Flynn's Kiss (Disarmed & Dangerous) (10 page)

He ground his teeth and breathed deep through his nose.

Her wide eyes were still on him when he turned back, her smile a little uncertain. He kept his expression as flat as possible as he scanned her face and wondered how the hell a white hat could make her eyes look even bigger than normal, with the slight shade from the brim darkening them from violet to a deep purple.

“Would you like a beer?” She reached into a cooler, scooped out a bottle, and held it up.

“Beer? You don’t like beer.” Why the hell would she have beer? An irritated growl rumbled out of him, making her eyes widen even farther, and small uncertain flickers of her long, dark eyelashes had him clenching his jaw.

“No, I brought it for you.” Cautious, her voice dipped almost to a whisper.

Temper exploded, making his voice much harsher than he intended.

“Now what in hell’s name made you think I would come after you?”

The remainder of her smile dropped instantly from her face, making him regret his tone. She ducked her head, and the ridiculous bells gave a sharp rattle. She reached out for the wine glass, barely took a sip, and carefully replaced it.

The woman could make guilt shudder through him with just a look, but his annoyance was rolling around in his stomach because somehow, she and Carl must have been in cahoots to set him up, and he hated being set up. He had a mind of his own and he did his own thing. He didn’t need help or direction.

She cleared her throat, met his eyes, and gave a tight smile.

“I didn’t. I packed up a picnic with the intention of inviting you, but I couldn’t find you. I assumed you’d gone again after you told me you like to be alone. There was no point unpacking, so I brought it along.”

So, all the time he’d wasted trying to find her, she’d been looking for him. Ironic.

He glared down at her for a moment longer, his anger melting away so fast it left him confused. He had no idea how she managed to invoke such wide ranging emotions in him. He’d felt nothing but cold solitude interspersed with mild amusement and occasional peacefulness over the last three years. Since he’d met her, he felt like a hormonal teenager. One minute angry, the next laughing, but always raging with lust.

He reached his hand out, wiggled his fingers in a “give it to me” sign, and relief flowed over him as her wide smile shot back in.

“Gimme.”

She held the bottle close, efficiently flicked off the lid with a bottle opener, and handed the chilled drink to him.

Heaven was a cool wash of golden liquid skimming down his parched throat. He never stopped swallowing until the entire contents of the bottle were gone.

He handed her back the empty bottle, wiped the trickle of sweat running down his neck with his kerchief, and glanced around. The small inkling of doubt he’d had about Carl grew to full-blown suspicion.

He waggled his fingers at Liberty again, and without a word, she handed him another small bottle of beer. This time he sipped while he assessed.

“You weren’t lost?”

“No.” She waved her hand toward a Rand McNally map and a compass, her eyes wary as he ground his teeth in frustration. “I’m not quite sure what gave you the impression.”

She looked innocent enough, but she’d come prepared for a major natural disaster. Every item of equipment he could imagine a survivalist requiring, she seemed to have at her fingertips. All neatly laid out. He’d be surprised if it wasn’t in alphabetical order in the semi-circle around her.

He stepped closer as she peered up at him from underneath the rim of her hat.

“Carl seemed to think I should track you down.”

“Oh?” Her eyes widened with surprise, but women had a habit of looking innocent, and he’d learned very quickly not to trust them.

“Yeah.”

He eased himself down next to her, leaned back against his saddle, and took another slug of beer. It was hard not to give her a sideways glance, and Christ, she looked so pretty taking another sip of her wine, the tip of her tongue dabbing the moisture from her bottom lip and making him want to crawl on his belly to her. Instead, he gave a small cough and made sure his voice was low and threatening.

“He gave the impression you might be lost.”

“Really?” Her laughter was light and amused. “I don’t know why. Carl kindly packed the pony for me. He knew I was going for three nights.”

He was beginning to wonder if she was completely oblivious to his bad mood or being obtuse. Maybe the woman was as dim as he’d first thought.

“Why?”

“Why three nights?”

“Nope.”

He growled even deeper and wondered when the hell she was going to ask him what was wrong. Couldn’t she tell he was seething? Yet she took another little sip of her wine, lifted her perfectly shaped eyebrows, and opened her huge eyes wide in apparent confusion. But he knew avoidance when it laughed in his face.

“Why am I here?”

“Yup.”

“Because it’s my job.”

He pulled in a lungful of air, closed his eyes to breathe it out, and then pinned her with his best hard-man glare.

“What precisely is your job?”

Her rapid eye blink and quick glance down to the left made the ball of suspicion in his stomach explode like a small hydrogen bomb. He leaned in close, took a hold of her chin in his fingers, and glowered into her face. Huge violet eyes gaped back at him and blinked twice before she tried to move back, but he gripped her chin a little tighter and narrowed his eyes.

“What exactly do you do, Liberty?”

“I’m a scientist.” Wary now, she gave a little gulp, her soft skin warming beneath his fingers as a becoming blush crept through to tinge her cheeks.

“A scientist?” Her nod was almost imperceptible against his grip. “What area?”

“Molecular bacteriology.”

He dropped his fingers from her chin, disgust with himself and his disparaging attitude thickening his throat. Her bright, vivacious act, together with luscious curves and a body made for sin, had fooled him, and he didn’t like to be fooled. He prided himself on his fast and efficient judgment of people—made a living out of it—but he sure as shit had misjudged this one. Or been misled. He was going with deceived. He felt like he’d been deceived, tricked, blindfolded, and led on a wild goose chase. All of those things, and it appeared she’d enlisted the assistance of other people to fool him.

He tried to get a tight rein on his irritation, but as he opened his mouth, he couldn’t help a little of it slipping through.

“So, you’re a fucking genius?”

“Well, I wouldn’t quite put it like…” He pinned her with his hard stare, waited her out until she dropped her gaze and shrugged. “Okay, yes. I register on the genius scale and I have a PhD.”

“You have a Ph fucking D. Great!”

Adrenaline beat like a drum through his system, its rhythm loud and irregular as he leaped to his feet and paced away toward the small stream where the horses were dozing. He didn’t really know why he felt so angry, except maybe the cutesy little chick behind him was turning out to be just perfect in every way, and she was doing more than simply threatening his peace of mind. She was raging through it, bouncing off the walls of his skull, her laughter echoing in his head so he had trouble thinking straight, and his dick never seemed to be at ease when she was around.

He heard her approach. For a small lady, she wasn’t the quietest, and the bells on her hat trilled as she stepped across the uneven ground. The stallion flicked his tail and gave a sharp nod of his head.

Flynn glanced at her just as she sucked her plump bottom lip into her mouth to chew on it, and all thoughts of the woman being a genius flew from his mind as his body wrenched control away and the adrenaline beat turned to a full throttle concerto. The contents of her head didn’t seem to matter as much as getting her naked.

“Do you have a problem with me being intelligent?”

He opened his mouth several times as she gazed up at him, but no words would come out. Probably just as well, as the likelihood was, whatever he had to say was going to be crap. The perfect woman with the perfect body had just turned out to be even more perfect and she scared the shit out of him. He should run.

He dragged in a breath and exhaled as her curious look turned concerned, and she reached out a hand to touch him. He wrenched his arm back in self-defense and glanced around in an attempt to distract himself from her.

“How come you know how to camp?”

Comprehension of the insult dashed through her eyes, and she dropped her hand at his rebuff, wrapping her arms around herself in a protective gesture. A small tug of guilt hit him as she gave a nonchalant shrug and stared down at the ground where she was scuffing her foot.

“I learned quite early how to look after myself. I need those skills to carry out my job.”

“Of molecular biology. In a scientist’s lab.”

“Bacteriology…” she corrected. “Umm, not based in a lab. I just came back from New Zealand. I was on my own for eighteen months. I had a base where there were occasionally other people, but I had to hike through the hills, and I was always on my own. I had a supply drop once a fortnight.”

His eyes flicked down to her well-worn boots and his knees turned weak. It wasn’t as though he’d slightly underestimated the vivacious woman. He’d completely misunderstood her.

He paced back over to the blanket, and before the bones in his legs melted totally, he sank back down, picked up his beer, and drank the rest of it. He pointed the neck of the bottle at her and let his anger kick back in.

“I think you deliberately deceived me.”

Confusion flitted across her features as she took a step toward him. She raised her left hand to her chest.

“No…”

It seemed to him she stopped just short of apologizing.

He frowned hard and felt the scars tighten across the side of his face, setting up an uncomfortable tingle as he clenched his jaw. He watched her glance around uncertainly at the neat little campsite she’d set up, almost as if she was surprised to see it. When her eyes met his again, she shrugged and wrapped her arms tighter around her body once more.

The pulse at the base of his throat throbbed as his annoyance escalated, and for the first time in years, he felt the risk that his frozen heart would explode in a volcano of molten lava, threatening to consume everything within its path. The cold aloofness with which he prided himself was melting at a rapid rate of knots.

“I don’t understand, Flynn.”

“You.” He forced the word out through his restricted throat. “You with your big tits…” He heard her sharp intake of breath as though he’d given her a physical slap, but she never moved. “…your bouncy little body, your silky hair and your ‘come fuck me’ eyes.” He thought he’d covered it as he pointed the neck of the bottle at her again and waggled it in lieu of using his finger.

She dropped the protective shield of arms from around her, smoothed her shirt, exhaled slowly, and picked a couple of invisible pieces of lint off, all the time avoiding eye contact, and his heart painfully contracted. He’d wanted to rage at her, stamp his foot like a three-year-old and scream into the wilderness until he was hoarse. All he’d needed was a small spark to ignite his raging inferno, and instead of her yelling and screaming in fury at his insults as every indication would suggest she was capable of, once again she floored him. She simply picked up a fire blanket and put out his flame, leaving him deflated in the face of her elegant composure.

He was such a miserable bastard. He didn’t mean to hurt her; he’d just felt duped. It wasn’t her fault she had the body of a porn star, the face of an innocent, and the brain of a virtuoso.

Shit. He guessed it was time to apologize.

He closed his eyes, gave his face a rough rub with his hands, and peered at her from between his fingers. With a weary sigh, he opened his mouth to say something, but she paralyzed all thought with the proud lift of her chin and her next words.

“I don’t think we should see each other anymore, Flynn. You’re not good for my self-confidence and…” She stopped, swallowed hard as he took his hands away from his face to stare up at her, confounded.

As she blinked rapidly, he realized he’d brought her to the verge of tears, and the rapid knock inside his chest let him know exactly what his heart thought.

“Liberty…”

“No.” Determined, she shook her head and the tiny bells tinkled like a shop door opening. Only this door was closing, far quicker than he’d expected and certainly not from the direction he’d imagined.

“It’s not good for me to become demoralized.” She bowed her head, and all he could see was the top of the white Stetson with the thick ring of silver bells that still chimed merrily.

“I didn’t mean to insult you. I never expected…you.”

“Well, you have insulted me.” Her soft voice pierced his soul. “I thought you of all people would have seen past the breasts to the person beyond. I thought you had, and yet in all the time you kept quiet, you were judging me, just like all the rest. I never tried to fool you, but you never looked any further than skin deep.”

She turned her head and stared into the distance, and he found the denial lodging firmly in his throat. He couldn’t lie to her, but he thought if he told her the truth, that it wasn’t her breasts but her whole persona that had fooled him, a persona she had contrived in order to protect herself, then he would hurt her even more. How was he so much in the wrong? She was the one wearing the mask.

•●•

She closed her eyes, a brief respite from his inquiring stare and the brilliant sunshine as it lowered toward the horizon. Her chest felt as though a leaden weight pressed down on it, making her breath come in short, shallow gasps. She’d fallen for a beautiful face and a damaged soul and made more of a fool of herself than she had in years. Who would have thought she could be so blind? He was heaving her emotions all over the place, like an erratic ride on a roller coaster.

She opened her eyes to gaze at him and realized the best way through this was probably good manners and honesty. She flicked her hand in the direction of the cooler and watched his scarred eyebrow raise, making her blood heat with one small movement. Dammit, it looked like she was going to make an even worse fool of herself if a twitch of his eyebrow could turn her on.