Fuck.
I loosen my grip on the man’s arm and slowly release him, starting to push up onto my knees. He deftly rolls over beneath me before I can get to my feet and stares up from the floor as if I didn’t just take him down embarrassingly easily and try to rip his shoulder out of socket.
Absolutely mesmerizing blue eyes lock with mine, and a full-blown grin curls his sensuous lips set in a stunningly handsome face with high cheekbones and a strong jaw covered with dark blond stubble.
My breath hitches slightly, and I swallow through the tightness in my throat. “I…guess I owe you an apology.”
They don’t come to me easily. Something about being reminded constantly as a child that I shouldn’t always rush to apologize just to resolve an issue unless I am truly in the wrong has made them more difficult as I’ve aged. But there’s no debating I am wrong now.
And that fucking stings.
He shrugs nonchalantly, his broad shoulders moving under me in his black leather jacket in a way that sends a buzz of awareness through my body. “No apology necessary. You can pin me like this any time you want.”
That grin of his only grows, as does the heat now coursing across my skin the longer he assesses me and looks at me like that.
Shit.
I quickly scramble to my feet and step off him, retreating slightly to give him room but also to put space between us so I can get my shit together. Because staring at a stranger like that is not having control.
The longer I look at him, the more it feels like I’m spiraling faster and faster, losing my connection to the things I pride myself in, the ones that keep me so grounded to this life, this job. My ability to remain passive and unaffected.
If I were being polite, I would offer him a hand to help him to his feet, but I don’t trust myself to have skin-to-skin contact with this man.
Not when I just reacted like that.
Not when I know exactly who he is…
The same man who was here the other night. The one who set every nerve in my body to attention the moment I laid eyes on him. The one who screams danger, from his black leather jacket to the tattoos visible in the open V of his button-down shirt and that sly grin that continues as he slowly pushes up from the floor to his full height, towering over me at least a foot.
He leans in, and his warm breath flutters across my cheek. “I wasn’t joking, by the way. That was impressive. It takes a lot to get the drop on me, let alone to keep me on the ground.” Somehow, he shifts even closer, until I can feel all that hard muscle pressed against me and the scent of New Orleans air, leather, and something warm and spicy fills my breath. “And I wasn’t joking about wanting you to do it whenever the mood may strike you.”
The mood…
Heat flares in my gut and between my legs, and I press them together to stop the dull ache and throb starting there.
There isn’t any question what he’s referring to.
The innuendo isn’t even thinly veiled.
He’s flat-out propositioning me after I put him on his ass.
And my body seems to like it when I should want to throw this arrogant prick out onto the street, not into my bed.
Apparently, I’ve gone far too long not taking care of my own needs if it’s this easy for him to get under my skin.
I tilt my head up to meet his heated gaze, willing myself not to display outwardly any of the ways he’s affecting me physically. “That won’t be happening.”
One of his sandy-blond brows rises slowly. “Whatever you say.”
But there’s something about the look in his eyes that tells me he doesn’t believe me, and I’m not so sure I do, either.
Some sort of strange electricity buzzes between us.
Something I don’t like.
Something I absolutely don’t trust.
Trust is earned, and it isn’t something I give away cheaply.
