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Something inside him seemed to snap. He slapped his glass down on the bar just as he’d done in a dozen films. “You want to play games? Okay, baby. Let’s play.”
He started coming toward her, and she belatedly remembered this wasn’t a movie but her real life. She told herself to get out of his way, but he caught her before she could take a step. Her hips bumped into the window. He curled his hands around her arms. “Come on, kid,” he whispered. “Show me what you’ve got.”
His head swooped down, and he closed his mouth over hers. His teeth ground into her bottom lip as he forced her mouth open. She tasted whiskey on his tongue and tried to tell herself this was Jake. His hands slipped under her dress to her panties. He slid them down just far enough to cup her bare buttocks. When he pulled her hard against him, her newfound sense of power evaporated.
He pushed her dress higher, and the fly of his jeans scraped the bare flesh of her stomach. His tongue probed her mouth. He was too fierce. She wanted soft music and beautiful flowers. She wanted sinuous bodies blurred beneath a soft-focus lens, not this raw carnal attack. She pushed against his chest. “Stop.”
The harsh sound of his breathing rasped in her ear. “This is what you want, isn’t it? You want me to treat you like a woman.”
“Like a woman, not a whore.” The lover of her daydreams had vanished. She pulled away from him and stumbled toward the front door, desperate to get outside before she burst into tears. But she needed her purse. Her car keys. She turned back to get them in time to see him pick up the telephone.
Her lust-crazed attacker had vanished. He looked tired and sad. She studied him more closely, trying to see him with her head instead of her bruised heart. Suddenly he became as transparent as one of the glass walls in this cantilevered house.
He spoke into the receiver, all business now. “Do you have a suite available for tonight?”
She walked toward him, her keys and purse forgotten.
He fixed his eye on the fireplace so he didn’t have to look at her. “Yes. Yes, that’ll be fine. No, just one night—”
She took the phone from him and set it back on its cradle.
He wasn’t a man who could be easily taken by surprise. He pulled on his hostility like an ill-fitting costume. “Haven’t you had enough for tonight?”
She stared him straight in the eye. “No,” she said softly. “I want more.”
A pulse ticked in his throat. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“Nobody’s ever accused you of being the world’s greatest actor, but even for you, that was a lousy performance.” She softly mocked him. “Big bad Bird Dog Caliber trying to scare off the good girl.”
He raked his hands through his hair. “Leave it alone. Just leave it alone.”
“You’re a chicken. No guts.”
“I’ll drive you to the inn.”
“You want me,” she said. “I know you do.”
His jaw clenched, but he kept his voice even. “After you get a good night’s sleep—”
“I want to sleep here.”
“I’ll pick you up at the inn tomorrow morning and take you to breakfast. How about that?”
She shaped her lips into a model’s pout. “Golly, Uncle Jake, it sounds super. Will you buy me a lollipop, too?”
His face darkened. “How much am I supposed to take? What the hell do you want from me?”
“I want you to stop trying to protect me.”
“You’re a kid, damn it! You need protecting.”
“That kid crap is getting old, Jake. Really old.”
“Go away, Fleur. Please. For your own good.”
She couldn’t take one more person telling her what was best for her, especially not Jake. “I’ll decide that.” She tried not to show her heart in her eyes. “I want you to make love with me.”
“Not interested.”
