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She’s mine. You can’t have her.
Judah smirked. Watch me.
“I think we’re getting off on the wrong foot here,” the singer said. “I just had a really full schedule today.” Pratt looked at Katie and smiled. This time, she didn’t smile back. She remained tense beneath Sean’s hand.
He stroked his fingers up her bare back, willing her to relax. She took a deep breath and softened as she exhaled. Going along with him, even if she didn’t like it.
The tiny part of his brain that remained painfully aware this was all a trick—that he was a stammering freak and Katie Clark was and always would be out of his league—marveled at that.
“So we meet tonight,” Sean said. “After the show.”
“No,” Judah said, with no trace of apology. “I don’t think so. I don’t want to go ten rounds with you in a hotel room when I need to be unwinding so I can get some sleep.”
Cocking his head to the side, the singer looked at Katie. “You, though. You relax me. Ginny said you’re staying at the same hotel as me, so why don’t you come by my room after the show, and I’ll … bring you up to speed? Then you can talk to your partner here, and we’ll meet tomorrow afternoon in Lexington to cover anything else we need to discuss.”
Sean’s fingers bunched the silky fabric of Katie’s dress into a fist at the base of her spine, and she turned toward him in response, raising her face to his in a silent challenge. She looked confused, irritated, and—
And aroused, damn it.
Knowing that Pratt was turning her on with his skeevy invitation messed with Sean’s concentration. He couldn’t allow that. He had to focus. He and Pratt were playing a serious game here, their polite conversation barely disguising a battle over the job and a battle over Katie. Sean didn’t intend to lose either one.
He took advantage of the angle of her body to pull her closer. Mine, he told her silently. Not his. Mine.
Her pupils dilated in the shadow he cast over her, and suddenly he wasn’t pretending. He’d never looked right into her eyes before, never stood this close to her. Never put his hands on her the way he’d wanted to.
Her lips parted on a soft inhalation.
Sean didn’t even think about it. He just lowered his head and kissed her.
She tasted of lip balm, waxy and minty, her mouth warm and full. He kept his eyes open to admire the curved sweep of her lowered eyelashes. She would pull away soon. She would beat his chest, slap him, laugh at him.
But she hadn’t done it yet, and when he eased away to breathe, she exhaled and swayed toward him, tilting her chin up a fraction of an inch.
Instinct took over. He angled his head and brought her closer with the flat of his hand on her back so he could kiss her harder and deeper.
This was what he’d wanted to tell her earlier in the room. This.
Her energy moved into him where they touched, thighs and mouths and his palm on her bare skin, the other wrapped around the nape of her neck. The pleasure of smelling her, touching her, unhitched something essential he kept reined in, and he felt the sudden rush of it, the terrible freedom of losing control—
And that made him stop.
What the fuck was he doing? Kissing Katie in public, in front of Judah? He was out of his mind.
When he pulled away, she made a sound, a sort of helpless squeak that said she wanted to continue, and hearing it called up a desperate ache in his chest that he immediately locked down.
Appalling, what she did to him. He wanted her. Right here, right now, with that black dress bunched up around her thighs. He wanted her anywhere, everywhere, any way he could get her.
All these weeks that he’d been attracted to Katie and done nothing about it, he’d never counted on this—this appalling need. He’d kissed her, angry and possessive, and her response had unhinged him somehow. Probably he deserved it—an ironic punishment that he would appreciate if it weren’t so fucking dangerous. He was kissing her in a hallway, for Christ’s sake. In front of a client.
And worst of all, even now, after his sense had returned, it would take nothing more than one push from her, one smile, one crook of her finger, and he’d do it all over again.
He took a step back, trying to project an ease he didn’t feel. Whatever it was that Katie did to him, he couldn’t afford it. He had to finish this job for Caleb, and then he needed to get back to California and focus on his own company.
Best to keep his attention where it belonged.
“If you want to talk to her, I’ve got no problem with it,” he said to Judah. It pleased him to hear his voice come out the way it was supposed to, smooth and even and unaffected. He was being an enormous asshole—more of an asshole than he could ever recall being before, which was saying something—but at least he was an asshole who could talk. “Just don’t keep her up too late.”
He shot a look at Katie. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. Her eyes were absolutely furious. With good reason, since he’d just publicly staked her like an unclaimed piece of property, then passed her along to another man.
