Read Darkness Bound for Free Online Page B

look of shock on his face was absolutely priceless.
    Straddling him, Jack tossed her hair to the side, leaned down, and kissed him.
    His reaction was so strange.
    First he dug his fingers into her hips. He inhaled sharply, leaned up into her, and kissed her back as if he were starving and she were a ten-course meal, but then broke away just as the kiss deepened in intensity. He stared at the bedside table as if he couldn’t bear to meet her eyes.
    Jack turned his face to hers with a gentle finger on his jaw. They stared at each other silently for a moment, and his gaze was wary, strangely conflicted. With a little twist of bittersweet recognition, Jack understood.
    “It’s too personal,” she whispered. “Right?”
    She’d shocked him again. She saw it in the sudden, unmistakable darkness in his eyes, in the way his entire body tensed beneath her.
    An unexpected rush of tenderness filled the normally hollow space inside her chest. Tenderness for him and for humankind in general, for all the ways people had to compromise themselves to survive because life was such a cruel, cold bitch. What terrible circumstance would drive such a beautiful man—an obviously intelligent man—to sell himself like this? He could probably be a supermodel if he’d wanted to, but here he was, in bed with a total stranger for some undisclosed sum, whoring himself out for a buck.
    Really, all jokes aside, how sad was that?
    Jack abruptly felt dirty, and ashamed. She spread her hand over his cheek, seeing him in a totally new light. He wasn’t just a hot piece of man ass. He was a person .
    A person she’d just used.
    Hating that her sense of morality had chosen this particular moment to make an appearance, she muttered, “Well, shit.”
    Jack swung her leg over and awkwardly climbed off him. She sat facing away from him on the edge of the bed, her arms wrapped around her waist, wanting nothing more than to take a shower, get dressed, and run out of this room, never to return.
    Looking at the wall, she said, “It’s okay. I understand. In fact, we can just . . . this was great, but you don’t have to finish the whole . . . you know. We can stop now.”
    Silence. His gaze on her back, tangible as touch. Then he said, “Wait—are you feeling sorry for me?”
    Like she thought: smart. Or at least not totally dense.
    But she didn’t have time to ponder that because she found herself flat on her back on the bed again with a furious Hawk staring down at her, both her wrists clamped in his hands and pressed down to the pillows, his body heavy and hard atop hers, pinning her down.
    “Don’t you dare feel sorry for me!” he snarled, his voice and face filled with barely leashed fury.
    Her stomach tightened with the simultaneous realizations that he was a lot bigger than her, he was dangerously angry, and this had the potential to get ugly, fast.
    She glanced over at her snub-nosed revolver on the dresser near the door, where Hawk had tossed it with a laugh when he’d discovered it tucked into the waistband of her pants. He’d murmured an amused, “Annie Oakley, hmm?” and tore off the rest of her clothes, and she hadn’t bothered to think it might be wiser to keep it somewhere within reach—
    “Forget about the damn gun, Red! I’m talking, and you’re gonna pay attention. If you still want to shoot me after I’ve said my piece, I won’t try and stop you.”
    Despite the strangeness of that statement, it made her feel a little better. She bit her lower lip and stared up at him, waiting.
    He spat, “I wasn’t some neglected child of alcoholics who grew into an adult with no self-esteem and a drug problem, or whatever other stupid idea you assume must be the reason I’m in this room with you right now. I know exactly what I’m doing—I always have and I always will. I only do something if I want to do it, and this is what I wanted, or it wouldn’t have happened. No matter what circumstances brought us together, I’m. In.