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Bristling, she quietly counted to ten. “Look, J.D., you don’t have to try and bait me, okay? I just think we should be civil.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to be family.”
The look he sent her could have cut through granite. “I’ve got more than my share of family.” He eased into the lane for the Sellwood Bridge, and as they crossed the inky Willamette River, he tossed his cigarette out the window. The ember died in flight.
“Just tell me what it is that you don’t like about me,” she said as he angled the car through the city streets. It was time to deal with all this pent-up and ill-directed hostility.
“It’s not you,” J.D. said.
“Liar.
“Turn here,” she prompted when he nearly missed her street. “If it’s not me, then what’s the problem?”
“You really want to know?” Tires skidded on the wet pavement.
“Yep. That one, third house on the right.”
He parked at the curb directly under a streetlight and cut the engine. Rain pounded on the car roof. “Philip already made one mistake when he got married the first time.”
“And now you think he’s making another.”
He gazed at her with eyes as dark as coal. “Definitely.”
“Well, excuse me if I seem offended,” she said as his gaze shifted to her throat, and the smoky air in the cab was suddenly stifling. She cranked down her window. “But I am. Philip and I are in love and we want to—oh!”
He reached for her so suddenly, she didn’t have a chance to react. His arms were around her, his mouth claiming hers with a wild abandon that stole her breath. She tried to push away, but he only tightened his embrace, his arms like steel bands surrounding her as his lips moved sensually over hers.
Her heart thudded, her pulse hit a fever pitch, and the small soft moan that escaped her throat sounded like a plea.
He shifted, drawing her closer, his tongue sliding easily between her lips.
Closing her eyes she sagged against him, wanting more—only to realize what she was doing. This was wrong. So very wrong. She stiffened and pushed him away, half expecting a fight. Instead he let her go, and his smile in the darkness was silently mocking.
“That’s why you shouldn’t marry Philip,” he said, and she wiped her lips with the back of her hand.
“Go to hell.”
He laughed as she scrabbled for the door and shot out of the truck as if she’d been propelled from a cannon. Her skin tingled with a wash of hot, deep color, and she stumbled up the steps of the walk to her house. What kind of a fool was she? Why had she let him kiss her, touch her, create a whirlpool of want deep inside? She fumbled with her keys, unlocked the door and slid into the dark interior.
Oh, God, oh, God. Despair flooded her. What had she done? Slamming the door, she threw the dead bolt, as if the twist of an old metal lock could keep her safe from the horror of her own actions.
It was only a kiss, she told herself. A kiss. Big deal. Philip probably wouldn’t even care.
Then why was her heart still pounding, her lips tingling, her insides quivering? There were names for women who did what she’d done.
Tease.
Flirt.
Two-timer.
Those were the good ones. The harsher, cruel names that she wouldn’t even think about nibbled at the edge of her conscience and made her shake with shame.
She covered her face with her hands. It was only a kiss. One he forced upon her. She hadn’t expected it. But she’d reacted, dammit.
Sagging against the inside of the door, she heard the tires of J.D.’s truck squeal and its engine roar, as he drove away.
