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Her hands stilled on his chest and she looked torn, tormented.
“What does bother me is how you look at me with fear in your eyes.” Like she was doing right at this moment. “How you act like a frightened rabbit, with me playing the role of the big, bad wolf. Which makes me wonder who put that fear in you.”
Her mouth opened, then closed. Her eyes did the same.
“None. Of. Your. Business.” Each word came out with an emphatic burst of defensiveness, and he knew he’d hit on the truth.
His fists clenched against the wall in synchrony with the squeezing of his heart. He longed to smash in the man’s face who’d hurt her, to give him a dose of his own medicine. Because someone had hurt her. Someone had changed her into a woman afraid of taking chances, probably her ex-husband.
He longed to see the carefree smile she’d so easily worn in the past. Instead, he saw a flurry of dark emotions tightening her lips.
“For the next week, everything about you is my business.”
Her lips didn’t curve into a smile. Not that he’d expected them to. Not yet. But he would make her smile, make her laugh, and in the process he’d get her out of his head forever, because this time it would be him who brought things to an end.
“You can’t just decide something like that, Daniel.” She shook her head in denial. “What was between us ended fifteen years ago.”
“No, it didn’t.” It had smoldered like hot coals, just waiting for the right moment to burst into flames. And not just on his part. She could say what she liked, but he’d seen her looking at him throughout the day, caught the longing in her eyes. The moment was now, and fires raged between them that he refused to ignore. “You feel it, and so do I.”
“Don’t tell me what I feel,” she insisted, warily eyeing a businessman on his way to the restroom, reminding him that they stood in a restaurant hallway.
“Fine,” Daniel said after the man had passed. “I’ll tell you what I feel. I want you.”
“You’ve already said that.”
“You didn’t believe me.”
“I believe you want to take me to bed.” She sounded annoyed.
“And?”
“And that’s a horrible idea, Daniel. My only reason for being here is to learn about the CRT, not to have a fling with you.”
No, having a fling would mean taking a risk, and she didn’t seem to do that anymore.
“It must be difficult, being a mother and trying to fit in dating, too,” he commented, watching her face. “You do date, don’t you, Kimberly?”
She scowled. “Of course I date.”
“Really?” he asked lazily, lowering his lids to half-mast while he eyed her lush lips. Lips he longed to lean forward and kiss, but even more he wanted her to admit she wanted his kiss.
His eyes met hers.
She did want him.
She couldn’t hide the fact that he affected her. That being near him made her aware of her own body.
He’d remind her how good it could be between a man and a woman because he suspected she’d forgotten.
“Tell me, Kimberly,” he gently encouraged. “When’s the last time you went on a date?”
She opened her mouth, no doubt to remind him what wasn’t his business, but he covered her lips, slowly kissing her in a seductive tease.
He’d forgotten how sweet her mouth was, how her lips seared through him straight to his heart.
He didn’t lean in, didn’t press his body to her in case her fear returned, but he wanted her beneath him, their bodies tangled together.
Her mouth met his, allowing him access, an access he could barely resist. Only the thought of where they were, of their lack of privacy, kept him from plunging in and to hell with the consequences.
