Kisses From Heaven by Jennifer Greene Page B

felt hungry. Buck wasn’t angry, but there was control with a capital C on his features, in the way his fork stabbed the steak, the way his eyes pinned hers, the way his jaw was set, and in the tension in his shoulders. Had she asked for so much? she wondered fleetingly. She had reached out to the one man who had touched her in so many years; was it so wrong to put everything aside on the promise of moments—when she didn’t have any more than moments to offer?
    He stood up, towering over her as he picked up their two plates. “Just stay sitting. I’ll bring the coffee. I want you to listen—”
    “Buck, I really think I’d better be going home,” Loren said miserably.
    He disappeared into the kitchen as if he hadn’t heard her. She knew he had. Restlessly, she got up, stretching muscles suddenly taut with tension. She wandered to the bare panes of glass that overlooked the lake. A March wind was frothing up little silvery waves; clouds were ghosting across the night sky.
    In the window’s reflection, she saw Buck walk back into the room, carting two cups of coffee to the little table and then standing, hands on hips, looking at her. She felt a sudden, mortifying awareness of the faint soreness she felt from his possession of her. She was his. Rationally, she knew better, but emotionally she was so conscious of that single physical truth that she felt the sudden blister of tears in her eyes.
    “What matters is that I have you close,” Buck said quietly, coming from behind her to pull her gently against his chest. At first her back was rigid and then not. It was a hug of warmth she could not deny herself. “That’s all that matters, Loren. The only chance we have to build something together is if we have time together. That’s easier than you know, but your pride is in the way, Loren—”
    She half turned to him, brushing wearily at her eyes. “Buck, I can’t believe you’re serious—”
    “For a beginning, the name is Bartholomew Leeds,” he said grimly. “Bartholomew Arthur Leeds. All the same, you call me anything but Buck and I’ll have you over my knee with a hairbrush in two seconds flat.”
    He wanted her to smile, so she did.
    “See this?” He pointed to the crescent-shaped scar near his jaw. “Where do you think I got it?”
    “A fight,” Loren guessed.
    “A fall out of a tree when I was six. I don’t tell anyone else that either,” Buck said flatly. “The scar on my forehead was from a bike crash. The first actual fight I ever had was with a girl, and she won. I was eleven. It set my ego back years…”
    Her eyes cleared with genuine amusement as she listened, both of them carting dishes to the kitchen. He had a reputation as too smart for his own good by the time he’d reached junior high school; since he looked tough, he played the part. He told a half-dozen tales where he came off as less than victorious, a swaggering Mr. Cool with the confidence of a wrinkled carrot was the image he projected to her, one she knew could not have been entirely true.
    “There were six of them that talked me into it. I wasn’t even sure I knew what a red-light district was. I was only fourteen. The rest of the gang were sixteen or over—”
    Loren wiped her hands on a dishtowel. “You didn’t really lose your virginity to a prostitute? I thought that only happened in books…”
    “I don’t think we’ll dwell on that—”
    “What did she look like? What did she do? Where was it, Buck?”
    He shook his head at her. “I would like to move past fourteen, nosy; it was hardly the best of experiences. I wouldn’t even have brought it up, but I was trying to build trust, Loren. To show you there is nothing I’m not willing to tell you.” He shook his head again with an amused grin for her obvious fascination with the topic. “If you will let me continue with this riveting saga—”
    She poured fresh coffee for both of them and unplugged the pot. “I wouldn’t be a man for anything,” she