Was it because she’d said no when he asked her out?
Was it because she’d been such a bitch earlier?
Both?
Miserable, she shrugged her shoulders, now uncomfortable inside her skin. She hated this. Hated feeling uncertain and needy and confused and . . . hell. She couldn’t even put her finger on what she was feeling inside, but she knew she hated it.
He was behind her. She could feel him, a quiet shadow that somehow managed to heat her skin even though he was easily four feet away. All silence. No more smiles, no more teasing.
We’re good?
Like hell.
Feeling empty and hollow, she spun around and glared at him. “Bullshit.”
He lifted a brow and cocked his head, the light reflecting off his glasses and making it impossible for her to see his eyes. Beautiful eyes. He had the most beautiful blue green eyes and now he looked at her like they were strangers.
It pissed her off that she suddenly felt uncomfortable around him. It hadn’t been like that before he kissed her.
No, she didn’t want to undo that kiss, but she didn’t like that she’d lost that easy connection and she didn’t like that she’d hurt him and she didn’t like standing there and not knowing what to say.
Most of all, she hated that she’d wasted the past three months and she hated knowing that if she didn’t do something, now, while she was hovering on this tenuous brink where her emotions ran just a little too high, she was likely to go back to that place where she let caution control everything she did, and every choice she made.
Closing the distance between them, she tipped her head back and stared at him, all but daring him to move back. If she couldn’t find her confidence around him, then she’d fake it. She was fine with that.
She’d been faking it for most of her life anyway.
“Bullshit,” she said again. “Things aren’t good . . . so what’s the problem?”
He didn’t react. Not at all. There was a faint smile on his mouth. She wanted to feel that mouth pressed against hers again.
His lips moved and she had to concentrate just to understand his words. “No problem, Keelie. I thought we just established that. You should go home. Get some sleep.”
“If I want to go home, I’m capable of doing that, deciding that on my own,” she said.
“Okay, then. Just what do you want?”
What leaped into her mind in that very moment was so far from acceptable, it wasn’t even funny. Mouth dry, she had to fight the urge to clear her throat and she almost found herself backing away, but wasn’t that stupid? She was the one who’d walked over to him to begin with. Something hungry and hot moved through her. It left her muscles feeling all limp and lax and she had to lock her knees to stay upright.
“Well?”
She blinked. Dragging her eyes from his, she focused on the simple, dark blue cotton of the polo he’d pulled on. She could still see the lines of the owl on him, never mind the shirt. No common tribal tattoo on him. Nope, he’d gone for something different—she could picture the way the wings stretched out across his body, the intricate detail of the feathers, the fierceness on the owl’s face, claws opened and extended. All of it done on a body a hell of lot more nicely muscled than she would have expected.
“Glad we cleared all that up,” Zane said, his voice wry, thick with deprecation. “Look, I’m tired and—”
She reached out, laid a hand on his chest.
He stopped talking and the muscles in his body went taut. His eyes flashed and she lifted her head, stared at him. He watched her and her heart lurched up into her throat as their gazes met.
Slowly, she lifted her other hand up. Her fingers twisted in the sturdy material of his polo, and through it, she could feel the heat of his body.
“Keelie,” he said quietly, reaching down to close his hands over her wrists.
She felt her pulse accelerate at his touch. Her breath lodged in her throat and she had to force herself to breathe.
Don’t do this. This isn’t smart—
She was tired of being smart, though. So tired of being careful and shutting herself down.
Just once . . .
With her heart drumming in her ears, his hands gripping her wrists, she leaned in and kissed him.
Her heart stuttered as her mouth touched his, driven by memories of those few stolen moments, a kiss that still burned through her memories, drawn by emotions she didn’t entirely understand.
His mouth was firm under hers and he tasted like coffee, like sin, and she wanted to wrap her body around him and never let go.
Zane hadn’t moved, not even a little.
But she wasn’t stopping . . . not yet. Not when her heart was racing like this.
The only time she’d ever felt like this had been the night of Zach’s wedding, when Zane had kissed her.
Before that, the only other time she’d come close had been when she had a really good vibrator, and she’d finished reading a really dirty book. Then she could almost get this hot. Almost.
She eased in closer, nipped his lower lip.
Zane groaned against her mouth, the sound ragged and low.
Startled, she pulled her head back, but before she’d even moved an inch, he cupped her head and pulled her toward him. “Open your mouth,” he muttered, and then he sweetened that request, nibbling along her lower lip and flicking at the entrance of her mouth with his tongue. “Open for me, Keelie . . .”
She opened on a shuddering sigh and then gasped as the room spun around her. The unfinished brick wall was rough against her back, but that just added another level of sensation. Zane had his mouth on hers and then he angled her head back and she opened for him, and when he pushed his tongue inside her mouth, she thought she just might die.
Except the pleasure didn’t stop there.
He rested one hand on her hip and dragged her lower body in closer to his.
Against her belly, she felt the hard, firm pressure of his cock and against her thighs, she felt the solid length of muscle and it wasn’t enough.
Nowhere near.
She was burning for him, dying for him.
* * *
Cool, strong hands, just a little callused and just a little hesitant, slid under his shirt, and as Keelie stroked her palms up his back, Zane was almost positive he had died. At some point during the night, he’d just died and now he was experiencing the closest thing to heaven he’d ever know.
Or maybe it was just a dream.
Her teeth raked over his lip and he shuddered, tearing away from her to press his face against her neck.
“Zane . . .”
He squeezed his eyes closed.
Slow.
He needed to slow the hell down.
His cock gave an insistent jerk. Slow down? No. I don’t think so.
But Zane wasn’t going to be led around by his dick. The last time he’d let his dick—and his emotions—totally control the situation, Keelie had used that as an excuse to widen the distance between them, and he’d be damned if he gave her that chance now. That chasm would turn into the Grand Canyon and he was struggling to close the distance as it was.
Keelie’s fingers slid higher along his spine, her touch cool on his skin, the slightly rough calluses a sensation more erotic than anything he could have described.
“Zane?”
He lifted his head, saw the expression in her eyes. Doubt, need. The doubt . . . fuck, he’d have to figure out how to handle that. The need . . . that would lay him low.
Lowering his mouth to Keelie’s, he caught her lower lip between his teeth. Tugged. “Open,” he said against her lips.
Slow, he told himself again, practically screaming it. Bracing one fisted hand against the wall, he covered her mouth with his own, shuddered as she arched against him. Sensation raced through him from head to toe as she sucked lightly at his tongue.
He nudged her thighs wide, settled more firmly against her.
A tremor rippled thr
ough her body, the long slim body he held against his own. Zane fought the urge to pull away and tear every last shred of her clothes away from her.
Instead, he slid one hand under the hem of the skimpy red thing she probably called a sweater and felt the smooth silk of her skin against his palm. She shivered a little as he stroked higher and when he pulled back, she made a disappointed sound against his lips.
Lifting his head, he looked down at her, absently reaching up to nudge his glasses into place. Then he cupped her cheek in his hand. Her lashes drooped low, shielding her gaze.
“What are we doing?” he asked, his voice gruff.
Does it matter? Get back to doing it.
The problem was, it mattered way too much.
That slow flush crept up her neck and, now, standing this close to her, he could see that it started down low—if he had to make a bet, he’d imagine it started on the delicate slopes of her breasts and crept its way up. He wanted to have her naked in front of him so he could see that blush pink her breasts, her neck, right before he kissed her again.
For a moment, he didn’t think she’d answer and then she angled her chin up, met his eyes dead-on with that cocky attitude she so often showed everybody.
“Isn’t it kind of obvious?”
He pressed his thumb to the wide, soft curve of her lower lip.
Eyes on that curve, he said, “So . . . what? You here looking for a quick fuck, Keelie?”
She jerked, tried to pull away.
He didn’t let her, leaning his weight more heavily against her although he knew full well he might be tasting his balls, bloody and broken, in his throat in a moment.
“Back off,” she bit off.
“No.” He dipped his head, rubbed his lips against hers, and when she averted her head, he skimmed them along her neck. “I’m just trying to see the picture that’s so obvious for you. I mean, I’ve been trying to get you to go out with me for . . . hell, three years now, if I remember right.”
Three years. Eight months. Two weeks? Not that he was counting, really.
When she did nothing, said nothing, just watched him with those inscrutable eyes of blue and brown, he leaned in and buried his face against her hair. Black and white again, the chunks of black framing her face.
“What’s this obvious thing I’m missing, Keelie?” he asked.
Then his eyes just about crossed, because instead of outright answering, she twined long, long legs around him and arched, pressing the heat of her sex against him, and rocked. “This . . .” That pink flush rode her cheeks, hotter now, brighter, while her eyes practically glittered at him. “This. Isn’t it obvious what’s going on?”
Zane couldn’t help it. He caught her hips in his hands, his fingers digging into the curve of her ass as he leaned into her and rocked against her, hard, fast. Once, twice.
She shuddered and met him. And when he stopped, she whimpered.
He slid a hand up, closed it over her throat. The mad beat of her pulse against his palm drove him insane. He wanted to cover that fragile bit of skin with his mouth and bite down, suck on her skin until she shivered and whispered his name.
Instead, he said, “There are a lot of names for what this is. A quick fuck, like I mentioned. Keelie, that’s easy, and either one of us can get it anywhere. I’ll be honest . . . that’s not what I want from you.”
She stiffened in his arms, the long, strong legs she’d wrapped around him easing down until she was standing on her feet before him. He already missed the solid warmth of her weight.
Her voice, when it came, was hard and flat. “Fine.”
* * *
Humiliation burned in her.
Rejection turned her blood to ice while her skin shrank down about two sizes too small.
She wanted to sink into the floorboards, turn into something thin and vaporous so she could just disappear.
Pushing against his chest, she focused on the navy blue polo. “Then how about you let me go, huh? My mistake.”
The hand on her throat didn’t move.
It should have felt threatening.
But the feel of him touching her just made her melt that much more . . . and it was now a heavy ache inside because he—
His lips brushed her ear.
“You want to know what I want from you?” he asked, the words velvet, stroking over her like a caress.
Keelie closed her hands into fists to keep from reaching for him. He was messing with her. It pissed her off—and, to her disgust, it hurt. It almost felt like a betrayal, too, because she hadn’t expected to see this in Zane.
“Back off,” she warned, putting an edge into her voice and preparing herself to make him back off. So what if he had some moves on him? He hadn’t seen her moves yet. Not really.
“I want . . .” He slid his hand down from her throat, to rest on her chest, fingers spread wide where it rested above her heart. “This.”
The simplicity of the gesture stunned her into passivity.
She held still as he lifted his head and stared down at her.
She blinked, not moving, as he continued to stand there, his hand on her chest. “I want five minutes of your time . . . over a cup of coffee. An hour for lunch. I want you to pick up the phone when I call, talk with me for a while,” he said, staring into her eyes while the blue green of his gaze cut into her.
Then he leaned in and pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to her chest, just above the neckline of her sweater. “I want to peel your clothes away, learn each and every one of these insanely sexy tattoos . . . and the reason behind them. I want to know what makes you laugh, and I want to know what makes you mad. I want to know what sort of book you’re reading whenever I’m in the office—I’ve asked, but you always toss it down when I walk by and you never answer me.”
His breath was a caress on her flesh and she broke out into goose bumps.
Her heart raced and she couldn’t even begin to understand why there was a knot in her chest.
Then he lifted his head and caught her skull between his hands, leaning in to lightly brush his lips over hers. “You see, Keelie . . . I want a lot more than a quick fuck from you. But every time I try to get even five minutes of your time,” he murmured, each word low and raw, “you pull away. The one time you actually did talk to me? That was three months ago. At the wedding. You gave me five minutes and then I put my hands on you and since then, you’ve run even harder, even faster. So maybe you can understand why I’m a little leery about just what is going on here.”
Quick as a wish, he was gone, standing five feet away, and she slumped against the wall, her knees weak as she stared at him.
Her heart lurched, lunged inside her chest, and the voice of common sense told her one very simple message.
Time to go.
Except everything else compelled her to stay.
He leaned one shoulder against the wall, his face in shadow, those surreal blue green eyes a wicked, hungry glitter in the dim light. “So, can I ask again or are you just going to leave? What exactly is going on here?”
“Are you trying to piss me off?” she snarled, coming off the wall. She was achy and hungry, confused and cold. Her hands itched to reach for him and at the same time, she thought the easiest thing—the smart thing—to do would be to just leave.
“No.” He blinked and when he looked back at her, his eyes were once more unreadable behind those horn-rimmed glasses. “But then again, sometimes, Keelie, you’re really easy to piss off and you probably know that.”
She curled her lip.
Zane smirked.
“The bottom line is this . . . if you want casual sex, I’m not where you need to look.” Zane said it bluntly and his eyes held her as he spoke, the words so matter-of-fact, it was like he had this conversation every day of the week.
Casual sex? She wanted to break out into hysterical laughter. She kept it locked inside by curling one hand into a fist so tight, her nails bit into her palm.
He shoved off the wall
and paced closer and her pulse hammered back into that dangerously fast territory as she held his gaze. “Even if I hadn’t kind of outgrown that a while back, I’m not going to sleep with somebody who works with my brother. Who is friends with my brothers . . . who I kind of consider a friend myself. Things get . . . messy there. Especially when I’m already too damned attracted anyway.”
Her breath caught.
His eyes dropped, lingered on her mouth.
“But you also keep giving me this idea that I’m not worth your time, either,” he mused. “It’s getting really confusing, Keelie.”
He reached out.
She caught his wrist.
Against her fingers, she could feel the slow, steady rhythm of his pulse.
Five minutes of your time.
Those words spun around in her head as she stared into his eyes. She had a bad, bad feeling she was in over her head here.
Licking her lips, she stared at him, uncertain what to say, what to do.
Leave. Think it through. Or don’t. Just don’t say anything and don’t talk to him and he’ll get the point. You’ll be nice and safe—
She shut that babbling voice up through sheer will alone.
She was so tired of being nice and safe. It was so lonely.
But she didn’t know what to do.
His lids drooped, shoulders rising and falling on a sigh—something about it sounded despondent, almost like she’d felt inside when he pulled away from her only minutes ago.
He tugged on his wrist. “It’s cool, Keelie. Why don’t you—”
“There’s a coffee shop,” she blurted out, still gripping his wrist, tightening her fingers until he’d have to force it if he wanted her to let go.
His eyes widened, then narrowed on hers.
A knot swelled, then lodged in her throat, and she had to force the words past it. “Across from the shop. There’s this place. They have coffee.”
He cocked his head and, if she wasn’t mistaken, some of the tension seemed to drain out of his body and then, without her quite realizing how he’d done it, he twisted his wrist and freed it. She froze as he reached up to cup her cheek, his thumb pressing to her lower lip. “What about this place that serves coffee, Keelie?”
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