Her First Vacation (30 page)

“I wouldn’t touch your bitch of a sister if she was the
last woman on Earth.”

That got her attention. She blinked up at him in shock, and
he nodded. “That’s right. I said bitch.
And cold and soulless
and practiced and predatory.
She’s a barracuda, and I’m not even
remotely interested in being her midnight snack. You are the woman I want, the
woman who’s haunted my dreams for five long months. Five months of cold showers
and almost no real sleep.
Which meant I had plenty of time to
go over my mistakes and see just how profound a mess I’d made of things.
Believe
me,
I know how badly I screwed up. And I won’t
try to make excuses for my stupidity, except to say that I convinced myself
you’d be better off without me. I’m not an easy man to live with. I’ve got a
past.
An ugly one.
I’ve made a career out of lying and
more than once along the way, I’ve crossed lines that I know I shouldn’t have.
That night in your room, I came there to hurt you. I meant to embarrass you so
badly that you’d stay the hell away from me and Garret Palmer. I thought I
could protect you that way.
From him.
From myself,
even. But I was the one who wound up being seduced.
By your
bravery and your innocence and
your
damned
see-through lingerie.
The moment you stood before me and gave me what I
thought you couldn’t, I knew I was lost. And from that point on, everything
that happened, every word, every touch, was from my heart and soul. I love you,
Claire. I want to spend the rest of my life loving you. Whatever it takes,
whatever you ask, I’ll do it. I’m begging you, for God’s sake. You’ve got to
know that isn’t something I’d do lightly.”

Claire forced herself to shake her head. “That’s just the
problem. I don’t know you. I don’t know how to tell the lies from the truth.”

“I’ll never lie to you again. Not directly or by omission
or even by implication. I swear to you that for as long as I live, you’ll never
get anything but the truth from me. I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my life,
most of which I don’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of correcting. I’ve
learned to live with them, though, to accept the consequences of my own choices
and actions. Letting you go was the one mistake I couldn’t accept.” He reached
down and caught her hand, bringing it up and pressing it to his chest. “My
heart and soul are yours. They have been since that night in your room. We
belong to each other, and no matter how much you try to fight it, that fact
won’t change. Look me in the eye and tell me you don’t feel it, too. Tell me
you don’t love me so much it hurts and I’ll walk away for good.”

CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN

Claire opened her mouth, fully intending to give him what
he’d asked for. But the words wouldn’t come. No amount of mental insistence
forced a sound from her throat. She couldn’t lie to him. She couldn’t look into
his face, especially while they were touching the way they were, and pretend
she didn’t love him with every fiber of her being. She felt the wall she’d been
struggling to erect around her crumble. Fresh tears poured from her eyes as she
finally shook her head in defeat. She expected him to smile, maybe even to
gloat a little. Instead, he released a shaky sigh she hadn’t even realized he
was holding. She felt his hand at the back of her neck flex and she let him
pull her forward. She expected a kiss.
A claiming.
He’d won his prize, after all. Instead, he cradled her against his chest,
wrapping his arms around her with a gentleness that she couldn’t have
anticipated. Her head rested against his shoulder. He stroked her hair with his
hand.

“I’ll never betray you again, Claire. I’ll never give you
reason to regret loving me.”

She might have
gone right on believing
he was simply telling her what she wanted to hear if it hadn’t been for the
tremor she heard in his voice. It was slight, barely perceptible, but she knew
she’d heard it. She pulled away from him, lifting her gaze to his. The shock of
what she saw there took her breath away. There were tears in his eyes.
Real tears.
And a joy unlike anything she’d ever seen in
another person. She felt something inside her leap with hope. The pain tried to
beat it back, to warn her not to trust her eyes or her heart. But it was
impossible to contain the surge of emotion. She lifted a hand to touch his
face, then pulled away and focused on the moisture on her finger. He spoke,
sounding gruff and more than a little uncomfortable.

“I’m not exactly the weepy type.
Not
usually, anyway.”

Claire continued to stare at the moisture on her finger
until her own vision began to blur so badly that she could no longer focus. His
tears were real. The tremor in his voice, in his hands as they held her, was
real. The emotion behind his words was real. She closed her eyes as it all
finally got through to her. He was being honest with her. Maybe, in his own
way, he’d been honest with her all along. From the very beginning she’d felt like
he was battling himself when they were together.
As if he was
trying to hold something back, to keep their relationship on a strictly casual
plane.
He’d as much as admitted that to her. He’d told her he was
fighting his attraction to her and even in that casino hallway, he’d tried to
warn her that he wasn’t the kind of man who made any sort of commitment. But he
had committed himself to her. The night he came to her bed, he’d given her
himself. She felt his hand touch her face.

“Are you okay?”

She lifted her eyelids and focused on him. Her heart
swelled so much she thought it would burst. She loved him. She knew she did.
She’d simply tried to convince herself that it didn’t matter. And now, she knew
it mattered more than anything else ever would. She felt a smile come to her
lips.

“I’m better than okay. You’re here. You love me. That’s the
answer to more prayers than you could imagine.”

Colin felt the last of the fear leave his body. He’d been
terrified, he
realized,
that she’d refuse to listen to
him. That all his words and professions of love would not be enough to overcome
the pain he’d caused her. Even when he’d won the battle of forcing her to admit
she loved him, he’d feared it wouldn’t be enough. But now, he saw the truth in
her eyes. She believed him. More awesome, though, she forgave him. He couldn’t
help the swell of pride he felt. She was the most incredible woman he’d ever
known, and she was his. He bent his head then, finally surrendering to the
desperate need that had been clawing at his gut for the past five months.

Claire took his kiss, his heart, his soul. Standing in the
middle of her mother’s driveway, with snow falling all around them, she knew
they were doing far more than sharing a physical need to touch and taste each
other. This was a claiming...for both of them. Claire knew her mother and
sister watched. They’d have witnessed the entire exchange between her and
Colin. They might not have heard the words that were said, but there was no way
they could mistake the intensity of the emotions involved. Nor, she knew, would
either of them be able to doubt the fact that finally, someone in their lives
had chosen her over them.
Openly, blatantly, without the
slightest shadow of doubt.
Colin had made his feelings known as only he
could. And he’d done it honestly.
God, how she loved him.

Colin finally broke the kiss because he was a heartbeat
away from pushing her back up against the nearest car and encouraging her to
hike up her dress and wrap her long legs around him. While the idea did have tremendous
appeal, he had enough presence of mind to realize that this was hardly the
place for it. The snow was steadily picking up in intensity. It covered
everything in a soft blanket now, and by morning, if the forecasters were even
close to being right, there would be enough of the stuff to make travel unwise,
if not impossible. As if that wasn’t enough reason to bank the desire burning
him up from the inside out, the feeling of eyes on his back reminded him that
they had an audience. He might be a lot of things, but an exhibitionist wasn’t
one of them. He slid his hand down Claire’s arm to twine his fingers with hers.

“Let’s go get some of your things and get out of here. We
can go to my hotel. It’s not exactly the Ritz, but it’s the best place in town,
and they have their own kitchen so we won’t starve. If we’re going to wind up
being snowed in for a day or two, I’d rather not have to deal with your mother
and sister. I want you all to myself.”

Claire shot him a small frown, then her face cleared, and he
saw her smile. “For a brilliant federal agent, you’re not very smart. I don’t
live here anymore. I haven’t since a week after I came home.”

He shook his head. “I’m not a federal agent. Not anymore. I
quit. About a week after I let you walk out of my life.”

Claire blinked in surprise. “You quit? Why?”

“Because it was making me hate myself.
Because I was sick to death of lies and the twisted way I was sometimes forced
to use them. I’d have gotten out sooner if I hadn’t had a personal stake in
bringing Garret Palmer down. The man he admitted to killing was a federal
agent. Undercover, like I was. More than that, he was my friend. Charlie taught
me everything I knew. When Palmer killed him, it pulled me in as effectively as
a fish on a line. I had to get him, to stop him.
For
Charlie.”

“And you did.”

Colin nodded. “Yes, I did. But in the end, I wasn’t
thinking about Charlie at all. You see, by the time I shot him, you were the
one I was getting him for. Because he’d hurt you. Because he would have hurt
you so much worse if he’d had the chance. I’ve never been particularly
bloodthirsty, but when I saw the marks he’d left on you, I wanted to kill him
so much it hurt. If I’d had a clear shot at his head, I probably would have
killed him. As it was, you were the one who made it possible for me to put him
down. If you hadn’t ducked out of the way-”

He stopped, clearly not wanting to give voice to what would
have happened. Claire felt an uncontrollable shiver work through her body at
the memory. Colin’s grip on her hand tightened reflexively, as if he too was
reliving the moment. She shoved the fear away. It was over and done and Garret
Palmer would never hurt her or anyone else again. She smiled up at Colin.

“So, do you still want to go to your hotel, or would you
rather come back to my apartment?”

He didn’t hesitate.
“Your place.
We’ll stop by the hotel and pick up my things, first.”

She nodded. “Let’s go, before this snow gets any worse.”

Colin paused and glanced toward the house. The front door was
closed, but he could clearly see the outlines of several people around the
front windows. Obviously, Claire’s mother and sister weren’t the only ones
watching. He turned back to Claire.

“What about your family?”

“What about them?”

He shook his head. “I might have been a little...brusque.
Do you want to try to smooth things over first?”

“I stopped catering to my mother and sister as soon as I
came home. I’m not going to start it back up now. If they have questions or
comments, they can call me. If not, they can sit and stew in their curiosity
and annoyance. It doesn’t matter to me either way. I’m not living for them
anymore. You taught me that I had every right to focus on doing what was best
for me. That’s why I got my own place.”

He gave her a warm smile as he began to lead her down the
drive. “I always knew you were smart. I just didn’t know how smart I was.”

She shot him a look that probably terrified the children
she taught when she directed it at them. “Don’t let it go to your head. I went
on that cruise in the first place because I knew I needed a change. You just
pushed me in the right direction.”

He stopped beside his rental. Claire took one look at it
and shook her head. “That thing is a piece of junk. We’ll take mine. It’s got
four-wheel-drive.” Colin turned and spotted the Jeep she indicated. Would she
ever stop surprising him? He’d figured her for a nice, classy sedan.
Something upscale and genteel.
From the looks of the Jeep,
its large tires weren’t just for looks alone. He cast
her a
sideways glance as she led him to it.

“Somehow, I never figured you for the outdoorsy type.”

She arched a brow at him as she pulled open the passenger
door. “Yeah, well you never figured me for the see-through underwear type
either, did you?”

He stopped in the process of moving toward the seat. He
turned his head to lock his gaze on her. “Speaking of which, what kind of
scraps are you wearing beneath that thing?”

Her smile was pure mischief. “You’ll just have to wait and
see.”

He kissed her then, because he couldn’t stop himself. His
hand slid down her back and across her rear and he knew, just from that
touch, that
she had on a thong. God help him, the
anticipation was going to kill him. She pulled away, giving him a knowing
smile. “Like the hint?”

He would have grabbed her again if she hadn’t backed out of
reach with a laugh. He got in the Jeep, buckling his seatbelt as she opened the
driver’s door and climbed inside. She had to hike the skirt up a little just so
she could climb up into the seat. He waited until she was buckled in and had
started the engine before shaking his head.

“I still can’t believe you’re wearing a getup like that in
a vehicle like this.”

She pulled out onto the street before answering. “Yeah,
well I left the Mercedes at home because of the weather.”

He shot her a surprised look and she laughed.
“Just kidding.
I’m a teacher, remember. The Jeep suits the
climate and my occasional urges to put some distance between myself and
civilization. Believe
me,
it’s far closer to my taste
than formal dinner parties are.”