"But I like it." If she didn't burst into flames in the next minute, it would be a miracle. "It's just...sometimes I forget, and I fret."

"I know."

"It makes it hard sometimes.""It makes it hard sometimes."

"Makes what hard?" His fingers threaded through her hair, lifting it to the faint moonlight, working his fingers through the tangles.

"Finding out who I am..." His hand stopped moving. "With you," she finished in a breathless rush.

"You need to be something different with me?" He gathered her hair into his fist. He didn't sound happy.

She was messing this up so badly.

"Not different, but maybe, for once, me. Does that make sense?"

"Maybe." His hand moved and there were a couple tugs at the back of her head that tilted it up. The shadows hid his expression from her view while she was sure he could see every nuance of hers. "How did your husband make love to you, Jenna?"

The blush drained from her cheeks so fast that she felt lightheaded. She tried to turn away, but he'd wrapped her hair around his hand, and she couldn't move. She had to stand there, open and vulnerable as he asked her to bare her soul.

"Don't hide from me now, Jenna. He's been standing between us long enough."

"He's dead."

"He lives in your mind where I can't see him, hurting you in ways that I can't protect you from.""Please."

"Draw me a picture of him, Jenna. Show me the son of a b.i.t.c.h so that I can make him go away."

"I can't." She closed her eyes.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n it, you will. I won't have the b.a.s.t.a.r.d hurting you from the grave." He shook her lightly. The shaking stopped and then his lips were on hers, hard, possessive, desperate. She didn't fight him, just opened her mouth for the thrust of his tongue. She was his.

Always had been. Even while she was married to another man. G.o.d spare her soul. Clint drew back slightly, his breath hitting her moist lips in uneven puffs. "Tell me, baby. Let's make him go away together."

"Here?"

"Here. Now." He kissed the corner of her mouth. He turned and took three steps to the left, taking her with him with his arm around her waist. He kept his hand at her waist as he sat. He tugged her down to sit across his lap. "Out here where G.o.d can hear every word, let's send that son of a b.i.t.c.h to h.e.l.l where he belongs."

She remembered the beatings, the humiliation, the pain, the confusion of never knowing what she was supposed to do, what she'd done wrong. The unrelenting knowledge that she was tainted. She buried her face in his throat.

"I don't want you to see me that way," she admitted,inhaling his familiar scent, hugging it to her.

"What way?"

"Worthless. Dirty."

She was breaking him in two.

"I could never see you as dirty, Sunshine." Clint wrapped his arms around Jenna, gathering her softness into him, feeling whole the way he did only when he was touching her, wishing he could protect her from the memories.

Against his chest she shook her head. "You don't know how I was."

"I know you were sweet and trusting and did your best to please." She stiffened in his arms as if surprised.

Didn't she know how long she'd fascinated him? "I've been watching you a long time, Sunshine."

"I was married." She sounded shocked, as if a piece of paper had anything to do with how he felt about her.

"And I kept my distance."

"I never knew."

"There was no reason you should."

"How could I not know?"

"Would it have made a difference?" She didn't breathe for the span of a heartbeat and then she nodded.

"Then I'm sorry."

She was shaking her head before he finishedspeaking. "I couldn't have borne it if I'd known."

"All you would have had to do was say the word and there wouldn't have been anything to bear."

"You would have fought him?" He couldn't have meant what she thought he meant. Try as she would, Jenna couldn't make out his expression in the dark and his body gave her no indication. He was relaxed and calm beneath her.

"I would have killed him." The finality in his tone was shocking.

"You can't kill a man for how he treats his wife."

"It's been done a time or two."

"By you?"

"Once." There wasn't an ounce of remorse in his tone. She pondered all she knew of Clint, what she'd heard, what she'd seen.

"You're not a murderer."

"Depends on how you define it." He wasn't apologizing, just stating the facts.

"If you killed a man over how he treated his wife, he deserved it." She felt that certainty to the soles of her feet.

She touched the indentation where his collarbones met.

"He did." His fingertips on her cheek were incredibly gentle. Tender. He traced her jaw, the pad of his index finger coming to rest on the point of her chin. Itlingered there, stroking as if he couldn't get enough of the feel of her skin. "Tell me about how it was, Jenna."

"It was awful."

"How?"

"There were so many rules."

"Name some."

"I couldn't look a man in the face. Couldn't question an order any man gave. Couldn't speak unless spoken to."

His curse echoed above her. "And in the bedroom?"

"I just had to do what I was told, exactly how I was told, no resistance and no complaints." Nausea welled.

She buried her face in his throat, breathing deeply of his scent, his strength.

"What happened if you didn't?"

"I got hurt."

"How."

"I can't tell you that." Shame burned deep into her soul, and spread outward.

"I want him gone, Jenna, so you'll tell me because you know it won't change the way I feel about you." His hand cupped her stomach beneath her cloak. Big and warm, it soothed her. She burrowed deeper, wishing she could climb inside him in that moment, know everything there was to know about him, let him know all there wasto know about her. All without having to say a word.

"It has to."

He forced her chin up, tapped her lips with his thumb until she raised her eyes. "It can't."

"I didn't have any choice..." He held her so hard, she thought her ribs would crack.

"I know, baby. I know." He tucked her head into his neck with his chin, bundling her into his heat, his strength. "But you have a choice now and it's time to lance that boil and let the poison out."

He was right. She had choices, and one of them was to stop being a coward. She took a breath, and gathered her courage. Paused. Faltered. Caught herself and his hand in the same breath. She brought his hand to her breast.

"Remember how you held me the first night we fed Brianna?"

"Yes." His breath hissed out from between his teeth.

"Hold me like that while I tell you. Touch me that way so I remember where I am, who I'm with, and I'll tell you."

He calmly unb.u.t.toned her shirt. A glance at his expression showed the same control. His big hand slid inside her camisole above her corset, and cupped her breast with incredible gentleness. She closed her eyesand sank into the feeling.

"I love the way you touch me."

"I'll always be gentle with you," he whispered, his drawl more p.r.o.nounced. "You don't have to worry about that."

"It isn't your gentleness." His eyebrows rose and his fingers nudged her nipple in inquiry. "You touch me like I matter. Like I'm a person." She stroked his hair as it lay on his coat, the strands coa.r.s.er than hers, cool with the night chill. "As long as you touch me like that, you don't need to always be gentle."

"You might be jumping the gun." His black eyes burned with sudden heat. His grip on her breast tightened.

She shook her head. "I can't be afraid of you Clint.

No matter what, I know you won't hurt me."

His fingers on her breast paused, and then began the soft stroking motion, from base to tip. Over and over.

When he reached her nipple on the forth pa.s.s, he skimmed the areola until he captured the nipple, squeezing gently. The pleasure poured through her in a soft surge. She leaned her head back against his shoulder. She couldn't see his face.

"Could you take off your hat?"

He did, revealing the intentness of his expression and the worry in his eyes. Worry for her. She placed herhand over his, holding him and the pleasure he brought her close to her heart.

And told him what he needed to know.

Chapter Nineteen.

The bedroom door opened. Jenna's heart pounded and her throat went dry. Her hand went to the sliding sleeve of her nightdress. This had been a really stupid idea.

"Son of a b.i.t.c.h, Jenna."

"I thought you'd like it." The heat in her cheeks went to scorching. It was the short nightdress she'd worn the first night, except she'd left the robe off and unb.u.t.toned the first three b.u.t.tons of the top to expose more cleavage.

"I like it." The door clicked shut behind Clint.

From the other side of the door she heard Danny whine. Clint crossed to the bed, his boots making solid thuds on the hardwood floor until he reached the braided rug at the side of the bed. She didn't have the guts to meet his eyes. Not because she was afraid, but because being brazen was a little too new to be nonchalant about.

His hand touched the top of her head, hesitated, and then lifted a strand of hair, rubbing it between his fingers. She waited in vain for him to do more.She looked up and caught him staring down at her.

For the first time, with indecision. She put her hand over his, curling her fingers around two of his. "What's wrong?"

"Believe it or not," he admitted in a tight voice, "I'm afraid to touch you."

"Because of what I told you?"

"Baby, I don't know how you survived." He brought her hand to his lips, his eyes hot and sad.

"But I did."

"Yes." His tongue touched the center of her palm in a flickering caress. "How the h.e.l.l can you stand for anyone to touch you?"

"I can't." She shrugged, comfortable with this truth.

"Just you."

"Remind me to start taking up church-going again."

He pushed the hair off her face.