But irritation somehow won out over fear. I couldn’t have ever explained why, but I knew I wasn’t in immediate danger. If anything, the opposite. Even if I wasn’t quite surewhyI knew that.
“There’s not going to be a first date!” I snapped, yanking on my T-shirt, the stun gun still clutched in my hand.
I was prepared to tell him off some more, but somehow, in the handful of seconds it had taken me to pull my shirt down over my head,Nicolashad managed to move across the room again without making a sound. By the time I got the shirt all the way down, he was standing right in front of me—close enough for me to put my hands out and touch him.
I let out an instinctive gasp and wheeled backward. He followed, stepping forward and backing me into the row of lockers.
My heart began to beat faster, and I knew I should hit him with the stun gun, but I couldn’t make myself move to do it. Somehow, my body instinctively understood that he wasn’t going to harm me. It also flatly refused to hurthim, either. But that did nothing to stop the alarm I felt at his sudden proximity.
Because he was inherently dangerous, wasn’t he?
He put his arms on either side of me, palms flat against the lockers, pinning me in. He raised his eyebrows in a very obviouswhat are you going to do now?sort of way and smirked at me.
But this close to him, the dreams I’d had of Nicolas began to replay in my mind. I was suddenly aware of how nice it would feel to have him touching me. For him to be kissing me. Pleasuring me. Or the way he’d sound, groaning with desire, as I pleasured him too.
His name was already there on my lips, waiting to be spoken.
But that was insane.
I took a breath, prepared to do the rational thing and tell him that he needed to back the fuck off before I dropped him.
I blinked in surprise instead.
He smelled good. Like chocolate and cinnamon. My abuela used to make hot cocoa for Sam and me, and she’d always add a big helping of cinnamon powder to it. He smelled just like that, underneath the faint hints of mint on his breath and the more subtle notes of some kind of expensive aftershave or cologne.
Oddly enough, I began to relax. Almost against my own will. Because every part of this situation should have been really fucking alarming.
“I shouldn’t be here,” he murmured, searching my gaze with his. “I was planning on doing this very differently.”
“Doing what?” I asked, fighting back the sudden desire to kiss him.
That was absolutely insane, wasn’t it?
Just because he looked like someone I had dreamed of, that didn’t mean anything. It sure as hell didn’t mean I was safe. He could intend to do me serious harm, regardless of what my body seemed to be telling me. He could be dangerously unstable.
“I wanted to stage a meeting in a more alluring fashion,” he admitted. Then he blinked a few times, as though surprised he’d admitted that. He cleared his throat. “Something a bit less frightening than cornering you in a locker room.” He paused to give me a reproachful look. “But you were in here so long. I was getting worried that perhaps something had happened to you.”
He had just admitted that he was watching me—keeping track of my movements. That he knew my schedule. He was stalking me. That alone should have been enough for me to use the stun gun on him. Or to give him a swift knee to the balls—something I wouldn’t normally resort to, but which would have been highly effective. Or maybe even introduce my fist to his face.
I should have donesomethingto get him away from me.
But instead, I did what I had been dying to do since I had first laid eyes on him back at the club.
I kissed him.
His lips were warm and soft, and they parted for me easily. He kissed me back, pressing his weight more fully against mine, flattening me into the locker. A hungry, almost desperate noiseescaped his lips, and it was so broken that it seemed like it might cleave my own heart in two.
I wrapped my arms around his body. The stun gun clattered out of my hands and hit the ground somewhere nearby. But I didn’t care about that. The only thing that mattered was him. He felt so good against me—masculine, strong, lean, and somehow familiar, like coming home.
It was every bit as good as any of my dreams ever had been. But it was even better than that, because he was here. Impossibly, he was real, and he was in my arms and, for the first time in—well, ever—I knew, every part of me knew, down to the fucking marrow of my bones, that I wasn’t alone anymore.
He broke the kiss first. Though even as he pulled back, his eyes were dark with desire. And for a long moment, neither of us moved or spoke.
“Who are you?” he asked, breaking the silence first. His voice was husky, but I felt certain I heard a note of genuine fear in it. “Tell me.”
“My name is Eli,” I whispered raggedly, trying to catch my breath. I gave him my name instead of my official title of Doctor De La Cruz. Given that I had just defied all reason to make out with him—this strange and dangerous man who had admitted to stalking me—being on a first-name basis seemed appropriate. “And yours?”
The intensity never left his eyes as he met my gaze dead-on. And then he whispered the words that brought my whole world crashing down around me:
