Chapter 3
KARA
The cold rain drenched me, but it did nothing to cool the fire inside me. This was ruining my shoes. Shawn had left me with no umbrella and absolutely no choice.
When I slid into the dry back seat beside him, he didn’t bother to look up from his phone. I set my laptop bag between us as a buffer but doubted it would stop him. It probably wouldn’t even slow him down.
“You’re kind of an asshole,” I said.
“Didn’t your sister warn you?”
Yes, she had. He put his phone away, leaned forward, and told the driver we were ready. God, ready for what?
“Where are we going?” I asked in an even tone as the car pulled out into traffic.
“Lunch.”
Was that all I had agreed to? I relaxed into the soft leather of the seat and wiped the rain from my forehead. Yet an evil half-smile crept across his face, and it filled me with unwanted excitement.
“That isn’t the strings attached, is it?”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
Whatever it was, I suspected I wasn’t going to like it . . . or that I might like it a little too much. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you want me.”
His evil smile widened into a full ear-to-ear grin. “But I do want you. Have I been unclear about that?”
God, no, he’d made that perfectly clear, whereas I was probably guilty of sending him mixed signals. I’d had six months to firmly shut him down, to close the door. So, why the hell hadn’t I?
Probably because I hadn’t been desired in what felt like forever. At the end of our marriage, Paul wouldn’t touch me. He’d barely even look at me. Now my sex-starved body hungered for Shawn like he was a four-course meal.
The longer he stared at me with lust in his eyes, the harder it became to breathe. All the air in the car vanished. Why was he like this? He had his pick of women, and, from what Laurel had told me, he’d tried them all. The last thing I wanted to be, I told myself, was Shawn Dunn’s plaything.
Even though the idea caused unexpected heat to flare inside me.
“We can’t,” I said, despising how breathless I sounded, or that he might have picked up on the longing I struggled to bury.
He was a cocky, arrogant piece of work, a God’s-gift-to-women type. He was sure to be selfish and controlling too. At least, that was my experience with a man like him, a man in power. And beneath it all, that was what I most disliked about Shawn. His personality was like Paul’s.
Only on steroids.
My hands rested in my lap, but they tensed when I replayed the moment my ex-husband had appeared in my office. He was only an elevator ride away, but Shawn, on the other side of town, had beaten him to check on me.
Only because Shawn wants something from you.
Paul didn’t come running because I wasn’t capable of giving him what he wanted. Maybe it had been petty to make him jealous, but I didn’t care.
“Lunch,” I reminded. “There’s a drive-thru a few blocks over.”
Shawn laughed. “How totally American.”
“Didn’t you grow up here? Aren’t you American?”
“I have dual citizenship because my father was American,” he said. “Ich bin Deutsch.” Then he said something else in German, a long sentence that sounded threatening.
“Did you just order my death?”
“What? No.”
“Sorry. German always sounds angry to me.”
He didn’t look offended. More German rolled from his lips and the warm desire in his eyes left little doubt that what he’d said was sexual in meaning.
I treated him to a blank stare. And for the first time, I saw it.
A momentary weakness in his armor. Words were weapons of seduction to him, and I’d just disarmed what I assumed was his biggest gun.
“I said that I happen to prefer American women, like the utterly gorgeous one sitting beside me.”
I ripped my gaze away from him. It was just a line. So why, deep down, was I somewhat flattered? There was no way around it—he was undeniably attractive. But there was no way I’d give him the satisfaction or power of admitting it.
The sound of my laptop bag thudding to the floorboard broke my train of thought. He’d pushed it out of his way.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” he said when noticing my concern. “If not, I’ll buy you a new one.” He was right beside me, his leg resting against mine. I told myself to scoot away, but there was nowhere to go, no escape.
“It’s not mine.”
“Fine. I’ll buy your company a new one.” The weight of his body on the seat forced me to lean into him, and the heat inside me rose again, this time to a dangerous level.
He was far too close. His rich, dark-brown eyes promised me nothing but sinful things, and I couldn’t look away. No matter how much I wanted to.
Did I want to?
His large hand cupped my face, his fingertips brushing over my rain dampened cheek. The touch sent a jolt of electricity down through my body, and I shivered.
“I’m cold,” I said, to explain my reaction.
He didn’t say anything. All he did was bring his mouth to mine and set me on fire.
Just the slightest brush of his soft lips against mine caused my heart to trip and tumble through my body. If I didn’t stop him, if I let him do it again, I knew I’d be doomed and give in to him completely.
“Don’t,” I gasped, turning away from the kiss.
His expression was a mixture of amusement and desire. “You keep refusing me, and I’m going to get my feelings hurt.”
“That’s your fault. I already told you that we can’t. Was I unclear?”
My mind was set, but my body hummed with desire, and I struggled to hold it at bay. I would continue to convince myself I had no interest in him, even as his touch made me melt into the seat beside him. He was much too arrogant.
“The only thing you’ve made clear is that you don’t want . . . to want me.”
I had nothing left to respond with because what he’d said was the truth. Time was not my friend. Every moment I spent with him was another opportunity for him to attack my resolve. It had weakened terribly under the power of his slightest of kisses.
Maybe it was the ordeal I’d been through today. The surge of adrenaline that still lingered in my system and left me feeling off balance. That was the reason I felt this way, why I was struggling to resist him.
Thank God. The car pulled alongside the curb, and I flung the door open as soon as it stopped. I scrambled out into the rain and darted under the awning of the restaurant, going to the first place I could find where Shawn’s presence didn’t fill every square inch of the air.
He didn’t let me recover.
His strong hand was on my back, pressing me subtly forward into the fancy restaurant, not allowing me to go elsewhere.