That mobilized her. “Get married? And then what? Have children? I’m twenty-five years old and my career is just starting to take off. Why would I do anything to interrupt that? Why would you think that’s what I’m looking for right now? I have at least ten years before worrying about any of that. A few affairs in the meantime...”
He snorted. “Affairs. That sounds a hell of a lot more sophisticated and fancy than what I’ve got in mind, princess.”
“What have I ever done to make you think I’m a princess? To make you think I need you to offer more than what I’m standing here showing interest in? You don’t have access to my secret heart, Levi.”
“If you had any sense in your head, you would walk out of this bar and forget we had this conversation. Hell, if you had any sense at all you would forget today happened. Just do the job I hired you to do and walk away. My wife let me go to jail for her murder while she was alive. And whatever the authorities think, whatever she says...”
He bit down hard, grinding his teeth together. “She was going to let me rot there, in a jail cell. While letting me think she was dead. Do you know... I grieved her, Faith. I didn’t know she was in hiding. I didn’t know she had left me on her own feet. All I knew was that she was gone, and that I hadn’t killed her. But I believed some other bastard had. My motivation while I was in prison was to avenge my wife, and in the end? She’s the one who did this to me.” He laughed hard, the sound void of humor. “Love is a lie. Marriage is a joke. And I’m not going to change my mind about that.”
“Marriage is an impediment to what I want,” Faith said. “And I’m not going to change my mind about that. You’re acting like you know what I want. What I should want. But you don’t.”
“What do you want, sweetheart? Because all I’ve got to give you is a few good orgasms.”
She drew in a sharp breath, blinking a couple of times. Then she looked around the bar, braced herself on the counter and drew up on her toes as high as she could go, pressing a kiss to the lower corner of his mouth. When she pulled away, her eyes were defiant.
If she was playing chicken with him, if she was trying to prove something, she was going to regret it. Because he was not a man who could be played with.
Not without consequences.
He wrapped his arm around her waist, crossed her to his chest and hauled her up an extra two inches so their mouths could meet more firmly.
And that’s when he realized he had made a mistake.
He had been of a mind that he would scare her off, but what he hadn’t anticipated was the way his own control would be so tenuous.
He had none. None at all.
Because he hadn’t been this close to a woman in more than five years. And he’d imagined his wife a victim. Kidnapped or killed. And when he’d thought of her his stomach had turned. And not knowing what had happened to Alicia...
It hadn’t felt right to think of anyone else.
So for most of those five years in prison he hadn’t even had a good go-to fantasy. It had been so long since he’d been with a woman who hadn’t betrayed him, and it was hard for him to remember a woman other than his wife.
But now... Now there was Faith.
And she burned brighter, hotter, than the anger in his veins. He forgot why he had been avoiding this. Forgot everything but the way she tasted.
It was crazy.
Of all the women he could touch, he shouldn’t touch her. She worked for him. He had hired her to design his house and he supposed that made this the worst idea of all.
But she was kissing him back as though it didn’t matter.
Maybe he was wrong about her. Maybe she made a habit of toying with her rich and powerful clients. Maybe that was part of why she’d gotten to where she was.
No skin off his nose if it was true. And it suited him in many ways, because that meant she knew the rules of the game.
Because you need justification for the fact that you’re doing exactly what you swore to yourself you wouldn’t?
Maybe his reaction had nothing to do with his ex-wife making him into a monster. Maybe it had everything to do with Faith making him a beast.
Uncontrolled and ravenous for everything he could get.
He cupped her chin, forcing her lips apart, and thrust his tongue deep. And she responded. She responded beautifully. Hot and slick and enthusiastic.
“You better give an answer and stick to it,” he said when they pulled away, his eyes intent on hers. “Say yes or no now. Because once we leave this bar—”
“Yes,” she said quickly, a strange, frantic energy radiating from her. “Yes. Let’s do it.”
