Worth the Risk(72)

“Hannah.”

“I’m not blaming myself, not exactly, but it’s the truth no one wants to talk about. I didn’t see it. How can a person not see such an evil? How can a person even be so evil?”

He pressed his lips to the top of her head almost desperately, trying not to think of all the things she wasn’t seeing in him. “I’m sorry.”

“I survived.”

“Yes. You did. More than survived. You make a difference.” And she amazed him.

“Do you think I’m going to lose the land? The barn, all of it?”

“No.” Because he wasn’t going to let that happen.

“You seem sure.”

“I am.” He thought again to tell her his own company had been interested, but he held back. Maybe he wanted this…whatever it was, between them, to have nothing to do with business. Or maybe he didn’t want her to know that if he hadn’t known her, and if he’d thought it was profitable, he wouldn’t have hesitated to go after it.

“Hey.” He lifted her chin with a finger. “If not there, you can do it somewhere else. It wouldn’t be the end.” He’d find her the perfect spot, somewhere even better. He’d design it and build it, make it so she could do whatever she wanted, have whatever she wanted.

“I know it’s just a place, and God knows people have way worse problems, but…in a lot of ways that place saved me.”

Like Trace had saved him. “I get it. I do. It might look like steel and glass but after…everything, Trace Development gave me something to live for. Something to want, something else to think about. I cut myself off from my family. Just tried to turn everything off.” Because it hurt. And because feeling anything scared him.

“I think my brothers wanted the old me back. Maybe they still do, want to go back in time and make it not have happened. But they can’t and that girl doesn’t exist anymore.”

He danced his fingers over her face in a light caress. Both of them had been touched by evil. How was it she’d come out the other side so much more intact than he had? “My family worries, I know they do. They want the old me back too. I pretty much snapped.”

“Sometimes I think maybe we’re all just one rubber band away. I mean, you see people snap all the time, right?”

Maybe.

She shifted until her chin rested on his chest, and she smiled that beautiful smile. “And you know what?”

“What?”

“I like who you are now.”

She undid him. Looking at him like that, smiling at him like that. It was almost too much to take. Shaken, he pulled her face up to his, met her lips, encouraged by her soft sighs. Then, in the brightening morning light, he ran his tongue along every line that marred her delicate skin. Covered every mark with kisses as if he could erase them.

He’d missed this. Loving a woman. Being gentle. But with Hannah it was more. He stroked and teased until she was ready for him, then slid into her slowly and began a sensual dance that took them both over the top.





Chapter 31


Hours later, Hannah blinked against the ultra-bright midmorning sun rising over the Rockies and Stephen’s beautiful face hovering above her.

“Last one up is a rotten egg.” He bent, pressed a kiss to her lips, then proceeded to tuck the sheet under her tightly and roll off the edge of the mattress. “I won.”

She looked up at him, standing beside the bed, naked and glorious and…ready. “You cheated.”

“So punish me.”

Groaning, she wiggled her arm from his makeshift cocoon and slung it across her eyes.

Stephen laughed and she heard him move away. She listened to the spray and splatter of water as he took a shower. Is he singing?

Naughty thoughts danced in her mind as she imagined joining him. Not to sing, but to lather him up, lick the droplets of water from his body. She’d never known sex had a scent, but a sultry musk lingered over the silk sheets and she smiled. It was impossible not to.

Last night—and later—had been perfect. Tender. The right time and the right man.

Twenty minutes later, with coffee in hand, they sat together on the white leather couch. Well, he sat, dressed and looking sharp in dark jeans and a light-blue shirt. Confident and relaxed with it untucked, sleeves rolled back at his wrists, one giant foot propped on the low coffee table. While she lounged against the other end, rumpled and sleepy-eyed, wearing only a robe.

He sipped his coffee and worked on his laptop, intermittently typing with one hand and rubbing her feet nestled in his lap. She felt like Cinderella waking up to find the prince was still there. “What are you working on?”

“Not working, just playing.”