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She jerked her gaze upward. “They’re taking a taxi when they arrive so it won’t matter what time they get in.”
“They are due in at eleven-fifteen, so with delays and the taxi, they’ll arrive after midnight, I suspect,” he said, the unspoken implication there—they were alone for a while.
She wanted to be alone with him. She shouldn’t want to be alone with him. Her chin lifted, those ice-gray eyes of his anything but icy—they were heat, fire, seduction. The room seemed to shrink, and with it, her hands-off resolve. Desperately, she reached for it again, somehow found a calm, businesslike tone. “I talked with Ron on the phone, just a bit ago. We’ve decided to say Noah and Josh are my brothers, here visiting a few days. We don’t want to set off any alarms for the team or your stalker. And we have to think about Maria and Jessica.”
“Why would your brothers be at my house?”
“I’m a professional dancer who travels as much as you do,” she said. “That’ll check out if anyone looks it up. I’ve done plenty of tours. I’m taking some time off, traveling with you. My brothers wanted to see me before I hit the road again. It also makes us look close, like we’ve been dating awhile, off everyone’s radar. We’ll need to practice our stories and get them down perfectly.”
“You really think you and your team can end this before Texas, like you told Ron?”
“I’m hopeful, yes,” she confirmed. “But we’ll evaluate the situation quickly once my team arrives, and if we feel the situation will extend to Texas, conversations about travel will need to take place. I’ll want you close to me where I can best protect you.”
Their eyes held, awareness between them, the possibility of shared hotel rooms a reminder of an intimate encounter unfinished. Was she insane to think she could keep her distance from Luke?
“How’s your leg?” he asked, clearly ready to put the security issues aside.
“It’s fine. Better.” She could barely breathe. When in her life had a man ever stolen her breath simply by looking at her? Never. Never was how many times. She cleared her throat and motioned toward the table where she’d been working. “I have a list of questions,” she managed to say, her voice somewhat steady when she felt far from it. “Maybe you could answer them for me?”
He didn’t move. Neither did she. She didn’t want to move anywhere but toward him. Yet she had to put distance between them.
Finally, he said, “Is this how it’s going to be, Katie?” he asked. “We act as if nothing happened between us? As if we both don’t want to go back upstairs and finish what we started?”
Going back upstairs and finishing what they started sounded far too good. Katie found herself squeezing her legs together at the suggestion. Somehow, she kept an impassive expression.
Unfortunately, she also put her foot right in her big mouth. “I’m trying to do my job, Luke,” she managed. The minute she said those words, she knew she’d made a mistake.
His mood shifted, turned darker; it radiated off him, as stormy as the weather outside. “Your job,” he said flatly. Suddenly, he moved, closing the distance between them, his hands pressing into the counter on either side of her. He didn’t touch her, but his body aligned with hers, the heat radiating off him, into her. “Is that what we are back to? I’m your job?”
“Luke,” she said, her voice not even sounding like her own. Don’t touch him. Don’t do it. Her hands itched to flatten themselves on his chest. “I am here for a job. To find out who your stalker is.”
“And you think pretending not to want me while pretending to date me is what’s right? You think that makes logical sense?” When he put it that way, no. No, it did not make sense. He pressed onward, his voice full of confessions that reached beyond his words. “I want you, Katie. I can’t stop thinking about your soft moans and your silky skin.” He stared at her, waited for her to react.
Seconds from caving in to her desire for him, from reaching for Luke, Katie struggled to keep up her resistance. Luke watched her, his face filling with dissatisfaction.
With a frustrated sound, he pushed off the counter. “If this is how you want it, if you want to pretend in public and pretend in private, then so be it. We’ll pretend. But be honest about what’s really going on, Katie. Being with me isn’t keeping you from doing your job. We talked about that. We came to an agreement. You’re hiding behind your job as an excuse to hide from whatever is going on in that head of yours. You’re running, and I don’t think it’s from me. I think it’s from yourself.”
