Hot as Sin (Hot Shots: Men of Fire #2)(36)
Author: Bella Andre

Desire tightened around him with each word. He never should have kissed her. Never should have told her that he couldn’t stop himself from wanting her.

“No,” he said, acting instinctively to stop the pull. “You and I were over ten years ago. We’re here to find April. That’s it.”

He watched her flinch at his hard words, but instead of telling him he was a jerk like any other woman would have, she took a step closer.

“I wanted it just as much as you did,” she said, refusing to back down, to take no for an answer. “After everything we talked about last night and this morning, I think we agree that we’re different people now. We both lived through the miscarriage. We lived through the breakup. I know why you acted the way you did. And you know why I acted the way I did.”

Another step closer.

“I’ve never cared about another man, Sam. Only you.”

So close that he could reach out and pull her into a kiss.

“Tell me you love someone else—tell me you’ve loved anyone else like you loved me—and I’ll drop it.”

He knew the lie he needed to tell to shut her down forever, but standing on the banks of the Colorado River with her sweet scent lingering on his fingers, he just couldn’t do it.

“There isn’t anybody else,” he admitted. “There’s never been anyone else.”

Her eyes flashed hope, and he forced himself to say, “But whether we’ve loved other people doesn’t matter, Dianna. This is still a bad idea.”

He watched as she pulled back her shoulders, straightened her spine, and tilted her chin, gearing up for a battle.

“You say we were over ten years ago, but you touch me like we’re just getting started,” she challenged. “Give me one good reason we shouldn’t try again.”

Fuck. Thus far he’d been able to keep his period of self-destruction buried. But she’d never drop the notion of getting back together, of trying again, if he didn’t lay everything on the line.

“When you left—”

Shit, sacrificing his pride was harder than he’d thought it would be.

“I fought every goddamned fire this side of the Mississippi, but I just couldn’t get over you.”

She took another step closer, coming only inches away. “I couldn’t get over you either, Sam.”

He held up a hand to halt her forward momentum. “You asked for a reason and I’m giving you one. You went to San Francisco and grabbed a better life with both hands. I almost threw mine away.”

Confusion furrowed her brows. “What are you talking about? You’re still a hotshot. Still living in Tahoe surrounded by your friends, your crew, and your brother.”

“I almost lost it all, Dianna. I jumped straight into a black hole, wanted it to swallow me up.”

Shaking her head as if nothing he was saying made sense, she said, “I don’t get it. What do you mean, black hole?”

He ran his hands through his hair, hating every second of soul baring. He would have happily given up a limb instead.

“After you left, I reverted to the same place I was in during high school. But worse. More drinking. More all-nighters. Waking up and not knowing where I was. Skipping out on the rest of the crew. Not showing up for fires and working half-assed and hungover when I managed to get up the mountain.”

Understanding suddenly flooded her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she said, “sorry about everything.” Her eyes clouded with regret. “When I look back now, I can see what a scared, confused eighteen-year-old kid I was,” she admitted softly. “If I’d known what was going to happen, what leaving would do to both of us, I never would have …” She let the rest of her sentence fall away, saying instead, “You can’t beat yourself up for one bad choice, Sam.”

“It wasn’t one bad choice, it was a hundred bad choices. If it weren’t for Connor …”

He didn’t bother to finish his sentence. He’d saved her once, but she’d left him anyway. Maybe she’d only needed him to get away from her mother and out of the trailer park. Maybe not.

Either way, odds were, as soon as they found April, this rush of adrenaline—a rush that felt like desire and love—would dissipate.

And she’d walk away from him again.

“Look, I get why you’re thinking about second chances. You’ve survived two big accidents. But you were right when you said that we’ve changed. We’re in two different worlds now.”

Her eyes were flashing and he knew he was hurting her again with his harsh words, but it was better to sever the thin thread that remained between them now, rather than the mess of trying to untangle themselves later.

Climbing back into the raft, he said, “You ready to get going again? We don’t want to waste any more time.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

IT WAS only Dianna’s years of learning to keep calm in front of the camera no matter what her guest was doing or saying that enabled her to steadily hold Sam’s gaze after he’d ripped her to shreds.

But on the inside, she was in pieces. Just as she’d been the day she’d left Lake Tahoe.

He was the only man who’d ever made her break her vow to depend only on herself. She couldn’t let herself do it again.

Take their conversation during lunch, for example. He’d gotten her to talk freely about April, about her career, but then when it was his turn to share, he’d clammed up and held her at arm’s length.

It hurt like hell to watch him be so guarded, to know that he didn’t want to trust her with what was in his heart. Yes, she now saw that she’d betrayed his trust all those years ago by leaving. But she’d been young and scared and stupid. Was her behavior as an eighteen-year-old really enough of an excuse for him to keep pushing her away?

She didn’t trust herself to speak as she climbed on to her side of the raft. They paddled for another thirty minutes in silence without any other disasters, but the small comfort zone they’d found during their lunch on the riverbank had been blown to smithereens by the sexual encounter and then their very unsatisfactory post-makeout discussion.

A short while later, Sam steered them back over to the edge of the river.

“This is as far as we go by water.”

She got off the raft, and as it deflated, he methodically laid out an overwhelming array of rock-climbing gear. Looking up at the quartz slab, which had to be several stories high, she was newly shaken.