Heated Pursuit (Alpha Security #1)(62)
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Penny would never look at sex the same way again, because with Rafe it hadn’t felt like sex. It was intimacy and total abandon disguised as a marathon of hot touches and hotter kisses. He woke things deep inside her that she never knew existed.
In Rafe’s arms, there’d been no walls. She gave herself to him without fear that would’ve before made her turn the other way and run like hell.
She was in love with him.
And she didn’t regret it. Not a kiss. Not a touch. Not the way he made her feel as if she could do anything and still be herself—and it was enough. Somehow, he’d managed to make vulnerability feel good.
Until this morning.
At some point after the fourth round of lovemaking, something shifted. A dark cloud of tension followed Rafe as he paced the room, collecting the clothing they’d strewn about. He hadn’t spoken to her, hadn’t looked in her direction for the last five minutes except for the occasional sneaking glance. At first she’d been confused, then hurt. Now she was angry.
It wasn’t as if she expected the coo of sonnets or a devotion of love ever after. Though they’d practically clawed her throat raw, she’d been careful not to mumble those three little words that could make him regret everything they’d shared.
She’d shed her clothes knowing that making love wouldn’t change anything, and she hadn’t regretted a moment of it—until the first time he refused to glance her way.
“You can stop stomping around like you’re on a death march. I don’t have any expectations.” Her words sounded a hell of a lot steadier than she felt.
Rafe’s back went taut before he tugged on his shirt.
“You should,” he muttered.
“Excuse me?” Her voice went up in pitch.
Finally, Rafe turned. Jaw tightly clenched, he could’ve just been told he had one month to live and she wouldn’t know it by the steel hardening his eyes. The man staring back at her hadn’t been the one who’d made love to her throughout the night, nor the one who was so eager to get inside her that he couldn’t wait to get her into a bed. Standing in front of her right now was the stern-faced commando from their first San Pedro Sula encounter.
“I don’t do relationships, Red,” Rafe reminded her, his voice low and even. “I don’t do complicated, messy feelings. Hell, it’s more than the fact I don’t do them. I can’t. I know absolutely jack shit about being in a relationship in general, much less a healthy one. Disappointment, detachment, and danger—I’m your man. Anything else may as well be a f*cking fairy tale.”
“You do realize that I was raised by the world’s most unaffectionate father, right?”
“But you had Rachel. And you had Trey and his family. You had people in your life who showed you that wasn’t the norm. I had foster parents who usually didn’t bother memorizing my last name, much less asking me how I felt about things. It’s not that I don’t wish things were different. It’s just reality. Relationships aren’t in me to give. Not even to you.”
His words were as lethal as a dagger through the ribs. She tore her gaze away and sat to pull on her shoes, battling against the shake of her hands.
He stepped closer. “Let me—”
“No.” She stopped him with a shake of her head. “You tell it how it is and you don’t apologize, remember?”
“You said you understood,” he murmured. “You said you weren’t looking for anything permanent with someone like me.”
Penny’s throat convulsed with the effort to keep her cool. “I did say that, probably numerous times and both aloud and to myself. I guess I’m not as immune to you as I thought. But that’s my problem, not yours.”
“Penny.”
It took strength she didn’t know she had not to run into his arms at the sound of her name falling from his lips. Not Red. Not sweetheart. Penny. She’d thought she could handle the pain of losing him in whatever way that happened, but she’d been deluding herself. She felt raw and open. And scared out of her mind.
As a defense against the gaping hole forming in her heart, she hiked up her mental walls, closed off her emotional wounds, and summoned the courage to carry on. Dwelling on her loss and the things she couldn’t have only did one thing: it hurt. And there was too much riding on them right now to let that happen.
“Trust me, Rafe. I’ve already done the whole second-place thing when it comes to the military, to this kind of life. I have no desire to do that again. You’re in the clear. Your soldier-of-fortune lifestyle can remain perfectly intact without you having to worry about the little woman at home.”
He looked as if he’d been slapped, an unknown emotion finally dissolving his blank mask. Penny looked away and forced herself to breathe. She thought she’d known what real pain felt like, but it didn’t come close to the sensation ripping apart her insides.
This kind of pain—the one brought on by losing the man you love before you ever really had him…
This pain felt like death.
*
Instinct made Rafe want to kick the ass of whoever had put that haunted look in Penny’s eyes, but what could he do when he’d been the bastard to put it there? He wished like hell that he could give her everything she deserved. But longing for the impossible only resulted in more shattered dreams.