she was crazy. She saw admiration and respect and something else, a spark of something hot and hungry that sent nerves suddenly jumping through her stomach like butterflies doing the paso doble.
She caught her breath. She was imagining things. She had to be. It was only a trick of the firelight. Aidan Caine, gazillionaire tech genius and all-around geek hottie, couldn’t possibly be interested in her, the perpetually stressed single mother he had rescued literally off the street the day before.
“I should go. It’s late and I have a busy day ahead tomorrow.”
If she didn’t leave, she would make a complete fool of herself over him. Hadn’t she just told him how she wanted to escape her problems and pretend they didn’t exist? He was the ultimate fantasy, the gorgeous and insanely wealthy man who would swoop in and rescue her from the stress and angst of her life.
And the whole brain-tumor thing, knowing he had walked through the valley of the shadow and all that. It brought out all her nurturing instincts and made her want to cradle his head to her breast and take care of him.
She could just see herself falling hard for him—and ending up battered and bruised emotionally. Not what she needed.
He rose as well. “Sorry I kept you up so late.”
“You didn’t. I...enjoyed talking with you.”
The flames flickered over his features, making him look rakish, slightly dangerous and infinitely appealing. She swallowed, trying to will herself to move toward her room but something seemed to hold her in place.
“Good night,” she murmured, at the same moment he said her name. Only her name, and then he murmured something that could have been a curse or a prayer and the next moment he stepped toward her and lowered his mouth to hers.
YES. THIS.
Eliza caught her breath at the first touch of his mouth on hers, firm, minty, delicious. He smelled so good, leather and sage and perhaps a hint of peppery citrus.
Some little voice in her mind whispered this was a lousy idea but she shoved it hard into a corner, tossed a big pile of mental debris on top of it and turned back to relishing his mouth against hers.
The attraction she had been fighting since she walked into the darkened kitchen—okay, let’s be honest, since she opened her eyes the day before and found that lean, compelling face gazing down at her—seemed to simmer through her, frothy and bright.
He kissed like a man used to taking what he wanted from the world, with single-minded concentration—as if he wanted to tease out every secret, every fantasy.
She was completely unprepared for the riot of sensations he evoked. How could she be otherwise? Nothing in her very limited experience could have prepared her for this.
She had been so alone for so very long. The chance to lean into someone else’s strength, even for a moment, seemed like a wonderful gift wrapped up in shiny paper with a diamond-studded ribbon around it.
If she had her way, she would stand here in the dimly lit room the rest of the night indulging herself in the decadent kiss, like a child stuffing sweet after sweet in her mouth, even though she knew they would make her sick later.
She might have, if the wind outside hadn’t suddenly picked up, moaning under the eaves like some kind of warning siren.
She froze as that voice of caution suddenly managed to make itself heard again. What on earth was she doing? She was kissing Aidan Caine—really kissing him, tongue and all.
Okay, that sealed the verdict. She had absolutely no sense of self-preservation.
With one grand burst of self-control, she eased away from him, trying to catch her breath and reorganize the wild frenzy of her thoughts into some semblance of coherence.
He gazed at her for a long moment, his eyes a deep and vivid blue, and then raked a hand through his hair.
“For the record,” he said, his expression a bemused sort of regret she didn’t want to see, “that’s not part of your job description, either.”
She drew in a ragged breath, willing her racing pulse to slow so she could think straight. Why, oh, why hadn’t she listened to that warning voice? She should have slipped back into her room the moment she walked out into the kitchen and found him there.
“That’s probably a good thing,” she managed to say in a deceptively casual voice, “unless you want to have job applicants lined up from here to Boise.”
His laugh had an edge of surprise to it, as if he had expected some other sort of reaction from her.
“I mean it. I don’t want you to think I expect anything from you. I won’t forget again that you work for me.”
And that quite effectively put her in her place.
“Neither will I,” she murmured. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I really do need to try to sleep.”
“Good night.”
She didn’t have far to go to her rooms, which was probably a good thing since she felt so shaky and off-balance. Wouldn’t it be a lovely end to this strange encounter if she tripped over a side table or something and went sprawling at his feet?
Much to her relief, she managed to make it to her room without completely embarrassing herself—more than she already had, anyway.
Once inside, she closed the door behind her and sank into the wingback chair. She couldn’t seem to catch her breath and she could hear each rapid beat of her pulse in her ears, each surge of blood through her veins.
What in heaven’s name had just happened?
That kiss.
She could still taste him on her lips—minty, male, completely delicious.
She buried her hot face in her hands. She was such an idiot. She remembered her own eager response, the clutch of her hands around his back and the way she had kissed him with that wild urgency and she wanted to die.
She had just tangled tongues with Aidan Caine, for the love of all that was holy.
What was the matter with her? She hadn’t even thought about another man in three years, too busy scrambling to care for Maddie’s needs, to keep the financial wolves at bay, to rebuild their lives. Romance had been the last thing on her mind.
She had been too damn busy to think about how lonely she was, how she missed a man’s arms around her and someone else’s steady strength to lean upon.
She dropped her hands and gazed into the darkened sitting room. When had she ever had someone else to depend on, except the early few years of her marriage? Since her mother’s death, she basically had been forced into emotional self-reliance. Her father had never been demonstrative and losing the wife he loved and depended upon hadn’t suddenly turned on some magical switch.
Trent had
