I’d say so, but the way I am reacting to you throws my normal playbook out the window.”
She shook her head. “Your playbook? Any guy who has one of those isn’t someone I’m interested in.”
“That sounded worse than I meant it to. I was trying to say that this attraction I feel for you is making me forget every rule I have about mixing business and pleasure.”
“I can’t afford to take a chance like that with you, Justin.”
“Because of Tomas?”
She wished it were that simple. “If it didn’t involve my grandparents …”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
She had no idea. She wished she had some answers. “Say I met you on vacation, I’d jump into a fling with you. But this is my home and my family and I can’t afford to compromise anything.”
“There is no need to compromise anything,” Justin said, putting his hand in the center of her back and urging her to start walking again.
She shook her head and the scent of gardenias surrounded him. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply. Why was it that everything about Selena was a turn-on for him? “I’m not going to take no for an answer. We are both good at negotiating.”
“This isn’t easy for me. My grandparents deserve my undivided attention, I owe them,” she said.
“Why do you owe them?” he asked. He wanted to know more about what had happened ten years ago and he was determined to get some answers, but not right now. “I just do.”
He nodded. “Well, I owe my brothers, and my company deserves my undivided attention, but I can’t think of business when I’m with you. Right now all I can think of is your mouth and how it will feel under mine.”
“Saying things like that is not helping me,” she said, closing her eyes and wrapping her arms around her own waist.
If he pushed a little bit harder he could have her. He knew that. But he didn’t want to crumble her defenses. He pulled her closer to him and moved them off the path out of the way of other walkers. “Have you thought about it?”
She nibbled on her full lower lip as she looked up at him. “I have, but I’m not about to play into your hands so easily.”
He lowered his head, wanting to kiss her but at the same time wanting—no needing—her to want it too. He wanted her to be so attracted to him that she forgot her rules and her fears and everything else just faded away.
“Justin, stop manipulating me.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I want to see what it will take for you to forget about business and just see me as a man.”
“Stop trying to play me,” she said. “Just be yourself.”
“I don’t think you’d trust me,” he said.
“I don’t trust you now,” she said. “And that feeling that you are toying with me is never going to help your case. I do want you but I don’t want to be your pawn.”
Her honesty cut straight through him. He really didn’t want her to be his pawn. He wanted her to be his woman. That was it.
He needed Selena no matter what the circumstances. And he was going to do whatever he had to to make that happen. He couldn’t just walk away.
“I’m sorry. I was trying—”
“I know what you were trying to do,” she said, lifting one hand and tracing the line of his lips. “I can understand it because I don’t want to end up the weak one either.”
He could hardly think when she touched him. He slid his hands together at her waist and pulled her more closely into his body.
He rubbed his lips against hers briefly and then stepped back before he gave in to temptation and ravished her mouth.
“We need … to walk,” he said.
He took her hand with his and led her down the path. She laughed softly and he knew she was very aware of his desire. That didn’t bother him at all. He wanted her to be very aware of him as a man and he knew that he’d accomplished that.
“We can’t walk away from this,” he said.
“I know,” she admitted. “But I won’t let this kind of attraction take control of my life.”
He understood that. As a man, part of him was glad to hear that she wanted him that powerfully. The other part, the businessman who never took a day off, was glad to hear it, too, because it meant that he had the potential to use that attraction to get what he wanted.
Walking took the edge off her and allowed him to start thinking of something other than lifting her skirt and finding the sweetness between her legs. “What if we pretend you are on vacation?”
“Why?”
“Then it’s like you said, we’re just two people who are attracted to each other.”
“Like a vacation fling?” she asked.
“Exactly like that. No talking about our families and their business interests. Just two people who’ve met and started an affair,” he said.
“So it ends when I go back home?” she asked.
His gut said no. He didn’t want to think about Selena leaving but he put that down to the fact that she was new to him. “If that is what we both decide, then yes.”
She pulled her hand from his, stopped walking and turned to look out at the ocean. She wrapped one arm around her waist and he wondered if he’d ever know her well enough to know what she was thinking.
“I wish it could be that simple,” she said, “But we both know there is no way we’re going to be able—”
“I’m not someone who takes no for an answer,” he said.
She glanced over her shoulder at him and he saw that fiery spark was back in her eyes. This couldn’t be more than a fling and he wanted to keep it light. But the only way he was going to be able to deal with her in the boardroom was if he had her in his bedroom.
“I’m not going to let you bully me into making a decision like this.”
“Is that what I’m doing or is that what you are telling yourself?”
She turned to face him full-on and walked over to him, hips swaying with each step. His mind went blank and suddenly he didn’t care why she agreed but only that she did. He needed her to be one hundred percent his. And nothing was going to stand in the way of that. Not business and not even the lady herself. He knew that Selena Gonzalez wanted him and now he just had to find the right button to push, to convince her that she was willing to take a chance on him.
“I know my own mind, Justin Stern,” she said as she closed the gap between them. She put her hands on his shoulders
