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He’s not only perfectly him and dressed, he’s already showered, while I’m a mess in a blanket. “You’re awake,” he says, pressing his hands to the island, all that masculine perfection tuned in on me.
“And without any clothes,” I say, pointing out the obvious.
“I sent them to the dry cleaners. I also left one of my robes on the couch in case you woke up while I was away.”
He sent my clothes to the dry cleaners? I’m very confused about what is happening right now. “I didn’t see the robe. I was on the floor when I woke up and just went straight for my clothes. And when I couldn’t find them, well—here I am in only a blanket.”
His lips quirk. “Yes. Here you are in only a blanket.”
He doesn’t say more. He just stands there, staring at me, his expression unreadable and I am suffocating in my naked awkwardness. “When will my clothes be here?”
“Soon. I sent them off early this morning.”
While I slept naked in a virtual stranger’s house, on his floor. I’m not sure what that says about me.
“Thank you,” I say to him. “You didn’t have to do that.”
His lips quirk. “You said that. Twice.”
“I would have just left and changed at home.”
His gaze narrows, the lines of his handsome face hardening. “Because you wanted to go home last night?”
No, I think. No I did not, but he’s impossible to read right now, a deep, dark abyss of unreadable man, and I am drowning in the emptiness. “I didn’t plan or expect to stay.”
“Did you want to go home last night, Aria?”
I’m a deer in headlights, not sure where I’m to run, if I even should run at all. “I should have gone home.” Which is the truth, I add silently. Even if I do as Gio bid, and fight my way back into my namesake, it’s sure to be a dangerous battle I have yet to fight.
He walks around the island and toward me, and my God, the man is sex in denim, boots, and a T-shirt while I am a homeless person in a blanket. It’s all I can do to not turn and yes, run. Run until I at least brush my hair. But I don’t. I just stand there and already he is close. He stops in front of me, smelling like freshly showered man and delicious spice, but he doesn’t touch me. I want him to touch me. I have never wanted a man to touch me the way I do Kace.
He studies me, his expression probing, his voice soft but firm as he asks again, “Did you want to go home, Aria?” but he doesn’t wait for an answer. “Because I brought you here. I never bring anyone here,” he continues. “And when we laid down in front of that fire together, I didn’t want you to leave. I thought maybe when we woke up this morning I’d feel differently, but I don’t.”
The words would please me far more than they should if they weren’t hard and sharp. He wants me here, but it doesn’t please him. We have this intense, magnetic pull between us, but it doesn’t please him. I bristle, confused, embarrassed, certain I have overstayed my invitation but survival mode flares heat, and not the heat of passion. The heat of anger. “Don’t sound so angry, Kace. I’m not pushing myself on you. I would already be gone If you wouldn’t have taken my clothes.”
He catches the blanket and pulls me to him. “I don’t want you to leave. That’s what I’m telling you. I’m asking you to stay.”
My throat thickens right along with my confusion. He is close. His mouth is very close. His scent wraps around me. His words and actions dart left and right, cluttering up my mind and emotions. “You’re doing that hot and cold thing again.”
“I assure you, Aria,” he says, his voice low, raspy, “there is nothing cold about me with you.”
“You’re confusing me, Kace.”
“Did you want to leave last night, Aria?”
“No. You know I didn’t. We were—it was—”
“Yes, we were and yes it was. Right now, though, I have to go to a meeting with my agent in the Hamptons this afternoon and then it’s straight to Texas for another show with Chris.”
“Oh.” Disappointment stabs me the way embarrassment had minutes before. “I see.”
“No,” he corrects. “You don’t see. I want you to come with me.”
I blink. “What?”
“It will be a fast hop. We’ll chopper to the Hamptons and I have a private jet waiting to take us to Austin. The show is tomorrow night. We’ll be back by Sunday night.”
I’m stunned, my world spinning right and wrong. I want to say yes, but Kace is too close to my past to hide inside his world. And Gio is still missing, but is hiding the way to find him or me?
