The Fall of Lucas Kendrick by Kay Hooper Read Free Book Online

once upon a time this stranger hurt you. What do you want, atonement? There’s nothing I can do to change what happened. I can’t even
try
, because you won’t forgive me for being human.”
    Kyle automatically set her cup aside and stood up, facing him. And she didn’t know what she would say until the words emerged. “I want to know what I missed, Luc. I’m a woman now, and we both know I don’t believe men are gods anymore. I think I deserve to know who really walked away from me ten years ago.”
    Lucas gazed at the lovely face that wasn’t serene anymore; ten years hadn’t aged or changed her surface tranquillity, but the shattering of illusions had. She looked older than yesterday,the new maturity making her more beautiful than ever. And he had a sudden premonition that this time it would be he who would be left hurting and alone.
    “So, I don’t walk out that door?” he asked steadily enough.
    “I don’t know. Do you? It’s two weeks until Martin’s little weekend party. Is that long enough for two strangers to get to know each other?”
    “What have you got in mind?” He was trying not to remember a slender body flaming with awakened passion. Trying not to remember how badly he had hurt himself by leaving her and how long he had hurt. She probably wouldn’t believe him. Probably wouldn’t believe he still woke sometimes reaching out for her.
    Kyle shrugged. “I don’t know. I think I want … I want time to heal. I trusted you then, and I haven’t trusted anyone since. No other man could ever measure up to what I thought you were. Even though part of me kept you onyour pedestal, another part of me never wanted to be hurt like that again. So I just stopped feeling. I want to feel again, Luc.”
    His smile was forced, stiff. “Hate me. That’s feeling.”
    “I don’t want to hate you.” She looked at him searchingly, wondering what she did want.
    He wondered too. “Then what? Just two nice grown-up, adult people on a two-week date? To see if we click?”
    “Maybe we would,” she said soberly.
    Lucas walked over to the window because he had to move, had to stop looking at her. He looked outside instead. “And if we did?”
    She didn’t know. Did she want to take such a risk? A god, with all his thunderbolts, couldn’t hurt a girl the way a man could hurt a woman. Kyle felt confused, afraid. “I don’t know,” she said finally, almost inaudibly. “Do you?” She watched his shoulders square, as if he were bracing against something.
    “I left you once,” he said, very low. “Tell meto go and I’ll leave you now. Later I may not be able to leave you, Kyle.”
    “Why not?” She was suddenly tense, aware that a great deal depended on his answer.
    He turned to face her, leaning back against the window frame. He looked as drained as she felt. “If I stay, we’ll very probably end up being lovers. I hope you know it.”
    She hesitated, then nodded slowly. A day for honesty, indeed. “I know. It’s possible.”
    “Are you willing for it to happen?” His voice was terse, controlled.
    Kyle met his gaze steadily. “You wanted to make love to a girl who didn’t know the difference between men and gods; maybe I want the possibility of making love to a man knowing the difference.”
    “You may not want the man I am.”
    “I want to find out if I do.”
    “While I wait patiently?”
    “While you find out if you want a woman who’s no longer a girl, Luc. I’m not her anymore. You may not want me now.”
    “I do.”
    She blinked, felt a sudden heat course through her body. “You do?”
    On a sigh he said, “Kyle, I never stopped wanting you.”
    Dropping bombshells, she thought. He was good at that. “How can you know? You don’t know
me
.”
    “It doesn’t matter. I knew how I felt yesterday when I watched you soaring around out there hanging under that glider. I was scared to death you’d fall. Just like I’ve been scared all these years every time I saw a picture of