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was try to save your brother from me. And you succeeded."
"Beyond my wildest dreams," he said coldly, lifting the cigarette to his lips. "I ruined both your
lives."
She could hardly believe what she was hearing. He sounded bitter, anguished. "What could you
have done that would have changed anything?" she asked calmly. "I would never have married Bruce.
I didn't love him, and he knew it."
He glanced at her. "Maybe if I hadn't made a dead set at you, he'd have had a chance."
She shook her head firmly. "Not that way."
His eyes held hers for an instant before they returned to the road. "Didn't you ever want him?"
"Not physically. He was good fun; a nice, undemanding companion. I didn't want affairs, like some
of the girls did. The fact that he had money never made him any more special to me. I like making my
own way." She leaned her head against the seat and studied his uneven features quietly. "At least you
never suspected me of being a gold-digger."
"I knew better," he said with a faint smile. "I tried to buy you off at first, if you remember. You took
the check straight to Bruce and handed it to him in front of me. That cured me."
"And surprised you, I guess."
He nodded. "I'd thought I had you pegged. And I never really knew you at all." He turned onto the
long ranch road that led back to Staghorn, down a driveway that boasted rough wood fenceposts,
electrified fencing and mesquite groves everywhere among bare, leafless trees. "I thought you'd been
to bed with half-a-dozen men. I got the shock of my life that night."
She felt her face growing warm. They shared such intimate memories, for two old enemies.
"Erin, why did you give in to me?" he asked unexpectedly. "You must have suspected what I was
doing."
She looked at him, admiring the play of muscles in his arms as he manipulated the car along the dirt
road. "Yes," she replied after a moment. "I suspected it."
"Then why give in? Were you really so trusting that you didn't realize what I had in mind?"
"I was too far gone to care," she said quietly, avoiding his suddenly piercing gaze. "I'd never felt
like that with a man. I didn't want you to stop. By the time I was fully aware of what I was doing, it
was much too late to say no."
"I would have stopped if you'd asked me, all the same," he said, jerking the wheel as he turned up
toward the house.
"You couldn't have."
He pulled up at the front steps and turned to her. "I could have," he said firmly. "I wasn't that far
gone until the last few seconds."
Her face went beet red as he looked at her, because she remembered those last few seconds with
shocking clarity.
"You pulled me down to you," he said in a tone that was husky and deep, and unfamiliar. "I knew
that your body was rejecting me, and why, and I was just starting to pull back. And you reached up to
my hips and dug those long, exquisite nails into me, and I was lost."
Her breath caught in her throat. She tried to reply and failed, and he touched her lips with the very
tip of his finger, probing them delicately apart so he could see the pearly whiteness of her teeth.
"I didn't even give you pleasure," he continued roughly. "I took you, used you, and you should have
hated me for it. But you didn't. Your eyes were like velvet-so soft that I got lost in them. And I wanted
to do it again, to try and make it right. But I started thinking about Bruce, and some things he'd
said...and I was afraid to trust you. So I fed you a lot of bull about ruining you with Bruce and ran you
off."
Her eyes widened, darkened. "You...really wanted me, didn't you?" she asked gently.
"Until you were an obsession," he replied, his voice low and slightly harsh. "You were so
beautiful, Erin. Any man would have died to have you."
Then, perhaps, she thought. But not now, not with her scars and her limp and her lack of
confidence. She averted her eyes. "Those days are over now," she said dully. "I'm not the same
person."
"Aren't you? You could be, if you wanted to."
"With my scars?" Her voice broke, and she jerked away from him, wounded. Her eyes sparked at
his puzzled face. "You wanted me when I was beautiful; you wanted me because Bruce did. But now
I'm crippled and hurt, and you feel sorry for me. That's the only reason you're even tolerating me, Ty!
You were my enemy from the first day we met. Even then, you looked at me as if you hated me!"
Of course he had, he mused, searching her cold face. He'd wanted her. Needed her. It had all been
a defense against being hurt himself. He'd fought her because he wanted her so much, and he knew in
his heart that she'd never want someone like him. But he couldn't tell her that. He couldn't let her
know how vulnerable he'd been.
"So you're crippled," he said easily, brutally. "And apparently you like being that way, and feeling
sorry for yourself, because you're not making any effort to change it. I guess you want to live under my
roof and depend on me for every crumb you eat for the rest of your life, is that right?"
It was a calculated risk-it might send her into spasms of weeping, for which he'd hate himself. But
he was betting it would have the opposite effect.
It did. Her eyes began to blaze. Her face went white with pent-up fury. She swung at him
immediately, and he caught her wrist with her hand just a fraction of an inch from his jaw.
He jerked, pulling her across the wide seat and into his hard arms, and held her against him
relentlessly.
"You...!" She struggled frantically until her own sharp movements brought pain. Then she stiffened,
feeling the knifelike stab in her hip, and gasped.
"See what you get?" he chided. He held her with one arm while his lean hand massaged the
throbbing hip through the thick corduroy of her dark slacks. "Does that help?"
"Stop it," she muttered, spitting out a strand of hair that had worked its way between her lips. "Oh,
I do hate you, Tyson Radley Wade!"
His pale eyes kindled. "I didn't know you knew my middle name."
She shifted, grimacing as his kneading freed the tense muscles from their cramp. "I saw...your birth
certificate...with Bruce's when we were looking at the family album one night."
His hand was less therapeutic now than blatantly caressing. He moved it slowly over her hip,
watching her face curiously. "Odd that you'd remember something like that, seeing how much you hate
me," he murmured.
"Ty..."
"That's how you said my name," he breathed, bending, "when I touched you for the first time. You
moaned it, just like that, and the blood rushed into my head like fire."
"I didn't...moan it," she whispered. His mouth was almost against hers, and she stared at its hard,
thin curve as if hypnotized. She didn't want him to kiss her. It was too soon; there had been too much
pain....
But he was already doing it. His hard mouth caught hers roughly and took it, possessed it. He
groaned, jerking her breasts close against his chest, crushing her mouth feverishly under the hardness
of his.
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