Deeper Than Need (44 page)

He crossed the floor to her, his boots thudding on the floor, his heart thudding against his chest and his breath still coming in harsh, uneven rasps.

He reached up and pulled the glasses off and waited for her to do something, say something.

She
should
, he thought. She
would
. She wasn’t one of the women who came to him for this, who know what he was …

Suddenly shame twisted in him.

Rita had needed just that from last night. Comfort. A friend in the night. If he’d let her turn to him, maybe she’d be alive. But he hadn’t been able to give it to her and now she was gone.

And he didn’t
care
. Oh, he cared about the fact that his friend was gone, but instead of mourning her like he knew he should, what he wanted to do was just reach for this woman and have what he’d wanted, needed all these years. As he worried, as he’d wondered, as he’d needed and prayed and tried to lose himself in everybody but the woman he wanted.

Adam looked down, stared at the glasses he held.
Walk away
. He needed to do that.

He needed to walk away, if for no other reason than because he needed to be able to live with himself in the morning. He was used to being used. He used plenty of women. He had to do something to numb the pain, smother the guilt. But he couldn’t use her—she was the source of his pain, his guilt, his need … his everything. And it would kill something inside him if she just wanted to use him.

Swallowing the bitter ache that had settled in his throat, he blindly shoved the glasses at her.

She caught his hands. One gently took the glasses.

The other curved over his wrist.

He stared, mesmerized as she slid a hand up his forearm, pausing to scrape her nail along one of the chain links he’d inked onto his skin over the years. His skin burned under her touch.
Walk away … walk …

Only he didn’t know if he could. Not now. He would lose all self-respect in the morning, but he had so little left anyway, what did it matter? It would kill something inside him, but there wasn’t anything there worth saving.

As she slid her hand higher, over his bicep to grip his shoulder, he wanted to growl, push her back up against the wall and rock against her. Feel the softness and the curves and the strength and the heat.

“You had a lousy day, I think,” she murmured.

He jerked his head up, staring into her eyes.

A sad smile curved her lips.

Sympathy.

This was sympathy.

Somehow she knew about Rita.

Stupid ass. She doesn’t want you,
a sly, ugly voice inside him whispered.
She never did. She had somebody else back then … somebody better. All she wants to do is pat you on the head and give you stupid, empty words.

And being the desperate fool that he was, he would take it. He knew. If she wanted to rock him and hug him and just let him cry his eyes out while she held him, he’d take that and be pathetically grateful.

He had no pride when it came to her. He’d take anything she would give him.

The only thing that kept him from grabbing at her was the fact that he didn’t know how he’d hold himself together when she left.

Looking past her shoulder, he stared out the window into the dark night. “Yeah. You … I guess you heard about Rita.”

“Yeah. I hid in the coffee shop.” She eased a little closer and slid her arms around his waist, resting her head on his chest.

She fit there.

He closed his eyes and tried not to let himself relax, to cuddle her closer to him and breathe her in and lose himself in her. He needed that, so much. But that wasn’t his to take.
She
wasn’t his to take.

So he kept his hands at his sides, kept his body locked in a rigid line and just shrugged. “The whole damn town’s gone crazy the past few months.”

“The past few months, Adam?” She tipped her head back to stare up at him. “You think this just started a few months ago? No.”

She pulled back and turned back to stare out the window. “This has all been a long time coming. And there’s going to be a reckoning.”

Those words filled him with foreboding. And because the want in him, the heat, the hunger, the love he’d felt for her all his life had to be denied, it tripped out of him in a rage he just couldn’t silence. “Yeah?” A snarl curled his lip and he watched as she turned to look at him. “Why don’t you just tell me about that, sugar?”

*   *   *

The rage wasn’t exactly unexpected.

But how he’d gone from raw misery to raw rage in the blink of an eye caught her off-guard.

“I don’t think I’m ready to talk about that yet.” She turned away from him but hadn’t taken even a step before she was spun back around. Instinct warred with fury and logic and compassion. Muscles bunched, clenched, ready to strike out, but she didn’t do anything as he loomed over her, his face all but lost in the shadow.

“
When
are you going to talk?” he murmured, reaching up and pushing a hand into her hair.

Her skin prickled at his touch.

She looked away from him, away from the intensity of his eyes and tried to breathe. It had gotten hard in the past few seconds. Probably had something to do with how hot it had suddenly gotten, or maybe the fact that her heart had short-circuited and was racing about two hundred beats a minute.

The hand in her hair tightened as he tugged, guiding her gaze back to his. “No answers?” The smile on his face was just this side of cruel. “Why am I not surprised?”

“I can’t give you answers I don’t have, Adam,” she said, keeping her voice level.

And took her gaze off his mouth.

She really, really wanted to feel that mouth against hers. All of a sudden, it seemed very important, like the center of her world. It might even be the most important thing
in
the world at that very moment.

“What can you give me?” he asked, his voice low.

She was imagining the need in his voice. Imagining it because she
wanted
to hear it there. Except when she forced herself
not
to look at his mouth, she noticed that he was looking at hers.

Hunger lashed at her like a whip and she curled her hands into fists to keep from reaching for him.

“What do you want?” she asked, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

His lids drooped low.

Silence hung between them, heavy, taut, sharp as a blade. Then, as it stretched out for almost longer than she could bear it, he reached up and rested his hand on her hip. “I want things I shouldn’t. I always did.”

His thumb slid beneath the hem of her T-shirt and she could feel her breathing hitch in her chest. This was insane, the way she wanted.

This was insane, the way she needed.

But then again, she’d taken one look at him behind the bar and she’d wanted. Each second since then seemed to draw that need even tighter and now, standing there, practically surrounded by him, she felt like she was coiled like a spring, just ready to snap.

Maybe it was stupid. Maybe it was insane.

And she didn’t care.

She’d been
careful
for too long.

She could have one damn night where she didn’t have to worry about anything and everything, couldn’t she?

Slowly, she lifted one hand and rested it on his chest. Through the thin material of the shirt he wore, she could feel the heat of him and it scalded her. His heart hammered against her palm, hard, fast beats that seemed to echo the rhythm of her own. Swallowing, she dragged her eyes upward and found herself caught in his gaze. Caught, held.

“What do you want?” she asked softly.

He just stared at her.

And when she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his, he held still. Almost like he was frozen. But she felt the hunger, like it was a beast, snarling from within. It practically vibrated inside him and she pressed closer, desperate to unleash that hunger and just
feel
.

To let go for a little while and have somebody else—no. Not somebody else.

To have
Adam
with her while they both enjoyed the ride.

She stroked her tongue across his lips and he just stood there.

She caught his lower lip between her teeth, tugged and he just stood there.

She kissed her way across his cheek, his jawbone and down his neck. He just stood there. His pulse raced under her touch, but he didn’t do anything. Didn’t even show any sign that he wanted her.

Other than the fact that she could
feel
it.

Doubt started to whisper inside her and she went to pull back.

That
was when he moved.

NOVELLAS ALSO BY SHILOH WALKER

Burn for Me

Break for Me

Long for Me

Available from St. Martin’s Press

A
BOUT THE
A
UTHOR

Shiloh Walker
has been writing since she was a kid. She loves reading and writing anything paranormal, anything fantasy, and nearly every kind of romance. Once upon a time she worked as a nurse, but now she writes full time and lives with her family in the Midwest. She has authored dozens of works of romantic suspense, contemporary and paranormal romance, and urban fantasy under the name J.C. Daniels. Visit her on the Web at
www.shilohwalker.com
to learn more.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

DEEPER THAN NEED

Copyright © 2014 by Shiloh Walker.

Excerpt from
Sweeter Than Sin
copyright © 2014 by Shiloh Walker.

Credits © Patricia Schmitt (Picky Me)

All rights reserved.

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St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / June 2014

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