Kiss in the Dark (20 page)

Dylan forced
the
swollen fingers of his hand to uncurl.
Cuts and dried blood streaked across his
dry
skin,
but he felt no pain. Even the throbbing of his head had stopped.

Acceptance, he figured. He’d tried like hell to find a way up the sheer face of the mountain, but had finally realized the impossibility of the task. Now he wondered
how long he’d last without food or water, if he’d starve, or fall asleep and roll to the rocks waiting below. The crows would prefer the former, he thought, watching them circle closer.

He blinked, and the crows became a snake.

What the hell, he thought savagely,
then realized the sun
had taken a greater, faster toll than he’d thought. The hal
lucinations had already begun.

Dylan.

Bethany. Her voice was so sweet, as drugging as always. Somehow it seemed fitting, he
thought as he watched the
snake dangle closer, that she’d be the one to call him to his death.

Dylan!

He exhaled a ragged
breath, wishing she’d quit yelling. A man didn’t want to be yelled at when he took his final breath.

“Damn it, Dylan, can you hear me?”

Everything inside him went very still. The words were urgent, desperate. He blinked hard to clear his gaze, and suddenly the snake became a rope.

Shock jerked through him. He glanced toward the top of the cliff, straining to discern shadow from imagination.

And saw her.

Chapter 12

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B
ethany.

She looked impossibly real leaning over the side of the mountain, glossy
brown hair cascading around her face.
Shadows stole detail, but in his mind, he saw her startling blue eyes, the way they glazed over in
passion.

It was a nice image to die by.

“Damn it, Dylan! Say something!”

“What do you want me to say?”
he asked lazily. “Hello or goodbye?”

“Just tell me you’re okay.”

“I am now,” he muttered. More than okay, actually. A strange sense of peace blanketed him.

“Can you grab the rope?”

“What?”
He’d never heard of needing a rope to cross over.

“The rope. It’s by your right hand. Can you grab it?” He didn’t want to look away from Angel Bethany leaning over the side of the cliff, but her voice was so damn insistent, he figured he better. He ripped his gaze away and
saw the snake dangling by his hand. But it wasn’t a snake. He’d forgotten. It was a rope.

“I’ve got it secured to a tree,” came Angel Bethany’s voice. “A knot like you taught me. Can you pull yourself up?”

He blinked at the thick rope, and suddenly the haze cleared.

“Dylan, please!”

Disbelief surged. Joy followed quickly behind. Angel Bethany wasn’t here to help him cross over, but to help him up the mountain. She hadn’t run, hadn’t been ripped apart by a hungry bear.

“Bethany,” he muttered, looking up at her. This time, he would have sworn he saw her smile.

“I’m here, Dylan. I’m sorry
it
took me so long, but … all those trees look alike.”

He laughed. God help him, stranded there on the mountain ledge with the Rogue River thundering below, a rope his only means of survival, he laughed.

A second rope came plummeting down then, this one with a canteen attached.

“Drink first,” Bethany said. “You’ve got to be thirsty.” He was thirsty, all right. Hungry. Starving. But mere bread and water would never satisfy the craving making him weak. He grabbed the canteen and pulled off the lid, poured the water over his parched face. He opened his mouth as he did so, let the liquid trickle inside. And almost wept. Not because of the water, but because of Bethany.

The desire to crush her in his arms, hold her, gave him all the strength he needed.

Very carefully, he eased into a sitting position, then stood. He remained very still for a second, careful to let balance settle around him before making any radical moves. One misstep, and the rocks would rush up to meet
him.

“Careful,” Bethany said, but didn’t need to worry. He wasn’t letting anything come between them now. Not again. He poured the remaining
water on his hands, then
wiped them
against his torn
khaki shorts. Then he opened and closed his fingers to ensure flexibility. Then he grabbed the rope and secured it around his waist. Then he climbed.

The wind
roared at him and the rope wanted to sway,
but he
concentrated on
pulling himself up, one hand at a
time, walking his
feet
along the rock as he did so.
All the
while, he heard Bethany’s voice encouraging him.

She grabbed him as soon as he heaved himself over the edge and pulled him back with her.

“Dylan … thank God,”
she murmured, holding him tighter than he ever remembered.
“Are
you okay?”

“I’m fine,” he lied. He didn’t want to frighten her with the truth that he vaulted somewhere between perfect and
so consumed by need he could barely form words.

He pulled back and drank in the sight of her against a backdrop of pine, the tangle of her hair and flush to her complexion, the smudges of dirt on her left cheek and the tear to her white T-shirt. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

She gave him a wobbly smile. “No bears, no abandoned mine shafts, no porcupines. What more could a girl ask for?”

A whole hell of a lot. “You ran,” he said, shifting a hand to her abdomen. “The baby?”

Her eyes met his. “Your son is fine.”

The words were like a gut punch. “My son?”

She joined her hand to his. “Just a hunch.”

A levelheaded man would end it there and give thanks for the solid ground beneath his feet, rather than step too close to the edge again. But Dylan had never been levelheaded.

“Why?” he asked, and his voice pitched low. His passions had always driven him, as they did now. Straight into quicksand. “Why did you come back?”

She walked back into his arms and curled hers around his waist, but said nothing.

“You could have run,” he pointed out. “You could have lost yourself in Canada before anyone knew you were missing.”

He felt her stiffen against him, felt her pull back. But nothing prepared him for the expression on her face, the anguish in her eyes. “But then my child would never know his father, and…”

Her words broke off, broke him. “And what?”

She hesitated, her tongue moistening dry lips. “And I’d never know this,” she whispered, then pushed up and put her mouth to his.

Shock stabbed through Dylan like a sky-to-earth lightning bolt, stark and beautiful. The current gyrated through him, searing from the inside out. He knew he should pull away before he charred her, as well, but couldn’t have moved had his life depended on it. Which it did.

Slowly his arms lifted to surround her. He didn’t know which was softer, the mouth nibbling at his, or the hair tangled in his hands. They both damned, making it impossible to summon the man Bethany had always needed him to be, the man his family wanted him to be. The stoic man who would untangle her arms and step back from temptation. The analytical man who realized trauma and near-death experiences often triggered primal affirmations of life. The rational man who knew instinctively that passion was not the answer. The considerate man who’d prompted him to bring her here, to the forest and the mountains she’d loved, to help distract her from the nasty media and police circus in Portland.

But none of those men could be found. They’d only been a figment, he knew. Illusions. A valiant attempt to fit into a world where he didn’t belong. There was only Dylan now, Dylan as he’d always been, driven by passion and the need to possess this woman. Bethany. The only woman who’d ever slid into his heart.

For years he’d tried to deny her impact on him, how badly it had shredded him when Lance had ridden in on
his
white
charger and given her the
tenderness and space
she’d needed. When Lance had helped heal wounds Dy
lan’s in-your-face passion had caused. When he’d realized Lance could give her the life of stability Dylan could not.

“Damn it, Bethany,” he growled, ripping his mouth from hers. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

She lifted her eyes to his. “Actually, I do.”

“Then maybe you’d better tell me.”

A slow smile glazed her eyes. “Dylan,”
she said, lifting her hands to his chest. Slowly, she began to unbutton. “I know good and well you’re not out of practice with this, too.”

The groan ripped from his throat before he could stop it. He wasn’t used to being the one seduced. But he could no more have moved than he could have cut down the forest around them with a pocket knife. He watched in excruciating fascination as Bethany’s fingers fumbled with the buttons of his chambray shirt. She slipped them through slender holes swiftly, then lifted her hands and eased the fabric back from his shoulders, down his arms.

“You’re hurt,”
she whispered, lifting her mouth to kiss a cut along his rib cage.

He couldn’t take it one second longer. He crushed her in his arms and put his mouth to hers, drank in every promise she had to give. The feel of her lips, soft and open, seared away every question, every doubt, every coherent thought he possessed. Only need remained.

He held her against him, running his hands along her back and lower, claiming every sinuous inch of her. Just like that night in the cabin. She felt like liquid fire in his arms, his body. He drank deeply of her, gave as deeply of himself.

* * *

Like so many other times during the past few days, nothing prepared Beth. Nothing could have, not
memories,
not even dreams that had her bolting awake at night, bathed in sweat and burning from the echo of Dylan’s touch. For nine long years she’d lived with the memory of this man’s mouth and hands. The memory of the mind-
numbing
passion he stoked in her, the feel of what
it
was like to be possessed by him. Consumed. And as often hap
pened
with memories over time, they’d faded, vibrant
color washing out to a mere silhouette.

The night six weeks ago had changed that. Shattered
her. Still, she’d told herself it was emotional vulnerability that had made that night so consuming. But now … now there was nothing faded about the man who held her in his arms, but didn’t hold back. His mouth slanted against hers restlessly, hungrily, demanding and giving at the same time.

She’d never felt more alive in her life.

Lifting a hand to his face, she gave in to the temptation that had rocked her ever since they’d been in the mountains. The
whiskers were soft not scratchy, unbearably
masculine. She toyed with them, fingered them, loved them. Facial hair had never particularly appealed to her,
but on Dylan, the dark, raspy shadow of his jaw stirred something deep.

The angle of his kiss changed then, his mouth sliding away from hers. She started to cry out, but then he closed his lips around her finger and gently suckled. This time she did cry out. Heat scored through her, arcing to every nerve ending. She
would have sworn even her bones
melted. “Dylan,” she murmured.

He continued to make love to her finger, but pulled back enough to meet her eyes with his. She’d always thought of them as primeval, but even that descriptor felt tame now. The passion burning there
stole the breath from her
lungs.

“You’re sure?”
he asked, his voice dangerously
hoarse.

“I’m sure,”
she answered, her
voice dangerously
strong.

On a groan, he lowered her to the blanket he’d spread for their picnic,
countless hours before. Not much of the sun remained, only a few crimson streaks shooting up from the western horizon. The hazy shades of twilight settled around them, shadows from the wall of Douglas fir that held the rest of the world at bay. A breeze stirred gently, bringing with it the aroma of pine, but doing nothing to relieve the heat burning through her.

Dylan settled over her, supported by his arms. He kissed her deeply, possessively, his hands cruising along her body, not the back as before, but the front, where her tender breasts ached for his touch.

Impatience tightened through her. He was a deliciously thorough man, but she wasn’t in the mood for deliberation. Not after running through the maze of pine and oak and hemlock, trying not to think about the very real possibility that she would not make it back to Dylan in time.

The survivor in her had insisted Dylan could take care of himself, that she had to think of the child, not the father. That she should seize the moment, the opportunity, and make a run for Canada while she still could. Before Zito had her arrested. Before she stood trial. Before a system designed to protect crushed instead.

Before Dylan’s child was torn from her arms.

But she’d been unable to do that. Unable to turn her back on him after everything he’d done for her. Not just bringing her here to the mountains where she could breathe without choking on horror and scandal, but smaller things, like the clothes he’d brought her at the hotel, the pregnancy book he’d given her, the bath he’d drawn. The restraint he’d shown.

He showed no restraint now, though. He lay sprawled between her legs, his erection pressed against her thigh. She moaned softly, lifting her hands to his arms to push him back from her.

The look on his face said she might as well have ripped his heart from his chest.

Smiling, she rolled to her knees, then ripped something else—the T-shirt from her body. Her bra came next, flung to the side and baring her chest for the world.

But there was only Dylan.

Her breasts were heavier now with pregnancy, her nipples larger, darker. And the ache. Dear Lord the sweet ache burned through her, the need to have this man’s mouth close around her nipple and suckle.

Vulnerability bucked up against the haze of passion, but she refused to let it intrude. Instead, she cupped her breasts and offered them to the father of her child.

“You’re the one who’s made them ache,” she whispered. “It’s only fair that you give them relief, as well.”