Page 7 of Tank's Temptation

“You should believe I’m what I appear to be.”

“Well, I don’t.”

Nobody has ever said that to me. Men believe I’m bad before I enter a room. Women sometimes like it until they get close enough to understand it isn’t an act. King saw what I could do when I was nineteen and turned it into my place in the club. Even Kane has never questioned what I am.

Tessa does it while furious, trapped, and wearing bruises I failed to ask enough questions about.

“You really don’t know me.”

“I know you could’ve hurt me at the motel and didn’t. You could’ve thrown me down just now, but you caught my head. You turned around while I changed, locked your weapons away, and keep looking at my wrist like you want to find the man who bruised it.” She steps close and presses one finger to my chest. “That doesn’t make this okay. It makes it worse, because part of you knows better and you’re still keeping that door locked.”

Her finger remains against my cut. Heat spreads from that single point through my body.

“You need to step back.”

“Why? Afraid I’ll discover another terrible secret?”

“Tessa…” She lifts her chin, daring me to finish, but I lose the words when my gaze drops to her mouth.

Her eyes lower to mine. Anger changes shape between us, turning dense and hot enough to fill the room. She curls her hand into my cut, yanks me down, and kisses me.

There is nothing tentative in it; her mouth hits mine hard, all fury and unwanted hunger, and my control breaks on contact. I catch the back of her neck and drive her against the wall, takingthe kiss deeper as she opens for me. She makes a rough sound and pulls harder on my cut, bringing every inch of her body against mine.

I taste anger. Her nails scrape the short hair at the back of my head. I press my thigh between hers and feel her heat.

She arches into it, tearing a sound from my chest. I kiss along her jaw, then return to her mouth before I put my lips anywhere else. Her hands move over my neck and shoulders while mine close around her hips beneath the hem of my shirt.

One lift would put her around my waist and three steps would put her on my bed, but that isn’t what my assignment is, and the door is still locked.

I release her so fast she catches herself against the wall. My chest heaves, and Tessa’s lips are swollen, her eyes dark with the same hunger burning through me.

“I won’t touch you while that door is locked. I’m many things, but I’m not that.”

Her expression flashes from shock to fury. “You were touching me five seconds ago.”

“And I’m stopping now.”

I put the chair between us because distance is the only control I have left. Tessa stands against the wall in my shirt, breath unsteady, looking like she wants to slap me, kiss me again, or do both.

Stopping hasn’t cooled anything. It has stripped away the last layer of denial. She wants me, and I’m already too far gone for wanting to be the problem.

My phone rings again. Cash’s name on the screen feels like an intrusion I may hurt him for later, which is unreasonable enough to prove how badly she has gotten under my skin.

I answer with a clipped, “Talk.”

“It looks like she never met Morrow. That blackmail message Harlan sent didn’t come from her number. We’d need to checkher laptop to be certain.” I look at Tessa. She has crossed her arms over my shirt, but it doesn’t hide the rise and fall of her chest.

“Send everything to Kane.”

“Already did. He says we verify the pictures before Harlan gets within a mile of her.”

That order settles the last of it. Kane accepted a contract built from convincing evidence. Now that it is coming apart, he looks again.

I end the call, take Tessa’s laptop from the camera bag, and set it on the bed in front of her. The kiss still hangs between us, hot and unfinished, but something else has entered the room now. The first thin edge of belief.

“We were told you were hired and that this is your photography business. Cash found no connection between you and Morrow, and the demand Harlan gave us was possibly fabricated.” I open the laptop and turn it toward her. “Show me what he’s willing to kill to recover.”

CHAPTER 3