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“You don’t work for the bank?” I ask, my anger easing but not gone.
“No,” he confirms. “Ido notwork for the bank, and to be clear, I do not work for anyone who has your business interests in mind. I work for me, and I haveyouin mind.”
“If this is all true, then explain to me how you thought showing up here, knowing what you learned about my situation last night, was the way to get from no to yes?”
His hand settles on the window beside me, somehow shrinking my small space, somehow creating more intimacy between us. “We were red-hot last night, and you know it.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“That’s not a denial, but I’ll answer your question. If I’d shown up at the winery today, you would have disappeared into some corner again until I left, like you did last night. I wasn’t prepared to let you run again.”
“I didn’t run,” I say. “I simply decided you could be playing me. And I don’t need more enemies than friends.”
“And now?” he challenges softly. “Am I a friend or an enemy?”
“I haven’t decided.”
Something flickers in his eyes, gone before I can name it, before he asks, “All right, then. I’ll settle for either as long as you keep that old saying about enemies in mind.”
“They aren’t the nice guys.”
“If you have an enemy who’s a nice guy, it’s no different than having an attorney who’s a nice guy. You might as well call him a friend.”
“But you’re not a nice guy. You said so.”
“What I am is the man who made you drop that ten-foot wall of yours when I touched you last night.” His gaze lowers to my mouth, lingering there before lifting. “And I’ve been thinking about touching you again ever since. About tearing down that wall and keeping it down.”
“That wall is to keep men like you out.”
He narrows his gaze on me. “Who burned you, Faith? And what scars did he leave?”
That wall of mine slams back into place, and damn it, he did tear it down, and he did so without touching me. He’s dangerous. He sees too much. Things I don’t want to show anyone ever again. “I’m leaving,” I say, turning back to the car, but as I do, my purse strap falls from my shoulder. I try to catch it, and only then do I realize I’m still holding the card from my father, and it tumbles to the ground. I suck in air, hating the idea of it on the ground for reasons I’ll analyze later. Turning and squatting down, I intend to grab it, but Tiger is already there, and it’s in his hand. I wobble on the toes of my boots just enough to instinctively flatten my hand on his powerful thigh to catch myself. The impact of that connection is electric, instant, that wall he’d mentioned falling. I can’t breathe, and my heart is instantly racing. I try to pull back my hand, but his covers mine.
That breath I’d sucked in moments before is lodged in my throat, and my gaze lifts to his, the impact punching me in the chest, heat waving between us, that dark lust charging the air. I tell myself to stand up, but I don’t. I tell myself to jerk my hand back from where it rests against him. But he smells so good, a cocoon of earthy masculinity that seduces me to stay right where I am, lost in those deep blue eyes of his.
“Touching you again,” he says, his voice as earthy and warm as his scent, “or, rather, you touching me this time, is better than the first time.” He offers me the card. “Happy Birthday, Faith.”
I don’t ask how he knows it’s my birthday. It’s on the card. It’s also on documents that he, no doubt, studied before he came here today. I reach for the envelope, but he doesn’t let it go. He holds on to it and me, and it hits me that the two things in life that I’ve learned you can neither explain nor control have now collided:death and lust. And I have never needed control more in my life than now.
Tiger reaches up and strokes the hair from my eyes, his hands settling on my cheek, a stranger who somehow feels better than anything has in a very long time. And just as I feared, I’m reminded of how good an escape that dark lust can be, how addictive. He’s right. Iamafraid. I’m afraid of losing what little control I have right now.
I stand up and go on the attack. “You researched me like a client or someone you’re prosecuting,” I charge, knowing it’s a ridiculous reason to be mad. I would have researched him, too, had I gotten in earlier last night, but I don’t like it right now. I don’t like how he’s taken my life by storm. “You knew it was my birthday before you came here.”
“I researched you like a woman I want to know. And Idowant to know you, Faith.”
His tongue strokes my name again, soft yet rough-edged, which somehow screams sex to me.Hescreams sex to me. “Stop saying my name like that.”
“Like what?” he asks, and in that moment, with his long hair tied at his nape, his deep voice roughened up, he is lethal for no logical reason.
“Like we’re intimate,” I say. “Like you know me, because the internet doesn’t determine who or what I am.”
“Then you show me who you are.”
“Why?” I challenge. “You already read me like a book. I need to get to work.” I turn and climb into my car, as I should have before now.
He kneels beside me, and I brace myself for the touch that I am both relieved and disappointed doesn’t follow, but I can feel him compelling me to look at him. “This is what I do,” he says, undeterred when I do not. “I push and I push some more to get what I want.”
I look at him before I can stop myself. “You officially pushed too hard.”
