Undercover Hunter(114)

                “Oh, hell,” she said, but the words emerged quietly as she turned. “I’m doing it again.”

                “Doing what?”

                She didn’t want to tell him, didn’t want to admit the truth, even as she finally admitted it to herself.

                “DeeJay?” His tone had changed to something softer. “A squabble isn’t the end of the world.”

                “For me it is.” And, boy, was she good at starting them.

                All of a sudden she felt him take her shoulders from behind, a gentle grip. Instinct made her want to shrug off his touch, but a stronger feeling made her afraid to lose it.

                “Tell me,” he said quietly. “Please.”

                She closed her eyes, wrapped her arms around herself and struggled internally. It was like facing a parachute jump off a plane, unable to take that first step but needing to. She’d already exposed so much to this man. So much. She must trust him, at least to some extent. But trust was so difficult for her.

                He said nothing, simply continuing to hold her shoulders as if offering support. She recalled their lovemaking, the way he’d understood her so often, his kindness. He wasn’t like anyone she’d known before. Or at least not anyone she’d let herself know. Maybe the few men she’d chosen to date in the past had been selected simply because she knew it wouldn’t work.

                This time she didn’t know if it could work but, damn, she wanted to find out.

                She swallowed. “I just realized something.”

                “What’s that?” he asked quietly.

                “I protect myself by picking fights. I blow things up before they can blow up on me.”

                “I see. Do you want to get rid of me?”

                “No!” The word burst out of her. “But Cade, it’s so hard for me to trust.”

                “Ahh.” He began rubbing her shoulders gently. “Have I done anything to make you distrust me?”

                “No. But you will. Sooner or later...”

                He spun her around suddenly, his blue eyes boring into her. “Sooner or later you’re going to learn I’m exactly the man I seem to be. And you can go kicking and screaming if you want, but I’m not ready to end whatever is happening between us.”

                “You don’t have the right...”

                “We’re not talking about rights here. We’re talking about giving things time. Do I scare you that much?”

                He terrified her, she realized. He terrified her as much as anyone she had ever known because she knew he could hurt her so badly, worse than anything in her life. And the longer she was with him, the more he could hurt her. All because she was truly coming to care for him, something she had never really let herself do before.

                Hiding behind her emotional walls kept life from dealing devastating blows. But in just a few days, Cade had shown her some of what she’d been hiding from, and she honestly wondered if she wanted to keep missing so much.

                She’d taken a lot of risks in her life, but the one thing she had never risked was her heart.

                A long, long time ago, she had vowed she would never cry again. She’d kept that promise to herself, but now, with Cade, the possibility of crying hot tears of anguish once again had become a possibility.