“Why do you say that?”
“Why? Because this has never been easy, or standard. Ever since I met you, you’ve thrown me one curve ball after another.”
“So, why are you here?”
“Beats the hell out of me.”
His anger only fired hers. “Supposing I did go to bed with you, then what?”
“I’d probably want to keep you there for a month.”
The wooden spoon was dripping red sauce onto the floor. He tossed it down on the range and advanced toward her. “I’ve never waltzed around any woman the way I have you. And you know what? I’m tired of it. I’ve had to carefully measure everything I said so you wouldn’t take it the wrong way.”
He gripped her shoulders and pulled her toward him. Their chests came together hard. “Well, I don’t give a damn how you take this. It’s how I feel.” He thrust his hips against hers for emphasis.
“I want you bad, Kari. I want you naked. As wild as you were in the grass this afternoon. Only the next time you experience that, I want to be buried deep inside you, feeling it happen around me, sharing it with you. There. Now is that crude enough and graphic enough for you? Have you got the picture? You have a real knack for choosing what you want to hear and closing your ears to everything else. I don’t think you can mistake my meaning this time.”
He released her so suddenly, she reeled. He had spotted a bottle of Scotch a few days ago in one of the cup-boards. He took it out now, poured a generous portion into an orange juice glass, and threw it down his throat in one gulp.
She had a spontaneous desire to giggle. Thomas had never been one to lose his temper. Hunter’s flare-up had been as strong a stimulant as one of his kisses. She wanted to spin him around, slap him as hard as she could, then kiss him with equal fervor.
“Hunter?”
“What?” he barked.
“Tell me when you’re ready for me to set the table.”
It took some effort on her part, but he came around. By the time they sat down to eat, his good humor had been restored. He joked as he opened the second bottle of wine and smiled when she praised his spaghetti. He was volatile but not moody. She liked that about him.
After the dinner dishes had been cleared away, they began working on the jigsaw puzzle again. This time Hunter sat back and let her muddle through it on her own. He watched her lips purse in concentration. He loved the way her hair fell over her face and the unthinking way she brushed it back.
They had moved the candles from the dining table to the card table after dinner. Now her bare shoulder glowed in the golden light they shed as she bent over the table. Her skin looked like warm satin and he wanted to take a bite out of that shoulder. He wanted to taste all of her.
The sweater she was wearing got his vote for the sexiest item in her wardrobe. She was wearing nothing underneath it. Every time she moved he could see the gentle sway of her breasts. She was sexy without trying to be. Her allure lay in her subtlety.
He thought about Marilyn and chuckled. How could he have ever thought to remedy his desire for Kari by taking another woman, any other woman, especially one as blatant as Marilyn? How stupid he’d been.
Kari looked up from the puzzle. “Did I miss something? What’s funny?”
He laughed again. “I was just remembering a night I’d rather forget.”
“Oh?”
“I had a lapse of common sense.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s all you’re going to get.” She shook her head as though she doubted his sanity and returned her attention to the puzzle.
She held the three remaining pieces in her hand. Now that she was about to finish it, she was almost afraid to. Then she would have to face the picture she saw. Not the picture of the brightly colored balloons on the table, but the picture of herself that it symbolized.
Hunter McKee.
He had started out her enemy. Now she knew she loved him.
She locked in a piece. Two remained.
He wasn’t all that easy to love. He was ambitious. He had a temper. But he also stood for justice, all-American wholesomeness, and old-fashioned values that she adhered to as well. He had been candid with her tonight. He wanted her in his bed. But she had already known that. In retrospect she realized she had known that for a long time. Maybe she had purposely goaded him so he would speak his feelings out loud.
But did he love her?
She thought he did. A man like him didn’t have to wait over a year for a woman. Yet he had. After all she’d done to him, said about him, said to him, he had still come after her. And did it matter so much if he didn’t love her? Thomas had professed his love frequently, yet he had deceived her. Did she need to hear the words, or were Hunter’s actions sufficient to express his love?