Flynn's Kiss (Disarmed & Dangerous) (11 page)

“Would you care to join me for dinner, before you leave?”

She could have sworn he snorted, but perhaps it was one of the horses blowing out a breath, because when she glanced at him, his face was impassive. He took a moment longer than expected before he nodded and indicated with a movement of his hand for her to sit on the blanket next to him.

With a cautious move, Liberty slipped to her knees on the rug and pulled the cooler toward her. Dipping her hand in, she pulled out a small roast chicken, a bowl of coleslaw, some brie, a loaf of bread, and a green salad, together with two china plates and silverware. This time his snort was unmistakable, and she pinned him with a narrow-eyed stare.

“You’ve gotta be shittin’ me.” He picked up a fork and pointed it at her as she took the coverings off the food. About to rebuke him for his foul language, she opened her mouth only to close it again as he continued. “Only you, Lady Liberty, could possibly produce a meal like this out in the middle of nowhere and provide chinaware too.” He sniffed and rubbed the scarred side of his mouth, all the time watching her, his eyes narrowed in thoughtful contemplation.

“I cannot imagine for one minute why I thought you were unintelligent.” A small lick of warmth hit her stomach, and she squelched it with a stab of her knife into the chicken, breaking it apart. She watched him lean over to swipe up a leg, substituting it for the fork as his pointing instrument. He seemed to like to point items at her.

“I need to tell you, it was not your breasts I saw first.”

Surprised, her eyes darted to his, held, and a little spark of warmth tried to ignite, but Liberty quelled it once more.

“It was your hair. You have beautiful hair.”

He ripped a chunk of chicken off with his teeth, chewed while still studying her, and then spoke around the food in his mouth. She swallowed hard, desperate not to be flattered. “And your eyes. I was right, they are come-fuck-me eyes, but not to everyone. You seem to be different things to different people.”

And she hated him for understanding because she needed to believe he was shallow.

He reached behind him, slipped an enormous knife out of the sheath attached to his saddle, and her mouth went dry as she thought he might just start to point it at her. He reached over and sliced a hunk of bread and a portion of cheese, placed them on her plate, and repeated it for his own plate. She remained utterly still, fascinated by his almost careless use of the huge and obviously extremely sharp knife. She couldn’t take her eyes off it until he waggled it and the fading sun glinted off it, mellow and warm.

He was pointing it at her plate. “It’s clean. I never put it away dirty.”

“Oh, well, that’s all right then.”

She ignored the food on her plate and watched, fascinated, as he sliced a paper-thin sliver of chicken from the breast, layered it with brie on top of a small piece of bread and held it up toward her mouth. She stared at the tidbit, tempted. So tempted, yet still she hesitated. Until he put the knife down on his other side, wrapped his arm around her, and effortlessly lifted her closer, making her realize, despite his slender form, his muscles were like molten steel.

He snuggled her into his side and stared at her mouth, touching his own lips with the tip of his tongue. She almost whimpered with the knowledge he wasn’t aware of the temptation he was offering.

She wanted to do it to him, a delicate touch of her tongue to his lips, just a sample. She knew it would be good, could almost taste him, but she knew if she made a move, he would be off like a bullet from a gun.

She tried to smile, tried to speak, but he’d immobilized her with his intensity.

“Liberty, you’re not eating. Open your mouth.” Like a bird, she opened her mouth and let him slide the small morsel in, closed her eyes, and allowed the delicious flavors to flood her taste buds.

His low throated moan made her eyelids fly open again. His bright eyes were filled with desire.

“Are you sure you want to call our relationship off?”

“We don’t have a relationship.”

His quick frown had her trying to move away. But he dragged her back, held her for a moment so they sat side-by-side, and then unraveled his arm so he could reach the food. He picked up his knife, made short work of preparing more food, handed her another, larger portion, gathered his own, and bit into it. The bear sounds came from his chest again, making her want to leap on him and lick him all over.

“Tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“Tell me why I’m not good for you to have around.”

She cleared her throat and stared at the piece of food in her hand, her appetite suddenly not as voracious as it had been a moment before. She shrugged, wondered if he would even understand if she explained to him, and then decided to get it over as quickly as possible. There weren’t many people she told her whole story to, and she wasn’t entirely sure why she was telling a man she was in the process of dumping as soon as he finished her food.

“I’m an orphan.” His quick flash of surprise was gone almost before she caught it. “I don’t know who my parents are. I was abandoned in the toilets of a hospital. Placed in a paper toweling basket and simply…left.” She glanced at him to check his reaction.

He was still chewing, but he circled his knife in an invitation for her to continue. She puffed out a breath and wondered why she was putting herself through the heartache. After all, he only appeared to be vaguely interested, as though she were reading the newspaper to him, not pouring out her life story.

The air shuddered through her lungs as she drew it in again, and he raised his hand to give a light touch to her cheek and draw her hair back from her face. It was all she needed for the floodgates of her life history to fly open. She took a nibble of the food still in her hand and found herself talking easily while she ate.

“I was going to be adopted, but I cried so much. The people who took me hadn’t had a baby before, so they didn’t know why I was crying. They gave me back. I never understood. Why would you give a baby back if you’d been desperate to have one in the first place? Did I cry because they were stressed, or were they stressed because I cried?” She forked some coleslaw into her mouth, stared ahead, and continued.

“Anyway, I had several different sets of ‘parents’, none of them totally committed. Some of them tried their best, but no one wanted to adopt me. It was always temporary and in between, I spent a lot of time in a children’s home. I was very disruptive. I wanted people to like me.” She gave him a sideways glance to check if he was laughing, but apart from continuing to eat, he sat with an attentive stillness.

“I was barely five when they picked up signs of me being brighter than average. I was fostered by a professional couple. Two psychologists who sent me to a good school, a boarding school, and I shone. But when I returned to them in the holidays, I was too disruptive. You see, I wanted them to love me, so I did lots of stupid things to get their attention. But I gather they didn’t want a child, just a charity case. So after a while, I was sent back to the home, and I applied myself to studying, and so it continued until I was eighteen, back and forward to foster carers. I was too intelligent and I had too many qualifications and people were scared of me. I realized they had all been scared of me, all along. Being different scares people.”

She raised her head and stared at him. His hand stroked the scarring on his face, but as he seemed to realize what he was doing, he removed his fingers slowly.

“So, you put on an act to get people to like you?”

She hadn’t known what to expect from him, although probably not sympathy. It wasn’t in his nature, but the cool, clear perusal of his eyes made her feel like one of her studies under the microscope.

“No. I don’t think of it as an act. It’s my personality to be…” She waved her hand in the air and he pointed his knife, his voice soft and cool.

“Vivacious, lively, cheerful, effervescent. But why? Why do you need people to like you?”

She tucked her knees up and rested her chin on them, wrapping her arms around her legs and hugging them tight, unable to look at him for fear of seeing his contempt when she said it.

“Because no one ever did.”

His warm, tender arms pulled her in to rest against his solid chest, bumping the Stetson off her head to rattle for a while before coming to rest on the ground beside Flynn.

She hadn’t realized she was crying until the wet from her tears soaked through his shirt. She pushed away, determined not to fall apart, and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands.

“I’m sorry. I’m okay.” She came to her feet and wandered away, watched the sun dip toward the horizon, and considered whether she ought to build a fire before the chill of the night hit.

She should also release him from his obligation.

“If you’ve had enough to eat, you should go now. It’s a long way back.”

His voice, so close to her ear it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. She hadn’t heard him move, but she knew he was a ghost.

“It’s too late to go now, the sun will be set in ten minutes. Dangerous for me to travel all the way in the dark. I’ll hunker down here for the night, then I can go in the morning. If you want me to.”

She whipped around to tell him he must go, but he’d already made his silent way toward the stream and was picking up small sticks, presumably to start a fire. She thought she would give him a moment before letting him know she had already collected enough on her way and it was in a hold-all behind the saddles. But she needed a moment to herself.

His head shot up, and he stared at her across the little camp as though he’d heard her thoughts.

“I’d bet my Bowie knife you already have firewood.” He flipped the knife around a full three hundred sixty degrees, caught it again by the handle. She couldn’t help responding to his crooked grin. “But I’m pretty sure you won’t have come armed with marshmallows.”

She twitched her eyebrows and delighted in seeing his mouth drop open.

“You’re shittin’ me.”

“You need to stop swearing. You might not say much, but half of what comes out of your mouth is not nice.”

“I want to see you eat a marshmallow.”

Well, she couldn’t accuse him of being not nice there, certainly. Especially the way he stared avidly at her lips and made her want to grab him with both hands. But she knew if she did, he would run and she would feel defeated again, so she gave him a small smile and turned to deal with the picnic.

He leaned over, grasped her hold-all, and tipped half the contents on the ground, encircling the wood with large grey boulders he’d picked up from the side of the stream. Every move he made was quick, efficient, and within seconds he’d surprised her again by having the fire lit. She’d barely had time to clear up after their meal. He certainly was a handy man to have around. Not that she had any thoughts of keeping him around, and even as the denial rolled through her, she felt the groan of frustration bubble in her stomach.

By the time he’d checked the horses, the fire was an inviting roar, and Liberty had the marshmallows ready to roast. They leaned back against her saddle in quiet companionship while they watched the marshmallows darken.

In the flickering glow of the fire, Liberty stared at Flynn’s handsome features. The crisscross of scars made him look devilish and masculine instead of ruining his features. She wondered if he would have been too beautiful without them.

“I’m not going to sleep with you tonight, Flynn.” For her own peace of mind, she needed to clarify the situation.

“You made it clear enough you don’t want to have sex with me, but I think we probably need to sleep together for warmth. It’s a cloudless sky and the chill’s going to set in, especially in the early hours when the fire dies down. I know you’re efficient, but I expect you only brought one sleeping bag.”

He slipped a cooling marshmallow off the end of his knife and held it in front of her mouth. Unable to resist, she opened her lips and let him slide it in and wondered at his strange compulsion to feed her. Warmed, the outer skin broke and allowed the soft mallow to stream over her tongue, to coat her mouth with delicious sweetness, and she considered whether she should tell him she was so efficient she had brought an extra sleeping bag.

He gave a crooked smile, lifted his thumb and wiped a trace of marshmallow from her chin, and then put his thumb in his own mouth and sucked it. All thought of telling him anything flew from her head, and the temptation to rip his clothes off almost got the better of her.

“Listen.” He shuffled closer, the heat of the fire started to lick through her veins, making it difficult for her to breathe. “You said no. If you want to change your mind, you can.”

She remained quiet while he paused, tempted beyond belief to take him up on his offer. It would be so easy. He made it so easy. Except for one thing.

“Would you kiss me, Flynn?” In the silence, her head filled with the pounding sounds of her own pulse racing in hope-filled anticipation. She leaned in at the same time he did, her eyelids fluttered closed, the soft touch of his breath skimmed over her cheeks, she stroked her tongue over her bottom lip, and waited for his kiss.

And waited.

Disappointment engulfed her as the cool air of his withdrawal wafted over her cheek to douse the flame of hope. She drew in a long slow breath, opened her eyes, and gazed at him. He gave a small shake of his head.

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

Pain welled from deep within. The worst pain she could ever imagine. Worse because she understood more than he could ever know. She also understood if she allowed it to continue, it would destroy them both.

She kept her voice as quiet as possible.

“This is why we can’t have sex, Flynn, because you can’t kiss me for whatever your reason is, and I can’t bear your rejection. It gets more hurtful every time.”

He nodded. “I understand. I won’t try to persuade you otherwise.”

“Perhaps you should see a psychiatrist.”

The sharp sound as Flynn sucked air in through his teeth drew her attention. Darkness closed in, and the warm flicker of firelight enhanced his features, cutting a sharp image to make him appear more evil than usual.