RaeAnne Thayne - Intimate Surrender

It sounded lonely, mournful, and she shivered despite the sweater Ivy had sent her for Christmas from her new husband’s country of Lantanya, where Max was king.

The lantern gave off enough light that Peter must have seen her reaction. “Everything okay? Do you need to sit down?”

She knew the concern in his voice was just the courtesy he would show anyone but she couldn’t help being warmed by it. She had a feeling he wouldn’t be so solicitous if he knew the secret she carried under that sweater, though.

“No. The cold just took me by surprise, that’s all. The generator is this way.”

With the lantern held out in front of her, she carefully navigated through the mudroom to the utility porch that housed the home’s utilities—the furnace, water heater and the backup generator. The large room was vented with outside air for safety reasons and Katie found it even colder here than in the kitchen, so cold she could see her breath in the dim light she held in her hand.

“Any idea where to start?” Peter asked.

“Clint told me he left instructions.” She held the lantern up higher and scanned the room.

“This what you were looking for?” Peter asked, plucking a clipboard from a nail near the generator. He handed it to her and she saw several laminated cards secured neatly to it.

“I’ll say this for the man—he doesn’t have much to say but he’s an absolute genius at organization.” Katie leafed through the cards until she found guidelines for the gas-fired generator, beneath a page detailing how to relight the pilot on the furnace and one for checking the heating oil level on the outside tank.

“Here we go.” She studied the instructions, smiling a little at Clint’s meticulousness. “This doesn’t look bad.”

She reached to replace the clipboard on the nail but misjudged the distance in the dim light and stumbled a little against the wall. The back of her hand scraped across the nail, hard enough to break the skin, and Katie couldn’t contain a quick intake of breath.

“What’s wrong?”

It was silly, she knew, but she suddenly didn’t want Peter to know she was the world’s biggest klutz. She might have been blessed with brains by some genetic quirk, but she had definitely been passed over when it came to grace and poise.

She had always been the most accident-prone of her siblings. If there was one thing worse than being fat and ugly in a family of beautiful people, it was being fat and ugly and clumsy.

Peter already thought she had some deadly disease. He didn’t need to know about this.

“Um, nothing,” she murmured, tucking her hand against her side. “I’m fine.”

“You’re lying.” He sounded more resigned than angry, as if he expected nothing else. “You might as well tell me what happened.”

Her hand throbbed wickedly and she could feel blood beginning to drip from it. She wouldn’t be able to hide it from him for long and she suddenly felt foolish for trying. “Just a scratch. It’s nothing.”

“Let me see.”

She recognized the CEO in his voice, that unmistakable note of command. Her father had it and now Trent shared it in spades. She had spent her entire life surrounded by powerful men, she suddenly realized. With all that experience, why wasn’t she better at dealing with them?

With a weary sigh, she thrust out her hand. Peter took the lantern from her and set it on top of the furnace, then gripped her hand and tugged it under the circle of light.

“It doesn’t look very deep,” he decided after studying it for a few moments.

“I told you it was just a scratch.”

“Still, you’ll need to put something on it.”

“Can it wait until we’re finished here, Dr. Logan?”

“I hope your tetanus shot is up to date. That nail looked a little rusty.”

Someone with her inherent klutziness would be foolish not to keep current with her shots. Her last tetanus booster had been the previous summer after an unfortunate encounter with a conch shell on her brother Danny’s Hawaii retreat.

“Don’t worry, you’re not going to be trapped in the middle of a blizzard with someone suffering from lockjaw.”

“Well, at least I’ve got that much going for me. I guess things really could be worse.”

His dry tone surprised a laugh from her. Not much of one, she had to admit, but a laugh nonetheless.

He smiled in automatic response, his teeth gleaming in the artificial light. They stood close together under the pool of light spilling from the lantern. He still held her hand, and his fingers were warm and hard on her skin.

His gaze met hers for a moment and suddenly she could think of nothing except their night together, how they had laughed at nothing and kissed and laughed some more.

Everything inside her seemed to clench at the memory, a long, slow tightening of muscle and nerves. She saw something kindle in his eyes, something hot and wild and dangerous.

Before she realized it, she swayed a little toward him, then caught herself just in time. Horrified at her response, she wrenched her hand out of his grasp and stepped back so quickly she nearly stumbled again.

“We’d better get this thing fired up.”

For a moment, he only stared at her with an odd look in his dark eyes—a combination of awareness and a baffled sort of anger. “Right,” he finally muttered. “The wind sounds like it’s kicking up a notch.”

To her vast relief, he turned his attention to the generator. It was a little trickier than Clint’s instructions had led her to believe, but soon they had it going and switched the power current over to the generator.

Despite the tension simmering through the room and the pain still throbbing from her finger, she felt like Benjamin Franklin with his kite and his key when the lights flickered back on.

She grinned. “Bingo.”

He gazed at her for a charged moment, that strange expression in his eyes again. She waited for him to say something but he continued to watch her, as if he couldn’t quite figure her out.

She cleared her throat. “Would you like something to eat? Margie left a pot of beef stew on the stove for me that’s probably still hot and she made fresh rolls this morning. It’s probably not what you’re used to, but she’s a wonderful cook.”

“Let’s take care of that cut of yours first.”

She absolutely did not want him touching her again, not when she couldn’t stop remembering how his body had felt inside her, how his mouth had explored her skin.

“I’ve got it. You could add another log to the fire, though, and turn off any lights and nonessential electronics throughout the house. We’ll need to conserve what generator power we have. Here, take the lantern. I’ve got another one in my bedroom.”

He nodded and held out his hand. Their fingers brushed as they exchanged the light, and tiny sparks jumped between them. Just static electricity, she told herself.

They returned to the kitchen together, then split up as she headed for her bedroom suite. She left the overhead light on long enough to locate another battery-powered emergency lantern in her closet, switched it off and carried the lantern to the bathroom to get first-aid supplies.

While she rummaged through the medicine cabinet for a bandage and antibiotic ointment and washed the blood off her hand, she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror above the sink. She looked horrendous. Her hair was spiky and windblown from her time outside earlier and she hadn’t bothered with makeup. Her eyes looked unnaturally huge in her pale face and her mouth had a pinched, sickly look to it.

No wonder Peter looked at her like he couldn’t quite believe Katie Crosby and the glamorous Celeste could be the same person.

She could scarcely believe it herself. She had been playing a part that night, a thrilling masquerade. Stuck alone here with her, Peter would see the real her. The boring, sensible Kate who wore long underwear and read dry technical manuals and who would never dream of going home with a handsome man and making love all night long.