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“I’m sorry I stood you up. But I need to talk to you,” she finally said, blinking away a hint of moisture in her eyes, a product of regret for something that might have been. “I didn’t come here to stalk you.”
A disbelieving smirk told her how much he believed that one. “Right. I guess you were just passing by…like you were that first night in my tent.”
Lifting her hands helplessly, she said, “I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. My boss is thinking of investing in some condos here and needed me to come along.”
“Sure.”
“You probably saw him—the old man sitting beside me?”
He thought about it for a second, and she thought his clenched arms relaxed the tiniest bit.
“I was stunned when I saw the carnival set up here. I swear to you, Damon, I’m not a psycho, game-playing woman pulling some Fatal Attraction stunt.”
The jaw clenched. “I don’t think the woman in Fatal Attraction went nuts until after the guy had nailed her in every way known to man and then dumped her.”
Her mouth opened and she sucked in a quick breath at the hot look he raked over her, as if he knew he was being aggressive—threatening—but didn’t give a damn. Both anger and awareness dripped off him. Sex—thick and raw—hung in the air between them. They were both thinking about it, hinting about it.
“Tell me what you really want, Allie, I’ve got things to do.” A thin smile widened his mouth, completely devoid of humor. And warmth. “I’ve been on the lookout for the local woman I’m going to spend this week with.”
She shivered. Damon was different tonight…a little rough. A little mean. This wasn’t the nice guy she’d walked with in Trouble. She’d liked that man…but this one made her shiver in pure, primal hunger. This was the dangerous Roma King she’d fantasized about from the minute she’d seen his image on the side of that truck. And she wanted him desperately. Whether he had a woman in every town or not.
Too late, too late, too late, a voice screamed in her head.
Licking her lips and mentally reminding herself it wasn’t polite to leap onto a guy and ride him like a pony unless he asked you to, she focused on her mission, the reason she’d come here tonight. “I need something from you.”
A half smile curled that sultry mouth up on one side, and he crossed his arms, watching her. “Oh, yeah?”
Not your body. Well, yes, your body. But something else, too. “I need to know exactly what I said that night.”
His sudden start proved she’d taken him by surprise. “What night?” he asked warily, shifting back, creating more distance between them, which was probably just as well for her sanity but didn’t do her tingling breasts or quaking thighs any good.
“That night on the stage, when you hypnotized me. Strange things have been happening since then, and people are talking about me. But I don’t know why—I don’t know what I said.”
His eyes shifted away. “So ask them.”
“I have. Nobody will tell me a thing.” Grunting in disgust, she added, “Women whisper about me and I’ve been propositioned by more men than a prison nurse.”
Grabbing her arm, he asked, “Has anyone hurt you?”
He said it as if he cared, which made an absurd gurgle of optimism leap around in her stomach. “No, of course not.”
He nodded. “Good.” In a move so blatantly casual it had to be calculated, he dropped her arm, shrugged and moved away. Damon obviously didn’t like that he was reacting to her again. He didn’t like it one bit.
She liked it a lot.
“I…well, I wouldn’t want something that happened during one of my shows to cause anyone problems.”
“But it has. I’m being whispered about.”
His remoteness—his refusal to unbend as much as an inch—infuriated her and she stuck an index finger in his chest. “Tell me what you did to me.”
That finally got a reaction. He not only unbent, he stepped in close and kept stepping until Allie had to back up for fear of being knocked down. It was only when her butt hit the edge of the stage that she could stop, and then she found herself entirely trapped. Blocked by the stage behind, by his hard body ahead. And by his strong arms, which snaked around either side of her to rest on the stage floor behind her. “What I did to you?”
Allie somehow found the strength to nod, even though every molecule in her body was firing and exploding. Her fight-or-flight instinct kicked into high gear, though fighting him was the last thing she wanted to do. No. If he put his hand on her—his lips, his mouth—she’d do anything but fight or run.
She’d take. Have. Indulge. She’d grab whatever she could get and be grateful for every bit of it.
“Tell me,” she urged, wanting him to go over the edge.
