We stared at each other, tears welling in my eyes.
It buzzed again.
My hand shook as I pressed the button.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry to disturb you,” Zoey’s voice crackled through the speaker, “but you’ve got a phone call. Also, your two-thirty is here early.”
Zoey, finally throwing me a lifeline with a fake appointment—about a year too late.
“Thanks.” I clicked off and grabbed a tissue, twisting it around my fingers.
Phoenix didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Justwatched.
And I couldn’t take it anymore. I was drained. Emotionally cashed the hell out.
“I have to go,” I muttered, then corrected myself. “I mean,youhave to go.”
Phoenix pushed off the couch and crossed the room, his gaze locked on mine with each step. Butterflies ripped through my stomach as if my body knew what was about to happen before my head did. With heat in his eyes and determination on his face, he rounded my desk, took my face in his hands and crushed his lips against mine.
The man kissed me into oblivion.
My body went weak, my thoughts evaporated, tingles burst over my skin. The passion, the intensity, the pounding heartbeat telling me there was no going back from this.
No… there was no going back after Phoenix Steele.
I was released, left floating on some euphoric cloud, and when I finally opened my eyes, he was gone.
29
PHOENIX
Ididn’t remember leaving her office. Didn’t remember the door or the hallway or the icy slap of wind when I stepped outside. All I knew was her.
Her taste.
Her lips.
Her fingers curled against my chest like she didn’t want to let go—like part of herdidn’twant to push me away.
And God help me, I didn’t want to be pushed away.
I stood beside my truck, the door open but forgotten, staring blindly out at the empty parking lot as my pulse thundered in my ears. My body was vibrating. Not from adrenaline, but from her.
I’d kissed women before. Plenty. But never like that. Never like Imeantit.
Never like itmeant something.
I’d walked into her office planning to apologize, maybe say goodbye. What I hadn’t planned was the moment she looked at me—reallylookedat me—with everything she was carrying, and everything she was hiding, and every scar she thought no one could see.
Isawher.
And I’d fallen. No warning, no chance to slow the descent. I kissed her because there was no other option. No sane, logical explanation for why it had to benow, only that it did. And when she kissed me back—soft, then fierce, then gone—I knew it.
There was no coming back from Rose Floris.
She wasn’t mine, but damn if my soul didn’t already think she was.
