"Then why did you do it?"
He didn't answer. Instead, he dropped her foot and moved around her.
She didn't know what he was going to do until she felt a towel covering her head. Tensing, she expected him to be rough.
He wasn't. In fact, his touch was amazingly gentle as he toweled her hair dry.
How strange was this? Who would have thought he would take such tender care of her?
It was completely unexpected.
Perhaps there was more to him than there appeared...
Zarek gnashed his teeth at how soft her damp hair was as it fell against his hands. He tried to keep the towel between it and his skin, but it didn't work. Strands of her hair continually brushed his flesh, making him burn.
What would it be like to kiss a woman?
What would it be like to kiss her!
He'd never before had the inclination. Every time a woman had tried, he'd moved his lips away from hers. It was an intimacy he had no wish to experience with anyone.
And yet he felt the yearning for it now. Felt a hunger to sample the moist, rosy lips of Astrid.
What are you? Mental?
Yes, he was.
He had no place in his life for a woman, no place for a friend or companion. He'd learned from the hour of his birth that he had but one destiny.
Isolation.
Even when he tried to belong, it didn't work. He was an outsider. That was all he knew.
He pulled the towel away from her hair and stared at her, wanting to run his hand through those damp strands and comb them. Her skin was still ashen and gray from the cold. But she was no less lovely. No less inviting.
Before he could stop himself, he laid his bare hand against her chilled cheek and let the softness of her skin pierce him.
Gods, but it felt so good just to touch her.
She didn't pull away from his touch or cringe. She sat there and let him touch her like a man.
Like a lover...
"Zarek?" Her voice was full of uncertainty.
"You feel like ice," he growled, then left her. He had to get away from her and the strange feelings she stirred inside him. He didn't want to be around her.
He didn't want to be tamed.
Every time he had allowed himself to be tied to another human, he'd been betrayed.
By everyone.
Even Jess, who had seemed safe because he lived so far away.
An echo pain stabbed his back.
Apparently Jess hadn't lived far enough away.