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He takes one step closer to me, and even in the low light with his face shadowed, I can perfectly read how he’s feeling. “What do you think? Lawson? Dakota?”
And then it hits me why he’s furious and I slap a hand over my mouth. “Oh my God.”
“Something just come to you, did it?” he asks, silk of the poisonous kind in his rich voice.
I narrow my eyes. “You don’t need to come into the place where I both live and work acting like you’re the most important thing ever, but—”
“But?”
“But,” I take a shaky breath, “if this is about the party, then I’m sorry. I thought I’d sent out the email to everyone on Lawson’s list.”
He nods. “Right and somehow, you forgot me?”
I close my eyes, trying to get myself together. Then I open them. He’s close, real close and he smells of tobacco leaf and honey and spice and it’s still as intoxicating as the first time I breathed it in all those years ago.
Maybe more.
Because I know what it’s like to spend time with him. Naked, glorious time.
“I’ve got a lot on my mind,” I whisper, the words honest as they can be because it was true. “It wasn’t deliberate.”
“You go around like you can’t stand me. You look at me like you want to lick me head to toe, and you want me to believe it wasn’t deliberate?”
Taking a step back, I hit the rough bark of the tree where the swing hangs from.
Leland comes up to me, so close we might as well be touching, those amber eyes glittering fire. The anger’s still there; something else too. Almost like concern. But the only thing he’d be concerned about is himself.
The thought isn’t fair, I know that, and it might not be true. But he’s dangerous. A weakness I spent so many years building against.
A man who sleeps around so much he forgot me.
Before I saw him again, I could comfort myself that he was a blip, a good time soured at the end. Nothing more, nothing less. Because anyone I’ve dated, I’ve kept at arm’s length.
I don’t want to lose myself. I don’t want to be controlled and imprisoned emotionally like I was with Billy.
But I can’t use that comfort. Because the more I see him, the more I get to know him, the more I think I could like him. That is if he wasn’t such an ass.
He’s smart, funny, and sexy as hell.
And the kind of man who sleeps around.
I have to remember that.
“It wasn’t deliberate.” I’d cross my arms but he’s so close that would mean I touch him, and I might crumble if I do. “No matter how I feel or don’t, I wouldn’t do that. I’ve—”
“Had a lot on your mind.” He slides a hand against my cheek. He’s warm, and his touch is electric, making it hard to breathe. I don’t crumble but I’m about to start shaking. He’s that powerful. “Like what?”
“Nothing.” I glance away.
Now he slips his fingers beneath my chin and moves in a little closer, raising my chin. Our bodies brush each other and the heat of him is a brand. My heart beats hard, fast, and wild.
He searches my face. “Not nothing because I think I believe you. I can be a friend. You look like you need one and I’m betting whatever it is right now you’re not saying anything to Dakota.”
I want to rub my face against him. I want to place my head against his chest and let his arms come around me, have him hold me. But I don’t.
“I’m fine.” He’s magnetic and it’s like I’m falling into him. “I can handle it. I don’t need anyone else to handle what I have on my mind. I’m strong enough to deal with whatever comes my way.”
“I’m sure you are, but apart from your brushing me off verbally and giving me the come-on with your looks that could burn a man down to the ground and make him hard as a rock, you’re usually grounded.”
