Chapter 15

Dinner was quiet. Ethan refused to discuss the case, or anything else for that matter. He didn’t pout-exactly-but she’d never seen him like this. He’d always been either teasing or professional, but right now, he reminded Beth of a wounded bear and she wasn’t about to push him into lashing out.

She didn’t know where the words she’d spoken before leaving the hotel room had come from. She hadn’t made a conscious decision to pull away from intimacy with him. In fact, she’d realized on the drive back from the coast that as painful as his rejection of her intense nature was, their relationship was giving her an opportunity to get to know the woman who lived inside her skin in a way she’d shied away from doing before.

But his comment about trying to control the intensity in their sex had sparked something inside her. Not an explosion so much as a weary acceptance. She was not what he needed and he would never be what she needed. And she couldn’t handle making love with him under those conditions. She was half in love with him already, wasn’t even sure it wasn’t a full-blown loss of insanity. Continued intimacy would tear her apart when she had to walk away, or watch him do so.

And if he wanted her, he had to want all of her…not just the parts he was comfortable with. He’d made it obvious he didn’t and that left her no choice. No sex.

They were in the car, headed back to the hotel when she said, “Can we stop at a store that sells camping equipment?”

“Why?”

“I’d like to get a sleeping bag. I think it would be easier if we didn’t share a bed, but I assume you’d have an issue with asking for another room or a rollaway.”

“You’d assume right.”

“That leaves a sleeping bag.”

He nodded, but didn’t say anything. When they reached the store, he left her in the car to go inside and buy it. He was so cold and uncommunicative, she didn’t ask him to get her a pad for under it. She didn’t want another one of those emotionless looks slicing her way.

When they got to the hotel, he made the pallet on the floor in silence. She noticed he’d gotten one of those extra long sleeping bags and a pad.

“Thank you.”

He turned to face her, his green gaze flat. “For what?”

“The pad. It will make the floor a lot more comfortable.”

“Will it?”

“I think so. I’ll just go get ready for bed.”

He nodded.

When she came out, he was in the sleeping bag, his back to the bed.

“I didn’t mean for you to be the one to sleep on the floor.”

Silence.

“Ethan?”

“Go to bed, Beth.” He even sounded like a wounded bear.

“I really don’t mind taking the floor.”

“If you want me to ignore the way my body is aching for yours right now, I suggest you be quiet, get in bed, and go straight to sleep.”

Even she wasn’t going to argue with that tone and she did exactly as he suggested. Except going to sleep. She lay in the dark, thinking about Ethan, about her decision, and trying not to move so he wouldn’t know she was still awake, long into the night.

Ethan got up a little after dawn. Beth was sleeping. Finally. She’d been awake most of the night. Like him.

She hadn’t wanted him to know she was awake and he hadn’t been sure of his self-control if he acknowledged it. It was that lack of self-control that had dumped him in his current predicament. The way he responded to Beth-the way she responded to him, the amount of pleasure they found in one another’s bodies-had spooked him.

He’d thought he could control it, put some kind of barrier around it, but that hadn’t worked. He’d hurt her in his attempt to regain a measure of his self-control. She’d lumped him in with her parents and Hyatt and that was not a place he wanted to be in Beth’s brain. He knew she didn’t consider any of them people she could truly rely on and he wanted her to rely on him.

Right now, she needed to rely on him for her safety and as much as he didn’t like her “no sex” boundary, he had to wonder if it wasn’t for the best. He didn’t think straight around her and he couldn’t afford to have his thinking and reactions clouded right now. Which he’d known all along, but Beth had been the one professional enough to take the stand that really needed taking.

And he was going to start acting like the professional he was. Starting today. The next two days would be best spent making themselves familiar with the area and getting a feel for the small towns closest to the north and south of Prescott’s estate. It would also keep them out of the hotel room and away from the temptation of the bed that looked too big with Beth’s small form curled in the middle of it.

They moved into a small cabin a few miles from the Prescott estate on Monday as Ethan had promised. The second bedroom had been rigged up as a home office for the pseudoau-thor. The state-of-the-art computer and peripherals would serve two purposes. Ethan would use it to oversee their security and continue his research on Prescott. It would also perpetuate the cover of a writer seeking his muse in the coastal forests.

Beth noticed that a daybed graced the wall opposite the computer desk. She would insist on sleeping on it and this time Ethan would listen. He was much too tall for the twin bed, but she wasn’t. And she didn’t want to sleep in the middle of another king-size bed that only succeeded in making her wish she’d never made the no sex decree.

She didn’t regret it. Not really. She had no choice if she wanted to maintain a shred of her emotions when the case was over, but she wanted Ethan. So much. He was no longer a fantasy, but a living, breathing man who she knew could give her more pleasure than she’d ever experienced-or probably ever would experience again.

But he didn’t want that intense pleasure and she had to keep remembering that fact.

Despite its setting, the cabin wasn’t at all rustic. The small kitchen was filled with ultramodern appliances and the television had satellite access. There was a whirlpool bath in the master suite and the furnishings were modern retro.

As she looked around, she realized it fit the image Ethan had chosen to portray of himself perfectly.

“Are we safe to talk here? Always?” Beth asked after discovering her clothes unpacked right along Ethan’s in the master bedroom.

She supposed that made sense, but it felt funny in the pit of her stomach all the same. Did the special training Ethan had mentioned help a woman separate the fantasy from reality in situations like this?

Ethan was looking out the window with field glasses and jotting on his PDA. “Yes. We’ve got a signal jammer activated that mocks television satellite interference.”

“Clever.”

“We like to think so.”

She swallowed, suddenly tired of the distance between them but unsure how to bridge the gap without opening the sex issues. “I like the cabin.”

“Good. It fits my image…our image.”

“Yes, it does.”

“I know you are going to want to sleep on the daybed in the office.” His voice was devoid of emotion, but she sensed that offended him.

“Um…yes.”

“Don’t go in there dressed for bed at night until the privacy curtains are shut both there and in the master bedroom.”

“You think Prescott is going to spy on his new employee?”

“He might. We don’t make stupid mistakes counting on the opposite…ever.”

“Got it, sir.” She saluted smartly.

And he smiled. “Sassy, aren’t you?”

“I’ve been accused of it a time or two.”

“I bet.”

At the return of his teasing demeanor, some of the tension that had clung to her since Friday evening dissipated. “I start work tomorrow,” she offered for lack of anything better to say.

“I know.” He turned to face her fully, putting the full weight of his attention directly on her.