Primal Heat 04 - Forever in Darkness

at the sudden intensity
burning in his eyes. She was riveted in place, unable to shield herself from
his stare. Her heart began to pound, and she felt her skin heat up as his gaze
bore into her. His eyes were haunted, loaded with shadows so intense she could barely
breathe, but it was the raw ferocity and desire burning in them that made her
entire body tremble in response.
    She couldn't breathe, couldn’t
move, couldn't pry her gaze from his—
    Then he closed his eyes and turned
away, severing the connection like a cold knife through her soul.
    * * *
    It wasn't her .
    Ian gritted his jaw, fighting
against the need to sprint across the room and grab the woman standing beside
the bar. It couldn't be true. There was no chance that the woman thirty feet
away from him was Catherine Taylor.
    Catherine Taylor was dead. She'd
fallen into his arms, stared at him for a fraction of a second, and then Ian's
teammate had struck her down. Dead. Done. Over. She was history.
    And the second woman he'd buried
earlier in the evening? He was sure now that it hadn't been Catherine. It had
been a woman who looked like her, and his screwed-up mind had mixed them up.
    The curse was trying to work him
over. There was no reality anymore. Just delusions.
    It's not her.
    Sweat beaded on Ian's brow, and
adrenaline surged through him. His entire body shook with the effort of staying
where he was instead of responding to the siren call of the woman by the bar.
His head pounded with the strain of trying to control his thoughts, to keep
from hauling ass over there, sweeping her up in his arms and carting her off to
his place to make love to her until neither of them could move.
    He ground his jaw, focusing his
attention on an old wooden sign on the opposite wall. Be a Man. Play with
Sharp Objects.
    Be a man. Stand with honor. Shit. What
was he doing hiding in the shadows?
    Honor didn't mean he was supposed
to shrivel in the corner, afraid to look at an auburn-haired woman. It meant he
stood tall, faced down that damn curse and defeated it. The curse had come to
claim him, and it was time to step up and fight it. He needed to challenge what
it threw at him and prove himself stronger.
    He had to face it.
    Ian clenched his jaw and slowly
turned his head back to the woman. He steeled himself for the impact of seeing
her, but the moment he saw her again, he felt like he'd been sucker-punched in
the gut.
    It was Catherine. It was her. It
was his woman.
    He would never forget those
strawberry-gold highlights in her hair, the upturned slant of her nose, the way
her lips pressed together in tension. Her skin was paler than he recalled, but
her hips had that same curve of muscles and femininity. He would never forget
the feel of her hips beneath his hands when she'd fallen down that damned cliff
and he'd caught her. He knew exactly how they felt, precisely how they curved, and
he knew just how her jeans caressed them.
    Her hair was tossed over her right
shoulder in a tumble of waves, and her white tee shirt hugged her body like it
was put on this earth to torment him. The plain cotton was almost innocent in
its simplicity, but the curve of her breasts beneath it made Ian's thoughts go
to places that were far from innocent. On her left wrist was a thin gold
bracelet that matched the gold hoops in her ears. No other adornment, no other
flash. Not even any makeup. Just the pure, sensual beauty of a woman who was
simply who she was, and that was more than enough for him.
    She was searching the room now, her
face tense with worry as she scanned the crowd. Her tension made his protective
instincts pulse deep. Adrenaline rushed through him, and his weapons burned in
his arms. This time the urge to arm himself was not to impale himself like some
weak-willed embarrassment to his kind, but to protect her. To make her safe. To
keep her from the fate she'd already suffered twice—
    Twice?
    Ian swore and gritted his teeth.
What was he thinking? It made no sense that this woman was Catherine Taylor,
that she was some reincarnation anomaly who could come back to life hours after
he'd buried her. What the hell was his problem?
    He knew the answer to that one. The
curse was his problem. It was going to keep trying to make him relive the death
of his sheva until it finally broke him.
    Well, fuck that. The woman across
the bar wasn't his sheva. He was going to prove it, and then cut himself
free from her influence.
    She turned her head and met his
gaze. His gut jumped as