Warrior Without Rules

Glad for the distraction on what she considered a dreary trip, she insisted that the young and fiercely dedicated agent be assigned to her. She’d flirted with Russell mercilessly, determinedly, and though he retained a careful distance, he’d never made her feel foolish in her infatuation. He hadn’t encouraged her, but she hadn’t needed any. Despite what her father would later claim, he’d done nothing inappropriate. He just done…nothing. He hadn’t provoked her dangerous response to his horribly proper rebuff. It wasn’t his fault that he’d broken her heart, damn him and that stiff British civility.

“I’m done here.”

Her announcement brought his eyes open and the coiled readiness back into his partially recumbent form. He was on his feet by the time she came around the desk and they met at the foot of the lounger. Both pulled up short, startled by their sudden close proximity. And by the amazingly sharp recall of another moment so like this one, where awareness of one another took them by surprise and a blind-siding desire came close to overwhelming reason.

Neither moved as the unintentional happenstance built into a storm-charged intensity. Unguarded stares locked. As Toni gazed up into Zach’s eyes, the mercurial green-gold flared with passionate possibilities. Possibilities she’s once wanted to explore more than anything she could dream of. And perhaps, still wanted despite all that had happened between that first blush of innocent desire and now. All she had to do was reach out for the feel of his rock hard chest. All she had to do was stretch up for a sample of his unyielding lips. And in this brief instant with defenses down, he might have allowed it. He might have enjoyed it.

But he’d had his chance.

“Excuse me.”

The intrusion of her rough-edged words brought sensibility snapping back into his cloudy stare. He took a quick step back and the moment was gone. Toni moved past him as if the encounter was already forgotten.

But all through dinner, at a table with a now distant Zach, her father and Veta and assorted business associates, her distracted thoughts quivered with tease of one what if.

What if she had kissed him ten years ago? How different, then, might her life have been.