A hollow formed in her stomach. All those dreams. All the longing, the desire, theneed…
His eyes found hers, and whatever he saw in her expression made his lock down.
“What do you want to happen, now?” he asked.
What did she want? Maya stared at him, her ears ringing. Want? Wanting things was—it was irrelevant. She had always done the things she was meant to want—the degree, the nice apartment, the good job—and look where that got her.
She’d done the things she thought a good girl might do to defy expectations—the one-night stand at the bar, that one failedattempt to be free and careless and exciting—and see wherethathad got her.
The only thing she’d ever really wanted was something she had never let herself consider having.
Him.
“I want—” She swallowed. “I want Tomás to grow up somewhere he’s surrounded by people who understand him. I’ve just got my feet under me here. I’m building a life for us both. A home. I need—I need things to work out here.”
Corin’s gaze became even stonier. “Without me in the way.”
“But—” Maya snapped her lips shut.
Corin’s attention was suddenly all on her. Not that his attention had wandered from her at any point in their conversation, but now it was … different. Intense. Charged.
“Yes?” he asked, his voice calm and polite and the look in his eyes anything but.
“If you’re going to be here anyway, and we—we have to deal with the consequences of being close together after so long apart, maybe it would be better to relieve the tension deliberately.”
Corin’s eyes were pure fire. “You think that would be an efficient course of action, Miss Flores?”
“I do.” She licked her lips. The air seemed to hum all around her, alive with potential. “You’re right. I could deal with … this … when we saw each other every day, and I could manage while we were apart, but ever since we saw each other again? It’s making things … difficult.”
“Difficult.” His voice gave nothing away, but his eyes told her everything. “I admit I have been experiencing the same … problem.”
She couldn’t breathe. Was she really suggesting this?
“The only problem is, I don’t see how we can make it work. I don’t have time for seducing anyone. I’m meant to be workingright now. My mornings and evenings I’m busy with Tomás. Weekends—” Oh god. She was talking herself around. She really could make this work with her schedule, if she tried. “I can organize a playdate for Tomás. Or—”
“Your nights are free, I assume.”
She stared at him, open-mouthed. His voice had been like honey and wine. How did he make it do that?
“Yes,” she said simply. “My nights are free.” If you don’t include my no-breaks marathon of dreams involvingyou, she added silently.
“And you appear to be free right now.”
“Oh. Um, well. Technically, I should be at work, but…”Oh god oh god oh god.“…Potentially?”
He stalked closer to her. His movements were still restrained, but that was nothing unusual. He always gave the impression of strength coiled tight behind his angular shoulders and veiled eyes, but now she was seeing a glimpse of what he was hiding.
And she wanted more.
“If I were free now,” she said, licking her lips, “what might you have in mind?”
His eyes fixated on her lips. They parted as though the pressure of his attention was enough to push them apart, the way his finger might, or the hot urgency of his own mouth.
Then his gaze moved, roving slowly down her body. For a moment, that dark fire flickered in his eyes; but when he lifted them to meet hers, they were the same pure sea glass green she’d seen so often in her dreams.
“A great many things,” he said, his voice rumbling through her.
His words barely registered. She couldn’t see past the desire blazing in his eyes, and the possessive way his gaze had raked over her, as though he were cataloguing every inch of her bare skin. She couldn’t think past how much she wanted to run hertongue along the muscles in his neck and tear open his collar to get at more of him.
