He didn’t ask for permission before he slipped his hands beneath her T-shirt. A warning screamed in the back of her head an instant before his hands closed over her breasts. Her gasp of surprise came out as a sigh of pleasure. She’d always been sensitive there, and he’d always known exactly where and how to touch her. He was doing it now, she realized, skimming his thumbs over her aching nipples through the thin material of her bra until she was shaking violently.
She closed her eyes against the pleasure, felt a cry bubble up from inside her. Every nerve ending in her body sang when he slipped his hands beneath her bra. His palms were warm against her flesh. His fingertips were calloused and rough against her nipples. Her breasts swelled beneath his hands. She arched when he stroked. Groaning, he whispered something incoherent against her ear. Kelly felt herself go damp between her legs, felt her control falter and tumble and begin to spin….
The alarm in the back of her mind wailed for her to stop this before things went too far. There were a hundred reasons why she shouldn’t do this. She might still have feelings for him, but Buzz Malone was not the right man for her. He was not the right man for her son. Those years of living with him—and having her heart ripped out every time he took his life into his own reckless hands had taught her a terrible lesson. A lesson she refused to forget, no matter how wonderfully he kissed.
Sanity intervened like a cruel slap. Kelly jolted, as if waking from a deep sleep. “I can’t,” she said, pulling away from Buzz.
He let her go. She took two steps back, aware that her heart was racing, that they were both breathing as though they’d just run a marathon. She stared at him, appalled by what she’d let happen, and struggled to pull herself back together.
Oh, God, how could she do this when her little boy was out there lost and all alone?
Guilt crashed down on her with the force of an avalanche. As if reading her thoughts, Buzz started to reach for her. Kelly raised her hands as if to fend him off and took another step back. “Don’t,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” he offered.
“It was my fault, too.”
“I know what you’re thinking, Kel,” he said. “Don’t.”
If she hadn’t been so scared and worried and guilt-stricken, she might have laughed.
“Don’t feel guilty,” he said. “People react to stress in different ways. Some people need to be alone. Some people reach out.” Shaking his head, he looked down at the short span of dry earth between them. “Don’t feel guilty for reaching out.”
“My son is missing,” she said. “And I’m…” She couldn’t finish the sentence. Damn it, she didn’t want to say out loud what had just happened between them. “What kind of mother does that make me?”
“That makes you human,” he said fiercely. “You’re a good mother.”
“This can’t happen again,” she said. “For too many reasons to count.”
He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Yeah,” he said.
Tension built for perhaps a full minute. Slowly, their breathing returned to normal. Kelly found her eyes drawn to the trees and rocks surrounding them. She glanced at her watch, realized they’d only been stopped for ten minutes. A lot could happen in ten minutes.
“I’m going to build a fire,” Buzz said.
The words jerked her from her reverie. “You can’t build a fire. It’s bone-dry, and there’s a no-burn rule right now.”
“If Eddie can’t hear us calling for him over the sound of the water, maybe he’ll see the fire. I can’t use a flare, but I can damn well build a controlled fire.”
The exhaustion she’d been feeling earlier returned. A hundred emotions squirmed uncomfortably in her chest. Hope. Fear. A mother’s desperate love for a child that could be in imminent danger. Sharp-edged attraction to a man who’d proven to her a hundred times over that he was all wrong for her.
“Can I help?” she asked after a moment.
“Why don’t you gather some kindling?” he said. “I’ll gather some stones and larger wood. We’ll make camp. We’ll eat and rest for a couple of hours, then resume the search.”
It went against her instincts to stop searching—even to eat—but she knew Buzz was right. As she set about hunting suitable kindling, she began to pray.
Buzz spent ten minutes building a fire. He considered putting up the one-man tent for Kelly—more because he wanted something to do than from necessity—but figured he ought to take his own advice and get some rest. Besides, they wouldn’t be stopped long enough for her to get any use out of the tent, anyway.