Chapter 1
He’d seduced a virgin. Kurtland Chase knew he’d made the biggest mistake of his life when he’d looked down into her wet hazel eyes and felt himself falling.
He hadn’t meant to feel this way for her.
Far from it.
He’d just…intended to end up right where they were, but with clothes on and maybe a few hot kisses between them, and then he’d send her on her way. Like he had every night this week before. He’d known he was playing with fire—he just hadn’t been able to fight it.
Gene Hiller’s baby sister. Damn it.
He should have kept his hands off.
The instant he’d touched her tonight, he should have known he wouldn’t be able to stop. She’d been tempting him for two damned weeks. Drawing him in. Capturing him heart and soul. The woman was beyond dangerous.
Greer just did something to him somehow. Made him forget every plan he’d ever had and just focus on her. Being with her. Even if that meant he did something stupid.
This had been incredibly stupid.
Now she was in his arms, and he didn’t want to let her go. Ever.
Nothing had ever terrified him more.
“You need to leave.” He jerked away from her as if she had just scorched him to his soul. And she had. “Right now.”
Confusion filled her beautiful face. “What…why?”
“Because this is not something I want to ever happen again,” he said, far too sharply. As he watched, a look of pain went across her face. Realization. Then…betrayal. And one thin arm slid over her chest to cover herself. From his gaze.
He felt like…a monster. Like a marauder of old, making off with the enemy chieftain’s precious virgin daughter. Debauching her. Well, he’d definitely done that.
Hell, what had he done? He shouldn’t have said that. Not like that. “Greer—"
He had been her first. He hadn’t believed her whispered words that he would be her first. But he had been.
He had been a bit too rough, too hungry.
He had wanted her too much. Hell, he hoped he hadn’t physically hurt her.
“Get dressed. I’m going to drive you home.
We’ll talk…in the morning, or something. ”
Kurt rolled to one side, to put some distance between them. He had to take her home. Now. Tell her he was sorry, that he hadn’t meant to let things go as far as they had. He had had no intention of anything permanent with a damned Hiller.
It wouldn’t ever have a chance of lasting. Not with…what he knew.
Not after what Gene Hiller had taken from him. Not with how complicated that situation was, and was going to get real soon. He just wasn’t.
He hadn’t meant to do this.
He’d just been…hell, he’d been using her for information about her older brother.
Learning about her family. Even that had been skirting the edge of how Kurt normally operated.
Playing her up a bit to get past that weird wall the Hillers had about protecting each other. It had just gotten out of hand.
He’d started off wanting information and ended up becoming…fascinated. No woman had fascinated as much as this one.
He’d felt guilty for that for the last two weeks, but…
he had told himself the ends justified the means.
He’d clean himself up, and then he’d take her home.
Maybe say something so he could lessen the hurt on her face just a little.
The last thing he’d wanted to do was hurt her.
Even to hurt her brother. Maybe…he could make this right somehow.
He reached down between them, feeling the evidence of what they’d just done. That’s when he realized just how he had screwed up so completely.
The damned condom had broken. He might as well have just not used one at all. He’d just been so caught up in the moment with her he hadn’t noticed at all.
Hell. This wasn’t good. This definitely wasn’t good. Hell, he’d made things a hell of a lot worse.
Greer wasn’t on the pill. She had told him that when she’d asked him if he had protection. Twice. She had wanted to be absolutely certain she was protected…
And she wasn’t. Hadn’t been. Damn it.
He had promised to protect her. He had promised. And he’d screwed that up, too. He let out a hot curse. The woman next to him flinched, one hand coming up between them. Like…she was afraid of him now.
Of course she would be.
It had been her first time. It should have been special, with flowers and romance and a man who worshipped her, heart, body and soul. Not a jerk like him.
He disgusted himself.
Kurt was better than this. He’d always thought he was a better man than this. He never would have done this to any other woman. Would never have dreamed of hurting a woman he cared about like this. Ever.
He’d kick a man’s ass for using a woman this way. So why had he done it to her? To the one woman who had ever made him feel the way this one did?
The memory of her giving him a smile when he’d found her broken down alongside his private road two weeks earlier snuck in.
He had known who she was, theoretically, he just hadn’t realized Hiller’s youngest sister had grown up.
He’d thought she was still a teenager. She looked younger from a distance—and he’d only ever seen her from a distance until that day.
But Greer Hiller had grown up into the gorgeous creature who’d needed him to rescue her that day. He’d rescued her—she’d captured him.
He hadn’t been able to get her out of his head since.
He’d let her buy him dinner at the Barratt Hotel to repay him helping her. And he had been…enchanted. Everything about the woman had fascinated him.
He’d been with her every night since, then he would drive her home and ask himself what in the hell he thought he was doing.
He just couldn’t stay away from her. No other woman had ever made him feel this way.
The first time he had kissed her…he had never felt like that before. Felt like a certain woman was made just for him. His for the taking. Like the other half of him, body and soul. The hardest thing he had ever done as a grown man had been taking her home chaste every night.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, with a bite in her tone that had him focusing on her face again. She’d pulled his blankets up between them. “I would at least like a bit of privacy while I dress, now that the fun times for Kurt are over.”
He’d ruined everything for her. Her first time, and he’d ruined it.
He had screwed up everything.
And he never should have touched her.
He never should have hurt her because he hated her brother and intended to destroy him. Greer hadn’t deserved to be a pawn in his war with her brother. That Kurt had made her one damned near destroyed him.
He would never be able to make things right for her now. But he would have to find a way to try. But he had no idea what the right words were now. “Greer…”
She just stared at him. “Don’t…just don’t ever talk to me again. From this moment on, you don’t even exist.”
She grabbed her T-shirt and jeans from next to the bed and ran to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her.
Leaving Kurt just staring, wondering what to do next.
How had he screwed this up so badly?