Page 27 of Mountain Rescue
Noah laughed as he slapped Dallas on the back. “Papa tried to warn me off Peyton, yet she’s wearing my engagement ring. If you ask me, if Rachel’s the one, go for it.”
At any other time in his life, she could be the one, but not now. There was also her empath thing. For the first time, he was uncomfortable around her.
Chapter Eight
“Tell me how this empath thing works.”
Halfway to her room, Rachel froze. Who had told him her secret? Returning to the cabin from Jack and Nichole’s, Dallas had been strangely quiet. She’d been thankful for that after the exhausting time she’d spent telling her friends why Robert wanted to kill her. She prayed it was the last time she had to relive Henri’s murder.
Even though she was grateful Dallas had left her to her thoughts, his silence had unnerved her. Stupid that. He was nothing to her other than a ridiculously sexy man she was accidently sharing a cabin with until they both returned to their own worlds.
She faced him. “Who told you?” Lord, he was something to look at, standing there with his long legs braced apart, and those troubled hazel eyes focused on her.
“Jack. I would have rather heard it from you.”
“Why? It has nothing to do with you, so I don’t understand why you think I owed you an explanation.”
“You don’t think I should know that you can...what, read me?”
He was bothered by the idea of that. Why? “It’s not that I can read people. I don’t know what they’re thinking, what’s in their heads. I just feel their emotions.”
“Well, don’t feel mine.”
She laughed. “You think it’s something I can just turn on or off? But don’t worry. For some reason, I don’t feel your emotions. It’s like you don’t have any, but I know you do. I see it in your eyes when they get that haunted look in them. But I don’t—” she made air quotes “—feel you. That’s interesting, don’t you think?” Why did he seem so relieved by that?
They stared at each other, and as they did, his eyes turned stormy. What he didn’t know about her was that she was drawn to storms. To their exhilarating furiousness, to the roaring of the wind through the trees, to the sound of the rain beating against windowpanes, to the jagged white bolts of lightning that lit up the sky, and the rolling thunder booming across the earth that shook the land under one’s feet.
The man standing in front of her was a storm in a human body, and was she drawn to him? Yes. Yes, she was.
“Rachel,” he rumbled, just like the thunder did.
She didn’t register her feet moving, not until she was close enough to reach out and touch him. She glanced down at her feet, wondering how they’d done that without her command.
“Rachel,” he said again, his voice raw and a bit wild, like a storm. “Look at me.”
Unable to defy him, she lifted her gaze to his. The tropical storm that had been swirling in his eyes only minutes ago was now a raging hurricane. And like a storm, the oxygen was sucked out of the air, or out of her lungs anyway. Her breath caught, and he knew.
“Breathe.” He grazed his thumb over her bottom lip.
She sucked air back into her lungs. What kind of witchery was he using on her?
“When I kissed you before, I promised myself I wouldn’t do it again. I think I lied.” His thumb was still sweeping over her mouth, and that simple gesture sent shivers through her body, all the way down to her toes. “Can I kiss you again?”
Incapable of speaking, she nodded. He chuckled, and she thought he was pleased that her brain and mouth had ceased to work, that he’d done that to her. His lips brushed over hers.Feathers.If she closed her eyes, she would think he was teasing her lips with feathers. It was strangely erotic. Erotic because those gentle brushes against her mouth were not only sending shivers through her, but they heated her down to her core. She clenched her legs together, fighting the building heat.
She wouldn’t have expected a SEAL cowboy to know how to be so gentle. The man was full of surprises, and she wanted to discover them all. She’d never been kissed like this, like her mouth was the most precious thing in the world, a thing to be cherished. And she did feel cherished. That in itself scared her. She could fall for this man so easily. That would be a mistake, and she was tired of making mistakes. She didn’t want regrets because of Dallas. She didn’t want to go home and wish she’d never met him because she couldn’t forget him.
Just as she thought to run for her life, or at least for her sanity, he deepened the kiss. His tongue traced the seam of her mouth, and in the way her feet had grown a mind of their own, so did her mouth. She opened, inviting him in, and he swooped in and wiped her memory clean of any other man who’d kissed her.
He hummed deep in his throat as their tongues tangled, and the sound of that low hum, the need for her she heard in it, silenced the warning bells ringing in the back of her head. She wrapped her hands around his neck, and he slid his down to her hips and pulled her against him. Kissing him felt right, like they fit perfectly, and this was where she belonged.
That thought alone had the warning bells clanging again. She couldn’t fall for this man, and that was the direction she was headed. She had a life in LA. He was a Montana cowboy when he wasn’t being a SEAL in some foreign country. Their lives didn’t mesh. The last thing she needed was a broken heart.
“Stop,” she whispered. He immediately let go of her and stepped back. She curled her fingers into her palms to keep from pulling him to her again. “I’m sorry.”
His face blanked. “No, I am. It won’t happen again.” He turned and walked out the door.
She stared at the empty space where he’d stood only seconds before. It shouldn’t feel like he’d taken a part of her out that door with him. She shouldn’t feel like she’d just lost something she hadn’t known she’d needed. There shouldn’t be unshed tears burning her eyes. When she heard the Jeep’s engine come to life, she walked to the window and watched it drive away.
