Edge of Hunger by Rhyannon Byrd Read Free Book Online

surrounded by ravenous predators and still have remained oblivious to the danger, her entire focus centered on the hard, beautiful bulk of Ian Buchanan.
    "Answer me." The harshness of his gritty tone made her flinch. The soft glow of light glinted off the broad width of his shoulders, his skin gleaming like bunched satin, and yet, he was completely untouchable. Like a wild, caged animal. Beautiful, but deadly.
    Molly looked away and drew an unsteady breath. "I didn't want..."
    "What?" he snapped, the word lashing with whipcord strength.
    A self-conscious shrug rolled across her shoulders, her eyes still focused on a distant patch of his kitchen floor. "I didn't want you to...leave me there alone." The confession slipped from her lips without any direction from her brain, startling and unintended. She wanted to snatch back the telling, vulnerable words, but it was too late. He was already absorbing them, working them over in his mind, that dark blue gaze zeroed in on her with ruthless, uncompromising intensity when she sneaked a quick peek at him from beneath her lashes.
    "Tell me what you remember."
    She flushed, keenly aware of the heat suddenly rising up beneath her skin, burning in her cheeks. Her tongue felt thick in her mouth, every part of her oversensitized, as if she were experiencing everything too keenly. The coolness of the air. The stuttering speed of her pulse.
    The press of that beautiful blue gaze, the mesmerizing color probably the envy of every woman he'd ever known.
    "Molly!" he snapped again.
    The words jerked from her lips in rapid succession, beyond her control. "We were in a forest.
    It was night. You were...different."
    A rough, humorless laugh rumbled up from his throat, and he took another deep pull on the cigarette, his silence making her ramble with the need to fill the uncomfortable space. "We had sex, but you...you didn't..."
    Her voice faltered, and in a graveled tone, he said, "Come?"
    "Yes." She shivered, her body clenching with remembered sensation. It had been unlike anything she'd ever known, being under him, consumed by him.
    "Believe me," he grimaced, the barest hint of a wry edge to his words, "I know."
    Her gaze flickered briefly to the immodest bulge in his jeans, and she wanted to ask why--
    why he hadn't allowed himself release when inside of her--but couldn't, suddenly afraid of what he might say. He'd seemed to enjoy what had happened between them, but she knew men were fickle creatures, not to be trusted with emotional issues. His words, if delivered cruelly, could cut her to the quick, and she was already feeling too raw, the defenses she'd spent so many years building suddenly seeming frail and unstable. She didn't know him well enough to trust him. Hell, she didn't know him at all.
    And yet, for some inexplicable reason, she felt perfectly safe, alone there with him in the middle of the night, with nothing but the quiet stillness for company. Those storm-dark eyes moved over her face, lingering over her individual features. Then he lowered his head, reaching out toward the ashtray perched on the edge of the kitchen counter. She knew if she hadn't been watching him so closely, she would have missed it, that bleak shadow of fear that crept over the rugged angles of his profile. He slanted a sharp look in her direction when her breath sucked in on a gasp, and for a single instant, she could have sworn she heard his raspy voice in her head. Heard the unspoken question he was too afraid to ask.
    "No," she whispered, her body trembling with a low vibration.
    He ground out the cigarette in the stainless steel ashtray and turned toward her, feet braced apart in an aggressive stance, powerful arms crossed over his broad chest. "No what?"
    She rolled her lips together. "You're not evil."
    He grunted in response, distracted, and began pacing the width of the room. She watched his bare feet against the faded linoleum, long and dark, but as perfectly proportioned as the rest of him. Her gaze