Slap Shot(26)

“Just the truth.”

“But why does it matter so much?”

He reached for my arms, unfolded them and grasped my hands in his enormous palms. “Because I haven’t felt like this in years.”

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t ever before been desperate to spend time with someone, want to see them smile and get to know everything about them. You fascinate me, you’re a challenge.” He paused. “A wild thing.”

I stared up into his earnest face. “But that’s just it. You don’t know me so how can you think you want those things from me?”

“Because when I’m with you the need to touch you is a gravitational pull and when I’m not with you I’m plotting how I can see you again, how I can spend time with you.” He dragged in a deep breath. “Each tiny snippet of information about yourself that you release is like a piece of treasure, something that I store away and bring out in the dead of the night and think about.” He released my right hand and placed the pad of his thumb beneath my chin. “And every wonderful time your sexy little body has responded to mine has chipped away at the feeling of aloneness that has been in my life for far too long.”

My heart was swelling in my chest and my breathing was tight. “But, Rick, if you really knew what had happened in my past you wouldn’t feel that way, I promise. You might think you want me but you wouldn’t, you don’t really.” How could he? My beginnings had been demeaning and my first steps into the world sordid.

“Don’t tell me I don’t want you,” he said in a low rumbling voice as his lips brushed mine. “And who hasn’t got a past, Dana? Everyone has a past.”

I licked my lips and drew in his intoxicating flavor.

“Take me, for example,” he said. “My past is biting me on the butt big-time. Laurie Sharp was one hell of a mistake.”

“She would have put a lot of men off women for life.”

He gave a naughty smirk. “Baby, I like women far too much to be put off by one psycho.”

I glanced away. “But Laurie was one night, one mistake.”

He sighed. “Yeah, one seriously hideous lapse of judgment.”

I reached up and rested my hand on his upper arm, letting the strength and the heat of him seep onto my palm. It was awful that he was living with this shadow—a shadow of hate, madness and revenge. I wished I could magic it all away for him and take the distress out of his beautiful eyes.

“If I tell you something, can you keep it to yourself?” he asked quietly. His brows pulled low and his arms wound around my waist but he didn’t hold me close, he just kept me trapped.

“Of course.”

He sucked in a breath. “My agent will kill me for this but I want to tell you, I want you to understand about my past.”

I tipped my head. “Why would he kill you?”

“Because, as I already told you, he’s trying to set me up working with kids, being an example and all that. It would make things awkward if this came out during the negotiations.”

“Then I promise I will never say anything.”

He dragged in a deep breath. “Back in my teens I spent some time in juvie.”

“You did?” My eyes widened. “What for?” Rick behind bars, I couldn’t imagine it, couldn’t believe it.

He swallowed and I was aware of his body tensing beneath my touch. “I fell into the wrong crowd. We took to running around at night, looking for a bit of trouble or a bit of cash, both if we could.” He paused. “One night we spotted a second floor apartment with the window open. I was the youngest but also the tallest so I was sent up on the fence and ordered in.” His eyes narrowed. “I handed down what I could—TV, stereo, kitchen stuff, even a jewelry box. I felt like shit about it but the others were shouting me on, encouraging me to get more. We would have a great time spending the cash on beer and some smokes. I was the hero of the night.”

“So what happened?”

“Sirens screamed down the street, a whole pile of cops got out and my so-called pals ran like the wind. Trouble was, I didn’t get out quick enough and four cops were waiting for me as I dropped to the ground. They hauled my bad little ass off to the station and screamed the riot act at me.”

“Rick, that’s awful, didn’t you tell them it was peer pressure?”

He laughed without humor. “That doesn’t wash when you’re seventeen, Dana. It was my own stupid fault and my own sorry mess.” He stared at the wall over my shoulder. “No one in my family had the cash to pay my bail and to cut a long story short, I got locked up for two months. It was a shit time in my life, the worst probably, but it did make me sit back and think. Made me decide what I wanted to do.”