Quiet Walks the Tiger - By Heather Graham Page 0,57

icily. She wanted the words back as soon as they left her mouth but once spoken, they couldn’t be retrieved. He had spoken to her kindly; he had given her a golden opportunity to leave a salvageable thread in their marriage. But her own pain and confusion had registered only that he was leaving, walking out on her after showering her with verbal abuse and proving his physical mastery.

Words began to tumble from her mouth in a spew of unmeant venom. “I’m not so sure about you, Mr. Adams, either. You’re not the man I thought you. You haven’t a shred of compassion in your entire being, and you’re about as kindly as a great white shark. You’re ruthless, cruel, and vicious. Definitely not nice.”

“That’s enough!” Wes stated with frigid finality. The muscles were working in his jaw, and as Sloan stared up at him, she knew he was fighting a fierce battle for self-control. To his credit, he won.

“I never saw myself as walking benevolence,” he told her, catching the sides of her hair and gripping them tautly to hold her face to his, “but then I do tend to be a fairly tolerant soul. You have to admit, Sloan, that the provocation has been great. I probably am a nice man, darling, I’m just not the complete puppet you took me to be.” His pull on her hair tightened for just a second and then released. He gazed at her for a moment longer, his mouth a grim, white line, and then turned for his suitcase and the door.

“Oh,” he added, pausing with his hand on the knob. “Do us both a favor and remember one thing. You are married. Should you forget it, darling, after all the rest, I might be severely tempted to follow my first inclination and break that lovely little neck. And I will be back, hopefully civil by the time I reach Gettysburg.” He raised his brows in a high arch of mocking speculation. “You do get my drift?”

Blue and green eyes locked in a cold stare. “I get your drift,” she retorted defiantly.

“Good. It’s one thing to be taken for a fool, love, but I promise I won’t wear horns as well.” His teeth ground together, and his tone became pained. “I don’t ever want to subject myself to a repeat of today’s performance.” Then the pain and bitterness were harshly grated over; they might have been imagined. “I usually do discover things—as belated as it may be.”

His eyes slid over her slowly in a last assessment; he didn’t seem to expect any more answers—and she had none to give him. His gaze came back to hers in a final challenge.

Sloan’s gaze fell from Wesley’s, and sadly, she missed the gamut of torn emotions that raced through his eyes. In her stunned state of agonized confusion, it was doubtful she would have recognized them anyway.

Because he was split into more pieces than she.

As he stared at her, he was struck again with awe at her beauty. The sapphire eyes; the wild tangle of hair that held more colors than a rainbow—hair that could entangle a man and spin him helplessly into a drowning lair forever; the exquisite, supple body that was wiry, sweetly curved, unceasingly graceful...A dancer’s form; an angel’s face.

He had been in love with her his entire adult life—adulating her from afar, never finding peace or satisfaction because he knew she existed in the world and he was not close to her.

And then it had seemed that she was his.

He was a strong man; he had taken on life and received fame and fortune. In return, he had paid his dues with decency and fairness. Knowing his own power, he had never willingly hurt another person. But he had never felt anything like the gut-wrenching pain of betrayal; the gnawing agony that seemed to eat away at his insides, bit by excruciating bit.

Betrayal by the woman he idolized over his own life.

And he had lashed out with full intent to wound. Not physically; he could snap her in half and he knew it, but because of his size, he had long since learned to control the forces of rage. No, he had gone after her with the strongest weapon known to man, words, calculated to rip and shred...

But he had lost control of the words—gone further than he ever meant. He winced now at his own cruelty, but none of it could be undone...

He had to come to terms with