Page 23 of Nightfire

His eyes held hers. The light off the ocean outside her window lit his blue eyes up until they were the color of the ocean itself. He smiled. “Dinner at the Del.”

“So…no matter who wins, we have dinner here?”

He stepped closer. “Yeah, that’s about the size of it.”

Though he wasn’t as tall as his oversized ‘brothers’, Mike Keillor was still quite taller than she was. She had to tilt her head back a little to keep looking into his eyes.

He was so close she could feel the heat he emanated. So close he filled her field of vision, blocking everything out but him.

“Shake on it,” he ordered.

Her hand lifted without any volition on her part, as if it were the hand itself that wanted to be held by his. He gently grasped it in both hands, instead of the impersonal hand shake she’d been expecting. His hands were as hot as a furnace. Slowly, watching her every second, he brought her hand to his mouth and—oh my God—kissed it.

Something inside her, something she’d never even suspected existed, pinged to life. Heat, excitement…desire. Her hand started shaking in his, utterly uncontrollable. She wasn’t in control of anything here—her hands, the expression on her face, her own desire.

It was like being on a raft without oars, tumbling down a raging river. All she could do was hang on. And she did.

Her fingers curled around his hand as he tugged, pulling her willingly closer to him.

Oh, everything about this was just so delicious. Chloe wanted to remember this exact moment for ever. The drapes open onto a delightful balcony overlooking a stretch of white beach and beyond, the endless Pacific, the sun shining off the waves so brightly it was as if the ocean were filled with silent fireworks.

There was a vague, happy rhythmic sound that was the waves in the distance, overlaid by a little girl’s laughter and the dull thwacking of a tennis ball somewhere. She could smell lemon polish, brine, some flowering plant outside the window…and Mike.

Every sense she had was heightened, her entire body turning into one huge receptor. Absolutely every sensation her body was receiving was delectable, particularly the desire.

Oh my. She’d read about it, endlessly. Listened to friends talk about it, thought about it, but never understood it.

Now she did. Now she could see why women dated and sometimes married completely inappropriate men, because if for even a fleeting moment it was possible to feel this, it was worth it.

Her entire body was warming up, fast. A wave of heat moving through her, warm and alive. She could barely breathe from the heat and excitement. She could feel every single muscle in her body, feel her heart thudding, all her extremities tingling.

Desire melted her insides, spread heat between her thighs. When Mike pulled her so close her breasts met his chest, her vagina contracted. A strong pulse, unmistakable. It had never happened to her before but she recognized it immediately. Without any input from her head at all, her body was readying itself for him.

But what astonished her, excited her, delighted her was that extraordinary feeling of being alive, the life force pulsing through her, and she recognized how dead she’d felt most of her life. Somehow always at a remove from the living.

But not now. Now she was alive in every cell, connected to the earth, as human as they come. This was frightening, exhilarating stuff. She knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this didn’t come from her. She couldn’t make herself feel this way. She’d tried, but it had never worked.

It took Mike Keillor, watching her carefully out of those oh-so-blue eyes, potent and strong and so very very male. He was the reason she felt so incredibly alive.

The thought would have frightened her if she’d had even the minimal capacity for fright, but she didn’t. She felt alive, and strong, ready for anything. Able to move mountains. A force of nature.

Mike watched her carefully as he moved his head down, slowly, looking deeply into her eyes, trying to gauge her mood, whether she was going to object.

Was he kidding? Object? When she craved this kiss so much?

Everything about this was brand-new. An excitement so intense her breath was caught in her lungs, all that male power concentrated on her, when she was so used to being utterly invisible to men.

And the show-stopper. Her own desire. Something she’d never felt before, certainly not at this level of intensity. Everything in her was quivering with anticipation.

And then—it happened.

Mike lowered his head to her, his eyes watching hers, then dropping his eyes to her mouth, the gaze so powerful it was as if he touched her mouth with his fingers.

He brought his mouth to hers, briefly, and she felt electricity crackle, was surprised lightning didn’t flash.

They both jerked a little, as if what had happened was unexpected. It was certainly completely new to Chloe, but then she wasn’t really an expert.

Mike lifted his mouth and looked down at her. His eyes narrowed, his face somber, as if he’d just received a shock, perhaps an unwelcome one.