I looked away. I sat there for the rest of the very brief drive to my place irrationally angry. He was right. He was being rational. But I didn’t like it.
I also didn’t like the way his entire being was pulling at me. I wanted to look at him. I wanted to know what he was thinking in that diabolical I-own-the-world brain of his, when he actually asked a woman, semi-nicely, for something.
I glanced at him. He was staring out the window. His profile was so similar to how it looked in high school. But more manly, his features more defined. He had the world’s best nose. I could remember sneaking glances at him in Chemistry class as we sat at our shared lab table, wondering if he was looking at me.
He never was.
But he looked at me now. Maybe he felt me staring at him.
I didn’t look away.
Neither did he.
And something weird passed between us. I did not understand it, but that strange, dark, twisted thing was writhing in my gut.
I wanted to fight with him.
I wanted it badly.
Did he want it as badly as I did?
Neither of us said a word.
I startled when Rolf opened my door. I didn’t even realize we’d stopped.
We’d pulled up to my condo building, and the warm, bright lobby glowed, welcoming me home.
I looked back into the dim interior of the car and met Dane’s eyes. “I’d thank you for the ride,” I told him, “but since you told my friends to let you drive me home, which was both creepy and imperious of you, I’m rather inclined not to.”
“Devi,” he growled as I slipped out of the car. And there was that phantom shiver down my spine. The man’s voice was like sex on ice.
Had I ever pictured myself fucking a man while trapped in a car in a snow storm? No. But now I was. Because that was what sex with Dane Davenport would feel like, surely. Fucking for your life, to ward off freezing to death. Hot and cold at the same time.
“Will you consider what I just said?” he demanded.
I stopped. Yeah. I’d consider it. But I did not like him setting the tone of our interactions, no matter how you looked at it.
“Do we have an agreement here?” he pressed.
I leaned down into the open door and met his eyes again. I kinda liked it when he had to ask something of me. Gave me the power to say no. “Agreement?”
“Yes. You consider not fighting with me anymore. And I consider not firing you for it.”
“The only thing I can promise you,” I told him, “is that I’m not making you any promises.”
Then I went inside and up to my apartment. I texted Jude and had my bubble bath.
I did not think about what Dane was doing or where he was doing it or who he was doing it with.
I did not think about cold, dark backseats of luxury cars, snowstorms, and hot, angry fucking. I did not think about a cold, hot man with his expensive suit half torn off and miles of naked skin, and his voice growling my name as shivers went down my back.
Not at all.
Chapter Fourteen
Dane
For the next two days, Devi basically ignored me at the office.
