A KISS IN THE DARK
Silhouette Intimate Moments #1199
January 2003

“This isn’t a game,” came Dylan’s dangerously quiet voice only inches behind her. He reached across the passenger’s seat and pulled her hand from the door. “And I’m sure as hell not doing this for fun.”

“Then let me go.”

“I can’t.”

She turned to face him. Only inches separated them, making her painfully aware of the whiskers shadowing the uncompromising line of his mouth. “Yes, you can.”

“Lance, is dead, Bethany, and you’re just barely hanging on. Those reporters were ready to eat you alive. What kind of man would I be if I just melted into the shadows?”

The breath stalled in her throat. His words were soft, silky, but the warning rang clear. She sat there crowded against the seat, stunned, struggling to breathe without drawing the drugging scent of sandalwood and clove deep within her. Not only was he still holding her hand, but his body was pressed to hers, seemingly absorbing every heartbeat, every breath.

“It’s a little late,” she said slowly, deliberately, “to pretend you care what anyone else thinks about you.”

The light in his eyes went dark. “Pretend?” He let go of her hand, but didn’t ease away. “I’ll say it one more time. I don’t do games. I don’t do hero. And I sure as hell don’t pretend. That was always your specialty.”

The pain was swift and immediate, driving home the truth. Dylan St. Croix had a penchant for streaking into her life like a shooting star, big and blazing and beautiful, but he’d never really known her. Never understood her. Never loved her. He’d just wanted her. In his arms and in his bed, but not in his heart.

“No,” she said, hoping he couldn’t hear the ragged edge to her breathing. “You just blaze along seeing how many apple carts you can knock over.”

He didn’t retreat as she’d hoped, didn’t pull back to his side of the seat. “Sometimes that’s the only way to separate the good fruit from the bad.”

“And what am I?” she asked before she could stop herself.

“It’s not for me to decide.”

“Then why won’t you let me go?”

His lips thinned. “Despite what you think of me, Bethany, I’m not a man who stands on the sidelines and watches someone get raked over the coals. Not even you. I’m not that cold.”

There was a rough edge to his voice, a hoarseness that hadn’t been there before. “I never thought you were cold.”

“What about Lance?” he asked, leaning closer. “Did you think he was cold?”

The urge to pull away engulfed her, but with her back against the locked door, she had nowhere to go. Instead, she reached for the blanket of numbness.

“I don’t want to talk about Lance.”

Dylan lifted a hand to her face, violating the space she’d put between them by skimming his index finger beneath her eyes. “You haven’t cried.”

She swallowed against the tightness in her throat. No way would she tell him she was all cried out, that before that ill-fated night on the mountain, the last tear had spilled from her eyes the night before she married Lance, when she’d awoken with the remembered feel of Dylan’s hands on her body.

“Crying doesn’t help, Dylan. Crying doesn’t change a damn thing.” She squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting Dylan to see truths she couldn’t hide. Not even from herself.

She realized her mistake too late. A woman should never close her eyes on Dylan St. Croix. Never turn her back to him. Never give him an advantage to press. Because he would.

Dylan St. Croix never turned down the killing blow.

Out of the darkness his mouth came down on hers, and just like that explosive, snowbound night in the cabin, the bottom fell out from her world.

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