Read Zach's Law for Free Online

answered it honestly, warmed by his concern and concentrating on just getting the words out. “I’ve never had a reason to worry about that. But it’s all right, I think—it’s the wrong time.”
    If she’d had the breath, she would have confided that the women in her family had difficulty in conceiving, anyway, and that her doctor had warned her she would probably have the same difficulty. But she didn’t have the breath or the patience to explain about that.
    “Zach …” Something was wrong, she realized. He was lifting his head, staring down at her with something wild in his eyes.
    “What are you saying?” he asked tightly.
    She looked at him, a chill of bewilderment cooling her passion. “I—that it’s all right.”
    “You said you’d never had to worry about it before. Why?” he bit out.
    Teddy could feel the hard tension in the nape of his neck, tension her fingers instinctively tried—and failed—to ease. “I never had a reason to,” she confessed finally, her voice small and husky.
    “You’re a virgin?” he demanded bluntly.
    “Does it matter?” It was an answer.
    Zach abruptly pulled away and jerked into a sitting position, his broad back turned to her. “Hell, yes, it matters!” he snapped violently. “I want you, Teddy, but I’ll be damned if I’ll be the first man you take to your bed.”
    “Actually, it’s your bed,” she murmured, drawing her shirt closed with trembling fingers and hastily fastening her jeans before she sat up.
    He threw one searing look over his shoulder at her, a scornful refusal to respond to that.
    Teddy was coping fiercely with the coldness of rejection, even as she tried to understand what had caused it. Her pride was spared the possibility that it was lack of desire on his part, so it was either her virginity or their lack of protection. And since it was something she could explain away, Teddy chose the latter, even though she had a hollow feeling that wasn’t it.
    “I wouldn’t get pregnant, Zach. The women in my family have been lucky to produce even one child each generation, going back over a hundred years. It’s … it’s a chemical thing or … or something.”
    He said nothing.
    She buttoned her shirt slowly, staring at his broad, tense back. Oddly enough, she didn’t feel self-conscious, and there was no regret at all for what had almost happened. Only that it hadn’t. Her body still ached for him. And Teddy, though Zach couldn’t know it—yet—was a very tenacious lady. So she concentrated on getting to the bottom of this.
    “Afraid I’d yell rape to the police?” she asked lightly.
    “No.”
    “Well, that’s something, anyway. What, then, Zach? Afraid I’d hang around your neck forever because you’d be my first lover? Is that it?”
    Zach refused to look at her. He was holding on to control with every muscle and gritted teeth, and only his certain knowledge of the dangers inherent in their situation allowed him that fragile command. His body pulsed heavily and his heart was still pounding against his ribs, but his mind was cold and clear.
    He wouldn’t go through it again. He
wouldn’t
.
    “Zach?”
    But if that wasn’t it, he thought, then maybe … “Why me?” he asked harshly. “Just tell me.”
    She hesitated, licking her dry lips, sensing her answer to his question was terribly important. And she didn’t know the answer heneeded to hear. “Because … I want you. Because I’ve never felt that way before. Because I—oh, dammit, Zach, what d’you want me to say?”
    They had known each other less than twelve hours. Zach knew he had been right.
    “You’ve said it.” He reached down for his shirt, then rose quickly and shrugged into it, striding toward the door. “If I catch you outside this cabin,” he said, “I’ll turn you over my knee.”
    Angry and bewildered, she snapped, “If I were into that sort of thing, I’d take you up on it!”
    He turned at the door, his face hard and remote, a