“You mean rationalize what’s happening.” His laugh contained a wry edge. “Trust me, I understand completely. I’m not interested in another emotional entanglement. Not after Leigh.”
She stilled, the reminder an icy one. “Emotional?”
He leaned in until his forehead rested against hers. “Hell, Larkin. Do you think I want this to be anything more than physical? Pure chemistry?”
“I can pretty much guess the answer to that,” she said drily.
He rolled off her and onto his back, scooping her against his side. She rested her head on his shoulder and allowed her hand to drift across the flat expanse of his abdomen. He sucked in his breath, lacing her fingers with his in order to stop their restless movement. “Since the minute I met you, I’ve been telling myself it’s a simple physical reaction. That’s all I want it to be. That’s all I can handle at this point in my life.”
“But?”
“But then you told me about your broken leg and how you’d never been able to dance again….”
“I can dance. Just not the way I did before.” She shrugged. “So?”
“It just about killed me to hear you say that,” he confessed roughly. “To see how it affected you.”
“Is that why we ended up here?”
“Pretty much.” He tugged at her short crop of curls. He blew out his breath in a sigh. “Go to sleep, Larkin.”
“What about…?”
“Not tonight. I’m not sure I could stop once we got started. Hell, who am I kidding? I know I won’t be able to stop.”
Nor would she. “Are you going to stay here with me?”
“For a while,” he compromised.
She hesitated, not sure she should ask the next question. But it slipped out anyway. “What happens from this point forward?”
“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “I guess we take it one day at a time.”
“You think this feeling is going to dissipate over time, don’t you?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope so.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“We’ll deal with it then.”
She fell silent for a moment, then warned, “Whatever this is, Inferno or simple lust, it can’t go anywhere. You aren’t the only one who isn’t interested in a permanent relationship.”
“Then we don’t have anything to worry about, do we?”
She wished that were true. But once he found out who she was, that would all change.
Rafe woke in the early hours of the morning to the haunting sound of a howl. He glanced down at the woman sprawled across him and smiled. It usually took several nights to get comfortable sleeping with a woman. But with Larkin, all the various arms and legs had sorted themselves out with surprising ease. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept so soundly. If it hadn’t been for Kiko, he doubted he’d have woken until full daylight. Speaking of which…
Ever so gently, he eased Larkin to one side. She murmured in protest before settling into the warm hollow left by his body, her breath sighing in pleasure. Desire coursed through him at that tiny, ultrafeminine sound. Is that what she’d do when they made love? Would she use that irresistible siren’s song on him? He couldn’t wait to find out.
Deliberately he turned his back on the bed and crossed to the French doors. A full moon shone down on the fenced yard, frosting the landscape in silver and charcoal. Kiko sat in the middle of the lawn, her head tipped back in a classic pose, her muzzle raised toward the moon.
She exhibited an untamed beauty that drew him on some primitive level. Part of him wanted to run, free and natural, driven by instinct rather than the intellectual side of his nature, a side he clung to with unwavering ferocity. To be part of that other world, the world that called to the untamed part of the animal before him.
Knowing he couldn’t, that she couldn’t, filled him with sadness. She was wildness trapped in domestication…a trap he’d do whatever it took to avoid. Before she could voice her mournful song again, he gave a soft whistle. She hesitated another moment, gave a sorrowful whine, then padded in his direction.