Page 10 of Beauty and the Bounty Hunter

I was no saint. I could be reserved, sure, but at the end of the day, I was still just me. More than a little lost, a little broken. But this gorgeous woman wanted me. Maybe for now, for this brief instant. It was all I had.

So I hugged her back. She was soft and yielding, all flannel and sweetness.

How long did it take me to fall headlong into love with this woman?

The space of a hug.

CHAPTER 8

Katrina

I didn’t know what made me hug him, but the instant my arms were around his neck, I never wanted to let go. Harbor made me feel safe, secure, adored. He showered me with gifts when I needed them most. Who else in the entire world would have helped me find evidence to prove my innocence?

Snuggling my head into the crook of his neck, I held him tighter. “You are amazing, Harbor.” His arms around me were strong and steady. They lit something deep inside me that I thought had been tossed to the wayside along with my marriage. Desire burned low in my core. He smelled like pine smoke and coffee, a Christmas morning scent, and the memory of his cheek, bristled with his five o’clock shadow, was seared into my brain.

Without fully knowing what I was doing, my lips brushed over the knotty scar at the base of his neck. It trailed, winding and pocked, past the collar of his shirt. “Where did you get this scar?” I asked.

His hands clenched the fabric at my low back. “Army.” His voice sounded tight and strained, but there was a heat to it, too. “I was on duty…”

Hearing his reticence to talk about it, I guessed at what had happened. He was a survivor.

Bending my cheek to his shoulder, I let my lips linger along the scar. He inhaled sharply and tightened his hold on me again. When was the last time I had been wanted by someone, or desired someone? I was barely twenty-five, a divorcee, and on the run because I’d jumped bail. If anything, this moment felt like a gift, and I deserved it.

So I kept kissing his neck. His skin was spicy and rough, and when I tasted him with my tongue, he moaned against me.

“Katrina,” he said softly. “You don’t need to do this.”

“I know.” In one motion, which made me feel like a total badass, I slid from my chair and onto his lap, straddling him. This felt right. Good. Like everything in my life, everything that had gone wrong, had brought me here to something right. I didn’t want to waste it. “But I want to do this. Can I kiss you, Harbor?”

He didn’t hesitate. Leaning forward, he pressed his lips to mine. For a big, strong, mysterious man, I might have thought he would devour me, stick his tongue down my throat, probe. But no. Harbor was gentle, slow, no pressure in the almost-chaste massaging of his mouth against mine. Every buss sent liquid pleasure flowing down my spine toward my core.

I wanted more. I wanted all of him. I rocked my hips against his pelvis, feeling his erection hard against the vee between my thighs. I parted my lips and found his tongue, sucking on it. He groaned into my mouth, and his actions sped up. With one hand on my ass, he stood, flipping me backward onto the table. “Yes,” I whispered as he changed the angle of his mouth to deepen the kiss. “Yes. I love the way your hands feel on me.”

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say.

His broad and strong hands, which had been halfway toward my breasts, withdrew, and he propped himself on either side of me. With great effort, he pushed himself up off the table and stepped away.

“Katrina, I can’t do this.”

Cold rejection flooded me. I shifted off the table and sought refuge near the fire. “Why not? You don’t want me?” Of course that would be it. There I was, throwing myself at an unavailable man. He probably thought I wanted something from him. I did, but I wasn’t naive, and I wasn’t doing this only because he was going to help get me off.

In more ways than one.

His expression softened. “Of course I want you. You’re gorgeous and talented and just being around you makes me want to be a better person.” He swallowed, his prominent Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “But I’m not a better person. And I can’t do this with you without telling you the truth.”

“The truth?” I clutched the collar of my flannel shirt at my throat, suddenly cold. Vulnerable. I hated it. What was that saying? Men worry women will laugh at them. Women worry men will kill them.

Pete had tried to kill my spirit. I didn’t think Harbor was the same. “So, what? Are you a serial killer? Are you only helping me, hoping that I’ll sleep with you?”

“No. I want to help you, because I believe you’re innocent.” He pointed at the computer. “We have proof. We can get more. But I need to tell you why I was there today, at the resort.”

They say before you die, your life flashes before your eyes. If I was about to die, all I saw was a hazy cloud of static, like I’d walked into a mob of gnats in the middle of summer.

Why had he been there? Why hadn’t I asked? I was too wrapped up in the heat and adrenaline and fear.

Hanging his head, he put his hands into his pockets. “You were running from a bounty hunter, right?”

I pictured the tall, hulking man in the dark puffer jacket, chasing me down in the parking lot. “Yes. I think so.”

---