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Chapter 8
Colt
“Dance with me, Ember.” I was glad it was dark so she couldn’t see my fingers trembling. When she took my hand, I knew that I had her. I pulled her close and we began to move to the soft music. She was stiff at first, but slowly began to relax and allowed herself to flow with the music that surrounded us on the balcony.
The feel of her hips shifting with the movement was turning me the hell on, but I managed to maintain control. It sure wouldn’t look very good if I was telling her no sex and had a major hard-on pressed tightly against her.
She smelled so damned good, like citrus, and I wanted to bury my nose in her hair and pretend I was in an orange grove basking in the sunshine. I whispered in her ear instead, “See, it’s not so bad.”
When Ember asked me why I wanted to do this, I had the urge to tell her, Because I don’t want anyone else to ever touch you again, but I bit my tongue. I did see something special in her, and I did want her to view herself as more than just an object for sex.
She stared into my face, and while it was too dark to see the color of her eyes, I already had them memorized. “So I date you for four weeks, and then we go our separate ways?”
I didn’t want to think about that just yet. Hell, who knew, maybe by week two she would be driving me crazy and I would be ticking the days off on my calendar to get to the end of the deal.
I could see the wheels turning in her mind as she mulled over everything. “So?” I asked.
“I accept your challenge, Dr. Barnes.” I didn’t know if I was more excited by the fact that she had accepted, or by the fact that she was playing absently with the hair on the back of my neck.
“Really?” I smiled down at her, and she returned it.
“Really.”
I stopped dancing and pulled her into a hug, “You’re not going to regret this, Ember.”
The sound of her laugh filled my left ear, “Now, I don’t know about that.”
When I let her go, I brushed a lock of stray hair from her cheek and pushed it behind her ear. “I’m going to kiss you now.”
She sputtered, “Why? I thought you said no sex?”
I tried not to laugh, but couldn’t help it with the shocked look on her face. “Why? That is what people do when they date. They kiss, and I’ve been dying to feel those beautiful full lips all night.” I leaned in while slipping my hand to the back of her neck and tilting her head back. Her eyes were wide as she released a shaky breath. “It’s just a kiss. I think you might have done that once or twice before.”
But damn! It was anything but just a kiss. The moment my lips touched hers, a low burn started in my gut as my knees threatened to give out. Holy hell! I should not have done that!
Her lips were warm, soft, and sweet from the wine. If I suffered this kind of reaction from a brief kiss, what the hell was it going to feel like to kiss her passionately?
There was no way I was going to tempt fate tonight.
I pulled back slowly, grinning down at her like I had given her a prize. “See, that wasn’t so bad.” No, just the opposite; that was so—damned—good . One freaking kiss, and I was already addicted and wanted another hit to deepen the intoxication.
“No, that’s wasn’t so bad.” Her voice was lower than I had ever heard it, and it socked me in the stomach.
“Why don’t I get you home? It’s getting late, and I assume you have to work tomorrow.”
“Yeah, I do.” She seemed to snap out of the bubble we had been in and jerked back. “Um, thank you for dinner.”
“You’re welcome. Now, let’s go grab a taxi.”
“You don’t need to take me home. I can take a cab. No reason for you to go out.”
“Ember, my dating rules are simple. One, I pick you up for dates. Two, I drop you off from dates. Three, we are exclusive, no one else for either of us. See? Simple.”
“But tonight was not a date. Can we start next time, like next week?”
I laughed, “What, did you think we were only going to see each other once a week? Nope, a couple of dinners during the week, more if we can manage it, and the weekends we are together.”
“What?” she squeaked. “You want to be together all weekend?”
