his body protested. And she had invited him into her bed. To rest.
Con slipped under the covers beside the woman who owned him, body and soul. He could not keep from curving himself protectively around her. He draped a careful arm across her waist. Holding her close, pain slammed into him as he breathed in her rose-petal and peppermint scent.
Maybe for the very last time.
Chapter 16
10:00 a.m.
Con lay propped on one elbow, watching Bailey slumber. Bad dreams had disturbed her several times during the past few hours. He’d comforted her cries, and she’d finally succumbed to deep, dreamless sleep.
He’d awakened thirty minutes ago and slipped out of bed to stoke the fire. When he’d returned, Bailey had rolled onto her back, but continued sleeping. Her shiny curls glowed in the firelight. Long eyelashes curved in coppery crescents on her sleep-warmed cheeks. Slow breaths sighed from her softly parted pink lips. The bruises on her cheek had darkened, and the bandage on her neck looked harshly out of place on her creamy skin. Stark evidence of DiMarco’s cruelty to the most gentle, loving woman on the planet.
Con fought down a hot surge of anger. He needed to stay cool and levelheaded. Needed every cylinder firing at full capacity for the looming discussion. Needed all his strength to walk away from her if she demanded he leave forever. He drank in the sight of her sleeping beside him, barricading the memory deep in his heart. For now, for a stolen moment in time, she was his to love. To cherish.
All too soon, she stirred, and her long eyelashes floated up. Apprehension jittered up his spine. Reprieve over, pal.
Her puzzled blue eyes stared at him. She blinked. “Am I dreaming?”
He swallowed the lump in his throat. “No. I’m here.” For the moment.
She glanced at the gloom crowding the lace-curtained windows. “I went to sleep.”
“Yeah, that happens.” Especially when you’d been hunted down like an animal for fifteen hours by gun-wielding killers.
She stretched, and her silky calf slid over his foot. A mere innocent brush of skin on skin, but his body instantly went rock hard. He jerked his foot away like she’d burned him. So much for cool and levelheaded. She yawned. “How long have we been asleep?”
“A couple hours.” Outside, the wind howled and sleet pattered the windowpanes. “It’s still storming.”
“Mmm.” She turned on her side facing him and snuggled against him. “It’s nice. Like being in a safe, cozy nest.”
She wasn’t nearly as safe as she thought, with her soft, sweet smelling body snuggled so close. Battling the overwhelming urge to kiss her, touch her, to make her his, he eased away.
“Where are you going?” She again moved close.
“Sorry, darlin’, my self-control only extends so far.” And raging hunger was rapidly consuming what little he had left.
The slow, trusting curve of her lips was as tempting as a banquet to a starving beggar. She chuckled. “That’s a bad thing?”
He didn’t respond, and she studied his somber face. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is settled between us.”
She frowned, her expression confused. “What?” Her eyes widened. “Oh! I fell asleep too fast.” She flung her arms around him. “I love you!”
“I love you, too, baby. We’ve already established that.” The consolation prize before the big bad news. She’d told him she loved him in the diner. Then broken up with him. He seemed to have forgotten how to breathe. He inhaled sharply. Since when did breathing hurt? “It didn’t stop you from breaking up with me yesterday morning.”
“Oh, Con.” Tears pooled in her eyes. “I never wanted to hurt you. I’m sorry.”
Agony slashed through him. The moment of reckoning. The thought of never seeing her again shredded his insides worse then he’d ever imagined, as if he’d eaten ground glass. “Sorry because you have to tell me to leave?”
She gasped. “No! Stay!” Her arms tightened. “Don’t go.”
Stay? Temporarily, to help her deal with the trauma…or for the long haul? “Be honest with me, darlin’, I can take it. After last night, can you be with me?”
“After last night, I can’t be without you.” She tenderly cupped his face. “You belong to me, and I belong to you.”
Pressure burned behind his eyes. His throat felt tight, raw, and he swallowed hard, not yet able to believe. “Will it eventually drive a wedge between us? Will you resent me, because you had to hurt someone on my behalf?”
She shook her head. “Absolutely not. I’m sorry it happened, and I’ll never forget