My gaze narrowed and I allowed myself to see him, really see him for the first time that night. I studied the dark eyes, the even darker brows that were now raised in challenge. His nose was a little crooked and there was a scar on his bottom lip. His skin was dark, almost red with the remnants of summer.
He shouldn’t be attractive, and yet I couldn’t look away. It had always been like that for me, a truth I couldn’t deny. For me there would always be Jordan Slater, everyone else could only follow in his shadow. He was on another level.
What was worse, he saw right through me. He knew it would always be that way.
I shook my head with a sigh. “I can’t find my footing with you.”
“We’re friends, isn’t that what we agreed on?” He made it sound so simple. It was too easy. I didn’t believe him or his tone.
“Yeah.”
“Then what else do you need?” You could hear the arrogance. It was pissing me off and turning me on. The big jerk.
I need room to breathe. Standing alone with him, he occupied all my senses at once. Everywhere I turned, there he was. I was assaulted by the sight of him, the scent of him, memories of the taste of him.
I took a long drink of the liquor kissed juice from my cup and fingered the chain around my neck.
“You still have that?” This time his surprise lacked any arrogance.
I smiled fondly in spite of myself. “I do.”
“One of us is going to have to get you a better one for Christmas this year.” His voice was softer now, but not like it had been when I was nothing more than a kid to him. This was different, with a touch of something more erotic.
“Nah, I like this one. It’s perfect.”
I liked it so much Caleb had despised it. I immediately closed my eyes as the sick feeling came over me. It wasn’t new for me to have sick feelings when I thought of Caleb, it wasn’t new for me to feel sick to think of what I had become in that short amount of time with him. But, usually being around Jordan had taken all of that away. What was it about Jordan that made me feel alive again? Question who I’d been and who I’d become because of everything that had happened to me? More still, why didn’t it work then?
Was the almighty Jordan Slater unable to slay all my demons?
Would he, if he could? I knew in an instant he’d try and I’d want him to. I was all the weaker for it. A sad stillness spread over me.
“What’s going on in there, Rae?” His finger was warm and smooth against my temple. His touch washed the sadness away as if it had never been there. I was so overwhelmed with thirst, I nearly downed the entire drink in one pull.
“Easy, kid.” His fingers slid from my temple and eased the glass down. “Friends, remember? Talk to me.”
“I’m not a kid.” A kid wouldn’t be having the reaction to him that I was. “It shouldn’t be that easy for you.” It was harder to breathe.
“What?”
“To see right through me.” Because he did, he always had, and he probably always would. I wished he didn’t look so good when he did it.
His quick laugh was rich and vibrant. It was the sort of sound that could breathe life into a woman. My body’s reaction was as quick as that laugh, starting with a tightening in my stomach that traveled all the way up to my nipples. I sucked air in through my teeth with a hiss. It shouldn’t be that easy for him to do this to me, either. I should be mad that he was laughing at me, annoyed at the very least. Instead, I wanted to jump him right there in the kitchen.
I wasn’t sure this being “friends” thing was going to work.
Backing up against the counter to steady myself, I fought the dizzy tumbling of my heart and mind. “You knock me off center…I need some air.”
I would get no air, I realized a few seconds too late. Had I paid more attention to him I would have seen the look in his eyes. I would have noticed he hadn’t been laughing at me, I would have heard the irony, and prepared myself to have him looming over me.
I hadn’t been prepared.
The hissing sound echoed in my ears again, the now empty cup fell to the floor…forgotten. How could I remember anything when he stood so close I could feel the heat radiate from his chest? No, I didn’t have that much to drink. His nearness made me drunk.
I wanted him closer.
His large hand was warm as he cupped my face. Warm and gentle, a direct contrast to the fiery heat flickering in his eyes. His body told me I was safe. But, his eyes, they told me that I was treading on thin ice, nowhere near safe. It should have frightened me.
It didn’t.
“You look at me like I’m going to eat you alive.” The only thing in the world I wanted I found in the dangerous promise of his eyes and the husky desire of his voice.
“Jordan, I—”
His lips crushed down on mine, fueled with molten desire. Whatever I was going to say was as forgotten as the cup on the floor. There was only that moment, only Jordan. He seduced every inch of me with one kiss. His lips slid against mine with primal decadence.
When my hands fisted in his shirt, when I thought myself on the precipice of what he could offer me, he took me deeper.
I moaned when his tongue touched mine. My body tightened like a spring. I needed more of him and couldn’t have it fast enough. The sensual press of my body to his was rewarded with a masculine tremble.
Pinned between his strength and the unbending counter I let out a quiet moan. Yes, more, give me more. Abruptly, he stopped. The room spun once, before everything slid into place around me. I held still, so still I could hear the beat of my heart and feel his breath on
my face.
With trepidation and a tremble, I forced my eyes open. I hadn’t known I’d closed them.
The hint of the danger that lie ahead still flickered in his eyes. To keep from losing myself in the promise of it, I focused instead on the heavy rise and fall of his chest that I still clung to. Very carefully I unwound myself from him, my hands falling awkwardly to my sides. I should thank him for stopping, thank him for keeping me from being the wanton woman I was trying so hard not to be.
Instead, I fought to control my arousal and my temper.
I wanted to demand a reason why he stopped, I wanted to beg him to kiss me again, I wanted to run away. My head and my heart spun in so many different directions I couldn’t think.
“It’s not good for me to be alone with you,” he whispered as his lips brushed my hair.
“I think I like bad.” I was all too aware of how little I cared for his thoughts on that matter.
As his laugh vibrated through me, I sighed and brushed the wrinkles from his shirt. The roar in my ears began to die down enough I could hear the music thumping gently from outside. Each second that passed without his lips touching mine, I was on more even footing. Even the angry parts of me began to fade away. “There.” At the sound of his voice, I tilted my head. The corner of his mouth was tilted in a gentle
smile. “She’s back.”