Page 52 of From the Darkness

She stayed where she was, her hands at her sides, her chin turned upward.

She was pretending calm. Ashehad when she’d first come in. But he heard the catch in her breath, saw emotion simmering in her eyes.

The mixture of fear and anticipation was as strong in him as it was in her. He wanted this so badly. But what if it all went wrong? He set the fear aside and reached for her.

The first instant of contact branded him. He folded her close, wrapping himself in her wonderful scent, the heat of her body warming the hard shell of ice that had walled off his soul.

She was his salvation. His lifeline. And so much more. When he brought his mouth down to hers, it was like a current of heat and energy flowing into him.

With a low sound of need, he claimed her lips, angling his head to take her mouth in a wild, demanding kiss.

He was staking his claim. But he was instantly lost in the taste of her, the feel of her mouth on his, the lithe weight of her body in his arms. She was like the wind blowing off the ocean. Strong and sweet. With an energy that crackled through him.

He’d watched her in the shower. Oh yes, he’d watched her. Taken in her unconscious sensuality. Been mesmerized by the beautiful feminine curves of her. Seen the creamy skin of her breasts and the pink buds of her nipples. Followed droplets of water as they slid down her body, over her rounded buttocks, or into the thatch of blond hair at the juncture of her legs.

He’d known he shouldn’t be invading her privacy. But it had been impossible for him to turn away, and the sight of her had been like a flow of hot lava coursing through him.

He’d known then that he must hold her. Kiss her. Give her what pleasure he could give.

He felt her heart pounding in her chest. Heard her shaky breathing as he moved his mouth over her lips, then pushed aside her silky hair and transferred his attentions to the tempting patch of skin below her ear.

She moaned, and he knew that he had her under his spell.

But heartbeats later, he felt her pushing against him, pushing him away.

“Troy,” she gasped out.

“I’m here.”

“Lord, yes. You’re here. But don’t do this! You know you can swamp my senses when what we really need to do is talk.”

He sighed. He wasn’t going to get what he wanted. Not yet. “Talk about what?” he asked, hearing the thickness of his own voice. There were so many subjects she could pick. He waited, the tension coursing through him.

“Helen.”

“I don’t want to talk about my sister.Or anything else, he silently added.

“We have to! It all goes back to Helen. She asked me to find out what was wrong here. She told me that you invited the Sterlings to Ravencrest. That you were . . . “She stopped, dragged in a breath. “Okay. I don’t know how else to say this. She told me that you weren’t yourself after Grace’s death. You weren’t paying enough attention to . . . your life. And you let the Sterlings take advantage of you.”

Her words were an accusation, stabbing at him like a thin-bladed knife. After Grace had died, he had been drifting through his life—in a fog. “That was true for a while,” he muttered, then considered the other part of what she’d said. “But I didn’t invite them. It was Helen. She wrote me and said they had nowhere else to go.”

Bree stared at him as though he wasn’t making sense. “I don’t . . . understand. She was the one who begged me to come and check things out—because she said you’d asked the Sterlings here, and she was afraid they’d taken control of the estate.”

He felt the words pound him like stones as he fitted this new information with one of their previous conversations. He’d remembered their idyllic summer together. And he’d remembered she was Helen’s friend from school. But the two facts hadn’t connected in his mind. Even when she’d claimed Helen had sent her here. The implications of what that meant had finally filtered into his muzzy brain. Now his voice turned sharp as pieces of a puzzle came together in a new way. “Wait a minute. How could she ask you here? I tried to get your address from her, and she said she’d lost contact with you years ago.”

Chapter Twelve

“What?” Bree gasped out, her fingers digging into Troy’s shoulders.

He stared down at her. “Lord, I . . . wanted to see you again, so much. Now that I was free. But I couldn’t find anyone named Bonnie Brennan who turned out to be you. And Helen said she couldn’t help me. That was one of the reasons I was so . . . depressed.”

“I changed my name.”

“I know that now. You’re Bree. It fits you better.”

She stared up at him, totally thrown off-balance. Helen had never said that Troy wanted to get together with her.

Confusion swirled in her brain. Confusion about Helen. About Troy. About her reason for being here.

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