“I’m sorry. I think I took one too many raps to the ol’ noggin’ in that bottling plant.” She tapped her temple. “Could you repeat what you just said?”
“I don’t think it should be Martin.” His delicious accent made it sound like Mahtin. “I think it should be me.”
“But…but…” she sputtered, blinking. “Don’t you hear those alarm bells?” She pointed into the air. “The ones screaming that this is a bad idea between friends?”
“Historically, when it comes to alarm bells, I’m tone deaf.”
He looked so calm. By contrast, her emotions were breaking through her bloodstream and making her feel high. Or drunk. Or oxygen-deprived.
Didn’t he worry about what would happen after? Didn’t he realize that if they had sex, she’d probably grow to love him more, and that might ruin her for any man in the future?
That was all he was offering, right? Sex for the sake of making her feel safe? Sex for the sake of helping her heal? Sex for the sake of sex, without any conditions or expectations?
Her heart twisted into a hard knot.
But her ovaries? Oh, they cartwheeled, begging her to forget about hearts and consequences. Telling her she should focus instead on the promise of slick tongues and hot skin and tangled sheets and?—
“I…I…” She tried to form words, but her whole body betrayed her. Her vocal cords included.
His green eyes glittered in the soft yellow light of her dresser lamp. That look—dark and daring—urged her to trust him. To trust this. To admit it was a good idea.
But was it?
She didn’t know. She couldn’t think.
That little voice of reason sure had an opinion, though. It shouted at her in big capital letters. SAVE YOURSELF! SAVE YOUR HEART!
When he leaned forward to take her hand, she sucked in a ragged breath.
How many times had he touched her? Too many to count. How many times had she curled her fingers through his? More than she could remember.
So why did this touch feel so different? So unfamiliar and titillating?
Of course, she knew.
All those previous touches had been platonic, done out of a need to comfort. He had something besides comfort in mind now. Something that curled her toes and dried her throat and made her skin feel too tight.
When she dared to look at him, there was no denying the set of his square jaw. The resolution in his expression.
“Have ya changed your mind?” His voice slid into her like smoke—curling, teasing, slipping through all the cracks in her good sense.
She glanced down at their joined hands. At the sheer maleness of his long, knobby-knuckled fingers compared to her pale, slim ones. Images of what it would be like to have those fingers tracing over her body, flicking her nipples, pushing inside her in a steady rhythm bloomed to life in her mind’s eye.
“Did I miss my chance?” His voice was even softer now. A bedroom voice, and heaven help her. “Would ya rather it was Martin?”
“God, no.” The two words burst out of her before she’d even formed them in her head.
His chuckle was low and delicious. Sinful.
“Look at me, Sabrina.”
Not a request. A demand.
And she thought, maybe for the first time in nine months, she was getting to see the real Hewitt Birch. The man behind the mask of amiability and understanding.
She braced herself for the impact of his eyes. But the look in them, the lust in them, blew past her fortifications. Burned away her apprehension. Scorched through the last of her caution.
She’d always thought Hew was handsome. But Hew in seduction mode was like nothing she’d ever seen.
