Free Wild Rain by Christine Feehan Page B

answered him.
    She tried to turn her head away from him and remain silent. This time he had her face in his hands, holding her still, locking her gaze to his.
    “You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen. Your eyelashes are long. Why do men always get beautiful eyelashes?”
    She had a way of throwing him off balance, disturbing his tranquility. He found it so exasperating he wanted to shake her. “Do you know how stupid that sounds?” he demanded. “Look at me, woman. I have scars all over me. My nose has been broken twice. I look like a damned murderer, not some pretty boy.” The minute the words left his mouth, he regretted them. Damned murderer hung in the air between them. His teeth snapped together and he turned his head away from her enormous eyes, swearing silently over and over.
    “Rio?” Her voice was soft. “I can see the pain in your eyes. Did I do that? Did I hurt you in some way? I don’t like hurting anyone, least of all you. What did I say?”
    He raked his fingers through his shaggy hair. “Of course you have to be perfectly lucid right at this moment. Why is that, Rachael? Two seconds ago you were so far out of it you didn’t know your own name.”
    He looked so tortured her heart turned over. “Did someone accuse you of murder?”
    Her gaze moved over his face, examining every inch— all-seeing eyes. He was certain she could see into his soul. Fierce anger smoldered, held deep where it couldn’t be seen, burst free, a raging holocaust he couldn’t prevent. She should have been afraid. He was afraid. He knew what he could do with that kind of rage, but her expression was compassionate, almost loving. Her uninjured hand went to his face, fingertips trailing over his lips, sliding around his neck so that she was cradling his head, offering, what? He didn’t know. Sympathy? Love? Her body? Tenderness?
    He ignored his first impulse to slap her hand away from him. He couldn’t take her looking at him like that. He caught her fingers instead, pulling her palm to his bare chest, over his wildly beating heart. “You don’t know the first thing about me, Rachael. You shouldn’t look at me like that.” He didn’t know what he felt, a mixture of anger and pain and ferocious longing. Damn it all, he was over that. Over wanting. Over needing.
    “You don’t make sense to me.” His voice deepened, sounded almost ragged. “Nothing about you makes sense. Why aren’t you afraid of me?”
    She blinked. Those huge chocolate eyes, so dark they were nearly black, eyes a man could get lost in. “I am afraid of you.”
    “Now you’re humoring me.”
    “No, really, I’m afraid of you.” Her eyes widened in earnest honesty.
    “Well, damn it all, why would you be afraid of me when I’ve taken care of you and given up my bed for you?”
    “You didn’t give up your bed. You still sleep in it,” she pointed out.
    “There isn’t anywhere else to sleep,” he said.
    “There’s the floor.”
    “You want me to sleep on the floor? Do you have any idea how uncomfortable the floor would be?”
    “What a baby. I thought you were a he-man.” She smirked at him. “Be careful of losing your bad-boy image.”
    “And what about insects and snakes?”
    “Snakes?” She looked around her cautiously. “What kind of snakes? You have kitty cats for friends. I’m hoping you say friendly snakes.”
    His mouth softened but he kept from smiling with a small effort. “I haven’t known too many friendly snakes.”
    “Where did your kitties come from? And how come they aren’t trained to meet guests properly?”
    “I trained them to run off the neighbors. I hate it when they drop in unannounced.”
    A lock of midnight black hair fell across his forehead. Without thinking, Rachael brushed it back with her fingertips. “You need someone to look after you.” The moment the words were out of her mouth she was mortified. She couldn’t seem to censor her tongue with him. Every random thought just popped