Read Online In Her Secret Fantasy by Marie Treanor - Free Book Online Page B

back.
    As if he sensed her panic, Aidan left the path and dropped down the cliff face in two practiced jumps, much as he had in the dark on New Year’s night. As soon as he landed in front of her, she ran the last few paces and seized him by the sleeves.
    “Something’s wrong with me, Aidan!” she gasped. “Something terrible…”
    A fierce frown pulled down his brow, but he neither seized her nor shouted. “What happened? Did that guy hurt you?”
    “Len? No, he just asked me to show him how to get to the village, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to go, only I couldn’t make myself stop going. Something’s wrong with me…”
    He lifted his open hand, softly cupping her cheek, gazing into her eyes. “Look up,” he said. “Look to the sea, now the cliff…” Slowly, his frown cleared. “Nothing’s wrong with you, Chrissy,” he promised. “You’re wonderful.”
    She gasped again, horrified as tears tightened her throat, trying to spill out of her eyes. Her mouth worked, trying to speak, to laugh at herself, anything but cry. After all, she’d just gone into a blind panic about nothing. And then, amazingly, his arms were around her, cradling her. She felt his cheek against the top of her head, and her tears broke free, trickling down her face and into his leather jacket.
    “I think you just had a moment,” he said gently. “You were conflicted, and you didn’t like it.”
    She’d run to him like her only saviour when she barely knew him. “I told you to fuck off,” she whispered.
    “Lots of people tell me to fuck off. I understand.”
    “I don’t want you to fuck off…”
    “I don’t understand that . But I don’t want to hurt you, Chrissy.”
    Her fingers tightened on his coat. “Or Glenn?”
    This time there was a pause. Then, “No, I don’t think I want to hurt him either. Though I will if I have to.”
    Her fingers opened, spreading over his thick upper arms instead. Under her cheek, and his jacket, his heart beat steadily.
    His breath stirred her hair. “What is it, Chrissy? What’s wrong?”
    “You know, don’t you?”
    “I can guess some of it from what happened to you. I’m asking about you.”
    She smiled into his coat, and another tear escaped. “Because you think I’m broken?”
    “I know you’re not broken. Christ, we all bend a little with the blows.”
    “Is that what happened to you?”
    He went very still, then shook his head. It felt like a caress against her hair. “I don’t know.”
    “Will you tell me yours if I tell you mine?”
    Another pause, then, “All right. Do you want to go somewhere warmer?”
    Her breath caught as memory roiled and surged. “Not now. I can’t now. Is Len still there?”
    She felt his head turn, allowing the wind and the sleet to chill her scalp. “No. He walked on without you. I think you might find you’re having an affair with me when you go back to the house.”
    “I won’t grace it with a comment. No one will come after you with a shotgun.”
    His arms loosened, and she dashed the back of her hand quickly across her face before lifting her head from his chest, where she’d grown far too comfortable. She forced herself to meet his gaze, but she could read no discomfort there, or annoyance, just an intense focus on her that in spite of everything set the butterflies gambolling in her stomach. He just looked too good not to affect her. There was danger in that, and yet she’d drawn comfort from him.
    “What do you want to do now?” he asked.
    “Walk.”
    “Will I come with you?”
    She closed her eyes again against those bloody tears that she’d held in successfully for years before this. “No,” she whispered. “I don’t want to cry all over you.”
    “I’m a cop. Making people cry doesn’t bother me.”
    She gave a slightly watery laugh. “Stop it. I can walk this off, and next time, I’ll be fine.” He frowned with obvious reluctance, and she blurted, “Please. I need to be alone. I do.”
    His frown cleared