There it was again, that generic “honey” that she didn’t like, only now it didn’t sound generic at all. It sounded almost impossibly tender and like he meant it just for her.
Gina couldn’t say a word, couldn’t move. She felt as if she’d been paralyzed. Steeling herself against the memories of how she’d gotten the scars, she found herself unable to pull her gaze from his. The gold flecks in his eyes seemed to glitter as he looked at her. His lashes were short and thick and as black as his hair, she noted abstractedly. The fine grid of lines around his eyes caught her attention: they were deeper than she’d ever seen them. From concern for her, she thought.
“The plane crash that killed your husband.” Cal’s voice seemed to come to her from across a great distance. “Were you in it, too?”
Pain slammed her. If she wasn’t careful, she thought, she would slide right off the chair into a little puddle on the stone floor.
I’m stronger than that.
Gritting her teeth, she jerked her arm free and at last managed to breathe.
“Why would you think that?” Her tone was wintry, hostile—but her voice was hoarse.
He made a sound that could have been a laugh, only there was no amusement in it.
“For one thing, I’ve seen scars like those before. You were showered with burning airplane fuel, weren’t you?”
The words couldn’t have hurt more if they’d been blows. The memories pounded in harder. Pushing her chair away from the table, Gina started to stand up, meaning to walk away, to put distance between them, to go as far from the source of the pain as she could—only she was suddenly too dizzy, and too sick to her stomach, to stand up.
Before she could get herself together enough to escape, he came around the table and crouched in front of her.
He looked as big and immovable as a mountain, she thought resentfully. The sheer mass of him hunkered down in front of her was enough to keep her from standing up and walking away even if she had been able to move, which at the moment she could not. Their eyes were nearly on a level. His were dark and grave. When he reached out to take her hand—she only realized that it had gone ice cold when she felt the warmth of his long fingers curling around hers—she gave him a look of total antipathy as she tried unsuccessfully to tug it free.
“?‘Either we’re in this together, or we’re not,’?” he quoted her words back at her. “Tell me what happened.”
She glared at him. Stupid to be angry at him, she knew, but she suddenly was, because he was dredging up what it had cost her a lot to bury and hurting her in the process. Under the circumstances, though, she knew his question wasn’t out of line. She should tell him. She knew she should. Her answer affected both of them. He needed to understand about planes—about how she felt about planes, about flying. He’d seen her scars now. He’d guessed the cause. All she needed to give him was the barest outline and he would know why stealing a plane and flying it out of there was not going to work for her.
But the memories were sharp as knives, shredding her composure.
She only realized that she was gripping his hand so hard that her nails were digging into his palm when his thumb stroked soothingly over the back of her hand. The gentle caress caused her fingers to relax a little.
“Gina,” he prompted. His eyes held hers. “Tell me.”
The steadiness of his gaze steadied her in turn. Bare bones, she thought, I can do. Wetting her lips, taking a breath, she kept her eyes fastened to his as if they were a lifeline.
“I was the only one who survived.” She did her best to speak normally, but still the words emerged as scarcely more than a croak. “My husband. My father. My sister. All died.”
His face tightened. “Ah, Jesus,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded, unable to say anything more because her throat had closed up. Pain welled inside her as the memories ripped free of their moorings and she saw it again, all of it, in a terrifying flash that lasted no longer than a split second. She held on to his hand like she never meant to let go as the fear and grief and horror washed over her in a giant wave and then receded, leaving her cold and shaking in its wake.
He glanced down at their joined hands, then raised them to his mouth and pressed his lips to the back of her hand. His lips on her skin felt warm. Possessive. As if they belonged there.
Heat surged through her as his mouth shifted to kiss each one of her fingers in turn. Glorious, life-giving heat.
He’s a gorgeous guy, she thought with a surprising degree of detachment as she watched his black head bent over her hand while he pressed his lips to each of her fingers. The feel of his mouth on her skin made her body tighten with awareness. Hard-eyed, hard-bodied, handsome, aggressively male: what woman wouldn’t want a man like that?
More than that, he was someone she’d learned she could count on. Someone who’d become surprisingly important to her.