Page 18 of The Survivor
She pressed her face against the crook of his neck and cried, wondering why she wasn’t pulling back. She wasn’t supposed to feel sheltered in this man’s arms. In any man’s arms.
She was supposed to be terrified by a simple touch, panicked by a mere look, but Blake’s touches, Blake’s looks, evoked none of that in her. They only brought warmth.
And desire.
“Don’t cry,” he murmured, running a large hand over her shoulder blades. “I promised you it would be all right, remember?”
She inched back, not breaking their contact, but not sinking into it, either. “How can it be, when he’s still out there?”
A lone tear slid down her cheek, but Blake brushed it away with his thumb before she could lift her hand. “I’m going to find him, Sam. I’m going to stop him, and that’s not a promise—it’s a guarantee.”
His certainty hung in the air. He sounded so relentlessly convincing that she actually believed him.
She tilted her head and saw his determined brown eyes, the firm set of his wide mouth, and as their gazes locked, the air in the kitchen swiftly changed. It hissed and sizzled, crackled like twigs under the sneakers of a morning jogger. She wanted to look away, to walk away, to make it stop, but she stood frozen in place. Waiting. Waiting for what?
Unable to take her eyes off his mouth, Sam just watched as he leaned closer and closer, knowing what was about to happen and not doing a thing to stop it. She stared at his lips, saw them part, saw his pulse throbbing in his throat.
Closer that gorgeous mouth came, and suddenly it was brushing over hers in the lightest of kisses.
A tiny gasp tore from her throat, but he covered it with his lips and swallowed it with his kiss. A gentle kiss, the soft brush of his lips against hers, the teasing flick of his tongue. The spicy, masculine scent of him suffused her senses, making her woozy with desire. The fervor of her response stunned her. Her tongue greedily darted out to taste him. Her breasts eagerly rubbed against the hardness of his chest. Her entire body was overcome with sweet warmth. Nothing had ever felt as good as Blake Corwin’s kiss. And yet it was a controlled kiss, one that told her he was the type of man who’d never fully let down his guard,never succumb to the pleasures of the flesh before clearing it with his head.
She wasn’t sure if it was that disturbing notion that made her pull back, or if it was the unfamiliar quickening of her pulse and the loud gallop of her heart. Whatever it was, she broke the kiss, stumbling back and watching him warily.
The flush of his face, the lust-filled, slightly glazed look of his eyes, showed that he’d lost at least some control. He looked startled, blinking as if emerging from a hazy dream. As if he couldn’t quite believe what he’d done.
His hands promptly dropped from her waist, but not before she felt them trembling. With a soft curse, he shook his head as if he were trying to shake the bewilderment from it. His voice was hoarse as he uttered, “I’m sorry.”
CHAPTER 5
Sam swallowed. Tried to make sense of what had just happened. Wasshesorry?
It quickly dawned on her that she wasn’t.
Dammit, why not? Though she’d been the one to pull away, she found herself wanting to kiss him again, to taste his firm lips and lose herself in his powerful arms again.
Not a soothing realization, not for a woman who’d months ago—days ago—cringed at the mere thought of having a man touch her. The attack had broken something inside her. Her trust, her faith, her ability to ever feel safe around a man. Yet here she was, staring at the rueful face of the man who’d just kissed her, and she not only felt protected but more turned on than ever.
“I mean it, Sam. I’m sorry,” he said when she didn’t reply.
She walked around the counter, wanting to put some distance between them as she absorbed the strange emotions swirling through her. “It’s all right.” She was shocked that she could keep her voice so steady when her pulse still wasn’t.
His jaw tight, Blake rubbed his temples. “I shouldn’t have done that.”
The shame in his tone irritated her. “I had a part in it too, you know.”
“Ikissed you.”
“Iletyou.”
He let out a strangled groan. “I took advantage of a vulnerable moment.”
He turned around and pressed his clenched fists on the edge of the sink. Shoulders stiff. Back wrought with tension.
She averted her eyes. She didn’t want to see that look of shame still swimming in his eyes, not when she was feeling the furthest thing from ashamed. If anything, she suddenly felt liberated. For the first time in six months she’d let a man get close to her. Whether she fully trusted Blake Corwin she didn’t know, but the very fact that he’d been able to get within two feet of her, that she’d allowed him to kiss her, at least hinted that she was learning to trust again.
“Sam, look at me.” His pained voice made her glance up. When she did, she saw that his control was back, that cool steady composure she’d begun to suspect was his trademark. “You’re probably the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”
Huh?
