Out of Time Read online

  By the time he was finally sinking into her, his body was a taut, raging inferno of need. It was like trying to hold back a steam engine, but he did. He sank into her inch by inch, never letting his gaze fall from the flushed cheeks, the half-lidded gaze, or the softly parted lips.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” The pleasure on her face belied the tortured sound of her voice.

  “You know why.”

  Their eyes met and held. Three years of disappointment and heartbreak seemed to pass between them before she looked away.

  But he wouldn’t let her turn from him. He forced her gaze back to him with each small thrust of possession.

  Feel this. Feel how good it is. We belong together.

  When he was finally seated fully inside her . . . the feeling was indescribable. His chest pounded, not just with lust, but also with something far more important.

  “I love you,” he said.

  And then he proved it.

  * * *

  • • •

  How could he do this to her? How could he be so gentle and tender?

  This was Colt, for God’s sake. Her hardened, angry ex-husband who’d slept with her for months before giving her any clue that she was more to him than the flavor of the week. She could count on one hand the number of times he’d said he’d loved her, and it had never been like this.

  She almost hated him.

  Almost.

  But that stupid, weak part of her that would always love him was too busy basking in—savoring—every touch, every caress, and every heart-tugging look in his eyes as he thrust slow and deep—achingly slow and deep—inside her.

  The pain was almost unbearable. Not in her body—although she’d forgotten that feeling of stretching—but in her squeezing chest.

  Her heart wanted to remain indifferent, but under the weight of such a fierce onslaught, it was yearning—longing—to reach for the brass ring that he offered. To let him take away the pain. To let him love her. To let him fill the cold emptiness inside her even if just for a moment.

  And with him on top of her, holding her, filling her body so completely with his, that brass ring seemed hers for the taking.

  He was tearing down her resistance with every tender, poignant stroke. With sweetness. With gentleness. With emotion.

  With the feeling of his body sliding into hers.

  “I love you.”

  She didn’t want his love, damn it. She wanted to come. She wanted him to take her hard and fast in a blaze of fiery passion. She wanted to pretend it didn’t mean anything. That none of this meant anything. That he wasn’t giving her everything she’d longed for for almost five years.

  But he wouldn’t let her. No matter how hard she fought. No matter how she touched him, what naughty things she whispered in his ear, or how hard she gripped the rock-hard ass that she’d always loved to urge him to go harder and faster.

  It didn’t matter what she did. He wouldn’t fuck her the way she wanted.

  He fought off her attempts with unrelenting purpose that left her nowhere to hide.

  For the first time, Colt made love to her. Thoroughly and completely. And when they finally came together, he broke her.

  Looking into his eyes as the emotion inside her built to the point of no return, she felt her heart open. She let him in. For one incredible moment she let him fill her with everything he wanted to give her, and she cried out with the joy and pleasure of it.

  But when she came down, she came down hard. She hit the ground in a free fall of regret and anger. It jarred her. It made her body, still warm in the afterglow and heat of his embrace, cold.

  Reality set in, and the horror of what she’d done—what she’d let herself feel—hit her full force like a slap in the face.

  Did she enjoy pain? Was she some kind of masochist?

  She pushed him off her and tried to roll away, which was easier said than done with six feet four inches of heavily muscled operator on top of her.

  “You have to go,” she said, her voice sounding panicky even to her own ears. “I can’t do this, Colt.”

  She was too weak. Too vulnerable. Too stripped to the core from her uncharacteristic loss of control earlier.

  She tried to scoot out of bed—or maybe she was pushing him out—but he held her down with one arm and lifted up on the other elbow to look down at her.

  God, he was sexy. His big, perfectly muscled body leaning over her like that. Perfectly muscled naked body. She didn’t want to look—liar!—but it was hard to miss. His shoulders, arms, chest, stomach . . . lower . . . were all in peak condition and top operational form. In other words, he looked like one of those guys in a fitness magazine but with more scars and without the baby oil. He didn’t need oil to emphasize his muscles. Although the sweat was kind of doing the same thing.

  She turned her gaze away harshly.

  He tried to bring her back with a tender brush of her hair from her face. “I know you’re scared to trust this.”

  She jerked away and sat up to grab her shirt. She felt naked—exposed—in more ways than one. “I’m not scared, but you are right. I don’t trust this anymore than I trust you.”

  “I love you, Kate. I’ve never stopped loving you.”

  She didn’t know whether she was angrier with him for tempting her with false promises or with herself for wanting to believe them. “If that is true, then you and I have very different definitions of love.”

  Rather than get angry, he accepted the criticism and the sarcasm. “You’re right. You don’t treat people you love the way I did. But I wasn’t like you, Kate. I didn’t have any good examples to follow when I was growing up. But I’m trying to change. I’m not going to make the same mistake twice. I can’t promise to be perfect, but I can promise to be better. I know I fucked up, and if you need to punish me for the rest of my life, I’ll take it. I’ll take whatever crumbs you want to dole out. Just give me another chance.”

  “Give me another chance.” “That guy.”

  Her stupid heart tugged with treacherous force, even as her temper exploded. She jumped out of bed and turned on him, not caring that her silk blouse barely covered the part of her that was still wet with his semen. They hadn’t used a condom. Not that it mattered—with pregnancy anyway.

  “Are you crazy? After everything that we went through, do you think I can just forgive and forget? No one changes that much, Colt. How can I ever trust you again or believe you would ever trust me? What’s going to happen the next time I have to work with a good-looking guy?”

  His mouth tightened just enough. “I’ll trust you and deal with it.”

  Kate went to her tote bag and pulled out her phone and a file. She held the phone out to him first. “Have you seen the new head of my section? His name is Dan and we’ve been working closely and long into the night on a couple of things.” She smiled, seeing his mouth tighten even more. “Ah, it looks like you recognize him. He was Delta back in the day, wasn’t he?”

  “That asshole was a dog with women,” Colt gritted out between clenched teeth.

  “Same could be said of you before—and after—we married.”

  She didn’t say anything for a minute. She didn’t need to. It was clear he was festering enough on his own. But he gritted his teeth even harder and said, “I wouldn’t like it, but I said I trusted you and I meant it. If you have naked hot-tub parties together and you tell me nothing is going on, I’ll trust you.”

  She quirked a brow at that. Naked hot-tub parties? Right. She didn’t believe that, but it was clear he was going to be stubborn.

  She’d expected that. That was what the file was for. He’d sat up in bed—naked—so when the file landed in his lap it was only partly by chance. That part of him that made her stupid.

  “What’s this?”

  “Read it.”

  He opened