He got an instant mental image of sparkling dark eyes and a mischievous, musical laugh that he still heard sometimes, like a ghost hiding in the far corners of his memories. “There was someone once. Well … there could have been someone. She died a long time ago.”

Jenna’s expression went slack with remorse. “Brock, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make light—”

He shrugged. “No apology necessary. It’s ancient history. A hundred years ago.” Almost literally, he realized, stunned by the fact that so much time had come and gone since his carelessness had cost the life of someone he was supposed to protect.

Jenna drifted back toward him then and seated herself on the edge of the long table near him. “What happened to her?”

“She was murdered. I was working as a bodyguard at the time for her family’s Darkhaven in Detroit. It was my responsibility to keep her safe, but I screwed up. She vanished on my watch. Her body turned up months later, brutalized beyond recognition and thrown in a filthy stretch of river.”

“Oh, my God.” Jenna’s voice was soft, her brow creased with sympathy. “That’s awful.”

“Yeah, it was,” he said, recalling all too well the horror of what had been done to her, before and after she’d been killed. Three months in the water hadn’t made what was left of her any easier to look at.

“I’m sorry,” Jenna said again, and reached out to rest her palm against the bulk of his biceps.

He tried to ignore the sudden flare of awareness that blazed through him at the contact. But attempting to tune out his attraction to her was like telling fire to not be hot. Touch it, and you still got burned. As he was burning now, when he glanced down to where Jenna’s pale hand lingered over his darker skin.

When he lifted his gaze back to hers, he could tell by her subtle, indrawn breath that his eyes were likely alive with sparks of amber light, their transformation betraying his desire for her. She swallowed but didn’t look away.

God help him, she didn’t remove her soft hand from him, either, not even when his low growl of male need curled up from the back of his throat.

Thoughts of what had happened with her just hours earlier in his quarters flooded back to him on a heated wave of recollection. There had been nothing but a few bare inches between them then, as now. Then he’d wondered if Jenna had wanted him to kiss her. He’d been uncertain about her feelings, about the possibility that she might be feeling anything close to the desire he had for her. Now he needed to know with a ferocity that staggered him.

To be sure he wasn’t misreading things, for his own sanity if nothing else, he brought his free hand over and covered her fingers with his. He drew closer to her, coming around the front of her where she leaned her weight against the table.

She didn’t flinch away. Not Jenna. She stared him square in the eyes, confronting him head-on, as he should have expected she would. “I really don’t know how to deal with all of this,” she said softly. “The things that have happened to me since that night in Alaska … all the questions that may never be answered. I can handle that. Somehow, I’ll learn to handle all of that. But you … this …” She glanced down then, only briefly, staring at their connected hands, at their entwined fingers. “I’m not very good at this. My husband has been gone four years. There hasn’t been anyone since. I’ve never been ready for that. I haven’t wanted …”

“Jenna.” Brock stroked the underside of her chin very gently, lifting her face up toward his. “Would it be all right if I kissed you?”

Her lips wobbled into a small smile that he could not resist tasting. He bent his head and kissed her slowly, easing her into it, despite the intensity of his own need.

Although she’d confessed to being out of practice, he would never have known it from the sensual feel of her lips against his. Her kiss, both soft and direct, giving and taking, set him aflame. He stepped in tighter until he was standing between her legs, needing to feel her body pressed to him as he swept his tongue along the velvety seam of her mouth. He ran his hands down her sides, helping her up onto the conference table when her injured thigh began to tremble beneath her.

The kiss had been a mistake on his part. He’d thought he could leave it at that—just a kiss—but now that he’d started with Jenna, he wasn’t sure how he would find the strength to stop.

And from the feel of her in his arms, her pleasured mewls and broken sighs as their kiss ignited into something far more powerful, he was certain that she wanted more of him, too.

Apparently, he couldn’t have been more wrong.

It wasn’t until he felt moisture on his face that he realized she was crying.

“Ah, Jesus,” he hissed, backing off at once and feeling like an ass when he saw her tearstained cheeks. “I’m sorry. If I was pushing you too fast …”

She shook her head, clearly miserable, but she wouldn’t speak.

“Tell me I didn’t hurt you, Jenna.”

“Damn it.” She sucked in a hitching sob. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry, it’s my fault. I never should have let you—”

The words broke off, and then she was pushing him away from her, scrambling out from under him and all but running for the corridor.

Brock stood there for a second, every part of him tight and aching, raw with need. He should let her go. Chalk this up to a disaster narrowly averted, and put the all-too-tempting Jenna Darrow out of his mind.

Yeah, that’s exactly what he should do, and he damned well knew it.

But by the time the thought had formed, he was already halfway up the corridor, following the soft sounds of Jenna’s weeping back to his former quarters.

CHAPTER

Thirteen

Jenna felt like the biggest coward—the biggest damned fraud—as she fled up the corridor, sucking back tears. She’d let Brock think she didn’t want him. Probably made him believe he’d been forcing himself on her in some way with that kiss, when it had nearly melted her into a puddle on the conference room table. She had let him worry that he’d done something wrong, possibly even hurt her somehow, and that was the most unfair thing of all.

Yet she couldn’t stop running, needing to put distance between them with a determination that bordered on desperate. He made her feel too much. Things she wasn’t prepared for. Things she craved so deeply but didn’t deserve.

And so she ran, as terrified as she’d ever been and hating the cowardice that pushed her each step of the way. By the time she reached her quarters, she was shaking and breathless, tears streaming in hot trails down her cheeks.

“Jenna.”

The sound of his deep voice behind her was like a caress of warmth against her skin. She turned to face him, astonished by the speed and silence that had brought him there not even a second after she’d arrived. Then again, he wasn’t human. Not really a man at all—a fact she had to remind herself of when he was standing so near, the sheer size of him, the raw intensity of his dark gaze, speaking to everything that was woman inside her.

Her mouth still smoldered from his kiss. Her pulse was still thrumming heavily, heat still kindling deep into the core of her body.

As if he knew this, Brock moved closer. He reached out to her, took her hand in his, saying nothing. There was no need for words. Despite her slowing tears and the tremble of her limbs, she couldn’t hide the desire she felt for him.

She didn’t resist as he drew her nearer, into the heat of his body. Into the comfort of his arms. “I’m scared,” she whispered, words that didn’t come easy to her, and never had.

His eyes locked on hers, he gently stroked the side of her face. “You don’t have to be afraid of me. I won’t hurt you, Jenna.”