скачать книгу бесплатно
Cam picked up his beer, took a long swallow. “Are you still in love with him?”
Ashley returned the unused napkins to the holder then leaned back against the counter. “How is that any of your business?”
“When a man kisses a woman it’s important to his ego—crucial, in fact—to know that she’s thinking of him and not anyone else.”
She eyed him warily. “If a man doesn’t know that about a woman, then he has no business kissing her.”
“That’s why I asked the question.” He set the now empty bottle on the counter and stepped closer to her, bracing his hands on the edge of the counter so that she was boxed between them. “Are you still in love with him?”
Ashley didn’t dare answer his question with the truth.
The truth was, she was no longer convinced she’d ever been in love with Trevor. Certainly she hadn’t loved him as she should have loved the man she was planning to marry. But if she admitted that to Cam now, he would interpret it as an invitation and, as desperately as she wanted to feel his mouth on hers, she couldn’t let that happen.
Because she knew that one kiss would lead to more, and she didn’t want more. She’d meant what she said when she told Megan and Paige that she didn’t want a man or a relationship. She didn’t want to risk her heart again.
“Yes,” she said.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I still love …” Oh Lord, she couldn’t even remember his name. She could only think of Cam. She only wanted Cam. “.I still love him.”
“Liar.”
The word was a husky whisper against her lips before he captured them with his own.
She couldn’t stop herself from responding to his kiss any more than she could stop her heart from pounding or her body from yearning. His tongue traced over the seam of her lips, and they parted willingly, eagerly.
It seemed to her that they’d grown too far apart to fit together easily. The moment he slipped his arms around her and drew her against him, she knew she’d been wrong.
Cam had always been a fabulous kisser. When they’d first started dating, back in the early days of their relationship when they hadn’t gone any further than kissing, he would hold her and kiss her forever. This kiss reminded her of that—as if it would go on forever, as if he could be content to just kiss her forever.
Ashley wasn’t feeling content. She pressed against him, wanting to be closer, wanting more.
His hands slid up her back, his fingers tangled in her hair, and he drew her head back. His mouth trailed from hers to trace along her jaw, down her throat. His tongue stroked, his teeth scraped, his lips soothed.
He shifted, drew her nearer, so that she was nestled intimately between his legs, so that she could tell he wanted her as much as she wanted him. Desire—hot and reckless—churned in her veins, rushed through her body, making her feel as if she was seventeen years old again.
Of course, her teenage heart had been filled with more love than lust, and though she’d given herself to him willingly, even eagerly, she’d been unprepared for the complete and total heartbreak that was all he’d left her with when he went away.
A heartbreak that, at the time, she didn’t ever think she would recover from. A heartbreak that she’d felt even deeper and sharper than the pain caused by Trevor’s betrayal.
She’d loved Cam once and he’d trampled all over her emotions. She wouldn’t let him do it again. She didn’t want to feel anything for the man who’d broken her fragile heart so many years before.
But as she kissed him back, she couldn’t deny that she was feeling something, though she didn’t know how to define what that something was.
Attraction? Undoubtedly. Cam Turcotte had been a teenage heartthrob, and the years had added to rather than detracted from his appeal.
Lust? No doubt a healthy dose of that had been thrown into the mix. And maybe that wasn’t surprising, considering that she was a twenty-nine-year-old woman who hadn’t been on a date since the end of her engagement.
She’d had offers. When she’d gone out with Paige and Megan or friends from work, she’d been approached by men who expressed an interest. But she hadn’t even been tempted. In fact, she hadn’t felt anything but numb for so long she didn’t know what to think about the feelings that were spiraling through her now.
When would she ever learn?
Obviously the trauma of slicing open her hand had affected her brain. It was the only explanation for letting him kiss her, for letting the kiss go as far as it did.
He’d caught her in a moment of weakness, but she was drawing the line, right here and right now. She would not get caught up in the seductive magnetism of Cam Turcotte. Not again.
She had to end this now—that would be the smart thing to do. But it felt so good to be held and kissed and … cherished.
Except that he didn’t cherish her. He never had. Because if he’d truly treasured her and what they had together, he wouldn’t have walked away so easily.
Which was why, this time, she had to be the one to walk.
She tore her mouth from his and pushed against his chest.
Chapter Four
Ashley stumbled back and cried out in pain. The obvious distress in her voice effectively doused Cam’s raging libido. He drew in a slow, deep breath then reached for her hand. She shook her head and took another step back, as if she couldn’t bear to have him touch her.
He didn’t know what he’d done to make her withdraw so abruptly and completely, but he wasn’t thinking about that at the moment. He was thinking about the fact that her eyes were clouded with pain now rather than lust, and he worried that she might have re-injured her hand.
“I just want to make sure that you’re not bleeding again,” he told her.
This time when he reached for her hand, she didn’t object. He carefully peeled back the gauze to check the wound, pleased to see that none of the stitches had opened up.
“It looks okay,” he said, refastening the tape.
She nodded.
“But I want to know why you’re not taking the painkillers when it’s obvious that you’re in pain.”
“I told you, I don’t like taking any medication unnecessarily.”
Ashley had never been practiced in the art of deception, and the fact that she didn’t look at him when she spoke told him more clearly than her words that there was something she was holding back.
“If you’re hurting, it’s necessary,” he insisted.
“I’m fine.”
“What medications are you taking that you didn’t want to tell me about?”
The question was a stab in the dark, but her lack of response made him believe it had been an accurate one.
“We can argue back and forth for another few minutes if you really want,” he told her. “But I’m not backing off until you tell me.”
“Fedentropin,” she finally said.
He frowned. “I’m not familiar with that one.”
“It’s an experimental drug to help alleviate the symptoms of endometriosis. I’m part of a clinical trial at Richmond Pharmaceuticals.”
“I didn’t realize …” He wasn’t sure what he meant to say, what was the right thing to say. He’d had no idea that she had to endure what he knew was a painful and chronic condition for a woman, and he hated to think of her suffering.
But Ashley just shrugged. “It’s not something that comes up in conversation.”
“It should have been noted in your file,” he said.
“Eli knows—I talked to him before I was accepted into the test group, but I haven’t had an appointment with him since.”
Cam believed there still should have been a note in her file, but right now he was more concerned about her current situation. “Is your sister running the trial?”
She nodded.
He picked up the cordless phone on the counter. “Call her.”
“Why?”
“I want to know if you can take the medication I prescribed or if I should write a scrip for something else.”
“Look, Cam, I appreciate your concern, but I took some Tylenol when I got home and I’m okay.”
She wouldn’t have cried out in pain if she was okay and since he figured they were both aware of that fact, he only asked, “Why don’t you want to call your sister?”
“Why won’t you back off?” she countered.
“Because I care about you.”
Maybe he was surprised by the admission, but not by the feelings. He did care about Ashley. He’d always cared about Ashley.
She turned away from him, but not before he saw the glint of tears in her eyes.
“You have no right,” she said, her tone laced with both hurt and anger. “No right to barge into my life after twelve years and make such a statement as if it gives you the right to interfere.”
It was true. He’d given up any right he might have had when he’d ended their relationship a dozen years earlier. But his feelings for Ashley had never been rational, and even when he’d gone away, his feelings for her never had.
“I’ve always cared about you, Ash, and I always will.”
She turned away to wrap up the leftover pizza, struggling a little because of her bandaged hand. “Thank you for your concern,” she said, not sounding thankful at all. “Now go away.”
He knew he should. But instead, Cam scrolled through the list of numbers stored in the memory of the phone still in his hand.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
He found “Megan & Gage” and pressed the call button. “Calling your sister.”
She stared at him, as if she didn’t really believe he’d do it.
“It’s ringing,” he warned her.
She grabbed the phone with her uninjured hand. As obviously unhappy as she was about making the call, she seemed to accept that he would talk directly to Megan if she continued to refuse and had likely concluded that her sister would have fewer questions for her than she would for him.
After a brief conversation, during which she reassured her sister numerous times that she was fine and didn’t need anyone coming over to check up on her, Ashley said goodbye and disconnected.
“That’s why I didn’t want to call her,” she said.
“Because you knew she’d be worried about you?” he asked, wondering why her sister’s concern should be a problem for Ashley.
“Because she’s spent too much time worrying about me, and even more over the past four months.”
“Since the broken engagement,” he guessed.
She nodded, making him suspect that she might be more distressed over the end of that relationship than he wanted to believe. And though he was undeniably curious about the ex-fiancé, he forced himself to focus on more immediate concerns.
“What did Megan say about the medication?”
“She said it’s fine. I just have to make sure that I inform the admin clerk of the dosage when I go in for my blood work.”
“Except you didn’t get the scrip filled, did you?”
“No, because I didn’t plan on taking it.”
He glanced at his watch. “I’ll call it in to Brody’s.”
“I’m capable of taking my own prescription in.”
“I know you are,” he agreed. “I’m just not convinced that you’ll actually do it.”
“Fine.” She thrust the phone at him. “Call it in and then leave me alone.”
He dialed the familiar number, spoke to the pharmacist and made arrangements for the medication to be delivered, throughout which Ashley continued to glare at him.
“It should be here within twenty minutes,” he told her.
“Do you plan on hanging around until it gets here?” she challenged.
“I don’t have anywhere else that I need to be, and I have no intention of letting you push me out the door until we’ve had a chance to talk about what happened in the kitchen.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” she denied, but the flush in her cheeks told him otherwise. “It was a moment of insanity, that’s all.”
“The only insanity is in trying to pretend it didn’t mean anything, trying to pretend that we aren’t still as attracted to one another as we were twelve years ago.”
She folded her arms over her chest as she lifted her gaze to his. “I’m not going to deny that there’s an attraction, but I’m not looking to get involved with anyone right now.”
A personal relationship was the absolute last thing he’d been looking for when he’d decided to move back to Pinehurst, but then he’d kissed Ashley, and he’d realized that getting involved with her wasn’t a choice. But he understood why she was wary.
“You can’t close your heart because of what your ex-fiancé did,” he said gently.
“This had nothing to do with Trevor,” she denied.
