Taming the Lone Wolff(20)
The radio went silent. Winnie hated the harsh glare of the unadorned overhead lightbulb. She felt naked, exposed. Larkin looked nothing like a romantic hero. His tight expression fell halfway between sexually frustrated and pissed.
“Well, this is awkward,” she said, attempting humor to dislodge the giant boulder crushing her chest. “I’ll leave you to it.” Her eyes stung with tears she would never in a million years allow to fall. Larkin was a guy. He’d grabbed her half-clothed body, and the predictable had happened. End of story.
He didn’t have to know that such raw passion was foreign to her. That it had been years since she had felt more than a mild interest in the opposite sex. That he was the first man in a decade to coax her into bestowing her trust.
Grabbing the chain in a wild attempt to disguise her chaotic emotions, she plunged the shed into darkness and slipped out the door. Larkin was right on her heels, his breath hot on her neck. “Not so fast, Winnie. We have to talk.”
Her choked laugh held more than a hint of hysteria. “Isn’t that my line?”
He shook her gently. “I shouldn’t have kissed you.”
Wow. The pain that statement invoked was far out of proportion to the fact that she had met this man only a day ago. “Well, we’re even, then,” she said, her words deliberately flip. “I shouldn’t have kissed you either.” Unable to hold her tears at bay despite her best efforts, she fled.
* * *
Larkin let her go. He’d botched this job so badly he was amazed she hadn’t fired him on the spot. First he’d overlooked the glaringly obvious fact that his new boss expected to be consulted at every level. And then he’d compounded his gaffe by kissing her senseless. Good Lord…
Remembering the feel of her in his arms hardened his sex to the point of pain. Hunger raged in his veins even now. Had his employee not intruded, Larkin would have lifted Winnie into his arms and taken her standing up. The rush of crazed passion was something he hadn’t experienced since his hormonal college days.
But Winnie was no sorority girl looking to add notches to her bedpost. She was a fascinating, complicated woman. A female for whom he felt a visceral, inexplicable need. Such wild emotion was not to be trusted. He was being paid to keep her and her flock safe. In those brief moments when he’d kissed her and felt her small, perfect body meld to his, he’d had no thought at all for his job.
The realization stunned him. Was he kidding himself about his reasons for suggesting Wolff Mountain as a hidey-hole? He no longer allowed any woman to influence his decisions. At least not since his little sister married Sam. Larkin, for the first time in his life, felt free.
So why complicate his life?
Without warning, he stubbed his toe on an unseen rock in the grass. The dull pain shocked him back to reality. Screw self-examination. Taking Winnie to the mountain was expedient and well thought out. It had nothing to do with sex.
* * *
An hour later, with his crew safely on alert and all initial summations complete, Larkin strode back up the lawn toward Winnie’s house. He already knew which windows were hers, and they were dark. He let himself in, locked the doors and moved wearily up the stairs, his tread virtually silent. In the upstairs hallway, he paused, his hand on the doorknob to his room.
Why had she kissed him back? Had she merely been humoring him? Or was she starved for male companionship? She poured her heart and soul into her cause. Did that leave any time for relationships? Her fire and boldness in the shed had surprised him and made it much more difficult to stop thinking about her in inappropriate ways.