For the next hour, Jess tried his best to push Victoria completely from his mind. After he finished eating and clearing away the dirty dishes, he checked on Katrina, then went to his bedroom and took a shower. Yet all the while he tried to busy himself, the quiet emptiness of the house began to close in around him.
Eventually, he prowled through several rooms on the pretext of hunting for something to read. When he failed to find Victoria in any of her usual places, he went out to the back porch where several pieces of lawn furniture were scattered across the planked floor.
Although it was dark, there was enough moonlight to allow him to pick up her silhouette sitting in a cushioned glider at the far end of the ground-level porch. As he walked over to her, he told himself he was definitely a glutton for punishment. He didn’t need to be out here. There was no reason for it. Except that where Victoria Ketchum was concerned, he couldn’t seem to help himself.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked with faint surprise.
Not waiting for an invitation, he eased down beside her. “I could ask you the same thing.”
She sighed and he wondered if the sound was an expression of pleasure or if it had been made out of the sheer weariness of dealing with him.
“I’m enjoying the warm night,” she answered his question. “We don’t have very many of them, you know. At least not here in the mountains.”
The fact that her voice was warm and welcoming made him feel like a heel. Although Jess didn’t know why. Earlier, in the kitchen, the only sin he’d committed was speaking truthfully. He couldn’t help it if she didn’t like what he had to say.
“It’s pretty obvious that you’re trying to avoid me,” he said.
Turning her head, she looked at him in the semidarkness and was amazed at how just the sight of his profile still had the power to make her ache with longing.
“You made it clear I was talking too much. So I thought it best to stay out of your way for a while.”
He rubbed a restless hand against his thigh. “You were talking too much,” he admitted. “But,” he shrugged as he searched for his next words, “I didn’t mean to sound so…sharp.”
Pressing her lips together to keep them from trembling, she glanced away from him. In a husky voice, she said, “Yes, you meant to.”
Sheer frustration caused him to groan loudly and her eyes to sweep back to his twisted features.
“Victoria—” he began only to have her soft voice interrupt him.
“Please don’t start apologizing. Especially when you really don’t mean it.”
But he did mean it, Jess thought. Hurting Victoria, even with just words, was something he no longer wanted to do. When and how that had happened, he didn’t know, but he was certain about one thing—the change scared the heck right out of him.
“Why are you making this so damned hard, Tori? Just what do you want from me?”
The question caused Victoria to writhe with pain. At one time in their lives, he’d known exactly what she’d wanted from him. His touch, his love, his children and the promise that he would love her until their dying days. But she supposed he’d forgotten those days when he’d professed to love her. Back when the two of them had planned to marry and build a house of their own on the Hastings ranch. She knew he didn’t want to hear those sorts of things from her now. The thought made her throat tighten painfully until her voice was little more than a hoarse whisper when she finally answered, “You don’t really want me to answer that, Jess.”
His eyes roamed her shadowed face. “What makes you think so?”
She reached for his hand and slid her fingers intimately between his. Unwittingly, the image of the two of them naked, their bodies entwined, flashed through Jess’s mind and his heart began to pound with hot, needy anticipation.
“Because you still blame me for everything that happened between us,” she answered in a quiet, matter-of-fact way. “Because you…don’t want me…the way I want you.”
He muttered a curse word. “Are you crazy, Tori? Do you know what living under the same roof with you these past few days have been doing to me? It’s all I can do to keep from getting up out of my bed and crossing the hall to you.”
For long moments Jess could feel her eyes searching his face. Then suddenly, before he knew what was happening, her arms were sliding around his neck and her lips hovered next to his.
“Then why haven’t you, Jess?”
Like a flash of lightning, white-hot desire was suddenly surging through his body, stirring his blood to a heated frenzy. With a mind of their own, his hands slipped to her shoulders. His brow leaned into hers. “Don’t do this to me, Tori. To us,” he whispered roughly. “You’ll only be sorry.”
Her fingers pleated together at the back of his neck and pressed into the strong muscle and bone. “I’ve been sorry before.”
The delicious warmth of her body, the flowery scent of her hair and skin, the touch of her fingers were all luring him, tugging him to a place he shouldn’t go. Yet it was impossible for him to pull away from her, from all the things he’d hungered for since the two of them had parted.
“Damn it,” he murmured in a low, agonized voice, “this is crazy. It’s not going to get us anywhere. But, right at this moment I don’t really care.”
Her response was a sigh and a kiss so soft that it only whetted his appetite to have her. With a deep groan of surrender, he pulled her against him and slanted his lips roughly over hers. Instantly her mouth opened, inviting his tongue to slip inside. As he tasted that intimate part of her, his hands slid beneath the hem of her sweater and stroked the soft skin of her back.
Victoria’s head reeled with hot sensations as she was suddenly thrust back to all those years ago when Jess had been her man, her love. The taste of his mouth, the searching pressure of his lips, the hard warmth of his body was all just as wonderful as she remembered and her heart was suddenly weeping from the sheer joy of touching, loving him again.
By the time he finally lifted his head, her pride and common sense had flown away into the dark night. She clung to him tightly, her fingers dug into his back as she pleaded, “Oh Jess, make love to me.”
He eased his head back far enough to look into her eyes. Indecision flickered in the gray depths and she realized he was fighting a mental war with himself. He wanted her, yet he hated himself for it.
As moments passed, she began to fear he was going to reject her, but then his head bent back to hers and he gave her a kiss so hungry and forceful it stole the breath from her lungs.
As she struggled to regain her lost air, his hot gaze roamed her face. “Just remember you asked for this,” he said thickly, then quickly rising to his feet, he tugged her up from the glider.
With her hand gripped tightly in his, she followed him through the maze of lawn furniture until they reached the back door. There he paused and pulled her into his arms long enough to kiss her again.
The urgency and need Victoria tasted on his lips stoked the fires already burning inside her and she quickly began to unfasten the buttons on his shirt. When she parted the heavy cotton and smoothed her hands over his heated skin, he groaned and grabbed her fingers.
“We can’t do this here,” he said huskily.
Taking her by the arm, he led her into the house and down the long hallway to his bedroom.
At the side of the bed, he quickly removed her clothing, pausing long enough between articles for a kiss here, a touch there.
Beneath the urgency of his hands, Victoria’s heart pounded with a mixture of pleasure and unbearable anticipation. For four long years her sexual needs had gone into cold hibernation, but now Jess was here, bringing her desire back to a bright, burning flame. She couldn’t touch him, taste him enough. And the banked glow in her eyes told him so.
He removed his own clothes in hasty jerks. Once they were heaped on the floor in a pile next to Victoria’s, he settled her back onto the mattress, then stretched out beside her. As he took her into his arms, memories were showering his mind, filling him with a longing so deep it shook his hands and pained the very center of his heart.
Pressing kisses along his jaw, she murmured feverishly, “Oh Jess, Jess. This is the way we were always meant to be. Tell me I’m right.”
He closed his eyes against the beauty of her face. “Nothing about this is right, Tori. But God help me, I want you. I can’t stop wanting you.”
“Jess—”
Whatever else she’d been going to say was blotted out by his lips. After that, all words were forgotten as his fingers reacquainted themselves with her breasts, her belly and thighs, and eventually, the warm, wet silkiness between her thighs.
Of all the times he’d imagined making love to Victoria again, he’d always done it in slow motion. He’d taken the time to explore every inch of her, to stoke the fires in both of them until the heat of wanting was unbearable. But now that he had her for real, he couldn’t slow his movements or the rushing need to have her completely.
Sensing his impatience, she ripped her mouth away from his and panted, “Don’t wait, Jess! I need you now!”
He lifted his head just enough to look at her. “Are you sure?”
Wrapping her legs around his, she lifted her hips invitingly against his bulging arousal. “Oh—oh yes,” she choked. “Make me yours. Again.”
Jess didn’t need a second invitation. He slipped the hard length of his arousal inside her and their bodies began to move in a frenzied reunion.
Victoria wasn’t sure if minutes or hours had passed when she finally floated back to earth. Her lungs were heaving and sweat bathed every inch of her skin. Her hands, which had been gripping Jess’s back just moments earlier, were now as limp as her sated body.
Eventually, her breathing slowed and her strength returned. Jess was still draped over her and with a contented sigh, she lifted a hand and began to stroke his shoulder. But after a few moments Jess moved himself off her and rolled to one side of the mattress.
Turning her head, she looked at him with soft, drowsy eyes. Making love with Jess again had felt like coming home from a long, lonely journey and in the process she’d learned what she’d feared for the past four years. Jess was the only man she could ever want. Ever love.
With the back of his arm resting against his forehead, Jess raised his gaze toward the ceiling. “What is the matter with us, Tori?”
The hollowness to his question widened her eyes and stung her with fear. Had nothing changed? He’d just shaken the earth beneath her. Hadn’t he felt anything?
“Nothing is wrong with me,” she said carefully. “I feel wonderful.”
She would, he thought bitterly. As long as Victoria Ketchum got what she wanted everything was wonderful in her eyes. But then how could he fault her for what just happened between them? Jess asked himself. He’d gotten what he’d wanted, too, hadn’t he?
Expecting him to take her into his arms as he’d always done when they had made love in the past, Victoria rolled toward him and waited.
But this isn’t the past, Victoria. And Jess isn’t exactly that same man who used to make love to you.
Across from her, Jess twisted his head so that he was facing her. There was nothing soft about his expression or his voice as he said, “I don’t know what you think this means, Victoria, but I don’t intend to let you make a fool of me again.”
She stared at him while the rosy glow that, only moments ago had been warming her heart, now changed to ice-cold fingers of disbelief.
“Is that…” she swallowed as emotions threatened to overwhelm her. “Is that what you think I was trying to do?”
Jess’s jaw hardened even more as he steeled himself not to let his eyes dip from her face. He couldn’t allow his gaze to linger on her beautiful, naked body. Not when desire for her was already building in him again like a monster out of control. Damn her. And damn himself for being so pitifully weak.
“I don’t know what your motives are,” he said lowly. “I just want to make sure you understand I have no intentions of getting involved with you, or any woman. Ever again.”
Victoria wasn’t a naive teenager with her head in the clouds. She wasn’t silly enough to believe that one physical connection between them was suddenly going to make him fall in love with her. Or even make him want to have an affair with her. Yet she had expected him to be, if nothing else, warm and tender toward her. Apparently he was incapable of showing her even that much, she thought sadly.
Feeling the sudden need to cover her nakedness from his eyes, she reached for the side of the bedspread and pulled it over her entire body.
“There’s no need for you to insult my intelligence, Jess. I didn’t expect this to prompt a marriage proposal from you.”
Outwardly, her voice was cool, but underneath Jess thought he heard the hint of a tremor in her words. Or maybe he’d imagined that part. Maybe he wanted to believe she wasn’t as composed as she appeared. Especially when making love to her had shaken him right to the very core of his being.
“I just wanted to make sure…my feelings are clear to you.”
She breathed deeply and hoped the burning pain between her breasts would go away. At the moment it was practically unbearable, like a hand clawing away her flesh layer by layer.
“Oh, don’t worry, you’ve made your point, Jess. And you’ve made it clear how you feel about me. What I don’t understand is why you’ve decided to exclude women from your life. Don’t you ever plan to give Katrina a mother?”
The mention of his daughter made Jess inwardly wince. Of course he wished Katrina had a mother. There were many things he would never be able to do for his daughter. Not the way a mother could. But he’d tried love with Victoria and marriage with Regina. The two failures had convinced him that women were not to be a part of his life. Not if he expected to live it with any sort of peace of mind.
“No.”
The blunt answer had her searching his embittered expression. “It’s easy to think that Katrina will always stay a toddler like she is now. But believe me, it won’t be long before she’s going to need maternal guidance.”
Straightening his head on the pillow, he focused his gaze on the foot of the bed. “Ma was a good mother to me. She will be for Katrina.”
Victoria raised up on her elbow as she studied him with disbelief. “Alice is a wonderful woman and no doubt she’s a good role model for Katrina. But your grandmother is no spring chicken, Jess. As much as you’d like to think it, she won’t be around forever. How is she going to keep up with an energetic teenager?”
“Don’t concern yourself about it, Victoria. I’ll see that my daughter is raised in the right way.”
He was shutting her out, Victoria realized. But that was nothing new. Not after four long years without so much as a word from him.
“By depriving her of a mother?” she couldn’t help but ask.
He shot her a mocking glance. “Is that what getting me into bed with you was all about? Are you auditioning for the role of Katrina’s mother?”
She was crazy, she told herself as she tossed back the bedspread and reached for her clothes. Jess didn’t want her love or concern. All he’d ever wanted from her was sex. She’d known that for years now, yet her head couldn’t seem to convince the rest of her body.
As for being the mother to Jess’s child, he’d never realize just how much she’d once wanted and expected to be just that.
“I must have sucked in too much night air,” she muttered with self-accusation. “I’d forgotten what a bastard you can be.”
He watched her leave the bed and snatch up her clothes from the floor. As she bundled them into a ball in her arms, the look on her face told him she was furious and hurt. He’d accomplished what he’d set out to do. But the fact did nothing to ease the emptiness inside him.
“Yeah. Just like Tucker used to be,” he said flatly.
She glared at him, then turned and left the bedroom.
Once she was out of sight, Jess went to the bathroom and stood beneath a cold shower for several long minutes. But the second he stepped out, the sight of the bed and the memory of Victoria’s giving body heated him all over again.
It was going to be a hell of a night, he thought miserably.
Two evenings later, Victoria was sitting with Katrina on the living room carpet. Spread out before the two of them was a pile of building blocks and an assortment of tiny trucks and cars that Maggie had saved from Aaron’s early childhood. The toys weren’t exactly what Victoria would have chosen for a little girl, but Katrina appeared to be enthralled with each piece.
A few feet away, in a stuffed armchair, Maggie sat sipping iced fruit juice. “You look exhausted, Victoria. Has Katrina been keeping you up at night?”
Surprised by Maggie’s remark, Victoria glanced over at her sister-in-law. “Why no, she’s been sleeping soundly. And I’m not exhausted. I just look that way because I’m not wearing makeup.”
“I noticed.”
Victoria’s brows arched with wry speculation. “What does that mean?”
Maggie waved a careless hand in Victoria’s direction. “Not what you think. You don’t need makeup to be beautiful. But when I see you without a trace of lipstick, I know you must be really tired.”
Victoria sighed. “I’m not tired, Maggie. I’ve just been very busy. I’m not used to taking care of a child.”
Maggie let out a dry laugh. “No, you’re just used to taking care of two dozen patients a day.”
Victoria felt a tiny hand patting her leg and looked down to see Katrina holding up a miniature pickup truck.
“Daddy drives twuck,” she said, giving Victoria a toothy grin.
Her heart full, Victoria affectionately ruffled the toddler’s sandy blond curls. “That’s right, sweet thing.”
“I drive twuck, too. See, Toria?” Katrina pushed the toy across the carpet while making the brrring sound of a motor.
“I think your little patient has recuperated,” Maggie commented.
Yes, Katrina was well, Victoria thought, and she was thrilled the child had recovered so nicely. Yet her blossoming health meant there was no longer any reason for Jess and Katrina to continue their stay on the ranch.
The thought of not having Katrina in her day-today life was casting a long shadow across Victoria’s heart. And Jess. How could she get by without seeing his face, hearing his voice? Making love to him again had reawakened all her hopes and dreams, reminded her just how much he’d always been a part of her. But his cold treatment afterward had told her he wanted no part of a future with her in it.
Her eyes felt grainy and hot. She closed them briefly as she replied to Maggie’s comment. “Yes, Katrina is well enough to go home. I suppose I’ll have to tell Jess tonight.”
The other woman carefully studied Victoria’s downcast face. “You don’t sound too thrilled about it.”
Victoria glanced once again at her sister-in-law. “I’m very happy Katrina has her health back. It was terrible to see her so lifeless with fever.”
“But you don’t want her to go home,” Maggie stated the obvious.
Victoria’s lips twisted ruefully as she gazed at Jess’s daughter. “I…” she stopped, sighed, then started again, “No. To be honest she’s starting to feel like my own child.”
Even though Victoria wasn’t looking her way, she knew Maggie slowly shook her head with disapproval. “That’s not a good thing, Victoria. You’re a doctor and a good one. You know you can’t get emotionally attached to a patient.”
“Katrina isn’t just a patient,” Victoria pointed out. “She’s…well, she’s Jess’s child.”
Maggie’s expression was suddenly all knowing. “Ahhh,” she said softly. “So it’s still like that.”
Before Victoria could reply, Katrina climbed into her lap. Smiling, she bent her head and kissed the child’s baby-soft cheek, then made her giggle by running her fingers lightly across her belly.
“You know, Maggie,” Victoria spoke wistfully, “for a while after Jess left, I told myself I hated him. That was the only way I could survive without him. But now—”
“You realize you never really hated him,” Maggie gently concluded.
Victoria cast the other woman a wry glance. “No. The moment I saw him again I realized…I was in trouble.”
Confusion flickered across Maggie’s face. “Why do you say that? Jess is single now and you’re unattached. There isn’t anything stopping the two of you from getting back together.”
Only the fact that Jess didn’t want her or love her, she thought sadly. Two nights ago he’d made it painfully clear how he felt about her. There was no sense in her being delusional and hoping his heart would change.
Katrina suddenly decided to drive the little truck to a different spot on the wide expanse of carpet. With the child out of her lap, Victoria rose to her feet and walked over to the picture window that looked down upon the twisting driveway and a part of the barns and work pens. As usual, the ranch yard was busy with cowboys tending to animals, unloading square bales of alfalfa hay, and spreading cattle cubes in long troughs in the feedlots.
For a few moments she studied the busy sight without really seeing it, then finally she spoke in a heavy voice. “Jess doesn’t want the two of us…to get back together, Maggie.”
Maggie frowned. “Why not? You two were planning your wedding when he got that border patrol job. I’m sure he cared for you very much or he wouldn’t have wanted you to be his wife.”
“Hah,” Victoria retorted bitterly. “Jess didn’t care about me four years ago and he doesn’t care now.”
“I think you’re wrong,” Maggie said. “He was wildly in love with you back then.”
Bitter tears burned Victoria’s throat. “So why did he leave and marry someone else?”
Maggie sadly regarded her sister-in-law. “Don’t tell me you haven’t really thought about it. Surely you know that it was important for Jess to be his own man. It was only natural that he wanted a better job. He wanted it for you and for him.”
Victoria shook her head. “I didn’t want money or things from Jess! Dear God, I already had all of that! Jess was irreplaceable. He was the most precious thing to me!”
“He wanted to be able to give you financial security. Not have Tucker do it for him!”
Victoria looked at her. “He hated Daddy. Jess thought Daddy looked down on him. But that wasn’t true. Daddy would have given him a job. We could have all been together and happy.”
This time Maggie shook her red head. “I’m sorry to say this, Victoria, but I think it’s time I did. Tucker was my father-in-law, and maybe that’s why I saw him from a different angle. In any case, he would have never allowed you to marry Jess. You were his darling. No man would have been good enough and especially not one who made his living as a city cop. And Jess was smart enough to know this.”
Victoria groaned as hopelessness and regret hammered her from every direction. “You’re probably right, Maggie. And I—well, I’ve made a horrible mess of things. I’ve hurt Jess too much for us to ever have another chance at being together. And now Katrina has—” she paused and glanced sorrowfully over her shoulder at the curly haired child playing on the floor. “She’s become my little girl.”
Maggie’s head continued to swing back and forth in dismay. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Why not say the obvious?” Victoria asked ruefully. “I’m a fool. A woman without common sense. I’m not fit to be a doctor. I can’t even take care of myself, much less someone else.”
Rising from the armchair, Maggie crossed the room and took Victoria by the shoulder. “Don’t talk that way. You’re a brilliant woman. You’ve helped countless people in San Juan County. And many of them were without money or health insurance. If not for you, most of them would have remained ill or died. I don’t want to ever hear you degrading yourself like that.”
“But Maggie—”
Maggie threw up her hands in exasperation. “Victoria, you’re not a fool! You’re a woman in love.”
Biting her lip, Victoria glanced away as tears stung her eyes. “Yes,” she agreed. “In love with the wrong man.”
Later that night Victoria was curled up on a couch in the study when she heard footsteps moving through the house. Jess was finally home, she thought, as she gripped the medical journal she’d been trying to read.
Lifting her gaze to the open doorway of the room, she listened to the clunk, clunk of his cowboy boots and waited while her heart pounded faster and faster.
He wouldn’t come looking for her, she reminded herself. For the past two nights he’d avoided her like the plague. Last evening the weather had been unusually warm and he’d carried Katrina down to the bull pen so that she could see the animals. Victoria had not been invited to join them. The evening before that he’d come home late and, finding Katrina already asleep, mumbled something about being tired and had gone straight to his bedroom.
As for herself, Victoria had tried her best to appear cool and unaffected by his aloof attitude. She’d already humiliated herself enough by begging him to make love to her. She wasn’t about to add to that humiliation by letting him see how much she wanted to be near him, talk to him, touch him.
Sighing, she tried to refocus her attention back on the newly released report on diabetes. Moments later Jess’s deep voice sounded from the doorway and she jerked with a start.
“Sorry to interrupt you,” he said coolly. “Since Katrina was already asleep for the night, I wanted to check with you about her day. Is she all right?”
Tossing the journal aside, Victoria rose to her feet and walked over to where he stood just inside the room. With her heart continuing its erratic pounding, she allowed her eyes to travel slowly over his tired face, then to slip down his lean, hard body.
A khaki shirt with the San Juan County sheriff’s department emblem on the sleeve was tucked into a pair of well-worn Wranglers. Belted around his waist was the .45 he carried while on duty. With his dusty hat and boots and the badge pinned over his heart, he looked no different than the lawmen who’d long ago worked to tame the Wild West.
“Your daughter is fine,” she assured him. “She had a good day.”
He grimaced as his eyes caught hers. “I suppose you’ve been thinking my job keeps me away from my fatherly duties way too much.”
When Victoria had first met Jess, she’d quickly learned that he was dedicated to enforcing the law. It was in his blood, just as being a doctor was in hers. She’d always respected his desire to protect and serve his fellow man. It was just too bad he didn’t feel as passionate about her as he did about being a lawman.
“I’m sure there’re times it can’t be helped,” she said stoically. “I’ve never faulted you as a father.”
He lifted his Stetson and smoothed a hand over his streaked hair. As she watched his simple movements, longings of the most basic kind shot through her and she took a deep breath and glanced away from him.
“A deputy was involved in a high-speed chase this evening. A drunk driver trying to avoid a DUI,” he explained. “Another officer and myself had to join him and help throw up a block to stop the car. It was late before we finally managed to make the arrest.”
Surprise pulled her eyes back to his face. “I thought as undersheriff, your job was more administrative than—in the line of fire.”
His mouth twisted into a wry grin. “I wasn’t in the line of fire, Victoria. It was just a car chase.”
She couldn’t believe how casual he was about the whole thing. “That’s just as dangerous as someone with a gun!”
One of his broad shoulders lifted and fell. “There isn’t a lawman in San Juan County who simply sits behind a desk.”
And Jess had never been a man to sit back and let someone else do the tough jobs when he could do them himself, she thought.
“I don’t like to think of you—in harm’s way.”
She said it without really meaning to and as his eyes narrowed on her face, she could feel her cheeks turning red.
His hands came up to rest on the front of his holster. “Don’t tell me you worry about me, Tori. I wouldn’t believe it.”
Of course she worried. Any man that wore a badge was a target for criminals and maniacs. “I’m not heartless, Jess. I’m a doctor. I worry about anyone who jeopardizes his or her life.”
Mockery turned down the corners of his lips. “So your concern is just an impersonal, medical thing. I should have known.”
It was far from impersonal, Victoria thought. But she wasn’t going to admit such a thing to him. His ridicule of her feelings was too hard to take.
Lifting her chin, she said briskly, “I’m glad we’re speaking now, before you retired for the night. I have something to tell you.”
His brows arched upward. “You make it sound important.”
The effort to remain cool while he was so temptingly near was making her whole insides shake. “It is. It’s about Katrina.”
Concern quickly narrowed his gray eyes. “You told me she was doing well.”
Her throat was suddenly so tight she had to swallow before she could form one word. “She is. That’s why I wanted to speak with you. To tell you that your daughter is now well enough to go home.”
Jess stared at her. He should be shouting for joy, he thought. Instead, he felt as though an axe had just fallen on him.
For the past three days he’d tried his best to push their lovemaking out of his mind, but he’d failed miserably. All he could think about was having her soft lips and warm body beneath his. Each time the memories of that night entered his mind, his body began to burn with need. Each time he came near Victoria, he had to fight with himself to keep his hands off her.
He needed to get off the T Bar K and away from her. He needed to get back on the Hastings ranch where he belonged and forget that anything could or might ever be between him and Victoria.
“Obviously you couldn’t wait to tell me,” he said, his voice tinged with sarcasm. “Should I wake Katrina and leave now?”
Her jaw clamped together as she struggled to stop herself from calling him an ugly word. “That’s un-called for, Jess. Especially when you know how much I care about Katrina. I love having her here. There’s no urgency for you to leave anytime soon. You can stay as long as you’d like.”
Releasing a heavy breath, he looked away from her and shook his head. “You know that’s impossible, Tori.”
The raw emotion in his voice surprised her, stung her heart with bittersweet longing. “Why? You don’t have to worry that I’ll beg you to make love to me again.”
His face whipped back to hers and he stared at her with a measure of disgust. “Damn it all, Tori, what makes you think I need to be begged?”