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Not an enemy.
I still don’t know if “not an enemy” is true, and actually, he didn’t clarify our status outside of a name. Tiger is for his enemies. Nick is for me. Technically, that makes me a friend. But as we walk toward the main hall of the gallery, having already determined we’re both parked out back, him holding me close with his arm at my waist, my bet is on me being neither friend nor enemy. I am simply a challenge to Nick Rogers. And he has proclaimed how much he enjoys a challenge. Once I move from challenge to conquest, he’ll be back in San Francisco, where he lives and works, and I suspect I’ll be forgotten. And that works for me. It’s the reason I stopped pushing him away. I get my one night with him, lost in the fierce masculinity of a man who is so big, bold, and demanding, and he’s already proven that he will leave no room for anything else. No guilt, anger, or thought of the new revelations about my parents that just keep adding up every single day.
Just Nick.
Just passion.
Just escape.
Nick and I cross through the center of the gallery, thankfully without delay, the crowd no longer a crowd, using the back employee exit I’ve been granted access to, and other than a few people milling around with no interest in us, we are undeterred. We exit to the dimly lit parking lot, a cool breeze lifting my hair and then traveling straight up my dress. I shiver and squeeze my thighs together, reminded not just that my wrap is in the car, but that Nick ripped away a crucial piece of my clothing.
“Apparently, panties serve a purpose outside of looking pretty,” I murmur, hugging myself.
He laughs, a deep, sexy sound, and suddenly that cold spot between my legs is hot. “It’s not funny,” I chide, shivering again, deeper this time.
He halts our progress and surprises me as he shrugs out of his tuxedo jacket. “This should help,” he says, wrapping it around me, but he doesn’t move away, his hands gripping the lapels as I had earlier, his big, broad, wonderful body crowding mine. The chilly air around us is suddenly as warm as that spot between my thighs. “Better?” he asks, his voice gravelly, sexy, the overhead light catching the warm heat in his blue eyes.
“Yes,” I say, the intimacy of me wearing his jacket doing funny things to my stomach. I swallow hard. “Thank you. But I thought you weren’t a nice guy?”
“I’m not a nice guy,” he says, his voice that hard steel I’ve already come to know from him. “But,” he adds, his eyes lighting with what I would almost dare call mischief, “Iama very polite guy. Remember?”
“Yourbadmanners are why my panties are in the trash and not in your pocket,” I say, finding his teasing rather charming, despite the way he tormented me in that bathroom.
His full mouth, which I now know feels really good on my mouth and other parts of my body, curves. “As long as the panties are off, I’m a happy man.” He slides his arm around my shoulder and turns us toward the cluster of ten or so random cars.
“I’m on the right far row,” I say, and we quickly walk in that direction while I dig my keys from my purse and unlock my car. Proving he’s polite all over again, he opens my door, which has me biting back curiosity about his mother, but if I ask questions, he’ll ask questions that I don’t want to answer.
I step into the alcove created by the car and door, and when I turn to face Nick to determine our plan for travel, once again I’m trapped between hard steel and this hot, hard man. But unlike last time, I don’t want to escape. I want to get lost in the way he smells and the way he feels and… “Where are we going, Faith?” he asks.
I wet my lips, jolted out of a fantasy that was headed toward him naked, and me enjoying the fact that he was naked. I’m now back to a hard reality: the decision between inviting him to my private space and personal sanctuary or daring to go to his hotel, which isn’t much of a decision at all. “Small towns have wagging tongues,” I say. “And I really don’t need that right now, with all I have—I don’t need that.”
“I’m in a private rental house,” he says, seeming to read my thoughts. “We can go there if you’re worried about your staff.”
A private rental house should be a safe zone, but in that moment, I know I need the known of my home, to balance the unknowns and the powerful force that is this man. “I own a house also close to the winery, and I’m staying there this weekend. We can go there.”
He considers me for several beats, a keen look in his eyes telling me he’s read my need for control, and I wait for him to insist he retain it all. Maybe he’ll push me too hard. Maybe this is a bad idea—but that isn’t what he does. Instead, he does the exact opposite. He arches a brow. “Interesting. I thought you’d pick my rental.”
“Why is that?”
“It fit your hard limit of one night.”
“My space. My control.”
His hand slides to my hip, and he pulls me to him, his hips aligned with mine, my hand settling over his heart, and I am surprised to find it thundering beneath my palm. “Sweetheart,” he says. “I’m going to demand control, because that’s who I am and what I need. I can read you on this, just like you do me.”
He’s right. I do. Because I’m drawn to men with his type of appetites. Because apparently, that’s who I am. “I do know that about you. But ultimately, I have control. I say yes or no.”
“As it should be,” he says. “But I’m going to make sure you don’t want to say no and that you never forget me for all the right reasons. That’s a promise.” He covers my hand where it rests on his chest and lifts my wrist to his lips, caressing the delicate skin before pressing my hand to his face, as if he’s getting me used to touching him. But he leans into the touch as if he craves it, and then he kisses my palm, and I swear, it affects me. It’s tender, and sensual, and probably the sexiest thing anyone has ever done to me, and I am not without experience, but he affects me. Intensely, deeply.
With obvious reluctance, he releases me and takes a step backward, his hand on my door. “I’m two rows over. I’ll pull around to follow you. I’m in a—”
“—black custom BMW,” I supply, letting him know that yes, Iwaswatching him at the window before I slip back inside the car, fully intending to, for once, leave him with a revelation as he did me today. But I should have known Nick Rogers would not leave his curiosity piqued without resolution.
He squats down next to me. “Youwereat the window.”
“Yes,” I confirm, turning to look at him. “How did you know I was there?”
“I felt you watching me.” He lowers his voice to a deep rasp. “Like I can feel you now, Faith, and I’m not even touching you.” And once again, like this morning, with a bombshell statement, he is gone, doing to me what I failed to do to him moments before. He’s already standing, the door shutting, and without question, as he’s intended, I am left in a sea of simple words that are not simple at all. And this time I do not have hours and a paintbrush to try to make sense of the way this man so easily affects me, the way my heart is thundering in my chest at this very moment.
