THE MORNING SIDE OF DAWN Page 12

  And she leaned down to kiss him.

  She felt him go rigid, as if with shock. She thought of pulling back, of making this merely a brief brushing of lips that could be casually dismissed. But she couldn't seem to make herself do it, couldn't give up the sweet, erotic flood of sensations. She'd rarely been the aggressor in her few relationships, but she knew she would have to be with Dar, or he would simply withdraw. And she couldn't bear that thought, not now, not with his mouth so warm and sensuous against hers. Her lips moved over his coaxingly, asking, not demanding, yet with a firmness that spoke volumes about her need for this.

  And then she felt him change, felt the shift to acquiescence as the final notes of the song faded away. Felt the heat spark, then grow as it became mutual instead of one-sided. Felt him give in to it, and rejoiced in the knowledge that this fire leapt both ways. Rejoiced in the fact that he was kissing her back. She closed her eyes, reveling in the sensations.

  They weren't moving now, although another slow ballad had begun. His arms had come up and encircled her, pulling her even closer. She went willingly, and parted her lips for him at the first slight brush of his tongue across them. He probed her mouth gently, tentatively, and Cassie trembled at the contact when her tongue met his.

  When he drew back, she instinctively followed, tasting his lips, then tracing the even ridge of his teeth before she explored further. A low sound that was almost a groan rose from him as her tongue teased his, and Cassie savored the husky reverberation of it as much as she did the hot, sweet taste of him and the feel of his heartbeat suddenly hammering in his chest beneath her fingertips.

  And then the kiss became something more than a tentative discovering. It turned into something hotter, fiercer and much more intense. His hands came up to cup the back of her head, and her fingers threaded through the thick, dark silk of his hair and curled and held there, each of them seeming to want assurance that this suddenly flaring pleasure wouldn't end. He deepened the kiss until Cassie felt as if she were enveloped by the honeyed, luscious heat. She felt her muscles go slack, her mind fog, until there was nothing she was certain of except the taste and feel of him.

  She felt a chill, heard a gasping sound, and only then dazedly realized that he had broken the kiss. Her eyes slowly drifted open.

  Dar was staring at her, lips still wet from her mouth, and parted for his rapid breathing. She smiled lazily, dreamily, content to know that he'd been affected as much as she had.

  "Damn."

  The low, harsh oath startled her. She shifted on his lap, and became suddenly aware of something her dazed mind had been telling her for some time now—the meaning of that hot, insistent pressure against her right thigh. Dar was thoroughly aroused. The realization made her catch her breath, and she felt color flood her cheeks.

  "Get up, Cassie."

  It was an order, and when she hesitated he gave her a look that made her slip slowly to her feet. She stared at him, trying not to look at his obvious arousal. He spun his chair around, turning his back to her.

  "Dar—"

  "What the hell did you expect?" he ground out. "I lost my legs, not my—"

  She cut him off, moving swiftly to crouch beside him and hush him with a gentle finger to his lips. "I know that. I just didn't think … I was afraid it was just … me."

  "Just … what?"

  She nodded. "That this was … one way."

  "Don't go making this more than it is," he said gruffly, not meeting her eyes. He was, Cassie realized suddenly, embarrassed. Whether it was at what had happened between them, or his body's unmistakable response, she wasn't sure. He started to wheel away from her, and she tried for a teasing tone.

  "You sound like Sean, telling me to leave you alone. Did he give you a lecture out in the garage?"

  "He warned me to be careful." He stopped then and looked back over his shoulder at her. "But then I got warned about an oncoming train once, too."

  He disappeared into his bedroom, leaving Cassie staring after him, wondering if he'd meant he planned to ignore this warning, too, or if he'd been trying to tell her he'd learned his lesson about heeding warnings. The hard way.

  * * *

  Chapter 9

  «^»

  Three days later Cassie was reasonably certain she had her answer. Dar had no intention of ignoring this warning. While she'd tried to be the perfect guest, quiet and unobtrusive, she hadn't expected to be virtually ignored.

  This morning, as he had every morning, he had been up and gone before she rose, somehow managing not to wake her even though she knew he had to go right past where she slept on the sofa to leave. She wondered what it was today, a tortuous uphill course or simply hours of grinding, pushing exertion; she'd lost track. He stuck to a training schedule that seemed staggering to her, leaving at dawn, well before the summer heat rose to prohibitive levels, and returning hours later drenched in sweat, and obviously drained.

  But after a shower and some food he was at work, in his workshop, sometimes outside with the four-wheeled off-road chair, sometimes at the drawing table, sometimes at his workbench, or at that intimidating-looking piece of machinery he called the mill, shaping metal and tubing into the curves and angles that became his custom product. And he was always so intent on his work that she didn't dare interrupt him. Or, at least, he appeared that way.

  But no matter what he was doing, he paid her little attention and seemed determined to forget that that slow, sensual dance had ever occurred.

  That thought gave rise to memories that threatened to swamp her anew with that heat only Dar had ever generated in her. She abruptly rose from the sofa, needing action of some kind to divert her thoughts. The first couple of days she'd gone wandering outside, finding the effort of walking along the trails in the hills behind the warehouse distracting, if not completely successful in putting what had happened between them out of her mind.

  But today she could feel a tightness in her legs that told her she'd overdone it. Her exercise routine ran more to aerobics and the occasional lengthy walk. She nearly laughed; she was the supposedly able-bodied one, but she was feeling the pain after a couple of days of what Dar would no doubt term merely mild exertion.

  She headed for the bathroom; a hot shower would loosen her up, she thought, and that way she'd be done well before Dar came back and needed the shower.

  It was this room, more than any, that pounded home to her what Dar had to live with. The lowered mirror and sink, the drain off center to the rear so the pipe was out of the way of his chair, the support arms on each side of the commode. The shower was in the corner, with a fold-up seat on one wall, the hand held showerhead on the other, and only a plastic curtain covering the open two sides, with pull-up bars in strategic places.

  Every time she stepped in there, she was torn between the painful reminder of what had happened to him and the knowledge of how he'd survived and made peace with it. That knowledge filled her with an odd feeling she didn't at first recognize. She pondered it as she worked shampoo into her hair. When she realized it was pride, she nearly groaned aloud at this proof of how far she'd come in her feelings for this man.

  Maybe she had come a long way, but Dar hadn't, she thought as she reached for the movable showerhead, which really made rinsing her hair much easier than in a regular shower. He was as distant and aloof as ever. More so, ever since the night she'd asked him to dance. That he'd participated in that sensuous dance was amazing; she should have expected that he'd bolt like a singed rabbit afterward.

  But she hadn't expected it. Not after he'd kissed her back so fiercely, his very touch seeming to be full of the same aching longing that had seized her in those intense minutes she'd spent on his lap. Not when she had such vivid proof that he'd responded as passionately as she had. Not when she'd wanted nothing more than for it to go on endlessly, bathing her in that sweet, enticing warmth forever.

  She pushed the images away, forcing herself to concentrate on stepping out of the shower and drying off as if i
t were the most difficult of tasks. She wrapped the big bath sheet she always carried with her around her, then gave her hair a cursory rubbing with a regular-size towel. She dragged her big-toothed comb through her tangled locks until they were smooth, then stood for a moment, pondering whether to bother with her hair dryer. It seemed far too much trouble at the moment, so she merely tugged the unwieldy length of her hair back and began to braid it, still wet. If she later tried to brush it out, she would have a voluminous mass of flyaway waves, but she didn't have the patience or the desire to deal with the usual chore it was to dry it into some semblance of order. This was what she usually did when not working; on a job, there was always the shoot's hairstylist to do it for her.

  "Spoiled, that's what you are, Cassandra. Spoiled rotten."

  She muttered it aloud, as she tended to do when she was alone; it had always seemed to have more effect spoken aloud, this constant effort to keep her head from swelling under the barrage of unctuous flattery and adulation.

  "You said it, I didn't."

  She smothered a shriek as she spun around to see Dar in the doorway, sweat glistening on his skin, his hair clinging to his head in damp strands.

  "Must you do that?" she yelped, grabbing at the towel that suddenly seemed much smaller than it had. She felt her cheeks begin to heat.

  He shrugged, his face as unreadable as if she'd been fully dressed. "Didn't hear you in here. Until you started talking to yourself."

  Her cheeks went from merely warm to flaming. "I … have that habit."

  "I thought you hated to be called Cassandra."

  "I do," she said wryly. "That's why I use it whenever I catch myself missing one of those perks I sometimes take for granted. To remind me I'm slipping into fantasyland. It helps me regain some semblance of balance." She knew she was chattering, and ended with a shrug. "Chase calls it a check-in with real life."

  His mouth twitched at that, as if he wanted to smile but was fighting it. He tugged off the fingerless gloves he always wore when training. Blisters, he'd told her, were the bane of any road racer's existence.

  "Perks?" he said after a moment.

  She decided to trust the towel for a moment and grabbed the awkwardly long and now-unraveling wet braid. "Yes. Like somebody to deal with this for me."

  "Oh."

  It suddenly became too much, to stand here half-naked, Dar looking at her with no more interest than if she'd been one of the fixtures. If she hadn't had the vivid memory of that rigid column of aroused male flesh to reassure her, she would have sworn he barely realized she was female. She gave up on the braid and clung to the towel.

  "You're back early," she said, rather inanely. "I would have been done—"

  "Hill climbs," he said, cutting her off and making her wonder if perhaps he wasn't as indifferent as he appeared.

  "Oh. Makes for a shorter workout, I imagine." But no less strenuous, Cassie thought. When he didn't answer, she grabbed her comb, knowing she would have to start over on her braid, and started to edge around his chair toward the door. "I'll just go wrestle with this mess somewhere else, so you can have the shower," she murmured.

  She was almost past him when he spoke, and she sensed by his tone that he'd been trying to hold back the words.

  "You want some help?"

  She stared at him. "I … you mean … my hair?"

  He nodded, a short, sharp movement of his head that robbed the offer of any gallantry and made her wonder why on earth he'd made it when he so obviously didn't want to be taken up on it.

  "I do Katie's, sometimes," he said, sounding grudging.

  It was that very grudgingness that inspired a perverse need in her to take him up on it.

  "Thank you," she said sweetly. "That would be a big help."

  She caught one quick glimpse of the alarm that flashed in his eyes before she handed him the comb, casually folded the towel she'd used on her hair, dropped it on the tile floor and knelt on it with her back to him. She heard an odd, strangled sound that sounded as if he'd bitten back a groan, but she didn't look at him, merely settled herself on her heels, placing her knees primly together and discreetly tightening the towel firmly around her.

  Completely composed, she thought. Except for the fact that she had to jam her hands between her thighs to keep him from seeing they were trembling.

  For a long, silent moment she sat there, wondering if he would do anything at all, even retreat. And then she sensed movement, and out of the corner of her eye saw the front wheels of his chair edge forward until her feet were between them.

  Still she waited. At last she felt a gentle tug as he began to run the comb through her hair. She tilted her head back slightly to make it easier and let her eyes drift closed; it was wonderful, feeling the long, steady strokes and knowing it was Dar. Funny how she'd never felt like this when anyone else did this for her. It seemed to go on forever, that long, sensuous stroking of the comb through her hair. Yet she wished it would never end.

  When he had the nearly waist-length mass of her hair smooth, he dropped the comb on the towel beside her leg. Thus warned, she knew what was coming, but still couldn't stop the shiver that went through her when his fingers brushed the back of her neck as he gathered up the wet strands. He froze for a moment, but when she didn't speak, began to move again.

  She shouldn't, she supposed, be surprised that he braided the unruly length swiftly and easily; Katie had her father's hair, which meant it was Cassie's, as well. The very characteristics that made it her—or rather Cassandra's—personal trademark, its length, silkiness and glimmering sheen, also made it her curse; it was nearly impossible to handle easily.

  But Dar did it very well, with a gentleness that tugged at her heart as she thought of him doing this for Katie. And, someday, perhaps for a little girl of his own. She trembled, and told herself it was at the idea of Dar's little girl, not at the brush of his fingers down her back as he worked on her hair. She grasped at the idea and hung on, desperate for the diversion.

  Did he ever think about that little girl? she wondered. Did he long for it, to perhaps build for himself the family he'd never had? To have children who would never know the pain he'd been through, because he would see to it that they didn't? Or was it part of his detachment, part of his separation from the world, that he had decided it would never be? Was that, besides her innate charm, part of the reason he was so devoted to Katie? Or was it simply that she loved him, as he was, no questions asked?

  There had to have been people, women, who could have loved him that way. She refused to believe that the world was full only of women who couldn't see anything but what wasn't there, who couldn't look past the fact that he wasn't whole, in the world's eyes. She looked at him and saw so much more, and she wasn't, contrary to what some people—and her agent—trumpeted, anything special.

  So what had happened with those women? Had he shut them out, as he shut her out? Somewhere out there, was there a woman who still longed for him? A woman he hadn't been able to believe in, for whatever combination of reasons that kept him so apart from the world?

  It hit her then, with gut-deep certainty. Of course he couldn't believe. How many times could you be rejected, and keep coming back for more? It wasn't just strangers, who turned away for their own reasons, repulsion or pity or simple ignorance of what to say; for Dar it had been the very people he should have been able to trust, the people who should have been there for him no matter what. Not just his fiancée, but his own father… No wonder he held back from the world. How could a father turn his back on his own son at such a time?

  The thought was too painful, and she recoiled from it, coming out of her musing reverie with a start. She realized he was done, and had been for some time, while she had been lost in thoughts that would embarrass her and no doubt infuriate him were he to find them out.

  "I… You do that very well," she blurted out.

  "You sit still better than Katie."

  "She is a live wire, isn't she?" She scrambled to
her feet. "Thank you."

  He merely nodded, but Cassie knew she wasn't imagining the tightness of his jaw. And she wondered, when he quickly leaned over and picked up the towel she'd been kneeling on and dropped it in his lap, if perhaps it was more than innate tidiness that had prompted the action.

  She scurried out of the bathroom, wondering what had possessed her to do that, to continue playing with a fire Dar Cordell would obviously just as soon deny existed.

  She heard water start to run, and swiftly dressed in comfortably worn jeans and an equally worn old college sweatshirt with the sleeves cut out. She tried not to think of Dar in the shower; she'd spent far too much time doing that already. And thinking erotic, intimate thoughts about him, not wondering about the logistics of how he managed it; that had been evident enough once she'd seen the bathroom. Not wondering about how his legs must look; she'd seen them the day he'd confronted her in his workout shorts. The surgeon, who had saved his life after the heroic act that had almost ended it, had done a very neat job. The sight of his stumps had been disturbing, yes, and a painful reminder of what he'd gone through, but hardly repellent.

  Her brother had told her once, after she'd gasped in shock when she'd first seen the brutal scar that marked him—a souvenir of his part in sending the racketeer known as the Spider to jail—that one of the reasons he'd fallen so hard for Stevie was that she had made him look at that scar as a mark of honor, not a disfigurement. And that Rory had done the same thing for Sean.

  She hadn't met Dar then, so Cassie hadn't asked if anyone had ever been able to do that for him. But she didn't really need to ask now. She knew the answer was no. The defiant acceptance of himself and his body that Dar had arrived at, he had fought his way to alone, with no help from anyone. As he did everything.

  Not, she thought with a sigh, that he would have accepted such help had it been offered. She wondered just how hard his fiancée had really tried. Or had she at all? Perhaps she'd intended to leave all the time, but hadn't been able to just walk away, as Dar's father apparently had.