Page 78 of The Hero Within
Behind him, he could hear her sitting up.
He dragged his jeans on, feeling vulnerable. Buttoning them up, he turned to face her.
Eden looked like she'd been fucked every which way. Her hair hung in knotted tangles, her lips swollen and her eyes wide. She’d dragged the blankets up around her breasts as if his words had threatened her.
"What do you mean by that?" she whispered.
His heart skipped a beat. Facing down a ravaging pack of shadow cats was nothing compared to baring his heart.
Johnny knelt on the bed, pressing three fingers beneath her chin and lifting her face so she couldn't look away. "You've been haunting my dreams ever since I met you. What happened here last night.... It had nothing to do with hate, angel. Call it that if it makes this easier, but you should know, what I feel for you is nowhere near hate. Not at all."
Eden gapedas the words dropped into the silence of the room like a bomb detonating. "What?"
Morning Colton was a sight for sore eyes. All mussed hair, dark eyes crinkled with relaxation and seductive good humor. Fucking into her so slowly this morning, that perhaps fucking wasn't the right term for it at all. His thumb stroked her jaw, and she had the horrible certainty she was about to lean into his touch.
"You heard me," he whispered.
And oh, shit, but she was somehow doingthiswith Johnny Colton.
Eden slid toward the edge of the bed, needing clothes. Something to shield herself. Anything. "I heard you," she admitted, "but...."
Her mind went blank.
Where the hell was her tank?
She snatched it off the floor, swinging it over her head and managing to get it on beneath the protective shield of the blanket. Her heart pounded like last night's drums, but her mind was an angry buzzing ofoh, shit.
She needed a moment to recover—because she'dneverexpected this.
Didn't you?
"I heard you," she repeated, the second she had her tank on. Suddenly she could think again, even if her inner alarm bells were still blaringabort. "I just think now's not a really great time—"
"Let's be honest," he shot back, with a cynical look in his dark eyes. "Never's going to be a really great time for this conversation judging by the look on your face."
Never sounded like an excellent idea.
"Good point. So how about we skip it? We should get dressed," she said, wincing a little as she dragged her jeans up her bruised thighs. No pretending it hadn't happened; she was dripping with his cum and needed to wash. "We need to get going."
Start packing for the trip.
Pretend this never happened.
"Chicken shit," he said, his face shuttering as she managed to do her fly up, and reached for her boots.
"Colton—"
"It's fine," he snapped, raking a frustrated hand through his hair. "Probably not the best time to start this. I get it. Itch scratched and all. Guess I'm good for something. Good enough to fuck. Good enough to get you where you need to be."
Anger fired in her chest. Damn it, she had no right to feel guilty. "You're not the only one who's spent all those years feeling haunted by what happened. You said you were sorry and you didn't want to hurt me, but it doesn't change the damned fact you did." Her voice roughened. "I might be willing to forgive you, but I don't even know what He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named did to you. Or why you fell in line with him."
How could she let herself accept what had happened between them last night wasn't just stress and attraction?
Because if she did....
You just slept with the guy who nearly destroyed your brother.
Eden flinched.
