lashes to blaze a heated trail down her cheeks.
‘Isn’t this what you wanted all along—you and me, together?’ he asked in his coarse, cold voice. ‘You’ve been begging for it from the start.’
‘Not like this,’ she choked.
Whether it was the honesty, the pain in her voice, how badly her body was shaking or that he could taste the tears trickling into her mouth, she didn’t know. But suddenly his hand stilled, his fingers loosened and a deathly silence descended. It couldn’t have lasted for more than a handful of seconds but felt like an eternity. Then, without warning, he released her and staggered back as if he’d been repelled by an invisible force.
When she looked at him Miranda didn’t need better light to see the mixture of fury, self-loathing and guilt on his face; she could feel it swirling in a maelstrom around him. He moved sharply, pacing a restless circle while viciously spitting a litany of self-recrimination that was downright nasty. She winced as she straightened her skirt with shaking hands. The self-hatred was more than obvious and with blinding clarity she got an inkling of what he might have been doing.
It was more than a brutal warning of the consequences her actions could have with the wrong man—it was an attempt to get her to hate him as much as he hated himself.
When he stopped pacing he shook his head. ‘You need a new bodyguard. I’m obviously not cut out for this.’
Gathering strength, she took a tentative step forwards and dampened her lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘I don’t want a new bodyguard. I want you.’
‘How can you say that after what I just did to you?’
He snarled like a cornered animal but with new insight Miranda saw him as less of a predator and more of an angry bear with a thorn in his paw.
She took another step. ‘You wouldn’t have hurt me.’
‘You don’t know that!’ His mouth twisted when he saw her hesitate. ‘You gonna try lying to me and telling me you didn’t have a moment of doubt?’
‘I can’t do that,’ she confessed. ‘But I can remember the man you were before you turned the car around.’
His chest heaved as he tried to gain control. ‘What do I have to do to make you realize you’d be better keeping your distance from me?’
‘I don’t know. But this wasn’t it.’
‘I’m not like the other guys you’ve spent time with. There’s nothing polished or refined about me.’
If he was trying to discourage her from reaching out to him, then he wasn’t doing a very good job. The compulsion she’d felt to offer comfort combined with her need for physical contact, drawing her to him with a sense of what felt like inevitability. She took another step forwards and another until she was standing directly in front of him.
‘Right now I need you to hold me for a minute,’ she said softly. ‘Do you think you can do that?’
‘You should be running for the hills,’ he replied in a gruffer voice. ‘Not asking me to get closer.’
‘I need a little shoulder action.’ When she attempted a smile the fear of rejection she’d hidden since her teens made it waver. ‘If you can think of anyone else I can ask for that when everyone who surrounds me isn’t supposed to touch me—’
He reached out and hauled her into his arms.
Miranda gasped at the contact and let out a small sob of relief. Wrapping her arms around his lean waist, she buried her face in his chest and took several breaths of Tyler scented air. She could feel the tension in his body, streams of electricity buzzing beneath his skin. But she’d been right to ask him to hold her. A violent shudder ran through him, his arms tightening as if he couldn’t hold her close enough. After a while he rested his chin on her head and she felt his throat convulse.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said roughly, the impression it wasn’t something he said very often making her heart twist.
‘I know.’ She turned a little and rested her cheek against his tie. ‘It’s okay. I forgive you.’
‘You shouldn’t. I can’t forgive me.’
‘Maybe you should start.’ She took another breath before jumping in with both feet. ‘What happened to make you so angry, Tyler?’
‘How do you know you didn’t just get a glimpse of the real me?’
‘Because you’re holding me right now and giving me what I need.’ She snuggled closer to prove the point before confessing, ‘And because