Tangled Up Read online

  ‘Hunter, I can’t. I’m too sensitive. You can’t possibly be able to—Oh…’

  He slid his hand under me and this time he entered me slowly, by degrees, taking his time, proving once again that his self-control was so much better developed than mine, and I discovered I wasn’t too sensitive. I discovered that sex with Hunter was an addiction I wasn’t likely to recover from anytime soon.

  I wrapped my legs around him, slid my hands up his chest and stroked my hands over the hard bulge of his biceps.

  The excitement was almost unbearable and I knew he felt it, too, because he kept his eyes on mine the whole time, which made the whole experience more intimate. There was no way either of us could not know who we were with. He was as into me as I was him. Our mouths fused, his tongue stroked mine and he thrust deeper. Dimly, in the back of my mind, I realized I was in trouble. I was supposed to be getting him out of my system. I was supposed to be detached and just interested in sex, but this felt like so much more than that. I tried to grab hold of that thought and work out just how much trouble I was in, but his hand cupped my face as he surged into me again and again, adjusting the angle until the whole of me was flooded with intense white heat. With every skilled stroke, he proved just how well he knew me and I moaned his name, losing all hope of playing it cool or hiding my feelings. He was so strong, so masculine in every way and everything we did was on a different level.

  I felt myself tighten around him, heard him swear under his breath as my body gripped his and we both lost control at the same moment. I held on to his broad shoulders, battered by the powerful surge of pleasure, swamped by a wash of sensation that threatened to drown me. He lowered his mouth to mine and we kissed right through it so that there wasn’t a single part of us that wasn’t involved and engaged.

  Total sex, I thought. I’d given all of me. Everything.

  Everything except my heart.

  We stayed like that for a long time, his weight crushing me, my arms holding on to him. Then he seemed to realize he was probably too heavy and he rolled onto his back and took me with him so I was curved against him. His arm kept me locked against his side. My head rested on his shoulder, which basically meant I was staring at his chest. Women probably would have bought tickets to see this view.

  His arm tightened. ‘I missed you.’

  It was the last thing I expected him to say and I closed my eyes tightly, trying to push back the emotions that threatened to engulf me.

  ‘Really? Because I hardly noticed you were gone.’

  ‘So Hayley was lying when she said you cried every night for six months?’

  I sensed from his tone he was smiling. ‘She was exaggerating. She always exaggerates.’

  ‘No, she doesn’t. She’s a scientist. She bases everything on fact. She said you lost weight.’

  ‘That was intentional. I was training hard.’

  There was a brief pause. His grip on me tightened. ‘I’m sorry I made you cry, Ninja.’

  ‘I’m not. If it hadn’t been for you, I never would have dated men like Brian and think what I would have missed.’ I made light of it because the alternative was getting heavy and I didn’t want that, but when I tried to sit up he held me tightly.

  ‘I hurt you.’

  ‘I don’t really want to talk about this.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if we talk about it, I have to remember my awful behaviour.’

  He rolled onto his side and looked at me, a frown on his face. ‘Awful?’

  ‘I was so needy. I smothered you.’

  ‘You were having a difficult time.’ He stroked my hair back from my face. ‘How are things with your parents now?’

  ‘Okay. We don’t see that much of them. I have Hayley and we have a great group of friends. I suppose our friends are our family. I’m sorry for my parents.’ It had taken a long time to feel that way, but it was true. ‘They were so wrong for each other. They just made each other miserable.’

  ‘And they made you miserable.’

  I shrugged. ‘Plenty of people are fucked up by their families.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  I realized I didn’t know much about his family. He’d told me once that his mother had left when he was young and that he’d lived with his father. It had all sounded pretty normal to me, but most things were compared to my crazy, dysfunctional family. I realized now that my own altered perspective had stopped me asking more questions. ‘Were you?’

  His grip tightened. ‘I was fine.’

  That wasn’t enough for me. I wanted to know more. Last time we’d been together I’d been focused on my own issues, but now I’d moved on and I wanted to know about him. ‘Was that why you spent so much time at the gym? Because home was grim?’ At the time I hadn’t even questioned it. I’d been so focused on myself and my own problems I hadn’t thought to question why he’d spent so much time at the gym. I’d presumed it was because martial arts were his passion.

  He rolled onto his back and sat up. ‘Do you want some food?’

  I wasn’t really listening.

  I was remembering what he’d said on that first day, about everyone having something in their lives. At the time I’d been so swamped in my own misery I hadn’t picked up on it.

  ‘I want you to talk to me.’

  ‘I need something to eat.’ Without looking at me, he pulled on his jeans and strolled out of the room to the kitchen and I sensed he wasn’t walking away because he was hungry.

  I realized now that when we’d been together, I’d been the one to do all the talking.

  I slid out of bed, too, pulled on my shirt and followed him into the kitchen.

  ‘When we were together, you never talked about yourself.’

  Without looking at me, he turned the heat up under the pan. ‘You had enough worries of your own. And anyway, talking doesn’t help.’

  ‘It did for me.’

  ‘Good. It’s important to know what works.’

  ‘I want to talk about you for a change.’

  He didn’t turn. ‘Talking doesn’t change the facts.’

  ‘But knowing the facts can sometimes help someone understand.’

  ‘What do you want to understand?’

  In my head there was a vision of him squatting down in front of the little boy in the gym. Hunter Black, who had trained stars in Hollywood, giving all his attention to a child who was being bullied.

  ‘Tell me about your family.’ I pushed my hair away from my face, conscious that wild sex had left it tangled and messy. ‘I mean, do they even know you’re back? Have you told them?’

  ‘There’s no one to tell. My mother lives in Spain now.’

  ‘What about your dad? You once told me your dad was the reason you took up karate.’

  ‘He was. Indirectly.’ He picked up the eggs he’d abandoned earlier. ‘Omelette all right with you?’

  ‘Fine, thanks. What do you mean, “indirectly”?’

  There was a long pause and then a sizzle as the eggs hit the pan. ‘He hit my mother. She sent me to karate so I would be able to defend myself if something happened to her. She saved what little money he let her have and spent it on lessons for me.’ He paused. ‘I went because I wanted to be able to defend her, which was a pretty big ambition for someone of that age.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  It wasn’t what I’d expected him to say.

  I stared at his broad bare shoulders, not knowing how to respond. Remembering how protective he’d been of me, it was all too easy to imagine he would have been the same with his mother. ‘How old were you?’

  He tilted the pan. ‘Four.’

  My heart tightened. ‘You were four when he hit you?’

  ‘No, I was four when I started karate. I don’t remember when he first hit me but I do remember my mother pushing me into a cupboard to protect me and locking the door.’

  My heart was pounding. The horror of it engulfed me like a grey, dirty wave. ‘She did that?’

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