Renegade. Diana Palmer
she ignored him throughout the performance.
As if he understood completely what she was feeling, he didn’t say a word or even touch her until the bal let was over and they were filing out of the theater. He took her arm to help her across the street to the parking garage, but she was like steel to the touch.
He unlocked the door and she got inside, reaching idly for her seat belt. He glanced at her as he started the engine and pulled out of the parking space. He felt remorseful about refusing what she’d offered him. But he was honest. He had nothing to give. Nothing at all. It would have been unfair to take advantage of something she couldn’t help. He was flattered that she could feel such attraction for him, but he didn’t trust it. He didn’t trust her. He was still stunned that he’d spilled his darkest secrets to a woman who was, after all, little more than a stranger. Except that she didn’t feel like a stranger. She felt…familiar. Too familiar.
He whipped the car out into traffic with muted violence.
She noticed. She turned her evening bag over in her lap and looked out the window at the crowded streets with their floods of neon lights and glimmering messages on billboards.
“Don’t get conceited, Grier,” she said sharply. “I’m sure there are at least five or six other men on the planet who could make me feel like ravishing them on the sidewalk.”
He made a rough sound in his throat.
She didn’t look to see if it was laughter or something else. “Besides, I can always take a cold shower and go in for team sports…”
The car jerked under his hands as he tried to cope with what he was feeling. “Will you give it a rest?” he asked after a minute. “We both know you’d start screaming the minute I laid hands on you with intent.”
She started. “Is that what you think?”
“I’ve been in law enforcement and the military most of my life,” he said, slowing in traffic for a turn. “I know more about rape victims than you do.”
She didn’t say anything else, but she was watching him, waiting.
He glanced at her as he made the turn. “You may have the best intentions in the world, but it’s not going to be that easy for you to be with a man—even a man you think you want. One of the roughest rape cases I ever testified in was a similar circumstance. A young girl who’d been raped tried to make it with her new boy friend. But she couldn’t go through with it and he couldn’t stop.”
“What happened?”
“She started screaming about the time her parents came home. They had the boy arrested. She tried to recall the charges, but it was too late. He did get probation—it was a first offense—but he never spoke to her again. She really loved him. She just couldn’t have sex with him.”
She folded her arms together over her coat and shivered.
“You get the picture?” he asked tersely.
She nodded. Her eyes went back to the passing storefronts.
His lips flattened together. “I couldn’t live with it if I lost control and forced you, okay?” he admitted finally.
Her caught breath was audible. “But I offered,” she said huskily.
He glared at her. “What would that mean if I left you with more scars than you’ve already got?”
Her anger evaporated and she studied him quietly. “I’ve never felt like this with anyone since it happened,” she confessed. “I was very attracted to Cullen, but he found women repulsive. Even so, it wasn’t like this. I’m on fire,” she said with a nervous little laugh. “I ache all over. It’s almost like pain. All I can think of is how it would feel to be with you in a bed all night.”
His hands tightened on the steering wheel until they turned white, while he tried to convince himself that this was a disaster waiting to happen.
“But if you’re not interested, you’re not interested. I guess you’re worried about that marriage thing. I don’t have any plans to propose to you, no matter how good you are in bed, if that would change your mind,” she promised.
He laughed in spite of himself. “You don’t understand.”
“You’re impotent?” she murmured dryly.
He glared at her. “I am not impotent.”
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