a better plan. Why didn’t I think of it sooner? ‘Go. Enjoy what’s left of your evening.’
He sighs, casting me a withering look. ‘I sent her home. I sent them all home.’
I gasp. ‘Why?’ A stupid flare of hope flickers in my chest, gooey and warming.
‘Because dinner’s over and I want to hear your explanation.’ He pauses on the top step and I want to look away from his semi-transparent shirt, which clings to the defined muscle he hasn’t lost since leaving the army.
He wants to hear my sob story—isn’t that why I came?
Of course, now my elevated heart rate and clammy palms have less to do with nerves or humiliation and more to do with hormones. Because his hand on my elbow, even through two layers of fabric, is deliciously alien enough to remind me I’m a woman.
A woman on a mission to reclaim her life.
All areas of her life...?
I bite my lip, stifling a groan. His innocent, non-sexual touch—strong, in control, commanding—is that good. Because it’s been three long years, and something about Drake—his confidence, the control he wears like the discipline of the soldier he was—it’s sparked my long-dormant body to life.
I slide my arm free of his hand, my fickle stomach rolling at my traitorous turn of thought, and he keys in the entry code on the panel beside the door.
The breath judders into me, delivering another dose of warm, Drake-scented air from his jacket. But there’s no margin for whimsical flights of sexual fancy here. I’m here for a job, and he’d never think of me in that way.
He’s Sam’s best friend.
Sam, my dead husband.
I swallow acid. I’m simply overwhelmed, my body’s reaction to his dismantling looks and his warm touch a product of too long without any sort of male contact. Or perhaps I can blame the stress of formulating and then executing my plan, the chance of new purpose in my life now my sister is grown.
The electronic click sounds and he swings the door inwards. ‘Let’s get you inside.’ His stare slides over my face and then dips lower, taking in my sodden clothes. ‘Get you warmed up. And then we’ll talk.’ Those green eyes of his penetrate. ‘You’ll talk.’
My belly rolls again, bossy, commanding Drake not something I’ve ever experienced. That it warms me more than irritates makes me snappy. ‘Huh? What is this, an interrogation? Gonna shove bamboo skewers under my fingernails? You’re not in the army now.’ My petulance forces heat to my stinging cheeks. I need to get a grip before I blow this chance to smithereens. The ultimate in self-sabotage.
‘Yes, but I still have the moves.’ Drake smiles, an unguarded twitch of his lips an expression I’ve rarely seen directed my way.
My breath turns to thick syrup. Is he...flirting?
The flare of warmth in his eyes and the mischievous twist to his full mouth thrusts my neglected body into meltdown. I expect a cloud of steam to start rising from my head.
He holds the door open, the welcoming light and warmth beckoning. ‘It’s your call, but we can do this in comfort or out here where it’s pissing down.’ A shrug. ‘I’m happy with either.’
He waits, as if he has all the time in the world. As if he’s immune to the sub-zero drizzle. As if he’s still used to the discomfort and discipline of the army.
Now I’m not certain if the shivers racking my body are temperature-related or a tug of war between my conflicted urges—to run from his dark, unfathomable looks or to follow him and prolong the conversation, which is already our longest and most addictive.
I step inside, dragging my attention from the wet shirt plastered to the contours of his chest. I shouldn’t find this man in any way attractive. He doesn’t need me, would never want me, and just acknowledging his good looks and the effect they have on my only-human pulse floods my throat with the bitter taste of betrayal.
But Sam’s not here. I’m twenty-eight. This reaction to Drake proves I’m not immune to the charms of the opposite sex...or at least the charms of this man. Am I going to remain celibate for the rest of my life?
Yes, I haven’t wanted anyone else these past years, but I’m a woman and Drake fills his suit the way he used to fill his uniform—fit, virile, a man at the top of his game. I’d have to be dead to not feel the zing of electricity through the cobweb-strewn parts of my nervous system.
And there’s no escape from him. From his deep stare, dark and penetrating, from the past we share, convoluted and confusing, or from my aborted plan and the explanation I owe him.
I try to slow my breathing as I follow his long strides, his broad shoulders and dominating height obscuring our direction. This is what I wanted—his attention. All I have to do is plead my case and hope to salvage something, even if it’s just my dignity. So why do I feel ready to concede the fight and flee the ring?
Drake
MY PULSE SPRINTS like an excited fucking puppy as I lead her from the staff entrance and along the corridor towards the lift and the Faulkner’s private suites. That I’m even taking her to the hotel rooms I only use if I’ve been working late or if I’m entertaining a date sounds an air-raid siren in my head.
A warning the glutton for punishment in me shuts out.
But Kenzie and I going upstairs isn’t a date. The selfish part of me wishes ‘us’ were that simple.
In truth, there is no ‘us’.
The achingly familiar visceral blow provides a perfect reminder to my dick, which had perked up the minute I’d seen her in the restaurant.
My army discipline helps to dispel images of all the filthy sexual things I’d like to do with her—things she’d run from if she knew. As it is, I’m tempted to drop to the carpet and pump out a hundred push-ups to put myself on the safe side of exhaustion.
Because the woman standing across the narrow corridor from me, her guarded hazel eyes shooting me cautious looks, may as well be a nun, she’s so untouchable.
And pissed.
I’m a bossy bastard when the need arises, and McKenzie Porter ignites that need like no other. I slowly inhale. A fucking stupid move that drags her subtle feminine scent into my head, where it has no place being and maximum potential to test my restraint.
Why is she here, in the flesh? Not just the dream version—the one I’ve spent considerable time with over the years. And what the hell was tonight about?
I open my mouth to ask again and then clamp my lips together. She’s freezing, her body still trembling. At least I can no longer hear her teeth chatter.
Instead I scrub at my hair and try to work out her stunt with the dessert. She’d wanted to get my attention, she’d said. Well, all she had to do was walk into the same room.
